Oh the FUN we had on Halloween!

 I'm saddened as this most FUN day of the year is over!!
I've never had SO much fun on Halloween and never have I seen more excitement in my kids than this year.

 Our weekend started off with 

our annual Halloween Concert at BYU-Idaho 

 and they performed music from Indiana Jones. 

Ethan was THRILLED as Indiana Jones has always been a favorite in his life. 

Two years ago he wanted a Fedora for Christmas...that is all he wanted. 

He was ecstatic to be able to go in costume to the concert and he even pulled out his MAPS he had made a few years ago and put them in his satchel. 

It was priceless seeing his excitement and

getting to enjoy Symphony Orchestra music as family. 

The excitement of kids is something we 

ALL should have more of in our lives!

 I love the art that kids make in school.  

Ethan brought home the most ADORABLE skeleton he had made using his name written in cursive...it was SO clever and cute and the face reminded me of one of my favorite Halloween characters..."Jack Skellington"!

Love the teeth he drew on the face.

Halloween day 

was the HAPPIEST day ever!

I LOVE Halloween...

its the ONE day of the year where you can dress UP and be ugly, scary, or crazy and it's okay!!

I had the most excited boys 

and all I heard out of Ethan's mouth all afternoon was 

"I can't wait until Jade gets home so I can do my makeup and hair like "Frankenstein"!!
I thought I was going to go CRAZY as I had two hours of Ethan saying this until Jade walked in the door. 

Such EASY costumes to throw together... 

took old pants and cut them jagged at the bottom,

stitched on patches,  

made vests out of burlap, which was worn over flannel shirts 

(the kids embellished them with FAKE spiders)

cut the fingers off knit gloves

and the make-up was SO much fun to do and here is how it all looked like when we put it together.

 (Tracy painted my eyes with butterflies, SO I tried to dress the part...I can definitely tell I'm "40 something" looking at these photos...my face is not as young, smooth and supple as it used to be)

After having FUN taking photos, we headed off to the house of some of our good friends to enjoy Homemade Chili and  Homemade donuts!
After 12 years of doing this, it has become another yearly tradition that we look forward to!

NOW off to be scared 
at the famous Haunted Mill (here)

Priceless moment #1... how Ethan had to keep looking scary and walking around the house and everywhere we went like a zombie.

Priceless moment #2... Jade did his own makeup and hair and did a pretty awesome and amazing job!! 

Priceless moment #3... how Ethan looks up to Jade SO much and wanted to do his makeup and hair just like his brother

Priceless moment #4... how Ethan had to keep checking his makeup every five minutes to see how he looked and to keep touching it up.

Priceless moment #5... how Ethan introduced himself to others...

"Hi, I'm "Frankie-Stein" and this is "Freaky-Stein"

Priceless moment #6... how both of our kids got scared at the Haunted Mill and were found clenching our hands when they were scared.
Priceless moment #7... that Ethan woke up this morning and said:
"That was the BEST Halloween ever"!

BTW...Jade is already planning out and talking LOTS about  NEXT years costume and makeup and wants to be a ZOMBIE!
(I think it's going to be a LONG year until next years Halloween)

Savoring the sweetness and EXCITEMENT of my sweet little monsters...not wanting to wish one moment of time away as they are growing much faster than I want them to!!

I sure do love my monsters...  

Frankie and Freaky!
Thanks for all of the fun and joy 
you abundantly fill my life with!

A week of fun memories!

"The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."
- John Muir

(jade and ethan fall 2007)

How did it get to be the first day of Autumn?

The summer just flew on by.
I can't believe it's been a month since we sent the kids back to school.

I wish time would slow down just a bit, but it just keeps marching on!

My kids are getting bigger with each season change.

I was looking at photos of them from last Autumn and can't believe how much they've matured and grown up in just a short year's time.

Even though life is busy

we are doing our best to enjoy each day to the fullest...

because life is all about memories...

you can't take any of your "Stuff" with you...
all you take with you is your memories and experiences.

I was SO excited

a few weeks ago as I was shopping when I came across a childhood favorite candy of mine. Our life has been FULL of enjoying ZOTZ almost daily!!

The fizzy, tart treat

has been a hit with my kiddos.

There is nothing that I enjoy more than sharing things with my kids that I enjoyed when I was a young girl.

