Sleeping out with the coyotes

We had a family campout at Camp Bravo Tuesday night. Camp was set up by 4:30 and we were eating sandwiches for dinner around 5:00...in the dark!






Time to toast marshmallows!


Matt spent a lot of his time wrestling with Noah to keep him out of the fire.

7:00 felt really late, so the younger kids wanted to get in their sleeping bags.

Noah liked being in the tent because he was free to roam on his own.

When Noah and Kate were tired, but wouldn't settle down to sleep, Matt went to lay down with them. That is when the coyotes began to howl. The girls looked to me for comfort, but I was freaked out myself! We felt better when Matt came back to the fire, although it was noted that Matt didn't bring his gun...the ONE time he doesn't bring his gun to camp.

It was cold out, but not unbearably cold. I stayed warm by the fire, although children kept sitting on my lap and blocking out some of the heat. Zoe and Emily played "20 Questions" by the fire.

Then they went into their own tent and played on their nintendos before going to sleep. Matt and I slept in the big tent with Noah, Kate, Zach, and Eleanor.

I was going to stay up until 8:30, but Zach kept asking me when I was going to go to bed, so I went into the tent with him sometime after 8:00. Everyone seemed to stay warm throughout the night and the kids slept really well.

Good Morning!



Our campout ended when we woke up. It's nice to have camp right next to home. We went into the warm house and ate cereal for breakfast. :-)

Happy Birthday to me!

One of my gifts today was not having to teach Sunday School since we had Stake Conference. Yay! Although, during the long 2 hour meeting with the kids being put in time out every 5 minutes (we listened to conference in the Relief Society room), I wondered if teaching my class would have been less painful for everyone.

After church, we came over to my parents' home for a yummy lasagna dinner and cake. Fun!



I am thankful to have a great family and great friends!

Matt's home?

I've seen Matt for about 4 hours since he arrived home Wednesday night. We were able to sit down together that night and eat yummy turkey and talk. Eleanor told Matt that she missed him so much and she almost cried one night, but she was asleep, so she couldn't. Matt noticed that Noah is talking more now. Noah kept saying "hi" over and over again and he said "hi dad" when one of his siblings said it. So cute! Yesterday, Matt was thrown back into the grind as he went to work and then went to his high council meeting. I'm looking forward to datenight tonight!

Zach was disappointed yesterday morning when I told him we were staying home all day, but when I suggested making a tent over the table, he was excited to stay home. Being at home is much more fun when you have a tent to hang out in!

You can't see it, but they have a portable DVD player in their tent. Fun!

Matt is on his way home!

5 hours and 41 minutes until I see Matt!

I received this check in the mail yesterday...

I'm always mentioning to Judy and Jerry (Judy is my visiting teacher) our "big check" that is owed to us and will someday arrive, so Judy finally sent it. Haha! Before I opened the check, Zoe was determined it was the real check, but the real check wouldn't have been mailed to me and it wouldn't have been in a big manilla envelope. It didn't turn out to be the real check, but it was fun mail and it made my day. :-)

Judy and Jerry also came over yesterday morning to watch the younger kids, so I could go vote. Plus, they brought over a casserole for dinner. Judy and Jerry are AWESOME!

After eating the casserole with the kids last night, President Dauk showed up with a Thanksgiving feast. I should have emotional outbursts in Relief Society more often. :-) Actually, I just shared my testimony, but I mentioned being discouraged and down. It was fun to visit with President Dauk and to know that our family is cared about. We are looking forward to a yummy dinner tonight!

5 hours and 20 minutes until I see Matt!

Every day should be dress up day!

Zach wanted to be a cat today, so he is!


Kate wanted a princess face, which she already has :-), so she agreed to a star on each cheek.

I love this picture of Kate, but she looks too grown up!

It's okay to have favorites

Yesterday morning when Zoe and I were in the bathroom getting ready for church, we heard something fall in the kitchen. Zoe went to see what had happened. When I went to find out myself Zoe said, "Mom, you don't want to see this." Noah had dumped a full bag of tasteos all over the kitchen table and all over the floor. Noah takes every opportunity to get up on the table when there is a chair close to the table. I was cheered by the fact that Zoe was cleaning up the mess. Zoe was my favorite child and Noah was my least favorite child at that moment!

