"Paint It Blue!"

I had never really liked the color in our front room, but it worked.
I especially didn't like the boarder around the top - I really needed to get rid of that.It is suppose to be a formal dining room, but we would never utilize the space that way.
I love that my mom lent me her tapestry and I loved my find with the couches, but WAY too much red.So, I started looking at color chips and set a deadline for the project of painting the room by Thanksgiving.
After many paint chips and asking many people's opinion, I narrowed it down to three and got sample jars of each to test on the wall (forgot to take a picture of that - I was anxious to move on).
I taped,and primed.
When Logan found out we were painting it blue (his favorite color) he would tell me every day - "Paint it blue, mom!" The process was a bit too long for him.
We finally got the paint and had it all primed and taped and I was set to paint the next day. Logan woke up and went into the front room and said, "mom, it's not blue yet!" I spent the day painting and Logan entertained himself with Legos, movies, and computer games. He loved it when he walked into the room and finally saw BLUE!
I love how the color lightens up the room (I like light rooms), and brings out the tapestry colors, especially the pinks and yellows! You can't tell in the picture, but the couch has little diamonds of that same blue color too.
Now I just need to choose and place a few more accessories.
As the day passes the color lightens and darkens a bit - I love all the shades.

Trunk-or-Treat

Last Tuesday, our church had their Trunk-or-Treat.
It was best one I've been too!
After a yummy dinner, the children got to go to the "carnival" and play all sorts of games and win prizes.
There was croquet,fishing,and bowling.
There was also face painting, tossing pumpkins (plush), baseball, guessing the candy corn in the jar, and more.
One room was constructed into a maze of boxes. Jake and his friend spent most of their time in there. He said in the maze were cobwebs and ghosts and lights, but most of it was completely dark and you had to feel your way around. Here is a picture of what they went through.The maze was a definite favorite.
After that they got to go around the church trunk-or-treating. Alyssa's friend, once out trunk-or-treating, finally understood why the activity was called "Trunk-or-Treat," she had been wondering.There were some very creative trunks. I was a bit surprised Logan got in the coffin - but am glad I got the picture.We lent the missionaries our trunk and decorated it like a Elders' apartment with clothes and ties and such all over. Robert had gotten a shipment in at work that had dry ice. Everyone thought that was too coolest thing (the bubbling bucket at the bottom in the middle).
Natalie was going to miss the activity because of her soccer game. It ended up getting canceled because of lightening (far away - no rain), so she made it back for a bit of the carnival and the trunk-or-treating. And being in her soccer uniform, she was also in costume!
We all had a wonderful time.
Thanks to everyone who put so much time and effort into making it fabulous.

Oh, as a p.s., so we brought our pumpkins - remember I said we thought it would be funny to go a bit religious for the church trunk-or-treat? They looked great up on the stage with all the other pumpkins. We did have a friend wonder why we had carved President Obama :), but if you don't see President Monson at first, once you know who it is suppose to be, you can see it easily.

Carving Pumpkins

It has become tradition to carve pumpkins the Monday before Halloween for Family Home Evening. Yesterday found two pumpkins on our table getting their guts pulled out.Jake and Natalie worked on designing faces.The black line on the forehead of Jake's pumpkin, on the left, is where the knife will go and a blob of red paint (nice, but we are enablers).
I always love glowing pumpkins.
Tonight we have a Trunk-or-Treat party at church and we are to bring our family pumpkins.
So we did double sided pumpkins and thought it would be fun to go a little religious. We found patterns and did a lot of poking and scraping.
And they turned out pretty good!
(President Monson and the Angel Moroni - if you can't tell)

No Chores Last Saturday

Last Saturday saw us out of the house from 10am to 4pm!

This meant chores did not get done, but it also means that we had a fun-filled day!
Robert took Alyssa to the middle school at 6:30am to catch a ride to central Georgia for her last cross-country meet. It was a tough course, but she did great and saw some beautiful parts of Georgia on the drive there and back.
The rest of us went to soccer games and the elementary school's Fall Festival!
Jake has one more soccer game before his season is over. He played hard, unfortunately his team didn't win.

Logan brought along his hat and told me to call him Indiana Jones. He took breaks during the game - how Indiana Jones takes breaks with his hat over his face. Robert took Natalie to her soccer game (they tied) so I could take the boys to the Fall Festival, Natalie met up with us after her game and end of season soccer party.
The Fall Festival was a blast. The boys took a ride on the 10 Commandment Train - always a favorite. Jake didn't know what car he should get in. For Logan, anything in the back was the best.

Logan loved playing on the playground when he wasn't playing any games.
They had face painting, food, a cake walk, and different games set up all over to play and get tickets from. Tickets could be traded in for prizes (my purse was stuffed).
There were two different inflatable obstacle/bouncers. The boys loved them and it was where Logan spent most of his time.
The new attraction this year was the bungee bouncing!
We waited in line for quite a while and were right at the front of the line when Natalie came from soccer. She ran to meet us and we let her cut in.
Logan hadn't wanted to go on, but by the time we got up there and I asked he said he would try it. He loved it! He even went back at the end for a second turn.
Jake was a bit more tentative.
I finally convinced Natalie to do some flips!
Pretty cool!