PONY PARTY!
We dressed in our jeans, shirts and bandannas

and headed over to Mark and Candace's house (Tracy's neice and hubby) and had the BEST time. Here are some photos from their Pony party.

Mark and Candace

have an amazing yard and many OLD buildings and so we took a few photos in front of one of them.

 
The Smith Family

Adorable Ethan

Handsome Jade

Talented Candace

(who took tomato plants and grew them into trees in her greenhouse).

Her gardening skills are amazing!

Birthday girl Alyssa Joelle

Ethan Kip

getting a little crazy on the pony

Candace's amazing talent

created this Carousel Birthday Cake!!

I wish I had a fraction of the talent that she does.

She is someone

I look up to a lot and is the BEST mom to her kids!

Lots of fun!

Cross Country!

It's that time of the year for weekly Cross Country Meets.

I LOVE going and watching Jade Run.

He is definitely not the fastest runner, (in fact, he usually comes in last...due to a health problem he was born with)
but he finishes every single race and
always has the best attitude and I'm proud of him!

If you were to judge his performance based on the energy of his cheering mother as he crossed the finish line, you would think he is coming in first!

I'm SO grateful that he has this opportunity available to him to be able to participate in such an awesome sport!

This was a photo that I took of him running in the Rigby Meet.

They had to run part of the meet in a wheat field.

I love how this turned out!

ABBA-mania!

A few weeks ago I noticed a quarterly flyer that we get of all of the upcoming events to BYU-I and they had tickets for ABBA-mania for $12.00 each.

That is such a great deal as we spent $48.00 for EACH ticket to take Jade to the KILLERS concert!

They sang some of
ABBA's greatest hits!

--Mamma Mia

--Take a Chance

--Does your mother know?

--I had a dream

--Waterloo

--SOS

--I Do, I Do

--Name of the Game

--The winner takes it all

--Gimmie, Gimmie

--Chiquitita

--Super Trooper

--Summer Night City

--Money Money

--Lay all your Love

--Eagle

--Ring Ring

--Honey Honey

--Knowing Me, Knowing You

--Fernando

--Voulez Vous

--Dancing Queen

Tracy's sister Lisa is one of the biggest fans I know of ABBA and so we went with Lisa and her husband Tom and their kids.
Tracy's parents came with us as well.
Since Jade is such a social bug he sat with Tom and Lisa's family and their boy Bryson sat with our family.
Ethan and Bryson had such a great time sitting by each other!
There is nothing more fun for kids than spending time with cousins.

We were definitely

"having the time of our lives"

They put on an amazing concert and I think they sounded better than the original ABBA group. The kids thought it was so cool when they sang "I had a dream" and everyone was flashing around their cell phone lights. It was gorgeous all those lights shining in the darkened room with the only other light being the disco ball spinning around.

Once again HIGH ENERGY
and my kids saw their mom being CRAZY, especially when they sang the last song

"Dancing Queen".

I ran down to the dance floor and danced the entire song!!

I love having events like this to be able to get a little wild and crazy. Since we have to be serious most of the time, it is SO much fun to be able to let your hair down every now and then.

Life is too short to not have FUN!

I'm SO glad our kids

love music as much as we do!!

Saturday after the concert, we turned up the speakers in our great room and listened to ABBA and watched ABBA videos on You-Tube all morning long and had an absolute ball!

What an amazing journey life is!

SO happy to be able to enjoy each and every season of life with my wonderful family.

Looking forward

to embracing the "Crisp" fall air, shorter days and the stunning beauty that Autumn Time brings with the leaves changing colors on the trees and then falling to the ground
and hoping that my cares will drop away from me like the falling leaves of Autumn.

"Are we human...or are we dancer"?

(What ever those lyrics in The Killers song "Human" are supposed to mean?!)

It was another HIGH ENERGY

weekend full of FUN!

However, life is CRAZY right now! I feel like I’m swimming in laundry, overloaded with garden produce since our weekend consisted of being gone from 2:00 to 9:00 Friday afternoon and evening at Jades Cross Country meet....Leaving for Utah at 11:30 on Saturday…..we took Ethan to my parents house, then drove to West Valley City and met up with friends and then attended a concert, got back to my parents house at 1:30 in the morning. Left my parents house at 7:30 Sunday morning, got home just in time to get the car unloaded and showered up and headed to church at 12:00 since I help out in our ward library, I’m the ward chorister and it was our Primary Sacrament meeting program so we couldn't miss church. After church we relaxed as we were sleep deprived and then today it was back to school and work as normal.