The Halloween of many costumes

Friday, October 30th: When I asked Eleanor about her Halloween party at school, she told me that they didn't have a party...they had a Halloween fiesta! Eleanor is our Fancy Nancy.

Here are some cute pictures of Kate and Noah playing on our pumpkin. Noah was determined to carry it off somewhere, but he never got it off the ground.




Zoe went over to Lauren's house after school for a Halloween party. They spent most of the time playing outside on the hay bales. The hit of the party was when Lauren's mom snuck outside while the girls were in the woods and she scared them with a loud growl. They went inside and frosted cookies and played sisters where each one of them had a special talent. Zoe could play the flute. Zoe wore her chinese ninja costume to this party and to the party at church.

We had our annual Halloween party at church in the evening. We ate pizza, the kids played games and won many prizes, and the favorite event of the evening was going around to collect candy! The kids had to cooperate for a group picture while the parents who were passing out candy got ready.

Eleanor and Kate decided that they wanted to be princesses like Emily instead of a witch and Minnie Mouse. So, Kate put a church dress on and with some ribbon in her hair, she was a princess. Eleanor wore her witch dress with ribbons in her hair. Zach went as a firefighter, and Noah was a teddy bear. I'm sad that this is the last year that one of our kids will wear this teddy bear costume!

Matching teddy bears...

Kai and Koa were firefighters, too!

Here's Eleanor playing Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin...

The kids had so much fun at the party!

Saturday, October 31st: Halloween started out with pumpkin carving!

Noah watched...

Where's Kate?

Here's another pose since I didn't capture her necklace (that is really Zoe's necklace from Lauren's party) in the previous picture.

Kate decided to come help with the pumpkin.

Which caused these outbursts...
"People, you in my way!" (Kate)
"Mom, Kate's hogging the pumpkin! Why did you bring her in here?!" (Zoe)

Each of the kids picked a shape or design to put on their spot of the pumpkin. Kate wanted a star, so I carved a star for her.

I carved a heart for Zach.

Eleanor and I carved BOO! in her spot.


Eleanor told me that she is going to have a Halloween party when she is a mom and they're going to carve pumpkins!

I drew a ghost shape for Emily and then she carved it out.


Zoe carved out an H for Halloween and then I added shapes around it.


We went to Daisy and Anna's Halloween party in the afternoon. Kate wrestled with Noah to get his hat on.

Zoe decided to wear the Indian costume to the party. Zach wore the knight costume.

Eleanor cried because I insisted that the kids wear a long sleeve shirt under their costumes for the outside party. She refused to put her costume on, so I carried her out to the car and brought her costume to put on later. We went through the whole tantrum for nothing because the party ended up being inside.

The kids painted when we first got there.


It stressed me out to have Kate painting in a costume that isn't ours, but we managed to keep her costume clean.

The kids got their faces painted and some of them ate donuts hanging from a string. They looked for fake spiders outside and they played some other games. We ended the party with a parade around the block. Noah waved to the cars passing by, which was so cute! Here is Kate walking in her cute dragon costume.

The kids got some fun things in their goodie bags.


Eleanor let me know that trick or treating is kind of boring. You just walk around and get candy. It's not much fun. Then she said that it will be really boring when she is a mom and she just walks around and waits. Then she won't get any candy!

We went to the mall for trick or treating! Are we ready?!

We have always arrived at the mall at 5pm, which is right when the trick or treating begins. We did the same this year. The trick or treating started at 4pm this year. There was very little candy to be found around the mall, which was a huge disappointment! The kids did get a sampling of ice cream at one of the stores.

Eleanor decided to be a cat for trick or treating, so we had some last minute gluing of her ears onto a headband...that she didn't wear very much.

Zoe decided to be a witch trick or treating.

Emily and Noah were the only 2 that wore the same costume for all parties and trick or treating.

My parents came trick or treating with us.


Since the mall was such a disappointment, my mom and I took the kids to a party at our local fire station. We got there around 6:45 and left at 8:00. The kids had a great time playing games and eating. The older girls met up with friends there. It was a good ending to our Halloween weekend!





We hope you had a fun Halloween!


P.S. This is so Eleanor...

...writing until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.