Natalie also took a turn at the rock wall and made it to the top to push the buzzer.

Afterward I was exhausted! I didn't have the energy to get the kids to do their chores.
Alyssa got home from the meet with enough time to shower, take a short nap, and leave for a youth activity.
It should be our last crazy busy Saturday for a while.
I'm crossing my fingers while I write that.

Decatens

Alyssa had her fall chorus concert this past week.
She is part of an a'cappella group and they sing a beautiful arrangement of the Star Spangled Banner.
They usually sing it at all the home basketball games, at the middle school, during the season, and they sang it during the concert Tuesday.

Alyssa is four in from the left.

I Love NY!

Last weekend, while Robert held down the fort, I flew out to NY,
staying with my sister-in-law and her family, who live in Connecticut (we're so excited they moved closer).
Fall is my favorite time of year and this is why -

everything GLOWS yellow and orange and red!

It was chilly and really windy. I loved it. It smelled like fall.
Perfect days to play outside - here is my nephew on the swing in their front yard.I got to watch my nephews play in their sports game - one flag football and one soccer.

Then they were nice enough to all pile in the car and drive me around my old stomping grounds.
I lived in 5 different houses in the same town. Everyone in my family refers to them by street name and all stories told are referenced by which house we were living in at the time.
This in the one on Elm Rd - our first house there.

This is the one on Cushman - and my favorite. Who wouldn't love a house like this?! (ok, we did have a ton of chores) There was sardines in the attic, exploring, a big yard to play in, a full basement to play games in and watch movies (we had a film projector and screen and would borrow movies - yes the ones on reels - from the library and make popcorn and watch them in the basement).
There was no central air, but there was a wine room that was cooled, in the basement - we kept our buckets of wheat there - and we'd go in there during the summer to cool off when it got really hot. We drove by two other houses (one behind the other) but didn't get to the other side of town where the fifth one was.
We had lunch at the deli in the village. I got a bagel! I was in heaven. It's been a long time.
Yes, little things like a real bagel make me happy.
I took the train into the city in the afternoon and had time to go to the temple before heading to my High School reunion (there was a reason for taking a trip out to NY by myself).
I loved being in the temple.

In the middle of the noise and bustle is a place of peace and quiet.

I got to catch up with one of my best friends from high school. It was so great seeing him again, it had been over 10 years.

My reunion was a blast. I hadn't seen them for 20 years! I hadn't been back to NY for 18 years!
I love seeing how people are doing now and what they're up to.
My cheeks were sore from smiling and laughing so much.
The whole weekend was fabulous. I love that my sister-in-law and her family lives close to where I grew up and we can go visit - as often as we can.

While I was gone, Robert shuffled the kids around to soccer and all state chorus auditions (soccer for Natalie, auditions for Alyssa - and the boys got to tag along). The boys took over while they had a majority and got to out vote the girls the whole weekend. That doesn't happen very often.

We are all looking forward to going to NY/Conn for Christmas. Have I mentioned how excited we are to have family close?! and near NY!

Chocolate, Scarecrows, and Flowers

The kids ended up having Columbus Day off. So, we (minus Robert - he didn't have the day off) loaded up and headed to Atlanta - the Botanical Gardens to be specific.Being near Halloween, there are scarecrows and such all over the gardens! They are so fun. We've missed the witches at Gardner Village, in UT, so we were thrilled to find the scarecrows at the Gardens here. We all had our favorites.The beekeeper in the Children's Garden.Natalie's favorite - "Little Bo Creep."
Our Georgia Peaches in front of "Grits Gal."
My favorite, lying near the entrance of the Children's Garden, "Come Fly With Me."
Jake's favorite, the skater dude.
In the Edible Gardens they have glass blown pumpkins and gourds on display. They are growing among the other vegetables and spilling out of a large cornucopia. They are beautiful.
They are having a chocolate exhibit right now and the building you go through, at the entrance to the gardens has chocolate wafting through the vents. The exhibit was further into the gardens.They had an interactive area with the whole process from seed to product.
Grinding the nuts,
and mixing different ingredients in to make chocolate. We got a free sample when we left. It was really cool to learn about the chocolate making process.
The chocolate exhibit was right next to one of our favorite places in the gardens, the tropical rotunda. Where you can look up into the tropical forest canopy.And see cool plants like this on whose branches curl out as it grows.
We always end our visit at the Children's Garden, and this time we brought swimsuits - well, Logan ended up being the only one who brought his. The girls opted not to get wet and I wrung out Jake's shorts when he was done. The Children's Garden has lots of activity areas to play in - after playing in the water, like slides, garden/play areas from different stories like Peter Rabbit, and digging for dinosaur bones in the sand.Being at a botanical garden, you have to look at all the flowers!I love purple and yellow together.
I loved these red and white ones.
The purple flowers were growing right out of the spiky sides of the pink center.
Gorgeous yellow against a clear blue sky.
It was a beautiful day - all the way around.