Cinderella, Humanitarian Day, Halloween, and Stake Conference... OH MY!

I'm playing catch up. I didn't even realize I'd had a crazy month until I downloaded my pictures onto the computer and saw that it's been pretty busy.

We went to the Hale Theatre's Cinderella play a couple of weeks ago. I surprised the girls and didn't tell them what we were doing until we got there. Looking back, I probably should have told them and then used it as a threat when they were misbehaving. Maybe next time.


Here's my review in case you are going.


If you're looking for something cute for the kids, it's ok. The Prince was good, and I liked the Fairy Godmother. They also do a lot of audience participation, which the girls loved.



Victoria and her cousin Paige were totally flirting with the Prince. And yes, that's my Mom dressed up on the stairs. She's all about making the grandkids happy and that definitely did.







We went to Floridemo's afterwards for some Pizza Muffins. My first time for these and I will definitely be going back for more.






Stake Humanitarian Day

We assembled over 500 hygiene kits it under 45 minutes. It was amazing and frightening, since I had no other activities planned except a couple of quilts which were also done in no time flat. Thank you to the people who took time out of their Saturday to serve.

Halloween 2008

All I can say is that I'm glad it's over. I don't really mean that. (well, maybe I do) But, if I had to dress those kids up one more time, I think I would have lost it. ( I mean more than I already did. Sorry Honey.) You've got Trunk or Treat, school parties, (even in Jr High?!) and then trick or treating. All in 2 days and 100 degree weather.

OK, ranting and raving aside, the kids did look cute. Victoria didn't dress up this year. Emma was Sleeping Beauty, Grace was Tinkerbell (she changed her mind at least 5 times) and Cameron was Starkiller from Star Wars the Force Unleashed. (it's a video game) I think 2 people knew what he was, but he loved it. I had to make the whole thing and thought it turned out pretty good, if i do say so myself. We have so much candy left over that I'm going to bottle it and save it for next year. Or I'll use it as my secret stash and eat it all once the kids go to bed.

Starkiller

future lady killer ;)



Stake Conference and new 1pm Church time

WooHoo!! This will be the first time that I'm not dreading 1pm church. No napping kids and Justin will finally be able to be there for the whole time more than once a month! I did enjoy 8am church because getting home at 11am was pretty great. But now we can have mornings like

THIS

Homemade Belgian waffles and hangin out in our jammies until noon. Yep, this will be just fine with me.

Ahhhh...Fall Break

Yes, I know. More Ranch pictures. You see the rocking chair on the grass? That is now my favorite spot. Kids playing and squealing with joy and I'm relaxing with a good book. We really don't go any place else, so it's hard to make this exciting. But wait! Justin thought he'd show his dangerous side and bought a bow and arrow set for the kids. What's more exciting than giving your kids weapons that can kill a humongous bear? (well, not the one we bought, but I've seen some that can ;) How about showing how cool you are by trying to shoot a kiddie bow and arrow!



Here's a couple of shots at the top of Greenspeak.




Oh yeah, the kids were all making gagging sounds. Someday they'll think it was great that we were so shmoopy. It's funny. Justin's and my first kiss was AWFUL. He caught me off guard when he came in for the kill and I ended up kind of swiping my lips across his nose. Honestly, I'm surprised that he asked me out again after that. Lucky for me I had a car and a good job. How could he pass that up?
(and it's a cami you're seeing under my shirt. My clothing staple)



We picnicked in the meadow, saw a hundred deer and elk, and just relaxed. I can't wait to go back in the spring.

Bass Pro Shop Adventure

Here I am getting ready to climb the rock wall at the Bass Pro Shop.

Look, I think she's looking at my humongous buttocks and hoping the straps will hold.

Justin got some great pictures, but this was definitely not one of them. Those straps are not the most flattering accessory. I should have worn black pants to camouflage the bum hugging straps.





Here I am ringing the nonexistent bell at the top. (Justin said "Ring the bell!" so I spent 10 seconds hanging on for dear life looking for the stupid bell that wasn't there)
That's right, I actually made it to the top. My goal was to get higher than Victoria. It's pretty sad to just want to beat your 12 year old. I'm so ashamed, yet proud at the same time.





Here's Toria having her turn.



And Justin. I think it was way too easy for him. I'm just glad I went before him so I didn't look like a total wimp.








Here are the kids looking at the big fish tanks and then taking some shots with their Sarah Palin approved hunting rifles.










Gracie got a little freaked out by the fish.







All in all, it was a successful outing for us. We decided to call it FHE since there was some definite family bonding and we were reminded of Heavenly Father's many creations (even though most of them were brutally slaughtered then stuffed)

As a side note: I need a new camera. Mine's old and I don't get very good pictures from it. Any suggestions? I need something small and not too expensive.

HUH?

So Cameron, my 8 year old, comes up to me while I'm looking at my sisinlaw's blog and I explained how we're related to them. He then asked..

