MightyJohnsons

Friday was Katelyn’s 7th birthday. I asked her what she wanted to do for her “special” day and she said she wanted to go to lunch with Seth and I and then go shopping at ‘Justice for Girls’. I don’t particularly love that story (super glitzy and overpriced) but how could I say no to that face?!

We took her out of school around lunch time and we went to Pizza Pie Cafe for lunch – her choice. It is basically a buffet of salad, pizza, dessert pizza and pasta. I thought there was no way I would get my money’s worth from that little thing but boy was I wrong! She ate like a champ. She had a plate of everything and nearly cleared them all.

Next we dropped off Seth and headed out to shop. Shopping with her was a breeze! She knows what she wants and quickly picked out everything she wanted (and I mean everything!). She got a shirt, tank, sweater, jeans, a journal, some earring and a webkinz. That stores carries far too much variety. 🙂 I had a good coupon so I was able to get it all for a reasonable price. Plus, no stress of planning a party. It is hard to beat that.

That evening we celebrated with an ice-cream cake from Maggie Moos. (*Honestly the cake was a little disappointing for the price. I would prefer a DQ cake any day. Of course ice-cream is still ice-cream and you can’t go terribly wrong.) Grandpa Gary and Grandma Kathy came up from St. George for the weekend so that was an extra special treat to have them here for the celebration. They gave Katelyn $50 to start her own savings account. She is pretty excited about that. Grandma Ria got her a darling winter coat which she likewise loved and she got a cute fairly book from G’ma and G’pa Johnson. Wow, she got spoiled!

Every time I look at my sweet baby girl I get emotional. She is growing up so fast and into such a beautiful young girl. I couldn’t be more proud of who she is becoming. I love you Katelyn!

KK blowing out her candles!

KK and Meg getting messy with the frosting.

KK’s new coat.

A big hug from grandpa!!

Of course, only on Halloween do we get a torrential downpour. I have never seen so many umbrellas out on Halloween night. Thankfully after the ward trunk-or-treat, the rain let up and we got an hour or so without rain. The kids didn’t care if it was raining or not, we still made our rounds through the neighborhood. It appears my older kids hit most of Highland because each came home with over 5 lbs. of candy. I am still trying to bribe it from them at $2/lb but nobody has committed yet.

We were thrilled to have Seth’s brother, Dave and his wife Lisa come down and spend the evening with us. Seth and Dave rigged up a system to have a ghost drop down at the door when trick-or-treaters came and a spider drop from the tree as they ran away. I feel sorry for the poor children who were permanently scarred because two adult boys couldn’t get enough of the scared faces and screams. Please forgive us if your child has nightmares.

For those of you celebrating Halloween on Sunday, we wish you a happy, sunny, and spooky Halloween. And for those of you who celebrated on Saturday, we hope you had fun and didn’t eat too much candy!

Jacob dressed up as an old man for school (but changed to a gangster for trick-or-treating).

Megan was and old lady for school (but changed to a skeleton for trick-or-treating).

That is the prettiest witch I have ever seen!

Ooh-la-la, Cinderella has the moves!

To infinity and beyond!

The whole gang with Uncle Dave and Aunt Lisa

Last week I joined up with some friends from our ward, the Giddings, and took the kiddos to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. It isn’t something I do often. I am pretty sure I wore myself out with these type of activities with my older kids (when they were young). I do realize that my little ones still enjoy it and I need to make more time to do it when I can.

Drew and Claire both loved the animals. Actually Drew loved them as long as they were behind their fence. As soon as he got on the pony he wasn’t nearly as thrilled. He was okay at first but got really nervous when I left his side. I guess “cowboy” can be ruled out as a future occupation.

Claire and Drew looking at the cows.

Drew riding on his pony.

Claire taking a ride on the pony.

Maylee, Drew, Brooklyn, Claire and Ellie

Drew riding his tractor

What is it about tub time that makes kids want to do “Jack-Jack” hair? I am pretty sure every single tub involves one kid or the other with a pointy hair-do. For those of you that don’t know, Jack-Jack is the baby boy on the movie “Incredibles” and my kids adopted that name for this do years ago.

Sadly for me, my favorite fall season has been taken over by Old Man Winter. My children on the other hand, couldn’t hold in their excitement. Out came the hats, gloves, snow-pants and jackets….at 7:00 am.

The three girls enjoying the beginning of winter. They might as well because I am guessing it will only last till lunch time.

Although I don’t love the snow, I can’t but help love the beautiful snow covered mountains out my back door.

This post is strictly a “mommy post” meant for me and yes, I may brag a little about my son, but I’m his mom and that’s what I am supposed to do, right?

Jacob is in the A.L.L. program this year and it has provided a lot of great opportunities that he wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. During the meeting with his teacher, Miss Louw, at the beginning of the school year, she told the students about the “Great American Challenge.” She told them it was strictly optional. She went on further to say that those kids that did it would be rewarded. There are a low of rumors going around about what the reward might be but nobody really knows for sure.

Anyway, Jacob took that challenge and made a goal to have it done before the end of October. He had to finish all seven tasks and they had to be passed off by April 15th (no exceptions) but he decided to get it done and get it done fast. So for the past month and a half he has been studying, memorizing, repeating, these seven things:

1) Label the fifty states, their capitals, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the country of Canada and Mexico on a blank map of the United States (no help or misspelled words).

