Well, first of all...

It's Thursday again!? Halloween is tomorrow?? Is this for real?

Anyways, as usual I have a lot to be thankful for...

I'm thankful for our house. I'm glad we live in town and that I can feel like an active member of the community without even trying. For example: Last night people knocked at our door to have us sign a petition demanding an independent audit of the School District. They haven't had one in almost 20 yrs. How ridiculous is that? And now, they're proposing a new bond to fund "new lockers for the High School" even though a similar bond passed in 2005 for the same purpose and the money was spent... elsewhere? Also last night, the local food bank came around trick-or-treating for canned goods. Good stuff.

I'm thankful for my hubby who gets up so early to go to his "real" job and stays up soooo late to get things done for our business.

I'm thankful for Gideon... because right now he's trying to get the Mike & Ike's he dropped into Jake's snare on his drum set who knows when, out of the drum. I don't really even know how he got them in there, or how long they've been in there. But he keeps saying. "Mommy, oh no!" What a hilarious kid. Good thing the snare is supposed to rattle!

I'm thankful for Halloween coming up tomorrow! I think tonight I'll get the kids dressed all up for a test run of their costumes and to get some cute pictures! We just LOVE Halloween around here.

Last night for F.H.E. we finally got around to carving our pumpkins! Gid was REALLY disturbed by all the pumpkin guts. (He wasn't so in to getting his hands dirty.) We had so much fun!
Here's Jake coaxing Gid into scooping out the goop.
He wouldn't do it with his hands, haha! We had to get him a spoon, which wasn't nearly as effective.
Our little drool-covered pumpkin!
Ashelyn wasn't afraid of the pumpkin guts! We had just enough time to snap this picture before she tried to put it in her mouth... No more after that!
Hey... that's me!! It's not too often I actually have a picture of myself unless it's one of those horrible outstretched arm self portraits I take just to prove to the generations I was there.
Mine, Ashelyn's, Gid's, & Jake's. I do realize that Gid's is really handicapped looking. I half-way broke the piece between the nose & mouth.. and Gid broke it the rest of the way. So that's how it looks and we're okay with it. After all, since Gideon couldn't carve it himsel he had to put his touches on it somehow. What better way than a broken nose??? haha
I thought Jake's turned out AWESOME! It's pretty spooky and of course Gideon wasn't too fond of it. I just love this time of year!

1. After grocery shopping yesterday, silly me forgot to actually put the cornmeal in the PANTRY. Apparently leaving it on the kitchen table was much too tempting for Gid-man's little hands. I was blessed with cornmeal on every surface in my living room as well as all over the kitchen rug. So much for making cornbread.

2. He also did a similar version of exhibit 1 with a can of Ashelyn's formula. Let's just say I told him he was grounded (it was the first thing that came to mind after profanities), laughed at the confused look on his face, made him sit in time out, and then tried to salvage some of the formula. Only to get grossed out by the idea that some carpet fuzz or other dirt could be contaminating my babies food... pretty much he dumped powdered gold right on to the carpet. Why is that stuff so dang expensive?!

3. Threw a softball across my living room that narrowly escaped Ashe's head. The real mystery of this one is where on earth the softball came from. We've never owned one and I have NO CLUE where he found it.

4. Took the lid off of his sippy cup and dumped his milk ALL OVER his bed. Disgusting.

Also, because I don't want to look back and only remember the sneaky little things he does that make my life hectic... I thought I'd jot down a few of the things he does that make every day full of joy.

1. He snuggles me. Sometimes he'll be so intently playing with his cars and he'll just stop, come find me and reach for a giant hug. We sit and snuggle and sometimes I'll sing a song. He'll give me a kiss and run back to whatever it was he was doing.

2. He is a dance machine. He loves to dance. Anything with a good beat gets that little booty goin'. M0st recently he's become fascinated with spinning. ... I love it! "Dance Gid, Dance!"

3. I think he might have Toddler OCD. Dirty hands are his worst nightmare and he always lets me know if things aren't right... pointing at the bin of toys he dumped out that he wants me to help him pick up- "Uh-Oh, Mommy." So we clean up together and when we're done...

