Halloween costumes!

Hey everyone! I felt up to doing a blot post today, so here I go!

Halloween was two days ago and as usual, my kids wanted to go all out for their costumes. I enjoy helping them make those visions a reality, so we thrifted and sewed and crafted and ironed and I think they all turned out great!

Harrison and Jules were both characters from the Netflix movie K-pop Demon Hunters (it sounds weird, but it's actually a great cartoon with a message that is really needed right now).

Harrison was Bobby and Jules was Rumi.

Bobby from the movie:

 

Harrison:

 

Rumi (she's in the middle):

Another view of her hair:

 

Jules:

 

 

Cecily was Starlo from a favorite video game, Undertale Yellow.

Starlo in the game:

 

Cecily:

 

Mira was Lightning McQueen from Disney's Cars.

Lightning:

 The version Mira was going for:

 

Mira:

 

  

 

Em was a character from a video game as well. Tenna from Deltarune.

Tenna from the game:

 

Em:

 

The whole group:

 

It was a busy day. I started out by helping Cecily and Jules get ready for school. Jules' hair takes about an hour to do. And we painted the demon marks on her face. (She was late.) haha

At 3pm, Jules had her school costume parade outside. Then we came home and grabbed Mira and went to downtown Springville where the businesses hand out candy. We saw A LOT of K-pop Demon Hunter characters, including 8+ Rumis of all ages, some of her band members, Mira and Zoey, 2 Jinus, another Bobby (we think), and a 6-eyed bird with the little hat. We got a picture with that one:

Then I dropped everyone off, grabbed dinner from McDonald's (which took almost an hour with driving), and then I dropped Em and Cecily off at friends' houses for parties.

Steve took Jules and Harrison trick-or-treating. Between our neighborhood and downtown, they filled those Halloween bucket things twice. That's so crazy to me. Mira stayed at home and handed out candy with a friend of hers. And we watched some Avatar: The Last Airbender together when trick or treating was over. Mira and I started watching the series together and Jules and Emilia and Cecily have all joined in for a lot of it. Such a great show! It's held up so well over time.

I was thinking about that this morning. Don't all of us want to create something the lasts? Something that will stand the test of time and bring joy to future generations? I do anyway. I wish I could write something like that. Maybe some day (when I've started writing again and) when I've had more practice.

So much as happened over the last year of not writing posts. I think the biggest things have been updating the upstairs of our house and going on two vacations this summer. We completely ripped out our old kitchen and put in new cabinets and countertops. We moved the sink and the dishwasher. We replaced all the floors in the upstairs except the tile in the bathrooms and laundry room.  And since we were ripping out all the flooring, we painted almost every inch of the upstairs so we wouldn't ruin the new floors by dripping paint on them later.

After all the driving and the ripping out of our kitchen, which we did ourselves, I took all the kids to Megan's house for a solid week so we didn't have to live with 7 people and no kitchen for all of the 4 weeks it took to get it completely finished. It was a great reset and great to share the load and spend time with cousins/my sister. I always love visiting Megan.

I feel like the trip and updates need their own posts, so I'll do more posts on those.

Happy Halloween everyone! 

 

 

Another trip

A little over a month later, and we're back at Megan's. My kids didn't get to spend a lot of time playing with cousins while we were here for the reunion and they had 3 days off around the weekend for fall break. So we hopped in the car and crashed at Megan's for the whole weekend.

But I'm jumping ahead. I've been trying and trying and trying to complete the refinishing projects in my garage. But it's just not happening. I keep finding more things wrong, or messing things up, or just taking 5 days off from working. 😛

Cecily finished her soccer season. The team got better as the season went on, so I'd say that's winning (even though they didn't win many actual games). Grandma and Grandpa Watts and Grandpa Frohlich all came to her last game. Then Gma and Gpa Watts went out to dinner with us after. Cecily got to choose where we went, so of course we went to Golden Corral. :D

We've been putting together Halloween costumes. Mira had a choir concert that went quite well. I had a Relief Society activity that was a crochet night (woohoo!). There was a fall carnival at Jules' school that we all enjoyed attending. We won two silent auction baskets that were probably not worth what we paid for them, but it was good to support the school. Everyone had way too many sweets and played silly games and spent an evening outdoors. So I'm glad we went. Harrison had a filling put in. He did so well! They gave him laughing gas and he was so mellow! I asked if parents could get that for regular everyday life. They said no. Steve and I helped clean the temple one night and I went to the temple one Thursday afternoon to do an endowment session. 

I used to be decently good at taking pictures of these things, but I have ceased remembering much of anything, so you'll have to take my word for it. (Irony, I know.)

Last weekend, we took the kids to Jakers Pumpkin Patch in Springville. We used to go back when it was free. Now it's $7/person. Plus we bought snacks. And pumpkins. Phew!

Our favorite part was the 3 foot deep corn pit. It's like playing on the beach, but more comfortable and slightly less messy.

We all came home with corn in our pockets. I was finding them on bathroom floors and in the wash days later. Haha.

Since we had pumpkins to carve, we did that the next day on Sunday. Mira did Sonic. Steve did the Decepticons symbol. Cecily did a bust of Ori from Ori and the Blind Forest.

Emilia did the symbol from her favorite band, Ghost. And Jules, Harrison, and I and Steve carved a regular jack-o-lantern face. Jules was able to a surprising amount of the carving. And they both enjoyed scooping out the pulp and seeds.

On Monday, I made roasted pumpkin seeds and got two full cookie sheets full. I tried some in the air fryer and it seems that they get toastier in the oven. In case you need to know.

Wednesday, we left after Cecily got out of school and drove straight through to Megan's. The trip was great. The kids got along and were easily entertained. We did car games and listened to music. I went to three different stores for our dinner meal, but we all were very happy with our food. We had yummy snacks, and when everyone else fell asleep, I turned on my audiobook and got to enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted "reading." We arrived around midnight and went right to sleep.

It was beautiful, for Wyoming. :)

On Thursday, Megan's kids had parent teacher conferences, so we just stayed in and hung out.

Friday, we decided to go to the indoor pool. Everyone had fun and wore themselves out. We have pictures of these things because Megan was there. Haha.

Saturday, we decided to take an outing to a pumpkin patch. We did the corn maze and played in the corn bins again. They weren't quite as fun as Jakers because they weren't as deep. But everyone still played for over 30 minutes.

Today we went to church together. We'll play more games. We'll eat dinner. And be sad to leave in the morning. We love you Staleys!