Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everybody! Jeremy was so excited to be able to wear his costume to pre-school this morning. His first day was yesterday, and he goes every morning for about two and a half hours, so it's a nice break for his mom! There's a lot of kids in our ward in his class, so it's a great situation for him, and he's had a lot of fun. Tonight we're going to a trunk or treat in our church parking lot, which is actually kind of a bummer, as I was looking forward to taking my kids door to door this year. I think we'll probably see everyone we can at the trunk or treat, and then take or kids door to door to the people that didn't come out to the church. Anyway, I'll post again later when I have a picture of all of us in our costumes, I just wanted to post a picture of Jeremy before he left for school this morning!

Autumn Cleaning?

Well, over the weekend, I decided to clean out the photo file on my computer. I have discovered that somehow there have been a lot of duplicate pictures saved into my file, and when my slide show comes on for my screen saver, the pictures that I have duplicates of show far more frequently than my other pictures. Petty, I know, but these are the things that I spend my time being concerned about. Anyway, on Saturday night I decided that I was going to clean out this file, and delete all of the extra photos. Ammon showed me how to open up the file and arrange the photo images by name, which would show me all of the duplicate photos side by side, making it easier for me to simply delete one of each. Simple, right? Well, somehow, in the midst of all this deleting, I managed to delete nearly every photo that I have collected over the last year. All of those cute memories....down the tube. I was devastated. After whimpering at my dear, darling husband for a few minutes, he did restore all of the photo files from the recycle bin back to the picture file. The only problem with that, is that I have NEVER emptied the recycle bin in the entire time we have owned this computer. Every photo that has ever been deleted has gone into that bin, and when he did that, it went back into my picture file. So the whole problem I was trying to fix in the first place? Yeah, totally multiplied. Tons more duplicates, and lots of pictures that I didn't want at all. Oh well, at some point I will tackle the task of cleaning it out yet again, but hopefully this time I will successfully only delete some of the photos, not all of them! In the meantime, I'm going to try not to pay too much attention to the slide show on my computer, lest I be irritated at the unwanted pictures that are going to be flashing on my screen. It's times like this that I think it would be a lot easier not to be neurotic...

Daylight Savings Time

So, I completely forgot about daylight savings time. I mean, I didn't actually forget about it, it's on the news, and it had been mentioned a couple of times during the week, but when it came right down to it, last night, during those crucial bedtime hours, I forgot about daylight savings time. This morning, my children woke up a little bit early, about 6:30, which is earlier than I like to get up, but hey, it's better than 6:00, right? We spent about ten or fifteen minutes trying to get Kadon to go back to sleep so that he wouldn't be cranky today at church, but it wasn't immediately effective, so we let him get up. When Jeremy got up, a few minutes later, I was still pretty unconcerned. I came out in the living room, a little bleary-eyed since Ammon and I had stayed up late last night watching a movie, and turned on a movie for the kids. I went potty, grabbed my bathrobe, and turned on the computer to check my e-mail, and glanced down at the taskbar where the clock on my computer is. 6:06?!?!?!? I was aghast. I admit, some unkind, not sabbath-appropriate words ran through my head. I can't believe we forgot about daylight savings time, and my kids got up at 5:30 in the morning. I don't know how we're going to make it through this day. Of course, it's also a Sunday and we have afternoon church, which means that neither one of them will get a decent nap unless Ammon stays home with them during church today. Ah, the cost of forgetfulness. Hopefully we will survive this day, and get back on our sleep/wake schedule by tomorrow!

Story Time

This morning, while I was having my usual quality time with the computer, the children were entertaining themselves by reading books. I don't know how it happened, but Kadon somehow convinced Jeremy to read books to him. I quickly got out my camera, and switched the function to video, and we have this wonderful clip to share with you guys! My kids are really adorable, and when Jeremy is of a mind, he can be really great with his brother. We don't have much going on today, other than FINALLY getting our couch back from the repair shop, and I'm planning to attend the temple with a relief society group tomorrow, but other than that it should be a relaxing weekend for us. Hope the weekend treats everybody else as nicely! Love to all!

Extremely Finished

Thought you'd like to see the picture of the finished home! Remember to tune in on November 26th!

Bridgerland Band Invitational

On Saturday evening, Jeremy and I attended the Bridgerland Band Invitational, which was held at the spectrum on USU campus. My alma mater, Sky View, was performing, and is being headed this year by an old friend of mine, so I wanted to take the change to see them in action. After much discussion, Ammon and I decided that it wasn't a good idea to have Kadon out in the cold air, hence Jeremy and I attending the competition on our own. We had a great time at the show, we watched about five bands perform, and then stayed for the award ceremony afterwards. Unfortunately Sky View didn't win, but they did take top honors in the music category, and took second overall. I was glad that we had not decided to bring Kadon, by the time Jeremy and I left just after seven o'clock, we were snuggled together and sharing the three blankets that I had brought. We were also wearing our winter coats, hats, and gloves. It definitely would have been too much for my youngest sons poor asthma, ridden lungs! Also, it was really great to enjoy some special time alone with my eldest, who has now gone to several of these events with me. He's become quite a band buddy, and I hope to keep the tradition going!