"So I'm more related to you than to Dad, right?"

"What do you mean Cam?"

"Well, I came out of your stomach and all Dad did is marry you."

This is why I have a blog. Now I'll remember this forever and never let him forget it.

I Love Halloween!

Maybe I should just say I love Halloween candy. That's probably the main reason I love Halloween. All of those mini Almond Joy bars and Reeses cups. I'm not embarrassed to say that I totally raid the kids cauldrons when they're not looking.


I do love the kids all dressed up that night, but I don't really enjoy trying to figure out what they're going to be. I'm almost afraid to start getting costumes together too soon because you KNOW they're going to change their mind two days before their school party. They'll want to be Hannah Montana instead of the fairy princess you worked for two weeks putting together. ( I guess you could make the dress a mini, add some hoochie mama boots and really heavy make-up and she would be fine. )

Seriously though, did our parents really put this much effort into Halloween? I had a bag-o-costumes in the attic as a kid and you had to try to find something to wear from it or make something up. Then we'd all run around with our pillowcases (that's right, no fancy cauldron. You can fit so much more in a pillowcase) and hit every house in the neighborhood totally unsupervised. Ahhh, the good 'ol days.



Well, last year I tried to be resourceful and frugal. I got an old torn up Belle costume from my mom's MASSIVE costume collection and disassembled the whole thing, bought some matching material and reassembled it. Voila! We already had Snow White, and Victoria was......honestly I have no idea what she was. She does it on her own and I think that's great. Now Cameron's costume was awesome. Ok, that probably sounds boastful. But when he said he wanted to be Jango Fett from Star Wars, I looked online for costumes and they were $40 on Ebay?! So I bought some $5 blue thermal underwear from Walmart and some silver clearance material and got to work. A little glue, an ASU football helmet, some duct tape and a lot of love and he looked perfect. (you know, perfect for a 7 year old who would run around in a Darth Vader cape and his Transformers undies if we'd let him. He's not too picky :)










We'll see how it turns out this year! And if you're getting ready to buy your candy to pass out, I hear the kids really love the full size Almond Joys. I know I'm stocking up. ;)

Mia Hamm.......Watch out!

Yes, I know Mia Hamm's retired. I guess my 5 year old was never a threat to dethroning her royal soccerness. But watching my overemotional, sweet little girl trample other sweet little 5 year old girls while trying to steal the ball away and score a goal (for our team hopefully) just makes me swell with pride.

But here's my favorite part. Emma can't run without having her mouth wide open. Victoria was the same way, so I think it's genetic. (of course not from my side) Also, the team is made up of girls from our ward so I get to socialize with the moms as a bonus. Go Firecrackers! :)

An Uneventful Trip is Soon Forgotten......

Well, Justin and I decided to break old habits and attend a ward function. The Ward Camp out! Hooray! We really like our ward so we were excited to go and the kids were beyond happy. Even Victoria. :) It's so hard to meet people in our ward because it's so huge. We really like the two families that we know, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to get to know the other 700 that we don't. So we pack up Grandma's Van for another road trip. (no, haven't bought the Suburban yet) We get about half way to Payson when I notice the tire pressure light was on. Crap. We get out and notice there's two huge bolts in the tire. Double Crap. So we slowly head back to town with some sad kids in tow. We get out at Discount Tire and Grace says, "Dad, this isn't the mountains!" She's always been my observant one.

So we drop the car off at my favorite tire place and now we've got an hour to waste. We decide to bribe the kids out of moping and go to NYPD pizza.

I love their calzones and we got this buffalo chicken caesar salad

that was so yummy. I don't think it was their healthiest choice, but

I figured we would have been eating "camping food" and it's never good for you, so I was good with it.

Now you might notice something different about this picture. What? I'll give you a hint....I'm in it. I know, shocker. But the only reason Justin insisted on taking the picture is so he had proof that I wore my new favorite shirt. They were so embarrassed of me that Victoria wouldn't be less than 5 feet away from me and Justin didn't even want me going into WalMart. That's right...WalMart. Now what do you have to be wearing that wouldn't be WalMart worthy? Seriously. I've gone in my dirty sweats, no make-up, scroungy kids with no shoes and still felt totally in place there. And what's even better is that when I run into friends there, they sometimes look like that also! Now Costco is a totally different story. Always shower and make-up for Costco. I've run into J's ex-girlfriends too many times there to not look at least clean.

My new favorite shirt.

It says, "More Cowbell" with a picture of Will Ferrell on it. If you haven't seen this SNL skit, you're missing out.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnfyp_cowbell_fun

So, I don't get many opportunities to wear my cowbell shirt in public. I thought wearing it to the ward camp out would get people to talk to me. Seriously, can you walk by this shirt and not go, "Huh?" I don't care if they remember me as the cowbell lady, or the lady with the ridiculous shirt on. It's a start. I've honestly introduced myself to the same woman in my ward 5 times and neither of us remember each other's name by the next Sunday. Maybe I should wear it to church. Although, they'd probably release me. Hmmmm......wait a second....

