Harry Potter Party Pictures

Wow, that title is a tongue tangler! I know it's way late, but I talked about my Mom's Harry Potter party, and we just got pictures so I needed to post them. It was so fun to to dress up, play games, take quizzes, make our own potions and even make clay sculptures of a Harry Potter scene. I have to say thanks to my darling mother, who is so fun and creative, and also to my darling friend, Adria, who made amazing costumes and let us borrow them!

Us as Harry and Ginny

The Gryffindors and our sculptures
My brother Paul, his fiance, Kelsey, and brother Adam as the Weird Sisters

(which is a band from the books)

Coldplay

For most of those of you who know me, you know I adore Coldplay. I love their music and the fact they write all of it; Chris Martin is amazing on the piano and the guitar besides singing. I just LOVE them! Spencer, his sister Carrie, and her husband, Pablo, and I were all able to go on the 22nd.

Since life has been a little rough lately, this was exactly what I needed. I got out away from my kids with my hubby and our buddies, and I was able to truly let go and relax. There are not many things better for soothing the soul than a little singing and dancing to your favorite music. I am really able to not worry about what people think of my dancing or singing while I am there, which is normally hard for me to do. It's all about me enjoying the music. I still can't believe how great I feel after going. So any of you that don't know Coldplay or their music, I highly recommend them. They are even more amazing in concert.

On a side note...Am I nuts for thinking that it was a little rude for people behind me to ask me to sit down? Almost the entire arena was standing, but the people behind me wanted to sit so I had to too? Weird! It's like the time I went to Sarah McLachlan concert and some ladies next to us asked us to not sing, since they came to hear her. Remember that Janell? Ah fun times!

Halloween

I am really late about posting this, but the Internet wasn't working for a little while so I have several posts. Sorry!

We had such a great Halloween this year. Aidan got to dress up for pre-school and after we went to see Sienna at her school's parade. I ran around trying to find a wig to make Spencer look like Snape, and then I couldn't find the amazing full length wool coat I made several years ago for him to wear. I was pretty heart-broken about that. It was my blood and sweat! But luckily, my amazing friend, Adria, who always does fantastic costumes let us borrow her Harry Potter and Ginny (or Hermione) costumes. My Mom had a Harry Potter themed party the next day and we needed to dress up. When I get the pictures from that I will post them. Spencer looked super cute as Harry.

We went trick-or-treating just around our little loop neighborhood and the next one down. The kids got plenty of candy and then we had our tradition of donuts, hot chocolate and a Halloween movie after. This year we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." I love Halloween so much. It ranks just barely under Christmas for me. It is so much fun to dress up and celebrate the Fall season.

Me as a blonde GinnySienna as a witch, Aidan as Jack Sparrow, and Mad as Eeyore

Sienna has glasses!

Sienna went to the eye doctor and got her first pair of glasses. She was hesitant about it, but I just told her that there are a million cute styles out there and that we would find the perfect ones for her. She is so cute and I think these frames just show off her darling little face. I couldn't wait to pick them up!

Witches Night Out

My girlfriends and I have a tradition of going to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village. Sienna is getting so big and growing up so fast that I decided that I needed to bring her along for the fun. We get together with about a million other witches at Brick Oven and then head up for the festivites. It was pretty chilly, but we still had fun dancing and seeing all the other costumes. I am so grateful for my sweet little girl and the fun times that we have together.

Bekah, Me, Siomara, Jenna and Sienna

It's Official...

Spencer has been hired to work in the Shock/Trauma ICU unit at Intermountain Medical Center at 5200 S. in Murray. It is a brand new hospital with a Level 1 trauma unit, which means that if you come in there, they have doctors in every kind of field that you might need, so you have access to treatment of any kind (I think that is pretty close, I might be slightly off). We are very excited about this. It will mean a commute, but we feel the benefits outweigh the negatives. This hospital is one of the best in the State for Spencer to get the experience he needs for Anesthetist school.

We were starting to get frustrated, after Spencer applied for two Critical Care jobs at Utah Valley, but did not get them for reasons we still do not know. The nurses that were hired were significantly less qualified than Spencer, who is a charge nurse and another charge nurse that works on his floor, who also applied. I know he felt bad about it even though he never really said so. But he went up for interviews on 2 different ICU units at I-Med (as it is referred to) and was offered a job in either floor. I think this boosted his confidence, that 2 different ICU Managers both wanted to hire him at a higher level of hospital.

