Happy Halloween 2008

Another Halloween, come and gone. I can't believe it.

We had a fabulous day today. It started off with a parade at Carson's school.
Here's Carson...well I think it's him. He was the only venom spiderman that waved at me so I'm pretty sure it was him.


A couple costumes I saw and liked at the parade: Dirty Laundry and toilet bowl.



Fern drove to Carson's parade with this Halloween butler in her passenger seat. Very entertaining! After Parker sat in her nice car, with this crazy passenger, and after we were walking home, he said "Hey mom, guess what? Do you know what is SO COOL about Fern's car????" I said "what?" He replied "Fern's car has a steering wheel!" Yep, pretty cool.



You know it's bad when you've already had your 'sugar-high' for the day and now you are crashing...at 11am.


Cameron didn't go trick-or-treating but I had him in his bat costume for as much of the day as he could stand.



Sam dressed up as Robert Smith from The Cure. By this time his makeup had worn off (kinda) but he still looks good!


So, I'm on a mission to become the most favored house on the block for the treats I pass out. Check it out...60 full size candy bars! I also bought crappy cheap candy that I gave to teenagers. Little trick I learned from Fern!


The trio: Looks like Parker has a pumpkin for a head.


Course, bats are much more comfortable hanging upside down!



While the older kids went trick-or-treating, Cameron hung out on the lawn with his buddy, Logan. Cameron tried sharing his candy and Logan the turtle was very impressed with his sharing skillz at such a young age.


Cute trick-or-treaters!




And a couple of dads who are young at heart!



Life is good.



After 9pm, my neighbor was chasing the teenagers up and down the street with a chainsaw. Pretty effective, I haven't had any late night doorbells 'dings' from older hooligans.

Now, I'm REALLY hoping trouble makers steal my pumpkins off my lawn so I don't have to dispose of them myself...A girl can dream....

Oooooh Scary! Awwww, Cute!

Yesterday evening:

Sam: Carrie, I'm a little worried because The Cure is releasing a new album tomorrow and I'm not sure how I'm going to obtain it during the day.
Carrie: Um, can't you just wait until you get home tomorrow night and then you can go buy it?
Sam: Get real Carrie, I need it FIRST THING IN THE MORNING!
Carrie: (laugh) oh, sorry. Maybe you could go to work, and then take TRAX to Best Buy.
Sam: Hmmm, that may work...
Carrie: While you are pondering, I'm going to go downstairs and watch my TIVO'D shows.
Sam: ...... (still thinking)

About halfway through Dancing With The Stars, Sam comes running downstairs, all excited, and face flushed.

Sam: CARRIE! Guess what?!? Graywhale is having a midnight sale of The Cure's album!
Carrie: Sam, Sam, Sam....here's the deal. If you go to the midnight sale, you have to do two things for me. First, you have to take a picture of yourself holding your CD and your phone so I can see the time. Second, you have to drive around in a remote location and listen to the entire CD, really REALLY loud!
Sam: I can do that!

And he was out the door.
I tried convincing him that we should do his make up and clothes like Robert Smith, but he informed me that he didn't want to look like a "dork".



So here is his proof picture: His phone clock says 1:33am. He picked up his CD and then drove several miles away to listen to it really loud in the van. Does his face say "pure joy" in that picture? He told me this morning that the CD is twice as good as he had hoped. He was quite giddy.

He even got a free poster. Hmmm, not sure what he'll do with that. It's not like we're in college and people decorate with posters. I told him he should take it to work and hang it in his cubicle. He rolled his eyes at me.


This morning Parker had his Halloween parade at Preschool. He was super excited to be "spiderman with muscles" again this year. Here he is with Jacob.


After his class sang several Halloween songs, they got to go trick-or-treating to several offices within the High School. Every parent donated at LEAST a big bag of candy, so I'm kind of scared to see how much candy he is going to come home with. I even saw one mom bring Halloween cupcakes (over-achiever!).


Let the tooth decay begin!

Give Me Strength

Parker, Parker, Parker....

