Halloween `09

OK, so this really isn't a Halloween shot, but it was funny nonetheless. I came home from water aerobics one night to see this in my hallway. Randy said she never heard her, I had a good laugh. -K- so onto the Halloween festivities. I kinda enjoyed having Halloween on a Saturday this year. It meant that that day was not totally rushed by everything else with school and stuff. However, it meant like 3 days of getting candy instead of like 1 or 2. It was a gorgeous day, like upper 50's-low 60's and we just had a good day all around. McKenzie was a flower fairy. . .

Morgan was a kitty. . .

Malia was a little German girl/Heidi/Gretel (take your pick), but from the looks of this picture apparently I should have made her a pirate. Oh well, can't win them all. This dress is really from Austria. My mom went when she was in college and bought a few keepsakes. None of my kids have worn it yet, and I really wanted to make sure we used it at least once. It was always hiding in some random box instead of with the Halloween things. But I got `er done this year.

Micah was a cowboy, courtesy of my friend/neighbor Michelle who seems to just have everything I need. She's awesome. She had the chaps, vest, boots and bandanna, isn't he handsome. I was in charge of Micah's party this year at school and she had a great cake walk game (even had the music for it) and let me borrow it. It was one less thing for me to have to worry about and I am so grateful to her.

Morgan's friends decided to get into the kitty act and wanted to be one also. There were 3 girls in her class that were black cats. This was just 2 of them.

We saw this in a magazine this year. You take cardboard and cut out shape and put tissue paper in the cutouts. When your lights are on in the house it makes it light up like a candle. It was such a cute idea we tried it out this year. I did however hate not having sunlight in my living room during the day, I'm a sun person and love it coming through my windows. we might just do the upstairs windows next year, I don't mind if my bedroom has no light for a few weeks.

And of course we had a little bit of Pumpkin Bob this year. The kids aren't huge fans of it, just cuz I make them eat a little pumpkin too, but it's really not that bad. Pretty much meat and rice. I just love making it for Halloween, it's fun and different.

This is before I scraped the pumpkin into the mix.

And last but not least, I needed to post a pic of Bacon's hair. My friend Buffy has been cutting her hair since she got home from her mission. This time she wanted to put some color in it just for some more fun. I think it turned out great. She says now when she faux hawks it one side is brown and the other is blonde. That's Megan for ya.

Overall Halloween this year was fun. No major injuries or catastrophes, and the kids made out pretty well on their candy too. I love Halloween, it's one of my favorite holiday's. My grandma was a big Halloween nut, I think a little bit of her rubbed off on me, but that's ok, she was a great woman. Her favorite saying was always "Nothing for kids, everything for adults." She was a hoot.

Homecoming 2009

Here's Bacon's electrifying pumpin. She had a lot of fun carving. She took it home and took a pic for me. But that's not the reason for this post. It was a really sad time for the Tucker family last week. Randy's Aunt Suzie who has been battling her health for the last year or so past away last week. It has been hard on the whole family, she is such a sweet, fun, loving person and her family is really missing her. Since there is so much family around us, there were quite a few that were going to go up to Oregon for the funeral, and so Randy was able to go and be there with his fam. It was really important for him to go. I had an opportunity to go too but my hip was really hurting during that time and decided it was in my best interest to not go since it was going to be a crazy fast trip. So I hung out with the kids and Bacon. We went to the BYU homecoming parade, I would have never gone by myself with the kids, and had a lot of fun watching and hearing everything. Bacon and I trying to get a shot of ourselves. We had to take a few. I couldn't just smile for her, so mean am I. Here is a shot before the parade of all of the beautiful colors and the Y. Isn't it awesome, I love fall, have I said that yet? (lol)

It was really cold so we all bundled up beforehand. Micah got a little warm and took his hat off and this is the result (not the leaf the hair).

I really hope these two can stay friends. Sister's are the best.

Bacon is a good sport. She really helps me out a lot, I hope she knows how much we love her.

Cosmo and his pose' during the parade.

