Halloween Extravaganza...

Well, this past week has been fun! I love Halloween. I love the fall weather. I love the decorations. I love going to the school parades to see all the cute costumes. I love trick-or-treating in my neighborhood and yes...I love picking through my kids' loot when they come home. I personally have my own "stash" in my night-stand drawer. The biggest stress for me this Halloween was coming up with costumes for Alan and myself. We were invited to a "Murder Mystery Dinner" and Alan was assigned to be a pirate and I was the character "Jean Golddust", the town gold dealer. I cannot believe I was once the lead in the school play. My "Ado Annie" days are definitely over as I have become much more reserved in my old age. It was amazing to see how many people really got into their parts. I was more about the good food and company than trying to solve the murder. I found our costumes from a lady in our neighborhood who has a "costume cellar" full of anything you can imagine. Once I found something to wear, the rest was quite fun. I summoned Amy and Taylor to come and do my hair and make-up. I don't think I have ever had my hair and make-up done so it was a lot of fun and of course, Abby was right there with me, loving every minute of it. A few days prior, I went dressed as a nerd to the Primary Halloween Party hosted by the Young Men and Young Women. Abby was very distraught over the fact that I looked so ugly. She did not like it at all. Deciding on a costume for Abby this year was fairly easy. She only changed her mind once and wanted to be "Brittany" from the Chipettes. She was sure I could just glue brown cottonballs all over her and she would look exactly like her. I quickly talked her back into her Minnie Mouse costume, which she looked adorable in. Connor, thought he looked really cool in his costume as a "burglar" and I have decided..that's all that matters. Personally, I wouldn't have really known what he was but...he was intent on dressing the way HE wanted to so..I put my control-freak tendencies aside. Halloween night was a little bit of a bomb with the rain and all but the kids still had fun. We ended up zipping around on our friends' golf-cart, visiting all the neighborhood attractions. The weekend came to an end with an unexpected delivery of homemade donuts from our friends just minutes ago and my 6am run can't come soon enough as I am feeling a little large right now.

I love General Conference

I look forward to Conference weekend every Spring and every Fall. For so many reasons. Since we have been on the 9a.m. church schedule this year, I have especially enjoyed being able to sleep in and just lounge around all weekend. Saturday worked out perfect because Connor had a football game from 1-2pm. Other than that, we were home the whole day and I was able to watch all of Saturday session and do a TON of ironing. I always look forward to my Saturday night tradition. Get the boys out the door for priesthood session and then I get together with some close friends for pizza at my house. We have been doing this for years. It started out in my little house on Stratford Drive when we all only had a few kids. We currently have 20 kids between the 5 moms. Only 3 of those kids go to priesthood session so yes, that means 17 kids are at my house and it's awesome! I love these gals so much! We have shared so much over the years and I hope it's a tradition we can keep for a long time. I am so proud to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I am always touched when I hear of the new temples being built and how much impact the missionaries are having throughout the world. I love hearing the children sing primary songs in different languages. It's easy to live in my little "bubble" in Salt Lake City and take for granted all that the church offers me here. We are so lucky! I felt like some of my Sunday was spent wondering if my kids were even listening. I spent so much time saying "shh!!" and "quit arguing"..but later at dinner I asked the kids what they learned from conference and Connor piped right up and said "I learned that rules are here to protect us." I looked at Alan and he looked back at me in amazement. Connor continued..."like when that man told the story of the cow that was fenced in but he kept trying to get his head through fence to eat the wheat...and then he ate too much wheat and his stomach blew up..the fence was really just there to help the cow." Well...I guess my efforts to keep him in front of the TV paid off. I loved the talks directed to raising our youth. One stood out to me especially when he said "sometimes we just don't have a good feeling about letting our kids do things and we just need to tell them we love them too much to ignore the feeling." He also quoted someone saying "Parenting is not a popularity contest". Such good reminders to us raising teenagers! It's easy at conference time to listen to the talks and start to come down on ourselves for not doing the things we have been counseled to do. I don't want to fall into that trap. I am simply going to take it as an encouragement to do better...and that I plan to do!