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Click on the white space above to view the video!

The hit ABC show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which I'm sure many of you have seen, hit our quiet little 'burgh this week. We heard whispers several weeks ago that the show had narrowed it down to five families in the northern Utah region, and then about three weeks ago, it was reported more seriously that it would be a family in Cache Valley. Last Sunday the design team showed up at the home of a wonderful Tongan family in our community. There are nine children in the family, and the husband died about two years from a heart attack. They run a catering business, and sponser a Luau every year at the aquatic center, which we have been lucky enough to attend in the past. It's a lot of fun, and they are a really great family. They were sent on a fabulous vacation, a cruise I'm told, while the team demolished their home and built them a 5700 square foot home in the space of six days. We were finally able to make it to the site as spectators on Saturday morning, and it was mayhem. They had the entire street cordoned off for several blocks, and both the police force and the fire department have been working extra shifts for the last week to cover security, along with the security the show brings along for the celebrities. They cordoned off the sidewalk across the street and allowed the public to line up there as spectators, and if you were willing to brave the cold, you could stand and watch the various points of demolition and then rebuilding. By the time we got there on Saturday they had the house mainly done, including the landscaping. In fact, they were doing a lot of preperation for the family's return this afternoon. We stood by while the fire department took one of their hoses and cleaned off the streets, then they used a vacuum truck to suck up the debris. Not a twig or spec or dirt would be found when the family returned home today! We were lucky enough to see one of the design team, and he even came over to address the crowd, standing very close to where I was. I was able to capture his speech to us with the video function on my camera, and I posted it on here for your enjoyment! For some reason the video is posted sideways on the site I used, but you get the general idea anyway. Anyway, having the crew here and the hub-bub was great, but having your town taken over for a whole week is also very inconvenient! We ended up avoiding town a lot this week, as it was easier to stay out of the way of everything! The episode featuring the family in our town should be airing on November 26th, which is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so try and catch it, and maybe you can even catch a glimpse of us in the crowds! Hope you all had a great week!

Keeping Busy

Well, time marches on, as always. We've been keeping busy here with the usual. We're looking forward to Jeremy starting pre-school in about a week and a half. The high school that we live near is running a three week pre-school program, and we were able to enroll Jeremy. It goes for about 2 1/2 hours every morning during the week, and they have a lot of activities planned for the kids. It should be a great experience both for the children and for the high school kids that are teaching it, so we're excited for it. We also were able to pick up a webcam last night after Ammon got off work, so now we are able to talk to Mary and Russ in Lithuania much more easily, which is always great! Anyway, we've got lots going on today, and now the kids are screaming for breakfast, so I'm going to cut this short today, but I wanted to at least pop in and let y'all know what was going on in our corner of the world! Hope all is well with the rest of you!

Playgroup Fun

I'm going to miss our weekly playgroup when it finally gets too cold to have it anymore! This last week it was almost too chilly to sit out there for an hour. It was a good thing that we bundled all the children up, but the poor mothers, sitting on the concrete basketball court chatting were all shivering! I guess next week we'll learn our lesson, and be sure to bundle up the mothers as well! This week we tried a new playground, it's a neighborhood playground, it sits behind a bunch of houses on a street in our neighborhood. It's much closer than the playground that we've been going to all summer, but there aren't any trees to speak of, and no picnic tables either, so during the hottest days of the summer the equipment is scorching, and those poor mothers that I spoke of earlier didn't have any shade to sit in while they gossiped. Now that it is a little (a lot!) cooler, this park is much nicer! Anyway, Kadon, our little climber extraordinaire, discovered the ladder up to this slide, and while I didn't think he would be brave enough to venture to the top, he quickly proved me wrong. He made my heart stop every time he started to climb up there. The rungs of the ladder were somewhat slippery, as it was still morning while we were there and there had been a frost the night before. I was constantly afraid that he was going to slip and split open his head. He did, however, have a fabulous time going down the highest slide he's ever been on. I let him go down it about four times before I told him to stay away. He was pretty good about staying on more appropriate playground equipment after that, and it wasn't long before the half-frozen mothers pried themselves off the ground to make the trek home.

Seriously?!

Well, now I know that it's just the four of us, I guess we can get really intimate on here! C'mon, I know there are more of you out here than that! I said this was for my own overdeveloped sense of ego! I like seeing these things in print, right? Alright, today we are planning to spend some time with some friends just hanging out and playing games together and then tonight we are getting together with my parents to have dinner. I'm going to mope about how unpopular my blog is. If any of you wayward readers want to redeem yourselves, you could still leave a comment on this post.....otherwise, I might be bitter about it for a whole five minutes or something!