It was a good parade, a lot longer than what I was expecting. We sat in a really bad spot. Everytime there was a marching band or some dancing group (except 1) stopped playing/dancing seriously right before they got to us. However, we did have the cannon shoot off right in front of us. Call me crazy but I would rather have the bands playing. Overall it was fun for the kid and we made it through in one piece.

The Adventures of Pumpkin Ralph

Last year I got a funny email with the pumpkin that was carved to look like it was puking, and so now that is our thing (at least for now till we see something even funnier). I had the privilege of carving Ralph this year and making him puke his guts out. Yummmmm, doesn't he look delicious, lol. The kids really got into carving this year. Malia loved sticking her hand into the mess and help Bacon with her pumpkin.

She loved it so much that she would squish down the goop to make room for more. When the pumpkin was completely cleaned out, Bacon walked away for a sec to get something and Malia quickly started putting the goo back in so she could pull it back out. Too Funny.

Morgie enjoyed it too. She kinda has a psycho face here, should I be worried?

Mac kept trying to get into everyone else's pumpkins to "help" `em clean them out.

Everyone loved it except Micah. He's not too keen on getting dirty (what's wrong I ask)? We had to pose him for this shot just so how would be involved. Mind you this pumpkin is completely cleaned out already, so there was no goo touching here. He did however help Randy come up with the vampire pumpkin that we have.

Here are the finished products. Pumpkin Ralph spewing his guts on top, Morgan's stitches and scars pumpkin and Micah's "I don't want to touch the goo" vampire pumpkin.

Oh and BTW, we got SNOW today. It didn't really stick but it still snowed. There is a snow (if you squint your eyes just right) on the leaves below. . .

I actually got a shot of it in the the back yard pretty good too.

Hopefully we will have nice weather for Halloween this year, like we did last year. Not holding my breath but will be crossing my fingers.

I love Fall!!!!

It's UEA (or Fall break) again. Since we went hiking up to the "Y" last year, we wanted to try another trail this year. My friend Michelle and I heard about this one trail called Big Springs that was "suppose" to be pretty flat and level enough to even take a jogging stroller on. The fall colors are really in full bloom so it would also be very beautiful. So we decided hey, why not, our kids could handle it (especially since we took them on a really hard one last year and they made it) and we could even bring our stroller for those in need. We chose this day becaus the weather was suppose to be fantastic. So Michelle and her kids, Jess and her kids, us and aunt Bacon headed up the fun trail. Here are the kiddos before the trek. This is one of the shots we came upon. It was breathtaking as we came into the clearing.

Even better up close.

We found a teeter-totter along the way.

Most of the time we walked along a creek, I love the sound of water running.

One of the signs we came across, just so we wouldn't get lost.

This was during our break Micah was just getting done freaking out about a bug that was flying around his head.

Us ladies who were brave enough to take 11 kids hiking. Randy looked like a Polygamist with all of us ladies walking with him.

Some of the girls enjoying their snacks.

See Randy really was there. He carried Malia almost the whole way. She wanted to be out walking a lot of the time, but it made us go that much slower. We had to bribe her with snacks and rocks for her to hold.

At the top at "Big Springs," (which really wasn't' that big) the kids splashed a little in the freezing cold creek. Malia especially loved it.

Me and the Baconator enjoying the rest. FYI you can see her arm in my sunglasses.

Look how blue the sky is. It was just amazing to be up there. There were just so many vibrant colors. I loved it.

Here's Big Springs (it looked about the same size as the rest of the creek we walked by).

Oh and my favorite part, this is part of the trail that was suppose to be "flat." This wasn't even the worst of it. There were times that it was pretty steep, oh and the trail was uphill the whole way. Most of it wasn't too steep but there were times the kids thought they weren't going to make it.