He really is like a box of chocolates. I never know what I'm going to get with him...will I get a laugh, some heartache, a headache, or pure relief? Well, you'll understand the "relief" part in a minute.

But for now, let's look at the random-ness:


Parker was talking to Sam on the phone the other day. He was standing with his back to me and the whole time he talked to Sam, he kept twisting his right foot inward. He saw me watching him, and he saw the picture being taken. He was unaffected, just kept trying to twist that foot further and further. When I asked him what he was doing, he just gave me a look of "everything I do is on a need to know basis and right now, I deem this situation as you don't need to know."

Let's talk about Saturday night.

Saturday night we were having a ward activity at my church. All the primary kids were doing an activity in the primary room. Halfway through the evening I felt like I should check up on Parker. I walked into the primary room and he wasn't there. So I poked my head into the mens restrooms and loudly said "Parker?!?" and I didn't get a reply. So I walked around the entire church building, looking in every classroom, and I didn't find him. By now my heart is racing a little and I'm trying to stay calm.

I walked around the church three more times, and each time came up Parker-less. By now, I have imagined every possible horror movie situation in my mind and I'm pretty sure Parker has been abducted or something close to it.

Finally, I decided to make the rounds one more time. Instead of yelling his name into the men's bathrooms, I decided to walk all the way in and take a closer look. I walked in, saw that the stall was closed. I could see Parker's feet.

I ran up to the door, peeked through the tiny gap between and wall and door, and found Parker....................FAST ASLEEP ON THE TOILET!!!!!!

No wonder he didn't respond to me yelling his name into the bathroom!
When I found him asleep, I said "Parker!" right next to him and I saw his whole body do a crazy jerk reflex, and then he said, in the most bored voice he could come up with..."what?" I said "you fell asleep on the toilet!" and he said "no I didn't". Oh, Okay, whatever dude. Instead of arguing, I just said "is it time to wipe?" He had the nerve to say "I need a few more minutes!!!!"

Oh my gosh, that little twerp. I seriously thought I had lost him forever. It took me until today before I could totally laugh about it! He still maintains that he did NOT fall asleep!

Phew, what a RELIEF, literally.

Glasses!

Because I have absolutely TERRIBLE eye sight, I knew that one or all of my kids would need glasses. To be honest, I secretly HOPED for it. I think kids with glasses are the cutest kids around!

But this is NOT what I had in mind.


Nor did I have THIS in mind.


Have I ever shared my eye-doctor story before? One time I was getting my eyes checked by the eye doctor at Costco. After examining my eyes he said "Have you ever considered getting Lasik done? I really think you should consider it because if you were in a hotel and there was a fire, you would not be able to find the exit. You are a hazard....blah blah blah." Tell me something I DON't know, Doc.

So Parker had his last soccer game on Tuesday. It was FREEZING and windy. His game didn't start until after 6:30 and the sun was already behind the mountains, plus the wind was howling. I honestly would have skipped the whole thing had it not been for the trophy and team pictures that were supposed to be handed out at this game.

Oh but wait, the officials for the Kearns Rec Center gave our packet of trophies and pictures to the wrong team, who had already gone home. Durn ya'll, that kinda sucked rocks. Very anti climatic.

So today I called the Rec Center asking if they had our stuff yet and they did. So here is Parker proudly displaying his trophy. I don't know why he gave me this face. I think he was REALLY happy.


Look at Parker's hand that ISN'T holding the trophy...OH! Made you look!!! OH wait, is that just a stupid game my brothers and cousins made up? In my family, if you make that sign with your hand, and somebody looks, you get to hit them really hard! Ahhhh, good times! I'm getting a dead leg just thinking about all my past dead legs....

Just because it's fun, here's more glasses pictures I took tonight:




8-pack of funny eye ball glasses: $2
Best $2 I ever spent.

The Winner

And the winner is.....Natalie Peton!