Anyways, after the car was done we went home, made some S'mores on the gas stove, pulled

out the sleeping bags and watched the Spiderwick Chronicles. And even though I'm sad we missed out on the camp out, I didn't mind sleeping in my own comfy bed, having running water, no mosquitos, and sneaking some ice cream after the kids went down. Maybe I'll wear my shirt for the next ward function. Trunk or Treat? Absolutely.

It's a Girl!!!!

Yeah!! I'm an auntie again! Jenna Kate Douglas was born Sept 16th at 6:30 pm. And she's actually really cute! Don't get me wrong, they're all "cute" like newborn cute. Squished faces and cone heads that belong on Saturday Night Live "cute". But this one has this LITTLE head with lots of hair and these cute little puckered lips. After Emma was born (my 3rd baby) the nurse laughed and said her head was bigger than an actual bowling ball. (like I didn't know that. I pushed that bowling ball out) When one of my many siblings was born, they had actually switched babies on my mom and brought her the wrong one! She took one look at the beautiful little darling in her arms and said, " This isn't my baby. It's too pretty" She was totally right, and that genetic flaw has been passed down to most of my siblings, including myself. They get pretty a couple of months down the road and then turn out to be pretty good looking kids. But with your first it's kind of scary being handed this...not so pretty baby (I didn't want to say ugly. That's too mean even for me) and wondering how their life will be with this scrunched up face and nose full of little white pimples. Will they be made fun of in the hospital nursery? Will my baby be the one everyone is pointing at and saying, "Yowza! I hope she has a great personality?"

Well, I'm rambling. Fortunately, mine are all BEAUTIFUL (now) and have great personalities. (whew!)

So, Congrats Janelle and Scott! I can't wait to come play!

9/11

What I remember vividly is watching all of the people running away from the disaster and all of the firemen and police running towards it. It was heartbreaking.

I've been tagged?!!

Well, Victoria informed me that I've been tagged. Huh? And she also informed me that this is not the first time. Without sounding like a complete "blodiot" (pretty clever, right? blog-idiot ;) I didn't know what tagging was. I know I've read other peoples, but I guess I wasn't really paying attention. So sorry to those who tagged and I did not respond. It was rude and unforgivable. So Jacque, my Utah cousin whom I adore, here you go.



5 things about me people probably don't know......

1. I am a Supreme Allied Commander on Star Wars Rogue Squadron. That means I kicked the Empire's butt to the next galaxy. We bought this game when Cameron was born and I got totally addicted soon after. Justin would come home from his 24 hr shift to me in front of the tv, dark circles under my eyes because I had played all night long. Thankfully I turned in my controller after conquering Darth Vader and his thugs and haven't picked one up since. (except for a short time after we bought Halo.)

2. I hate scrapbooking. I totally respect and admire people who do it, but I can't understand how anybody can spend hours making one page for 2 pictures. I'm a throw it in a book and hope I remember when and who it was kind of person. I know that's terrible and probably lazy, but that's just how it is for me.

3. I look forward to using my food supply. I don't want the rest of the bad stuff to happen, but I'm not afraid to eat what I store. It's a great feeling and I thank my mom for it. Here's a sample of what I have: Costa Vida Sweet Pork, Cafe Rio Chicken, BBQ Beef, Green Chile Chicken, tortillas, pancakes, etc, etc. Famine? What Famine?!

4. I grabbed another man's "behind" on my honeymoon cruise. I thought Justin was behind me in line for the buffet so I reached around and squeezed away! Then I looked to my right to see Justin with a big ol' grin on his face watching me grab this guy. I turned around and there was this short balding man with an even bigger grin on his face! (I almost always win the "Most Embarassing Story" prize with that one. It's either that one or the one where my dress is tucked into my panties at the prom. Either way I'm a shoo-in ;)

5. I'm a hip-hop dancing in the kitchen, bargain shopping, bake til I drop, mother of four beautiful, wonderful kids, and wife to one extremely loving, hot firefighting husband. Life is pretty sweet.

American Idol - Alexander Style

Well, I'm posting this mainly for the grandma's to see what their genetics have produced. I wish I could say that the willingness to perform for anybody and everybody was from the Alexander side.........but alas, it's not. Justin's brother actually calls my family the "VonCrap Family Singers" (Sound of Music). He's just jealous, though ;)

So Mom, here you go. I'm sure you'll be happy to know that another generation of camera happy, loud, goofy kids are being raised exactly how they should be. With a song in their hearts and a smile (and a camera) on their face. ;) Love ya Mom.

(try to ignore the fighting and messy house in the background. )

R U A DVL FN?

GO S UN DEV I LS !!!!!