2) Recite by memory the Gettysburg Address. (8 helps)

3) Recite by memory in order of Presidency, #1 through #44, the names of the Presidents of the Unites States, first, middle and last name. (no helps)

4) Write, spell and punctuate perfectly the Pledge of Allegiance. (no helps)

5) Sing or recite by memory the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner. (no helps)

6) Recite by memory the Preamble of the United States Constitution. (no helps)

7) Recite by memory the condensed version of the Declaration of Independence. (8 helps)

He could only pass them off on Mondays and could only try each item once per week. He had to do it in front of the class so that adds to the pressure. I was so proud of him for doing this. It doesn’t affect his grade and was completely optional. He worked REALLY hard. Only those of us in the family can really appreciate the extra time he had to put in to do it (in addition to his huge load of homework every week). He passed off his last item this past Monday and was all smiles when he got home.

His teacher told him that no other student has ever passed it off this quickly, which only added to his excitement. Plus, and most importantly, she told him that he motivated a lot of the students to do it, especially those that thought it wasn’t “cool” to do at the beginning of the year. Way to go Jake!

My girls have been a little jealous of all my crafting. I do most of them while they are away at school. [**Speaking of, I have two more cute things I made. I made a cute Halloween banner and some spiders made out of large beads. Both turned out great.] Anyway, I noticed that Robert’s Crafts was having a craft night for family night. Jenni and I decided to take our girls. We had to bring a jar of our own, but everything else was provided. The girls could choose to do a mummy, witch or pumpkin. They turned out really cute and it only cost .75 per person. The girls LOVED it! Afterward we got ice-cream, which ended up making it a fairly late night, but I am pretty sure I heard the words, “this was the greatest night of my life” at least once!

Jenni, Allie, and my girls

The final product (Katelyn did two so she has them stacked one on the other)

I haven’t seen my brother since his wedding which was a little over four years ago. Alison, his wife, scheduled his monthly trip to Alaska (for work) to have a two-hour layover in Salt Lake. We packed up all the kids and headed up to see him. It was short and a bit hectic. Hanging out in an airport with six kids for two hours isn’t the funnest thing to do, but it sure was nice to see him again. We visited, snapped a few photos and then he was off again.

It is unfortunate that my family is so far apart. I sure would love to see them more often. Years fly by so fast and I am lucky to see my mom once a year. I haven’t seen my sister in at least two years. Thankfully my dad has a place in St. George so we do get to see them a little more often. Maybe someday we’ll all move a little closer. Until then I will enjoy the brief visits we have, even if they are just in the airport.

Me and my big brother

Uncle Derek and the kiddos

Claire was over at her friend Allie’s house last week. Together they love to play models, dress-up, and anything that involves looking cute and prancing around. Somehow they both managed to find a pair of scissors and they began chopping away. Thankfully Claire’s hair was in a pony tail, as were her bangs so she didn’t get the chance to chop those off but her whole piggy tail was gone. Allie cut half of her braid off and also a few chunks from the side of her hair (about up to her ears). I am not sure who’s was worse but both looked pretty bad. Pictures really don’t do it justice.

Jenni, Allie’s mom, was devastated. Allie has finally grown her hair out and now it was pretty short in several places. I sort of laughed about the whole thing. I wasn’t condoning the behavior but it seems like all of my kids have to try it at least once. Plus, I thought Claire needed a haircut anyway. I didn’t realize just how much of a haircut she would need though. It is pretty short, although fairly cute when I take time to style it. The girls couldn’t understand why we were upset. They thought they looked beautiful. Allie kept saying, “If you want your hair to grow long and pretty, you have to cut it.”

The worst part for me happened after they got their hair cut. The next day Claire took a bath tub and after getting out she cut her hair AGAIN! She trimmed her bangs and cut another piece off the back. This time I didn’t laugh. Seth had told her if she did it again he would be giving her a buzz like our boys. She was hysterical. He plugged in the clippers and sat her down. She was hunched over trying to cover her hair crying. He turned on the clippers and acted as though he was starting to cut it. At that point he stopped. The kids thought it was really mean, but we are hoping she realizes how serious we are this time.

I have hidden every pair of scissors I can find until she gets this out of her system. As a side note, last night we went to Robert’s Crafts for Family Night Craft Night and she was wearing this wig/hair piece band and I saw her in the corner using their scissors giving it a trim. Geesh, what is wrong with that girl?! I guess I should be happy it wasn’t her hair.

Claire getting her haircut

The final product

One of the greatest things about being in a new home is getting ready to decorate for the holidays. I absolutely love Halloween and Christmas and have been looking forward to decorating since back in August. One of the not-so great things about buying a new home is that I no longer have the extra cash to spend on new, fun decorations. So my sweet friend Jenni (whom I totally adore btw), that I met when I moved in back in February, motivated me to do some crafts with her. She is super talented and has so many great ideas…so many that we can’t stop doing them!

We have been having a blast and use all of our spare time to come up with cute holiday ideas. So far I have done four, practically free, crafts to put around my house. We both made a “BOO” rock, which involved finding a large rock and painting it with black chalk paint, a spooky tree (an idea we stole from Pottery Barn and adapted to our liking), a ghost that I found on “Tater Tot and Jello’s” website, and some cute candy jars with candy corns. I like some of the things more than others and I still have a few random ideas floating around my head but I might wait till next year.

I am actually thinking now more about what I can do for Christmas!! I’m excited! Speaking of Halloween, I got my toes painted for the season. They turned out so cute. She can paint anything you want and she is super cheap. You really ought to go have her do them. Go here to see some of her Halloween designs.