Overall, it was a really nice trail, not flat or really stroller worthy (unless you stayed on the dirt road the whole time), but worth it. We had minimal whining, the kids seemed to enjoy it, and we all made it in one piece. I have more pictures that I may post later, but for now, adieu

Friday night is pizza night

We have a tradition where we make pizza every Friday night. It's helping me get over my fear of using yeast. In the past every time I would try to make anything that resembled or had to do with bread or dough, I would totally botch it up and give up. So I am slowly but surely getting better at it, someday I may actually make a loaf of bread that tastes good. Anyway, back to pizza. We always make 2 pies and we always cook them at the same time. Usually the one on top stays a little doughier (that's a word I swear), so we have been moving it down after the other one comes out for a few more minutes. Apparently there was an air bubble in this one that I did not get out while rolling it and this is what happened when we went to take it out. . . WE HAVE AN OVEN-EATING PIZZA. . . RUN FOR YOU LIVES!!!!!! lol
We had a good laugh, slowly pried the pizza off and enjoyed. A good laugh for all that day.

Fall Soccer

Well the craziness of my life has now been lifted a little. Soccer is officially over (at least till the spring). The kids had a lot of fun, even if all they do is play bumble ball. Randy coached Micah's team, the Green Goblin's (I thought boogers were more fitting, but of well). They were really cute to watch out there, not really doing anything but run around, unless of course you are mad and think that it is much more fun to sit on the cold ground pouting and crying. This was after he didn't get to kick off the ball, poor Micah (sarcasm intended).

But when he did get the ball he had a great time. Randy said that every time he would get it and start running he would make this nervous laugh/giggle cuz he knew there were people behind him trying to get it away from him. Morgan also played. Her team was the Superstars, and they sure were. They were all over the ball like fly on poo, gross I know but you get the idea. This is my attempt on getting a pic of her shooting a goal, I swear I missed everyone. Here is the ball she kicked in, but she is not in the shot and her good friend Kylie (who rocks btw) moved right in front of me just as I took the shot, too funny.

At the beginning Morgan wasn't quite sure what to do, I told her to run to the person with the ball and get in front of the to try and stop them. Since she is pretty fast, she can actually do that, however, getting in front of them was not always on her mind, she was more, let's run right next to them and then in front of them at the goal. I think full back or goalie is in her future. It did click later in the season to try and make goals though, and she sure helped her team a time or two.

Anyway, even though I love soccer, I am not the best soccer mom. It's really hard to watch them play and referee Malia and who ever is not playing. Maybe by spring I'll get some better shot. Good job Morna and Minah (Malia's version of their name), you guys did awesome this year.

McKenzie's 9!!!!!

Someone said on my Facebook account that next year that it'll be double digits, ahhhh that's sooo wrong. There is no way that she is already 9. What has seriously happened to the last 9 years. Time really does speed up as you get older. I guess it's time to get use to it and deal with it. So here she is this morning being all cute with her lil sis. These two have their moments, but I'm sure they stay close and can really have fun when they are older, like me and my seesters. Sisters are the best. Today was a really busy day. I had to volunteer in Micah's class today and they also had a "Grand" lunch at school. Apparently with the budget cuts we had, our library is really hurting and they only way they are going to get new books is through book fairs. So the school hosted a lunch for anyone grand in the kids' lives to eat lunch with them and then go check out the book fair and hopefully buy stuff, very smart on the school's part. And since it was McKenzie's birthday it made it that much easier to entice the grandparents to come down in the middle of the day.

McKenzie wanted a lizard cake. I told her I could draw a lizard on a cake and that shaping a cake into a lizard was just not going to happen today. So here is her lizard cake. I looks a little like her lizard, well how about the yellow stripes are really the only resemblance of her lizard.

Micah had a soccer game today (on top of everything else, which will also be another post), and McKenzie really wanted to go somewhere other than a fast food joint, so we went to Applebees and had some yummy food and had the manager come and sing (or should I say scream) for her. It was pretty funny and she was really happy.

After opening presents and eating cake and playing with her new loot, we were all pretty Tuckered out, as you can see displayed by grandpa, poor guy went into work early so he could spend the day with Kenz, what a trooper.

All in all it was a great day, I think she had fun, and she told me that 9 didn't feel much different from 8 but she thought that she would really mature this year. I love how grown up she's becoming, she just can't wait to be big, which is sad for me but glad she doesn't fear the future. She is an awesome girl I'm soo grateful to everything she is. I love you Kenz.