Stuff

I don't really see any sort of theme with these pictures, so you'll just have to enjoy them

End of season footwear

Last game attire

It was SO COLD! 

(obviously)

"The Box of Awesomeness"

as Elle dubbed it.

Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot chocolate

OH YA!

It wasn't actually very good.

I don't recommend it.  

A friend assured me that it wasn't nearly as gross as the usual Starbuck's hot chocolate and claimed it was quite good, but 

WRONG!

 And now me:

Chris bought this cowl neck shirt for me last year and since it is chilly, I pulled it out to wear again this year.  

It looked stranger than I remembered, but I know Chris likes to buy me trendy and sometimes kind-of-funky things.

It felt kind of strange wearing it too, but I couldn't figure out why. 

I checked to make sure the tag was in back, but it kept coming around to the side of the neck. (Very strange)

I wore it all day anyway.

THEN

The other day, I was going to wear again.

Luckily, Elle was home that day.  I had it on the bed, ready to wear after the shower when Elle came over and enlightened me:

"Mom, it's upside down."

Oh.

That would explain it.

"When you pick it up, the arms aren't supposed to hang unnaturally like that"

Ooooh!

Yes.

*Ahem*

This is how it's supposed to look!

(duh)

Elleisms

Sometimes school backfires. 

In health, they did a unit on minimum wage and Elle and her “husband” and “child” had to figure out how to live while only making minimum wage.  They didn’t have a car either.  It was great for putting things in perspective.  Note the thankful feather:

(I am very grateful for that too!)

 They are also being subjected to the sensationalized  documentary “Super Size Me.”  She’s taken this information to heart as well.

She and I were out shopping the other day and I picked up some toffee chips to make some yummy cookies.  Elle perked up with “I’m so glad we don’t make minimum wage so we can buy frivolous things like toffee chips!” 

Um.  Ya.  Me too. *slightly guilty*

Then we got a bag of those dried mangos at Costco--ya know, the ones that we pretend are all healthy, but we know they’re actually just candy.  I was snacking on a big handful when Elle informed me “It says a serving size is 6 pieces.”  

Oh.Ya. I am so glad you told me that. 

*more guilt*

But I heartily agree with this particular thankful feather:

I must say that this year's humanities teacher is a million times better than last year's. Her homework load is practically non-existent! LOVE her!

Elle thought MY thankful feather was totally random until I explained what happened at the orthodontist while she was getting her braces tightened. 

The orthodontist office is a big room with a row of dentist chairs. The kids sit in the chairs and the adults sit on chairs near their feet.  A couple chairs down we (the entire room of patients, parents, and assistance ) hear:

MOM:Is that a NOSE ring?!!

GIRL: No-oh

MOM: Yes it is!!

GIRL: Mom, no! It's not!

MOM: I can SEE up your nose from here!  It IS a nose ring!!!! Oh, you are in SO much trouble *exasperated growl*

GIRL: Mah-ahm! No!

MOM(to the assistant): I thought I was a good mom, but I just can't get it right. 

DOCTOR(comes over): Well, how are things looking today?

MOM: I'm still in shock over what I just saw!

DOCTOR(totally confused): um, is there something wrong with her mouth?

MOM: *unintelligible mumble*

They leave and the rest of us are giving each other "oh-my!" Looks. 

I look at my sweet Elle and think, I'm so thankful-

'Cause I forgot to mention that the girl's hair was green. And I don't think it was a case of "the peddler positively assured me it would be a beautiful raven black"

*sigh* I am SO glad I have parenting 101. At least for now!

Except for Elle's drinking problem-

Whenever Elle has the hiccups I tease her by saying she needs to stop drinking liquor.  She then giggles and writhes which I say proves the fact that she’s drunk.  I had the hiccups the other night and she said “You must have found my secret stash of whisky!” 

Hee. Hee. She cracks me up!

I Love to See the Temple

On Saturday, we took Elle to the temple for the first time to do baptisms:

It was great!  She did 4 family names plus 5 from the temple.

They let me do 10 names as well.  Chris baptized us and helped with the confirmations.

It's always nice to get a good dose of the spirit to help fill our cups.

 And here is our annual Thankful turkey:

Happy Halloween!

For our ward Halloween party, Chris and I volunteered to run a "booth."

We (I) decided to do Pin-the-spider-on-the-web.  I figured that it'd be good for a wide range of ages.  For the little ones they just walked up and put the spider on.  The older kids, we blindfolded.  It went pretty well.

This was my favorite.  He tried several times for the dead center.  In this pic., in case you can't tell, he's winding up for the kill.

No.  He didn't make it.

And here is the man behind it all.  He did a killer job of tying the bandanna on little people, handing them the spider and leading them toward the web.  Since he doesn't like to dress up, I made his wear this shirt.

And, WHAT is THAT?  Could it be?  Is that the Three Wolf Moon shirt?!

In case you are not familiar with this amazing piece of fabric, you can read the "Most Helpful"review here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2XKMDXZHQ26YX/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2XKMDXZHQ26YX

 I didn't bother trying to make Chris wear a costume, but I thought he wouldn't mind wearing the coolest shirt ever.

Yes, of course Chris made the spiders and web.

And here is our lovely Dorothy.

And her little dog too!

I dressed up too!  My hat fell off right after I struck this pose, but the important thing is that you can see my droopy sleeves and wicked green socks!

