WNO...you know what that means.

WITCHES NIGHT OUT 2013

The witches don their pointed hats, 

The witches croak and croon, 

The witches ride their broomsticks, 

Away beyond the moon. 

The witches don their flowing cloaks, 

The witches stir their brew. 

The witches chant their magic spells, 

All the dark hours through. 

The witches stroke their big black cats, 

They comb their locks of gray, 

Yet when the first faint daylight comes. 

The witches hide away.

Witches Night Out always deserves its own post.  For the last 4 years, we have planned and plotted this much anticipated evening at Gardner Village where the witches come out to play.  I think my kids might actually think I am a witch.  This year, I switched up my costume a little bit and added a screaming skull to my hat, wore much more comfortable shoes and and managed to NOT fall on my face even once...so it was a successful evening.

Witches eat sushi?  Why, yes, they do!

The Witches Night Out dance party is so fun...ok so the music is a little lame...but we girls manage to make it a good time no matter what. 

Love these ladies.  Who else can I count on to be completely immature when I need it most?

Alicia likes to sleep standing up.  Haha!!

Those would be Marge Simpson eyes...duh.

Yup, thats my eye.

So a few things I am reminded EVERY YEAR of at Witches Night Out:

1. I am not too old to dress up for Halloween.

2. I hate fake eye lashes and curling irons.

3. Its friggin cold by late October in Salt Lake.

4. People will always bring their kids to inappropriate events, especially in Utah.

5. I am super-talented at taking pictures of people and making it look like we are at the best party on earth...even if it could use some help.  HAHA!

6. I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!

7. Its impossible to find purple lipstick the week before Halloween.

...and last but not least...

8. I DO NOT KNOW THE THRILLER DANCE...even though when the music plays, everyone thinks they do. 

Oh, yeah, and I should really never let Amy have my phone unattended.  She has a selfy addiction.  (Love that girl.)

Till next year, my WITCHES!!

Dark Knight Marathon- July 20th, 2012

The Dark Knight Marathon

Braiden and I, in a theater from

 6pm-3am.

Lots of Batman...

In case you were wondering, yes, I am a cool Mom.

Another Night out with my WITCHES!

WITCHES NIGHT OUT!

If I ever leave Utah, which I dont see happening soon, I will sorely miss Witches Night Out.  I was introduced to this event last year by some good lady-friends and we are trying to make this a yearly tradition but 3 out of the usual 7 that normally go are pregnant/ miserable and another had other unbreakable plans so it was down to 3 of us.  Nonetheless, we got dolled up, stayed out way too late, and had a blast!

~Me, Becky and Jessi all dressed up in our witchy best~



My favorite part about getting dressed up...the eyelashes.  I love them.  I would wear them every day if I didnt know that I would get some strange looks from people.



Up the street from Gardners Village there is a row of flag poles that we just cant seem to resist swinging on.  Some people were just meant to dance on a pole. Me...not so much.

Like I said...me, not so much.

...and the shenanigans continue.  No we are not dead or passed out in random places.  Ever heard of planking?  I must say I thought it sounded dumb but really it was hilarious.

Am I a sexy WITCH or what?

Summer Adventures 2011 part 2

As previously mentioned, the summer so far has been pretty busy, what with the arrival of kid #4 and all.  The hardest part of all of it has been trying to keep the kids entertained while running on 4 or less hours of sleep and keeping a newborn fed, clean and happy at the same time. Don't get me wrong, we spend lots of days at home playing in the plastic pool in the back yard and renting Redbox movies but these are some of the things the kids have been able to do so far.

We spent a day at the Hogle Zoo a few weeks ago.  I wanted the kids to have it fresh in their head so they could compare it to the San Diego Zoo.  The local aquarium is a favorite too but I don't have any pics (too dark in there).



Paige is a little water-baby.  She loves putting on her swimsuit, playing in any body of water, and being wet.  The Gateway Mall in downtown Salt Lake has a splash pad that she loves.  She gets so excited I have to remind her to slow down so she doesn't run into anyone or slip and fall. 

And then there was Cameron... He on the other hand, hates getting wet.  He will toy with the idea but if anyone splashes him, that's it, he is done.  While Paige was in Heaven, Cameron stayed dry with Max.

Whitney and Ashton decided to have a niece and nephew sleep-over one weekend.  The kids loved it and so did we.  It was really nice to have some peace and quiet and the kids had a BLAST! 

The kids went crazy rolling down the grass hill.  They were super itchy afterward.  Now they know why MOM never lets them do that.

Braiden and Uncle Ashton.

We celebrated all the July birthdays on July 31st when my grandma happened to be in town.  My sister Bonnie and her daughter Abby's birthday is the 30th and Baylees b-day is the 28th.  Max also met Grandma Lundberg for the first time.

The girls took Bonnie out for a night of shopping and eating for her b-day.  We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (on National Cheesecake Day, by the way). We very much enjoyed  the cheesecake...oh and hanging out was fun too.

Halloween Extravaganza 2010

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Thats my son, fairy Braiden.

Paige at her school Halloween Parade. She was the cutest of all 12 Super Girls that I saw.

Eric's work trick-or-treating

SUPER CAMERON!

A Night with My WITCHES!

October 22, 2010 marked my first time ever attending Witches Night Out with a group of crazy women that take pride in being 'witches'.  We got totally decked out as you can see and partied all night long.  I thought I was way too old to be acting like this....

