Utah Halloween party & Trip

We drove up to Utah the day after my birthday for the annual Roylance Halloween party. We scheduled the party the same weekend as a race that my brother organized so that I, (and other people coming from out of town) could be a part of it. My brother, Joseph has a good friend from college (that married his good friend from High School) and she is fighting stage 4 Melanoma cancer. He was looking for ways to help them and give support. She has been a personal trainer, and has always been very active. He organized a benefit run for her with the help of some of his other friends. It was a great experience. I was so impressed at what a good job he did. There was a great turn out of people, many people that knew her, and many that didn't know her, but heard her story and wanted to help. It was a great race, and lots of fun. There was a 10K run, 5K run, and a 1 mile fun run/walk.

Hayden was excited to run his very first race. He was a fast little runner too! Way to go Hayden!

My friend, Nicole came to the race too. It was great to see her!

Fun pic with my brothers and sisters - all ready for the race!

With my sisters and nieces and nephew before the race.

.

Hayden and Rebecca ready to start the race. Rebecca made it part way before she tripped and then got to ride the rest of the way on Jerry's shoulders.

Here I am, exhausted as I was finishing the 10K. It was a great run though.

After the race we had a couple hours to decompress and get ready for the Halloween party. We love going up to my family's Halloween party every year. It is so fun, and the costumes are so creative. Each year I wonder how last year's costumes will be topped, but every year they are. Here are some pictures of past Halloween costumes. And Here. I'll have to add the previous year's pictures as well sometime.

Our fun Halloween costumes! Hayden and Rebecca wanted to be Iron Man and Ariel, but we also wanted to have a fun family theme. So they are part of Sydney's (Queen of Hearts) Royal Court.

After our entrance and pictures, they were able to take off the cards and were the other characters.

Alice and the Mad Hatter

Close up of Jerry, to see his cool eyebrows and make up!

Full shot of Jerry - and sorry, but I have to brag. I made the outfit - thank you very much. We did buy the hat with hair, and eyebrows. But I made the rest

One more pat on the back, but I made my Alice outfit too. It took lots of time, but fun to try on my own, and it was fun. Besides now I can brag about it forever.

This is my nephew, Daniel, and my niece, Rachel. They are from Colorado, but going to BYU. It was so fun to have them come to the party. They were Hansel and Gretel.

Isn't that the cutest Queen of Hearts you've ever seen?!?

My sister, Esther flew in from Seattle for the party. (I'm telling ya, it's a big deal!) She was a very spooky Lady in White.

Mark and Karen's family were fantasy characters. So fun. Mark and the boys were hardly recognizable in their costumes. Karen and all the fairy girls were just so cute.

Joseph and Angela's family dressed up as fast food mascots. Complete with the Burger King, Wendy, Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders, and the Arby's oven mitt.

I had to get a close up of this little cutie. I love the little beard on his chin.

Elizabeth and Darrin's family dressed as the Brady Bunch. Too funny! They had all the moves down too. It was great.

Rebecca and Chad's family dressed as God's and Goddesses. Zeus, Medusa, Aphrodite, Hermes, etc. (Sorry, Rebecca I forgot the others' characters.) Great costumes!

For part of the party we went on a photo scavenger hunt. It was very fun. This is a picture of Hayden sleeping upside down like a bat.

We were doing the "Monster Mash."

Posing by a headstone. This was the closest thing we could find.

Making a train down the slide.

We also played a challenging game of Halloween Fear Factor. The kids had to eat eyeballs. (Gummy eyeballs in jello)

I made it past the first challenge of eating a witch finger (chocolate dipped cooked beans - disgusting!) And this was the next challenge. We had to tie a paddle board to our waist and set off a mouse trap with the ball, without using our hands. Passed that!! Then the final challenge was to take a fireball out of a cage full of live crickets - gross! and unwrap the fireball and eat it the fastest. Thanks to my strong teeth I won that challenge to be the grand winner! Yes, I'm bragging a lot in this post!

The kids broke a pumpkin pinata!

And they got lots of candy!

Esther freaked us all out with scary poses in the bushes.

And we all had a great, tiring day! It was a great party. Thanks to Rebecca for hosting and planning it all. She does a wonderful job every year!

After the party we had another couple hours to decompress again, then we went to dinner with my brothers and sisters without kids, and laughed and laughed till our sides hurt. It was a wonderful night.