New Template

Well, I made the switch. Cindy was bragging all about the new blogger in beta, and all the great new features, so this afternoon I got sucked in and found myself redesigning my entire blog. I hope everyone enjoys the new look, I think it's a lot of fun and I enjoyed designing it. I'm still figuring out how to navigate around the new features, so you'll have to be patient with me for a while, but it looks like you guys have some new features to explore too, so feel free to try out my links and let me know how they work! Also, I have been wondering lately how many of you are actually still reading this blog, so if you could leave a quick comment and let me know, I would appreciate it. You should be able to leave an anonymous comment if you don't have a username, that way you don't have to sign in and go to all of that trouble. You simply click on the comment link at the bottom of this post, and it should take you to a window with a box where you can type in whatever you want. Just let me know who you are and wether you're enjoying this madness at all, I just want to know who my audience for my own overdeveloped sense of ego. Anyway, my boys are tearing my house apart, so I should get going. Hope to hear from all of you readers out there!

Cutie!

Dang, my kids are cute. Just had to share that with y'all. Can't remember if I posted any of these pics already or not, but when Mary and Russ were here, Jeremy and Kadon discovered Mary's curlers and wanted to try them out. They were pretty cute about the whole thing, really. Happy monday everybody, we're spending the day doing laundry and cleaning the house, then going mini golfing tonight at a haunted golf course (spooky, right?!). We're hoping the weather holds out so that we can really enjoy it, it's been raining a lot lately.

Popcorn and Ice Cream

I took this picture when we had popcorn and ice cream last week. After everybody else had finished, Ammon took Jeremy back to his bedroom to play, and I got up to clean the kitchen, Kadon decided that there was far too much popcorn still to be eaten on the dining room table. He took it upon himself to crawl on top of the table and dive right in. He quickly took to dropping the kernels of popcorn into the green glass in front of him, then 'drinking' the popcorn out of the glass. I know I should have gotten him off of the table quickly, because he's not allowed up there, but it was so cute that I couldn't resist taking a few pictures first. Enjoy your Sunday, everybody!

Up and Running

Thank goodness for informed salesman. When I called to shut off our Comcast internet service on Thursday night, in order to set up our installation for Qwest on Friday, the gentleman on the other end of the phone line informed me that I was probably unaware that I was signing myself on for a two-year contract with Qwest. The penalty for early withdrawal from this contract was a hefty $200 penalty, he so helpfully informed me. I was skeptical, to say the least, as Comcast obviously wanted to keep me from switching to their competitor. I immediately went to the Qwest website, where they offer a online chat feature with representatives, where I was able to clarify that they do indeed sign unsuspecting customers on for a two year contract, the penalty for withdrawing from is indeed the hefty fee. I immediately cancelled my order, and have decided to stick with Comcast for the long term. Now that our promotional period is over, the price more than doubled, but at least we're not going to get hit with hundreds of dollars worth of fees if we decide to change our service. Ah, the price of being connected.

Internet Shut-off

Wanted to write a quick note to let you all know that we're switching out internet service from cable to DSL in order to get a better deal and save a little bit of money. The cable is being shut off tonight, and the DSL should be up and running by tomorrow night, but just in case something goes wrong, I just wanted to let you all know that I might be out of touch for a while and that I haven't forgotten about all of you. I will post when everything is up and running again!!

Ammon's Pumpkin

This is a picture of Ammon's pumpkin. He is very proud of his craftiness, and to be totally honest, so am I. Anyway, thought you'd all enjoy taking a peek at his wonderful skills! I'm glad that we're going to be able to enjoy having this around around apartment for the next few weeks. It's kind of funny, everyone else has their pumpkins outside our door, but Ammon insisted that his pumpkin go on top of the bookcase. I guess he's allowed to fel a little protective, since he did spend several hours working on it.

Pumpkin Painting

This weekend, after the hectic schedules we have all kept for the last month, we decided we owed ourselves a little hibernation. So, on Friday afternoon after Ammon got home from work, we fixed ourselves some leftovers for dinner, then we settled down afterwards for our annual pumpkin painting festivities. Last year Kadon was too young to participate, but this year he had a great time eating my non-toxic craft paint. He kept putting his fingers in the paint and then sticking his fingers in his mouth, and then making this adorable face and saying 'yucky'. Very cute. Hence, his pumpkin didn't end up being very painted, and he ended up in the bath very first. Jeremy, on the other hand, followed true to form and spent the evening asking for every color in my arsenal, and then mixing them together on his plate before applying them to his pumpkin in kind of a brownish/blackish mess. He also had a great time, and only smeared a little bit of paint on the chair he was sitting in. Ammon took his pumpkin very seriously, and drew a great design of an eagle clutching an American flag on the side. He even painted it all by himself, which I was very impressed with. All in all, the painting took us several hours, but it was great to spend the time together as a family. We then spent the rest of the weekend holed up in our apartment watching conference and sitting around in our pajamas. When we emerged on Monday morning we all felt so refreshed that we might make it through this week after all!

Tickers

Thought I'd post to explain the tickers I've added at the top of my page. My friend Emily introduced me to them, and I thought they were a lot of fun. You can set them up to do any number of things, I think once it gets closer to the holidays I'll set one up to do a countdown for christmas, you can count them down for a pregnancy, you can use tickers to help you keep track of when you're ovulating if you're trying to conceive, you can use them to count down a major event like a vacation or the number of pounds you've lost (hey, maybe I should put one of those up!) Anyway, they're a lot of fun, so they're up for now, but I might get tired of them and switch them around or take them down altogether after a while. Hope everyone enjoyed conference this weekend!