Thanksgiving

Here are some pictures Joy and I took during our Thanksgiving festivities. Joy and I went to Kellogg Park to look at the decorated trees and the huge Creche then spent time with her Mom at the nursing home. Lastly we spent time with my family.

Hutchinson Pandas

Here are our Halloween costumes!! We dressed up as pandas.

Halloween 2013

Here's a picture of the boys in their costumes. Walter is a chicken. The astute reader may recognize this costume from a few years ago when Harvey wore it, although Harvey was two when he wore it. Harvey is a cowboy/farmer. We had a vampire costume for him that he had helped pick out, but he had worn this outfit to school and didn't want to change out of it when it was time for trick or treating. (His school doesn't do costume dress-up for Halloween, they have a "Harvest Day" where everyone can dress like a farmer.) Maybe he'll want to be a vampire next year.

As for the night itself, it was pretty rainy, so Harvey only wanted to do three houses. We basically just did our immediate neighbors and then came home. I think we got about 30 kids the whole night. I had over half the candy left at 8 o'clock when trick or treating ends. So I left the light on and decided to give away the rest of the candy if anyone else showed up. At 8:15, three teenage boys rang the bell, so they each got two huge handfuls and that was almost everything.

Halloween

 We don't have Noah's pumpkin here because he finished it a few days before we did so it was already on the porch. I did Hello Kitty for Lucy and Eric loves doing the intricate carvings.

 Jack doesn't appear in any pictures because he fell down right before we took them and was screaming...plus he didn't have a costume, what I bought him didn't fit so he just wore a Batman shirt with his monster jacket.

 You can't see them, but Lucy has wings. She was a princess fairy. I made her skirt and her necklace and we bought the wand and wings and the tiara was a birthday present last year.  I found Noah's costume at Good Will sans the mask-he is Optimus Prime-so we wore his Batman mask and cape so he could be super hero Optimus Prime. 

The kids got loads of candy and we have tons of extra, so if you are running low or need a fix I would be MORE than happy to mail you a box-really. Happy Halloween!!

I'm a dufous

I can't believe how long it's been since I've checked out the blog. But to be fair, I hardly get on the computer, for recreations that is, very much any more. I'm on the computer all day long, but not for anything fun. I will try hard to update what's going on with us soon, but for now I wanted to post what the kids' concert dates are for the next couple of months, just in case anyone wanted to attend. Alexis has an A Capella concert this Friday night at the 1st Presbyterian Church in Flint during school. If you want the exact time I'll have to get that for you. Makayla has an orchestra concert on Oct. 28th at 7 pm at the high school. It's a Halloween concert so everyone is encouraged to come in costume. Alexis has another A Capella concert on Nov. 17th at St. Roberts (which I think is in Flushing) at 3 pm. Merrit has a band concert on Nov. 19th at 7 pm at the high school. Makayla and Merrit have a concert together on Dec. 3rd at 7 pm at the high school. Chelsea has a choir concert on Dec. 11th at 6:30 pm at the high school. Alexis has a choir concert at 6:30 pm at the high school. The holiday collage concert will be on Dec. 18 and 19 showing at 6 pm and again at 8 pm on both nights. This is a real neat concert with the high school band, orchestra and choirs performing along with special smaller musical numbers that the kids have to try out for. Alexis is working on a song that she hopes to be the accompanist for with one of her friends singing. This concert is at the high school and the tickets cost money, but it's well worth it. Chelsea has also started playing the cello this year and will probably have some sort of holiday concert for that too, but I haven't received notice of that yet. I'll let you know when I do. Love you all!

Put one foot infront of the other..

Look who is walking like a big boy! He is not a full on walker yet but he is getting there!

Apple Picking Oct. 5, 2013

                                        Happy apple picking and family time!

Fall is here!

Zalen and I walked around downtown South Lyon a couple of days ago to look at the scarecrows. There are a lot of them but I picked out a few of my favorites.

we made a trip

Last weekend Noah didn't have a soccer game and on Sunday we were having stake conference so I didn't need to be there and thus we had the weekend free to make a visit to Virginia...and Jana and Jason were kind enough to have us.  We went down Friday after Noah got off the bus and Saturday was an all day whirlwind.

 Fredericksburg is a cool place.  That weekend they were having a sidewalk chalk festival...it was way cool.  We didn't get to see the finished products on many of them because it went into Sunday.

 The kids thought the Angry Birds one was the best.

 Next was the pet expo-we all got in for free because Jana had special tickets.  They had some pretty cool animals there.

 It was so nice to get away and do something different and have people to talk to (more for me, I guess).

In all, a great time.

If you Mustache, Zalen is ONE!

                                       

                                          HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY LITTLE MAN, Z-MAN!

Zalen woke up to bubble wrap in the hallway. He had a blast just crawling all over it. lol

I attempted to make a mustache cake for Zalen's birthday. 

He was fun to clean up. lol

My little birthday boy and I 

Mom took this picture. I just love how happy Walter is and how spaced out Zalen looks. lol

Zalen eating blue frosting for the first time

Can you guess what animal they are using their hands to make?

Last Couple of Days

 Dad and I took our overnight trip on Friday and Saturday and went to Beulah, MI.  Here are pictures of some of the things we saw.  The first one is an ice cream shop in Saginaw.

 This sign is in St. Louis, MI.  You can read why I took the picture.

 This Mom-ument is in front of the middle school in Clare, MI.

 This tiny chapel is outside of McBain, MI.

 Sunset over Crystal Lake taken from the window of our motel in Beulah, MI.

 The Bottle House in Kaleva, MI.  A man built the walls out of bottles.

 A grasshopper made by high school students in shop class in Kaleva.

Yesterday Marilyn, Betsy, Gerri and I went to Shipshewana, IN for the day.