Happy Birthday To Me! - and more about us than you want to know

Yippee!! I LOVE my birthday! I know I make a huge deal of it, (and I make sure everyone knows it's my b-day by reminding them several weeks in advance) and it's probably obnoxious to some. But guess what - I don't care. It's my birthday!! I'd rather let people know than have it pass and have friends feel bad that they didn't get to wish me a happy birthday:) So really, it's not selfish at all. I'm just looking out for all of you, don't want you to feel bad. Quite selfless if you ask me. haha. It's not even about the presents, it's just about feeling special on MY day, and feeling loved.
Jerry earned BIG TIME points towards hubby of the year this year. The week before my birthday he called me on his way home from work and told me that he had to confess that he'd been lying to me all week. (No, that's not the way to earn hubby of the year)

Backstory, and warning - I'm long winded: I get a little obsessive about things, like checking my email, facebook, and checking account several times a day. I do the budgeting in our family. I like to make sure there are no charges coming out that are unexpected - identity theft, I like to know when checks that I've written have cleared, etc. Basically one more thing I can be OCD about. We try to do most of our spending with cash so when it's gone, it's gone. (we've grown very fond of Dave Ramsey) At the beginning of each week we divide up our cash allotments into our different areas and one of those is Jerry's lunch money. So he gets his lunch money every Monday. Well on Tuesdsay I noticed an ATM withdrawl of $20. To me that's a huge red flag for an identity theft issue - however, I figure if they're going to take money it'd be more than just $20. Then I also noticed that he'd bought lunch with the card as well. So then I was just confused when I knew he had money. When Jerry got home I asked him if it was from him. He said,"Oh, I was going to call you and tell you about that." He explained that one of his drivers was filling up with gas and the driver's company card wouldn't work for some reason, so he had to give him all of his lunch money, then take out some money from the ATM to pay for the gas, and we'd get the money back from him soon. One lie down!
Wednesday and Thursday I noticed that his money that he was spending for lunch (with the card, since his cash was gone) was more than normal, but I didn't question too much because I figure he works long days, and a lunch splurge every now and then isn't too horrible I guess, even though two days in a row is a bit excessive. But I didn't say anything about it. (Do I sound like a control freak or what??) Two lies down!
So, more backstory - Jerry's work schedule changes daily. Sometimes he has to be there early to open, or for a meeting at 4:30 or 5 till 4 or 5. Sometimes he has to close and check in, so he goes in at 7:30 and could be there till 6:30 at night. It fluctuates weekly and because I'm OCD and I'm learning as I write this, I am a bit of a control freak, I just like to know what his schedule is. I'm normal right?? Validate me! On Tuesday night he was rescheduling all of his church meetings that he usually has on Thursday night to Wednesday night. I asked why, because I'm miss nosy wife. He said that on Thursday he had to close and it would most likely be a late night so he wouldn't be home in time for the meetings. Lie #3!
So in my mind I figured, good I'll get to see him in the morning before he goes to work, and even be able to wake up early that morning to go running outside before he goes to work. So then Wed. night he started heading to bed early so I double checked to see that he was going in later in the morning (so I could go run - I really wasn't checking up on him) and he said that his schedule changed again because he had to be at the meeting in the morning, so he wouldn't be checking in (staying late). Lie #4!!

So, back to my story - he called on his way home from work to confess his lies. He told me to pack a bag and get the kids ready to stay overnight at my friend Korina's house! He was taking me to a hotel for a night away from the kids to celebrate my birthday, and since the kids didn't have school Friday because of a teacher work day, it worked out perfectly. I guess he and Korina had been planning this all week. He knew he couldn't pay for the hotel online because I'm so fanatical about checking our money hourly :) that his friend from work paid for it and he gave him the lunch money, and ATM money, then paid for his friend's lunch Wed. and Thurs. to also pay him back. He had to change his meetings from Thursday night to Wed. since we'd be gone on Thursday night, and the only excuse he could think of was to say that he'd be closing at work. My poor hubby with a nosy, nosy wife.

He took me to the Aliante Hotel. It was beautiful. I loved it there. We saw "The Social Network" since I spend all too much of my day on Facebook anyway. We really liked it. I slept in till 9:30 the next morning!! I think I needed a good night sleep, don't you?! Thanks to Korina who had my kiddos so I could enjoy a good night out. And thanks to my wonderful husband for planning and lying all week to me, just so he could surprise me. Whenever he asks what I want for a present, I can't think of anything. I just want time with him. A planned night away from home with just him, without having to worry about arranging childcare is the perfect gift!