One benefit about the new job is that he will work nights about 60% of the time and days 40% of the time. I know it will be a difficult transition, but since he is already switching from nights on and then other nights off, we are hopeful that it will not be more difficult than that. I am stoked to be able to have him here at night more often. I won't know what to do with myself, since he has worked only graveyard shifts for 6 years.

His commute would be to drive to a church by UVU and take a bus to the Trax station, which then stops directly across from the hospital. It is even closer than the parking lot. He will at least have some time to study for his GRE, CCRN, and O. Chem. and not take time away from the family when he is here. Sorry for rambling; we are just very excited to see that things are finally progressing in the way that we need them to. We truly feel that we have been guided by the Lord and know that this is where we need to be. After much searching and prayer, we both felt that it was right for Spencer to apply, interview and accept a job if it was offered, which was not a normal thing for us since commuting was not an ideal prospect. But here we are and we are extremely grateful that we have been led to this point. Wish us luck in our new adventure!

Fall pictures-Warning-Picture overload ahead!

I am a wannabe photographer and since Fall is my favorite season, I decided to take the kids up Hobble Creek to take some pictures with the colors, (though Spencer says that is stupid since I am obsessed with Sepia and don't show the color in half of them). I am sorry for having so many pictures, but I had a hard time deciding which ones were my favorites.

We all feel like this sometime

Madelyn's new smile

Madelyn has just started to make these huge, cheesy smiles at us. They are so funny! I love this sweet little girl and her beautiful little personality.

Gardner Village

Every October, my Mom and I take the kids and head to Gardner Village. It has all these cute shops in little old houses and they put out witches everywhere for Halloween. We all love to go, even the kids. This year the weather was supposed to be cold with 50% chance of rain, but it was the only time we could all go so we were going to make it work. We brought ponchos, umbrellas, gloves, hats, and warm coats. Luckily, it didn't really rain and the cold wasn't unbearable. Hot Chocolate helps too. Here are a few pictures of our fun times.

Please excuse the hat hair

Madelyn and more....

Madelyn has normally been a pretty sweet, loving child, but the last 2 months, it has been so hard!

She would cry all the time and for no apparent reason.

I mean, we knew she was teething, (all 4 molars at once), but we gave her teething tablets, ibuprofen, love, anything else we thought would help. She even stopped napping, and would become grumpy because she was tired.

But this week has been so amazing. She has been smiling all the time

and she will just crawl up to me and just want to snuggle (unless Spencer is home, of course and then she will scream for him.) It's sad but I almost forgot how sweet she can be.

I adore her.

She has been very funny lately. We have a full flight of stairs and have gates at both ends, of course. But we also have 2 other children who are sometimes forgetful of locking the gate. Well, Madelyn thinks it is the most fun thing in the world to climb up stairs. If Aidan forgets to shut and lock the gate after himself for 1 second, up she goes.

If we go after her, she climbs even faster. It is terrifying, watching this tiny little thing climb around, especially knowing that there is only hard, cold tile at the bottom.

So a few days ago, I taught her to go down the stairs. Hey, I figured that at least then she wouldn't get stuck and fall trying to get down but not knowing how. So now it's up and down, up and down, any time she gets past the gate. (We still try to keep it locked.) I will be doing someones hair and she will sneak past and I will hear her on the stairs and think she is falling. I know it will happen eventually, since it has with the other 2 little ones, but I hope it won't be too far and not until she is a lot older.

That's my little munchkin right now. She has no desire to walk. She will walk around things, holding on and will walk back and forth between me and Spence, but only while holding on with both hands. She will refuse to walk until she has both of our hands.

We sometimes try to hide one just to see if she will walk with only one, but she will turn all around to see if she can find it and grab it before she will go anywhere.

The little chicken.

Stairs are fine, but walking, no way!

I have had the paint for her walls since the last house and I knew it was getting a little old and gross, so I buckled down to do the painting. I wanted to paint her walls yellow, not very bright at all, almost a cream, but Spencer says yellow walls look like pee and hates them. So I went for pink. I was worried that it would be too much, all these pink walls, but I like it now.

I still need more accessories, but I think it turned out pretty well.

You will have to let me know what you think. I love the black M that I put on the wall and love the contrast with the pink, so I think I will be getting more black things to tone it down so it's not too cutesy.

I know it's hard to tell, but the curtains are green and adorable

Also, I have become a little baker lately.

I have been making bread (only in the bread-maker, so I hope that doesn't count as cheating) and the kids and I made sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting and decorated them for Halloween. It was so fun. I loved the ones they made. It was adorable, and also delicious to eat. I had to show off the hard work.

Having fun decorating