Is it November Yet? Please?

Ooohh my gosh, I can't believe it's actually the last day of October. Wait, does that mean it's Halloween? Haven't we already done that? Nils and I were put in charge of our ward Halloween party, which is fine- I mean, we all have to take our turn doing this stuff, right? It was last night, and it was hopefully fun for everyone. We had a committee with 5 other people, and they were all fantastic. Our ward is mostly kids under 12, so anything we attempt is going to be utter chaos- which it was. We had TONS of people come. We had dinner, food contests, a donut hang, and carnival games. There was also an amazing spook alley, with a fog machine, which set off the fire alarms...which really just added to the chaos. I took no pictures. Anyway, I am really tired and done with Halloween. And it's still Halloween!

I feel it's important to mention that as I write this, Anders and his friend are having a musical instrument face-off in the house. The friend brought his cello over, and Anders is switching between French horn, guitar and the piano. We are probably not going to all survive this.

Anyhoo... here are pictures from our happenings of the last month or so.

I found New York Seltzers. I drank these a lot as a kid and wanted to share a small piece of my childhood with the kids. Turns out that these little sodas that sell for $1 each are not that great. But the bottles are cute. Marketing and nostalgia are powerful tools.

Anders "Making it Rain" with a rare stack of cash. Where does he come up with this stuff?

We "strongly encouraged" him to run cross-country at school. He did. He hated it. We tried. 

Ava made him a sign for his race. :)

 Go, Anders, Go!

Nils framed the basement! Electrical is under way. The kids need their own rooms. It's almost been a year of them sharing, and we're just about over it. Also, see above paragraph about the musical face-off. They can do that kind of stuff all they want when the basement is done without danger of losing their lives.

We went to Cornbelly's for the first time in a really long time. It's muy fun. I lost my wedding ring in the corn pit. You probably already know that. Cornbelly's found it with a metal detector and we all cried a little. I will endorse this place and their crazy admission prices because of how awesome they were with everything.

 We'd all like to know who was in the Minion costume. A 12 year old?

The fateful corn beach of lost wedding rings. 

We went to St. George for approximately 24 hours of Fall Break. Nils went down to do some work for his old job, and it was kind of a bust. When the workday was over, he just wanted to come home and be done with it all. We're so thankful for his current job. Life is better in so many ways.

While he was working, I took the girls to the children's museum they have there. It's small, but really well done. They had fun for a good 3 hours. Nils took Anders to work with him, because Anders hates everything these days. Nothing is fun except hanging out with friends, apparently.

We watched Back to the Future parts 1 & 2 on Back to the Future Day. The kids loved it.

My mom turned 70, and we partied. Ava made her a birthday crown and everything!

Halloween 2015: Addie the hippie, Aani the fox (custom fox shirt made by Nils and yours truly, thankyouverymuch), and Ava the black cat. Anders was going to be a stick figure, but that whole concept imploded little by little the more we tried, so I don't even know what he's going as tonight.

Goood bye, October! You've been lovely. I think? I mean, the weather's been pretty great.