I think not... 

Till next year.



BFF

Carrie Pabst, one of my 2 BFFs visited Utah and we were able to spent some fun girl time together like olden days. I love this girl!

Miss Paige turns 5

Paige turned 5 this year on June 6th.  We partied it up Princess Style.

All of Paige's little home-girls came over and got dressed up in Paige's princess Dress-up clothes.

Within minutes they, of course, all had swim suits on and ended up in the front yard running in Paige's Hello Kitty sprinkler.  Watching 5 year-olds is utterly entertaining.

It was a fun party.  Paige had a blast and was spoiled like a Princess should be.

~Birthday Princess Paige~

I had multiple flash-forwards of this being Paige's 16th birthday party and had to be sedated. 
Heaven help me.

Pyromania

Every 4th of July and 24th of July we have our own little fireworks extravaganza right in our own driveway. No, we do not drive to Wyoming to spend hundreds of dollars on illegal fireworks and invite the entire neighborhood over to watch the show.

Its just us. Us and our Walmart fireworks. Eric takes on this alter-personality and becomes a pyro-maniac. Cant you see the crazed look in his eyes??
We all sit on our lawn chairs and watch Eric singe his eyebrows until its our turn to singe our eyebrows with the sparklers.

Generally the neighborhood kids come by and watch the "show" while Cameron and Paige cling onto my legs, scared to death of the flames. This year Braiden got to actually light a couple of the fireworks. I suppose every young boy has to experience his "right if passage" into pyromania and some time or another. I love that Eric tries so hard to make sure that we have a good time for every holiday. Pyromaniac or not...

I am back...

I really need to get blogging again so I have been looking through my pictures today and trying to decide where to start and I am thinking I have it all figured out. How do I possibly document all the perfect and fun events in my little life? I have decided thats not humanly possible but worth a try...

SO...

Back in early July I braved a camping weekend with my three kids on my own. We were invited to go up to Strawberry Reservoir for a night to be part of the planned surprise proposal by my now step dad and to my mom. It was fun to be there and share in that event with them...but...

I will never take wild 10 year old, a whiny 4 year old, a clingy 1.5 year, a dog, and a tent with a broken zipper camping with no husband on a weekend when its supposed to rain and be freezing the entire time!!! What was I thinking?
Cameron cried all night and we froze, the zipper wouldn't close so water got into the tent, it rained the entire weekend so we were all covered with mud. The kids and I were in the car almost the entire time watching the rain with a wet dog enjoying Sponge Bob on the DVD player. We ate pop tarts and Juice Pouches and raw hot dogs because we could cook anything on our wet campfire.




But honestly, after the treck home and getting the inch of mud out of my car I realized that we had fun and I likely will never forget that trip. Not that I will be doing it again anytime soon...

Happy, Happy Birthday...

Today is Paige's 4th Birthday...4 years ago to the hour right now i was pushing my sweet little girl into the world in front of an audience of 6 people...don't ask!

I remember when I found out that I was having a girl. I was so excited as I had been seeing pink forever. Paige is a Daddy's Girl through and through.

She, being the only girl in the household gets a special kind of attention that the only girl always gets. She loves her brothers and loves to play.

She loves dance class, McDonaldDuck's, and anything Disney (especially Sleeping "Dooty"). She is very predictable in the sense that she loves to watch any show, always needs a drink and a snack and LOVES to take baths.
She will say "hold you" when she wants you to hold her and she asks if we can go see the airplanes at the "airsport". She is always the first to spot the temple, any of the 4 around us, when we go by them and says that she is going to get married there when she gets married "next week".

Paige has many little sweet quirks about her but her loving little personality makes it impossible to lose my temper or get upset with her. She always says "Thanks Mom" and "sorry Mom".

This was the first year that decided to do a friend party for Paige. I figured she was old enough to appreciate it and Heaven knows there are plenty of little girls that are willing to come to a Hello Kitty Party!!

So a slaved away on the darling headbands they are wearing. Each girl was donned with a headband and necklace upon arrival and they colored to their heart's contents with photocopied Hello Kitty pictures.

Next was the Pin the flower in the Garden Hello Kitty rendition game. I found out that 4 year-olds have a VERY short attention span. They were interested in the for about 1 minute before they were asking what was next...

So on to the painting of the Hello Kitty figurines. I found these at Target in the craft section. They LOVED it. That lasted for a whole 15 minutes... anything over 5 minutes is considered success in attention games.

The girls then found some entertainment in playing in the backyard with ladybugs and in the playhouse until we then went inside for some "DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE". WOW! That game is rough...especially for us 31 year-olds. They loved that game too and it wore them all out.

We then ate Hello Kitty Birthday cake (thank you Wal-Mart) and drank pink 7-Up. Next was the presents and then a half hour of Hello Kitty cartoons. Whew!

Overall the party was a hit and the girls had a grand time. They all went home with green and pink tote bags from the dollar store filled with little trinkets and super high blood sugar...

Success!

Paige made out like a bandit the birthday with gifts from all her sweet friends and from mommy and daddy. I think she was a bit overwhelmed and flabbergasted at all the stuff and all the fun but she loved it.

She said "Thanks for the 'credible' party mom." I think that's a good thing.

Happy Birthday babygirl! Don't grow up too fast.