4. He claps!!

5. He LOVES when Daddy comes home. When he hears the garage door he runs to wait at the top of the stairs and is so excited to yell "Day-De" when Jake comes bounding up the stairs to wrestle him into a hug.

Jake printed this tiny shirt just to see how it would turn out. Well, it had been sitting around for a month or so, so I decided to try it on Ashelyn. I rolled up the sleeves & put on her little black leggings and she actually looked pretty cute. Of course, the Hub was VERY proud. Even if it is a messed up shirt... it's still fun!

Friday: Jake got off work a smidge early, which is always a happy surprise. But he was only home for a little while and then headed up to help his Dad work on some stuff at the Quilt Shop in Hamilton. When he got home, we played Alan's PS3 in Mom & Dad's theater. In that short span of time I was almost convinced both that we needed a PS3 and that I wanted to become an assasin. Thankfully, I got over it....

Saturday: We woke up way earlier than we needed to. It was kind of ridiculous actually. We went to Target (am I addicted? I say yes.) We got some groceries. We got a pumpkin carving kit and planned family night for tonight. Then we sat around awhile...I'm really not sure what else we did... OHHHH now I remember the whole reason we went grocery shopping is because Jake got some crazy idea that HE wanted to make chili... his own way. And he wanted me to make my yummy apple cider. So we got that stuff to make for Sunday Dinner.

Sunday: Typical. Got to church late & grumpy. Left church feeling 12 billion times better. Got home. Jake made his chili. This was an adventure in and of itself because I was really terrified it was going to be disgusting. I like my chili, it's good... why change? Anyways, he put all kinds of stuff in it... like sausage. Which REALLY freaked me out. I'm not a huge fan. Luckily when simmered in a pot with hamburger, chunks of steak & the other various chili ingredients, you really can't taste the sausage. I know this is boring but this chili making extravaganza was a BIG deal to the Hub. It turned out really well. He invited his Dad over since his Mom is at Quilt Market and we enjoyed our chili & cider. Then they printed some t-shirts.

I'm bored and Ashelyn hasn't woken up from her nap yet so I've decided to reveal some of my celebrity crushes. Because well... it's fun!

1. Christian Bale. Because, well... Look at him okay!? He's pretty much been in my celebrity crush arsenal since I fell in love with Newsies as a 6 year old. I still watch that movie way too much and am glad that the Batman franchise finally got around to finding the REAL Bruce Wayne. Yum, Yum, Yummy!

This weekend, believe it or not, was a busy one. And luckily it wasn't the kind of busy that was annoyingly stressful, it was busy because we chose to be busy.... It all started Friday afternoon when after hunting down fairy wings for Ashelyn's Halloween costume, Jake called me to see if I would bring him some skate shoes so he and his buddy Josh could skate after work. So, since I am super-wife... I obliged.
We didn't spend too much time at the park Friday because I was still hankering to find a costume for Gid. I didn't have much luck though. So, I decided for Jake's work Halloween Party, what better thing for Gid to be than his dad??
So he was decked out with his tool belt & Bart's Electric shirt. Unfortunately it was a tad chilly so the shirt is covered by his robot hoody and the tools had found their way in to my purse by this point out of fear of them disappearing. He was a cutie pie though.
Here's a picture of all of us around the bonfire. Jake's holding Ashe so of course her hair bow is messed up and her wings were off... C'est la vie! Still cute. We had s'mores and chili and got to hang out with people we like, so that was a good time.
Saturday morning, after taking advantage of our free dozen donuts we headed to skate park numero uno. Josh (from Jake's work) and his wife Bridget joined us as well as a few of Jake's other "skate buddies" (What else do you call them????) When we were done there we headed in to Liberty because I was sure there was something I needed at Target,
Gid being adorable as usual... I just can't get enough. Ashe slept the entire time for the most part so there are no pictures of her from Saturday and since I'm always behind the camera, there are none of me either. We finished off Saturday with Pizza, Ice Cream, and 24... Pretty good.