I was planning to let Elle paint my face green, but then the Primary presidency called and asked if I could stop by the store to get some more bowls for the chili.

I decided NOT to go with the paint. Plus, Elle thought they wouldn't let us in the store.

To make up for my lack of green face, you get to see this creepy picture-gone-wrong!

And here Elle is on the Big Night with her pals

She had a brilliant idea of making ghosts out of the cheap dumb-dumbs we bought.

It totally worked!  Even the teenagers took them!  We heard one group of girls inspect them right after the left the porch

"Oh. It's just a dumb-dumb." :(

Chris decided that Halloween night was the perfect time to make his own ramen noodles.

It turned out great!

Yum!

Chris's ideas

Chris has had a couple of great ideas lately

(Which will come as no great surprise)

I bought way too many peanuts for the baseball baby shower, so Chris thought of a great idea:

Peanut butter!

He said that while he was on his mission he tried blending peanuts to make peanut butter, but it didn't ever work.

He put a bunch of ours in the food processor and voilà!

It tastes pretty good!

Elle actually hates regular peanut butter, so I buy her fresh-ground stuff in the bulk section.

Now I don't have to buy any for a looooong time!

Great idea #2

Actually, it's a more of a story, really.

(no, that's not Elle, it's one of her teammates just for reference)

Last weekend, Elle's soccer team (in the red) played the team in the maroon (or purple or grape)

I think everyone on our team had both parents there watching.  There were even some grandparents and siblings.

When I looked across at the other team's spectators, there were only four people not including the coach!

Chris told me why:

(Here is where the great 'idea' comes in.  All his answers will be in red)

They are all orphans.

The spectators are actually local church members who signed up to come support them.

I heard one of the spectators cheer by one of the girls by name.

That's because the church members were given a list of names.

The team was also a lot smaller in stature.

That's because they are underfed at this particular orphanage.

Some girls were much smaller than others

That's because they came to the orphanage later in life and hadn't benefited from the nourishing food of the orphanage as long.

The other team used their own jargon when talking to each other about defending the other team, passing the ball, etc.

This is common when girls are shut up in a tight space for long periods of time

Eventually, more people came to cheer on the other team

The spectators called other members of their church to come help cheer.

When Elle's team did the cheer for the other team at the end of the game, Chris quietly said what they really meant to say.

Goooooo Orphans!

Maybe you had to be there . . .

Family Home Evening

For FHE we did our annual pumpkin carving

Can guess who's is who's?

 Just in case you didn't guess, here's the big reveal:

Spider Web

Adventure Time-esk

Mine is supposed to be a vampire.

Elle gave me the tip on how to put the teeth in.

She saw the idea the other day when she and her friend were browsing Pinterest on the bus!

Kids today!

Baby shower #2 It's a Boy!

I wanted to throw a shower for my friend (the one in the black shirt, obviously), but she said our other friend (the one in the red sweater) was already thinking about it 

So, she and I brought our brains together to plan!

Thankfully, she knows more about showers than I do.  We looked on some websites and decided on the theme of Baseball. (She said we needed a theme which is how I knew the girl shower needed a theme)

Chris thought this was the strangest thing ever.  "It's a baby shower. Why are you doing a baseball party?"

I was all excited about the theme, but he made me doubt myself.

I talked to the mother-to-be at the girl shower I gave a couple weeks ago and told her, kind of apologetically, that we were going to do a baseball theme for her shower.

"What?!  

I LOVE baseball!  Did someone tell you that?  My parents even turned our back yard into a baseball field!  My whole family is passionate about baseball!  That is so cool that you chose a baseball theme!  Oh my gosh!"

Ha!

Vindicated

Since we had a theme, it was easy to think of food:

Homemade mini corn dogs. 

I made them myself! (you can probably tell)

I watched a few how-to's on Youtube.

This was my absolute favorite video.  I thought it was so funny I even had Chris watch it later. 

(she's kind of raw so beware if you watch it)

Chris drew baseball lines on these styrofoam balls and I stuck the corn dogs in them 

 I was pretty excited that my cupcakes turned out nice and poofy!

I turned them into baseballs, and (the green stuff is supposed to be) grass

Chris made this "Concessions" sign

I found a little popcorn box template online so I could shrink it and put peanuts in, but the colors were off so I asked Chris why.

Boy oh Boy.

I had no idea what I started!

He somehow put the template into one of his professional software programs then changed the colors, the construction (so it was one whole piece to assemble instead of the original two), and made bigger tabs so it would be easier to fold! 

Then, he downloaded a bunch fonts until he found one he liked for the "It's a Boy!"

I did all the folding and glueing, so I felt like I helped a little.

Then, thanks to Amazon, I bought some Cracker Jacks.

(Do you notice the theme here?  Peanuts and Cracker Jacks. . .)

My co-hostess printed out labels for the water bottles

(Which we conveniently found online)

She also made baseball decorations by sewing string onto these balls

AND  

She and her sister made cotton candy!

She had the brilliant idea of having a baseball as our "guest book"

She also made this banner out of baseball cards

(sorry it's so very fuzzy)

And I forgot to take a picture of the other banner that said

"Slugger"

It was cute too.  

TA DA!

Now I just need to finish preparations for the fondu birthday party I'm hosting tomorrow!

:)