The next Thursday was my birthday! The big 34! Yip, gettin' up there, but I still love my birthday! I had a great day. Whenever it was my mom's birthday or Mother's day we'd ask what she wanted and she'd just say, "I want a clean house." That was not what a 10 year old wanted to hear. Now as a mom, that's exactly what I wanted. My kids are still too young to give it the deep clean I wanted so I gave myself the present of a clean home. Believe me, it needed it. (and unfortunately it needs it again) I spent several days, but it was so worth it to wake up to a sparkly clean home on my birthday. It also made it easier to take my birthday off from cleaning and dishes.

I had a very enjoyable day (with the exception of Rebecca getting sick on the way home from preschool and puking in the car. I think it was just motion sickness.) with lots of calls from loved ones wishing me a happy birthday. Then we went to dinner at IHOP as a family that night. (Did you know kids eat free with the purchase of an adult entree?! Just FYI) Then Jerry's mom came over for cake and ice cream after that.

It's been a great birthday month!

Harvest Day 2010

Happy Harvest Day Everyone!! Can you believe it's Harvest Day again? What? You don't know what Harvest Day is??? Harvest Day is the holiday that Jerry and I made up to welcome in the holiday season. Honestly, it is one of our family's favorite holidays! We have a night full of all the winter holidays wrapped up into one great evening.

We usually celebrate Harvest Day on the first Sunday of October (General Conference Sunday) unless we are out of town. It's just when the air starts getting a little crispy outside, and you can smell the holidays coming. Of course it is still in the 90's in Vegas, but still, it's cooler than it has been for the last 5 months.

We ate our delicious Harvest Day Feast of a Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. A bucket of Halloween Candy and the house is decorated for Halloween. We also get to listen to Christmas music during the meal and we each get a present to open to represent Christmas. (This year Jerry really spoiled me with the gift, so I had no choice other than to spoil him too.) We also drink Martinelli's sparkling cider in our fancy goblets to represent New Years.

Hayden got a Phinneas and Ferb toy

Sydney got a Little People's Jet plane

Jerry got an itunes card and a tie

Rebecca got a Belle barbie doll

And I got some running clothes.

Oh, and Sydney got a lot of chocolate for dinner. Fun for everyone!

Odds and Ends

Rock On

Hayden is not much of a singer, not that he isn't a good singer, it is just rare for me to hear him sing. Have no idea why because I'm singing all the time. Just this year he has started singing a little more, with the help of primary and Kindergarten. Well, a little bit ago he and Rebecca came to get me and Jerry to see their "concert." They were outside and had set up concert chairs for us and performed. It was so cute and funny. Hayden sang at the top of his lungs. He basically sang a "list" of what he loves. Basically it went something like this, "I love my mom, I love jumping, I love school, I love school buses, I love the house, I sometimes love dirt, but not when I get to dirty...." And Rebecca was right there singing along echoing him and rocking out on the guitar. So funny!

Temple Trip

A great benefit of living less than 5 minutes from the temple is that we are able to go quite often with the kids to walk around the grounds. It makes for a quick and easy family home evening too. Every time we go the kids ask when we can go inside the temple to see the inside. We can only go into the foyer with the kids, but still they want to see what it is like inside, and I have always wanted them to feel the Spirit that is in the temple. But whenever we go it is either closed, if it's a Sunday or Monday, and we are never dressed in our Sunday clothes.

A couple Saturdays ago we went to a baptism of a friend in the ward. I decided this was the perfect day for us to go on a little trip to the temple, and for the kids to finally be able to go inside. We talked for several minutes before going in about proper behavior in the temple, and that they need to remember to be reverent. I must say, they were even better than I had imagined they would be. Even Sydney was so good. It was a great experience, one that I won't soon forget. And hopefully one that my children will remember too. I hope they remember feeling the Spirit in the temple. Hayden mentioned that it smelled like a swimming pool. I was able to tell him about the baptisms for the dead, and since we had just been to a baptism, it made more sense to him. Just a neat experience. And since I think I have the most adorable kids, I had to put pictures of them at the temple on here - Of course!

A Simple Question

Why do I even buy clothes for my children, and how on earth do I have so much laundry??

Fun time at the park

The kids love going to the park. We met up with Korina and kids at the park during the Priesthood session of conference. I had been in the house all day watching conference, and it was nice to get out in the fresh air.