With all of that said it was another
AWESOME, FUN and EXCITING weekend!!

First off, it's so funny how many people judge something by the name of it. Tracy had done a Facebook update one day last week stating how excited we were to take Jade to "The Killers" concert. Our Bishop's wife responded "Sounds Awful". It made us chuckle.

Tracy and I really enjoy "The Killers" music, however, we don't know all of their songs really well. Our sweet son Jade has some struggles in life and so he doesn't have a lot of close friends to go and do things with and so we thought it would be SO fun to take Jade to do something that a teenager would enjoy doing.
I'm SO glad we bought tickets to take Jade to this concert. He had SO much fun...It was priceless and I LOVED seeing how excited he got and how he danced and got into the songs that he knew when they played them!
It was one AMAZING night for all of us!!
I love meeting new people and so what a joy it was to finally meet Ann Marie and Chad. We had such a great time and she is SO friendly, nice, honest and SO easy to talk to!!
Chad is awesome as well and what a great couple they are! It felt like I was talking to an "old friend" and I can tell you that Ann Marie is the type of person that cherishes friendships greatly and when you talk to her you feel appreciated, important and cared about!
As you would guess from reading her Blog she is SUCH an extra miler and SO thoughtful! I can't believe how sweet she was to bring me a basket of goodies!
A jar of homemade peach jelly and pickles! YUMMY!
She also had a "Mumkin" and an antique potato masher and iron pan. I LOVED them all and the "Mumkin" has found a spot on my entry shelf and every item will be enjoyed immensely!!

After our meeting and dinner we headed off....
to the concert!

Jade was ONE Excited kid when we hopped out of the car at the "E-Center". He had to stand in front of the large marquee until it said "The Killers", however, the lighting was not right and you can't read the words on the sign.

Jade and I walking up the stairs to go into the "E-Center".
It was SO exciting to see the other marquee saying "The Killers" LIVE in concert tonight September 26, 2009!

(these are NOT the best photos because real cameras were not allowed into the concert, but iPhone photos are better than NO Photos!! )
Here are some photos showing us while we were waiting for the concert to start. As you can see it was a FULL house and lots of teenagers/middle 20's aged kids there. I also saw quite a few parents taking their kids to the concert.

The first opening group was so loud and not enjoyable at all. However, the 2nd group was quite good. They were a Mariachi band and quite talented, however, that wasn't what we came to listen to and we just wished they would get on to the main event!

Despite technical difficulties at the start
of "The Killers" concert, (and it didn't get started until way after 9:30) it was AMAZING!! I was kind of sad thinking it wouldn't be as good as "Depeche Mode", but it was AWESOME!
(although, I can't compare the concerts as that would be like comparing apples and oranges).
Jade saw his mom go a little bit CRAZY when they played
"Somebody told me",
I was dancing and screaming all over the place!! WOO HOO!!
Jade and Tracy and I also went crazy when they played
"Spaceman"... "Read my mind"...
"Human"
Concerts are SO much fun! I pretty much moved my hips and shoulders the whole time dancing to the awesome music! I think one of my favorite parts was when Brandon Flowers sang a little bit of of the song
"I can't help falling in LOVE with you".
(That same song is played at the end of my favorite movie..."Some Kind of Wonderful").

Brandon Flowers is the
ENERGIZER BUNNY!!
He was on the move almost the entire time and he put his ALL into every song he sang. His energy was out of this world! Not once did he even give an inkling to the audience that he was tired.

Amazing CONFETTI!!
This was a wonderful way to end the show (or so we thought it was the end of the show). A huge cannon of confetti exploded and was SO cool to watch as it fell and you could see it with the light show going on stage!

Amazing

Pyrotechnics

And the audience was screaming after they had left the stage hoping that they'd come back and do one more song. They didn't let us down and they came back and did an Encore of three more songs and during the last song they had FIREWORKS on stage!!
It was an incredible sight to be behold!!

I had the time of my life with my hubby and son!!
It was a once in a lifetime experience and worth every penny spent to get to enjoy an evening with Jade and to see him get SO excited and have SUCH a fun time!!

These next photos I found of Brandon Flowers at the concert at the E-Center and thought I would share them. To see all of the photos....click here)