What did she win? She won my apology and empathy when I tell her that she didn't win the "what does the pumpkin weigh" contest. Nat, I hadn't weighed the pumpkin yet when you emailed me with your plea to win. I was rooting for you, but alas, it wasn't meant to be!

The nougat winner: EDEN BORROWMAN!!! Holy crap Eden, your guess was right ON! If you didn't live in Idaho I would have SWORN you came to my house in the middle of the night to weigh it yourself.

The pumkin weighs just barely under 34 lbs. Eden guessed 33.5 lbs. She was my first comment and the winner. I'm blown away.



Thanks for everyone's participation. That was lots of fun, maybe I'll do something similar again. One comment surprised me...I learned that my brother, my own flesh and blood, does not like nougat. I never, ever, knew that! That's blaspheme Darren!

Eden, I have your address, be expecting a package soon!

Come On Guys, Play Along!!

GUESS THE WEIGHT CONTEST!

So here is the pumpkin we grew in our yard this summer. This thing is HUGE! I have no idea how much it weighs, but I want everybody to guess the weight (of the pumpkin, NOT ME! For my self esteem, PLEASE do not guess MY weight!).


To put it in perspective, here is the pumpkin next to my favorite beverage:


The contest will end at noon on Wednesday, the 22nd. Shortly after that I will weigh the pumpkin on my bathroom scale.

What does the winner receive? To the winner, I will make you a batch of homemade nougat, as previously discussed a few blog postings ago. I don't care where you live, I will ship some to you, I promise!

There are only two rules: You have to guess the weight in a comment, no later than noon on Wednesday Mountain Standard Time AND if your guess is higher than the actual weight of the pumpkin, you will be disqualified.

I guess I should add one more rule: If you live in my neighborhood...you cannot come lift the pumpkin because that's not fair to out of staters.

Okay, start your guessing.....NOW!!!

For another new update, check it out below.

No Such Luck

Sam thought the Indiana Colts would win if he dressed Cameron up:


No such luck. Sorry about that Mike and Kim! Thanks again for the outfit!

This weekend we attended the wedding of my Uncle Morris. Ummmm......ah.....well....if you want to see pictures, check out my parent's blog.

Moving right along.

When Sam has the camera, I never know what kind of crazy pictures he's going to take. Or, when others take a picture of us, I am envisioning a cute photo, but Sam usually has other ideas...

Like this picture. I was watching the wedding ceremony, when suddenly, I'm blinded by the flash on our camera:


Or this one. I think we need shoe polish.


I love Nalani's face here, but check mine out! Sheesh, my nostrils are huge! I could probably fit two fingers in those things. I'm holding my cousin's baby and he is cute, just ask Nalani's expression!


Words fail me.



After the wedding we went out to dinner. I have to show off my little buddy Cash.
Doesn't get much cuter than this:


Oops, I embarrassed him.


The other day I decorated my yard with pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. Oh yah, I successfully grew 4 pumpkins this summer so I added those to the mix as well. Here's the biggest pumpkin I grew. Um, I think the sun was in Parker's eyes. I hate it when that happens....


Here is Carson by two more of the home grown pumpkins. The fourth pumpkin was teeny tiny, about the size of a softball.


Crazy kids. Cameron was sleeping so he missed out on the brotherly bonding moments. I think he'll get over it.


Oh hey, check it out. Cameron already got over it. Here he is with his favorite 8 year old...


Carson goes back on track tomorrow so....yay for me! Ha Ha Ha!

Fall Tradition

Every fall, we go to a pumpkin patch by our house and load up on pumpkins to decorate the yard with. By "we" I mean, "I have to do a lot of convincing to Sam because he'd probably rather not". Thanks for putting up with me Sam!


Finding the perfect pumpkins!


Carson was more interested in the scattered pumpkin seeds on the ground from smashed pumpkins.


Fun Photos:





The goods. The pumkins were pretty nice too!


Bu-Bye pumpkin patch, see ya next year! (Right Sam??)



What goes better with pumpkin patch adventures than making caramel apples? Nothing! It's a perfect match!




Delicious fun!!