Sunday we went to church in Excelsior Springs because my cousin Jeni was speaking. She did great although there was something going on with the sound because she was really hard to hear.

Once we got home we only got time to change out of our church clothes and start to settle down when a transformer blew and we were left without power. Since we thought it would be nice to eat dinner and have light we decided to go over to my Mom & Dad's for the evening and spent our time there going through the last of the things we have "stored" in their basement.

It was a really fun and stress free weekend. We haven't had one of those for a while and it doesn't seem like there will be many in the future, so the break was nice to say the least. I just love having down time with the whole fam.

So I don't usually dive into the 'My Fave Monday' but today's topic is my favorite halloween candy, which I thought was blog-worthy.

So here's the deal. As a kid, I couldn't get enough of these bad boys:

So I got tagged quite a few times to do this thing with all the 8's. Only, The people that tagged me had different versions, so I tried my best to combine them. Here it goes:


8 THINGS I'M PASSIONATE ABOUT
1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
2. The Hub.
3. The tots.
4. Cancer Research
5. Shopping. (This gets me in trouble a lot)
6. Chocolate
7. Pizza.... mmm, love me some pizza.
8. Sleeping, or attempting to do so.

8 WORDS/PHRASES I USE OFTEN
1. "Gid, don't sit on your sister."
2. "Gid are you stinky?"
3. "Holy Smokes!"
4. "No Kidding/No Joke"
5. "Love you!"
6. "Dangit! I forgot."
7. "How was work?"
8. "Dance Gid, Dance!"

8 THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE
1. Tour Europe
2. Visit the Holy Land.
3. Own a cabin on a mountain so I can snowboard all the time.
4. Go to Harry Potter Theme Land
5. Win the lottery. (I know...you have to play to win...blah blah)
6. Have a real adventure.
7. Go scuba diving.
8. Convince Jake that he loves vegetables.

8 THINGS I'VE LEARNED IN THE PAST
1. Always pay your tithing.
2. Credit cards are the work of the devil.
3. The Golden rule really works.
4. Save your money.
5. Don't be afraid to be yourself.
6. Take vacations.
7. Be Happy.
8. You never know the WHOLE story.

8 THINGS I CURRENTLY WANT OR NEED
1. Chocolate
2. Shoes that cover my toes.
3. More time with the hub.
4. A Pepsi.... so sue me.
5. A new car.
6. The new Jack's Mannequin cd
7. A cool vest.
8. To go on a cruise.

8 PLACES I WANT TO SEE/VISIT
1. Europe
2. China
3. Egypt
4. Alaska
5. Montauk
6. Australia
7. Sweden
8. The treehouse resort in Oregon

8 FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
1. Tucanos
2. Chipotle
3. Happy Sumo
4. Cafe Rio
5. Burger King
6. Texas Roadhouse
7. Taco Bell
8. The Melting Pot

8 TV SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH
1. 24
2. Lost
3. The Office
4. Project Runway
5. What Not to Wear
6. Gilmore Girls re-runs
7. Pushing Daisies
8. Ugly Betty

8 THINGS THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY
1. Went to Excelsior Springs ward to hear Jeni's talk.
2. A transformer blew in our neighborhood.
3. We lost power for most of the day because #2 happened.
4. We made Puppy Chow.
5. We ate Chili dogs.
6. We went to my Mom & Dad's (because we had no power)
7. We watched 24 on dvd when we got home.
8. I read 'Guess How Much I Love You' to Gideon at bed time.

8 THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO
1. Going to Utah
2. Gideon being potty trained.
3. Not having to buy diapers.
4. Halloween
5. Landscaping our yard.
6. Thanksgiving
7. Snow
8. Christmas

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST
1. A good pair of tennis shoes.
2. Jake's business taking off so he could work from home.
3. Highlights for my hair.
4. A hair cut.
5. Losing 15 lbs.
6. A family vacation.
7. Money falling in to my lap.
8. Painting my house.

For those of you who haven't done this yet... go ahead. Consider yourself tagged!

You're 4 months old today. We went to the doctor last Monday and you weigh 16 lbs. 4 oz. You give Mommy a good work out because you ALWAYS want to be held. You pretty much sleep through the night. Only, my idea of a good night's sleep doesn't involve getting up at 5:30. You won't give up on trying to suck your thumb even despite all my efforts, so Daddy makes me give into you. He's decided it's cute. You're tall for a 4 month old. 25 1/2 inches. You roll all over the place, love to play on your tummy, and like to spin in the johnny jump-up. You get mad when Gid tries to steal your fuzzy blankets. You giggle ALL the time and it's the best sound in the world. You tried rice cereal for the first time and weren't too sure about it. But you LOVED the little bit of baby food I gave you. I love you so much... just stop growing already.

Love,
Mom

When you write a frustrated e-mail to your state senator about your concerns with the economy and the fact that we weren't getting enough details about the bail out that they actually respond???

Not just a generated mumbo jumbo of a message but a personal reply???

Neither did I...

But they do.

Pretty cool.

For the record, even though I watched 2 1/2 discs of 24-Season 6 on DVD today... I still did this:

• Got dressed.
  
• Did 3 loads of laundry.
• Loaded the dish washer.
• Balanced my Checkbook.
• Ran to the Grocery Store.
• Did the dishes.
• Ran the vacuum.
• Made Dinner. (Hooray Crockpots!)
  
• Made brownies.

On a side note: I think I was only able to still accomplish these things because both my kids took 2 naps... at the same time. Which has NEVER happened before. I'm definitely not complaining.

This would have been around the 4th of July 2007. We were playing Texas-Hold-Em and it looks like the flash made Jake blink... Not too exciting, sorry!

I'm a sucker for a good purse. And seeing how Gideon's lemonade dumped ALL OVER the inside of my awesome orange one last night. This was right up my alley. Handbag Planet is giving away 24 purses in 24 hours all you have to do is sign up to win, and you increase your entries by blogging about it! So go...CLICK HERE, and maybe one of us will get lucky! Thanks Tib for the heads up!

I knew I loved blogging!!


I'm the lucky winner of these adorable greeting cards from Line-Upon-Line!!! Thanks TAMN over at SeriouslySoBlessed for sharing the conference love!!

That's what I am.

I'm thankful for conference, for our prophet and for the opportunity to hear his words. I can't even put into words the joy that I felt when I heard that we would have a temple in the greater Kansas City area. I was so overcome that I just cried, and every moment I had a chance to stop and think it was the first thing to enter my mind... We are going to have a temple close by, and I cried some more. I knew the day would come but I never imagined it would be so soon and I am so grateful and have truly wanted to spend the entire day on my knees thanking my Father in Heaven.

This is a day that I will not forget and I am so grateful.

Sooo, I entered this picture I took of Ashe in a baby photo contest, so if you could all be a pal and go VOTE by clicking HERE, you'd be the coolest. You'd be even cooler if you blogged about it and tried to get other people to vote for my picture too! Come on, I promise I'll return the favor any time! In fact, if you help me win, I promise to do my first give-a-way of something uber-fantastic since I'll have extra dinero! Thanks all!

**** Just a note: I just figured out that you have to go through like 10 of those stupid "choose yes or no" survey things but you DO NOT have to sign up for anything, they just make you look at annoying ads. I know your busy so I understand if this makes you not want to do the vote thing, but it seriously takes all of 3 minutes even with the surveys. Just wanted to give a heads up.

So sometimes I wish I was cool enough/had enough money to throw some super fantastic blog give-a-way, but for now I'll just stick to entering all the wonderful ones I can find on all the hundreds of blogs I stalk. So one of my fave-fave one's is Tiburon... so go check out this fantastic-ness and comment to win a FREE I-POD SHUFFLE!!!!

Ya, I know...I'm in shock too. Other best part is you get an entry for every time you comment throughout the ENTIRE month. So go read her funnies and comment galore! Or if your lame don't comment at all and it'll increase my non-existent chances of winning, which is cool. Love ya!