Other Things that Happened in June

We didn't just celebrate holidays in June. Here are some of the other things we did.

There was a neighborhood breakfast with games and food.

Lucky learned a new skill- making roses out of napkins. He made a whole lot, which I didn't mind because we had a huge package of napkins from the store so we weren't running out. And they looked cute.

 

There was lots of chess playing.

Annual Jugglers' Barbecue. It was so good to be around performers again.

Jr. Jr. and another boy got to give a lesson in Young Men. They worked on their lesson in our house. I appreciated seeing the time and effort they put into it.

We went to visit friends we hadn't seen in a few years. The kids had no problem playing with each other again. We, adults, had a great conversations.

 

The boys got some well needed haircuts. He are some before and after shots.

Lucky wanted me to cut off a huge chunk of the front of his hair. So I did. Then he wanted me to leave it that way. So I did. For several days. He wanted to go out in public like that. So we did.

The things I do for my kids.

Eventually I was able to give him a decent haircut.

I think Lucky's going through a grumpy face stage. He's not unhappy, he just wants to look that way for pictures. Sigh.

I took him and Jet to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point while the older kids were at Youth Camp and he looked grumpy again while riding a horse.

Besides riding a real horse, Jet wanted to ride every fake animal he could find. Lucky got involved with that with him.

Later Jet got to milk a real cow and Lucky got a squished penny.

And of course, Jet got to slide on the slide again.

 

I got a picture of all three of the older kids before they went off to Youth Camp but only a picture of Jr. when he got back. They all came back in different vehicles. Two of them got dropped off at home and one I picked up from the church.

Nichole crocheted a cat for her secret sister. She just sat down and crocheted it. No pattern. Just created it. That's talent.

Other things:

Jr. is learning to drive.

We had some fun with balloons. Jeremy had several sculptures to build so I delivered some so he could keep building.

Lucky got to use leftover balloons to make his own creations.

We got some of those balloon perks again. Jeremy brought home Chick-fil-a sandwiches for us after one event.

Another night he "crashed" Marcus's neighborhood barbecue to make balloon animals for the kids. It was a pleasant surprise. His wife sent Jeremy home with hamburgers. Yummmm.

Lots going on but I'm glad I'm finally getting around to catching up.

Halloween Costumes 2016

Yay, Fall.  And with Fall comes Halloween.  And Halloween parties.  Hooray!
Jeremy was hired to do balloons at a Halloween party a week ago Saturday and the lady that hired him invited his family to come, too.  Perks!
So the kids and I went to this Halloween party and had a lot of fun.  And the kids were able to try out their Halloween costumes for the first time this year since I literally finished them that morning.

Nichole is Hermione Granger from Harry Potter.  She wasn't able to wear her Gryffindor patch since they sent us the wrong one in the mail and we're still waiting for them to send us the right one.  But I was able to make her a robe to wear and she had a wand from a past Harry Potter party.
Jr. wanted to be a dementor, so we took his over-sized hoodie and safety pinned leftover robe scraps to the sleeves and bottom of it.
Jr. Jr. decided to be a pumpkin patch and when Lucky heard that he let us know he wanted to be a pumpkin patch, too.  We made fabric pumpkins and safety pinned them to green clothes for the boys.  In keeping with the Harry Potter theme, the kids discussed it and thought the boys could be Hagrid's pumpkin patch.
The kids had a blast at the party.  There was a bouncy slide and a train ride.

Each of the kids that rode the train got their own train whistle.

Jr. Jr. LOVED the train and rode it over and over and over as many times as he could.
At one point, they let all the kids go trick or treating.  Lots of candy the kids enjoyed.

They also had hot dogs and potluck food.  Nichole and I enjoyed that.

It was fun and we felt so welcomed at the party.  It was also a good trial run for the costumes.  Now I can make some adjustments in time for Halloween.

Happy Hanukkah!

Still love those perks of my husband's job.  He brought home a box of donuts from one of his shows.

Well, it wasn't a full box.  But it was just in time for Hanukkah.  Fried foods!
We also had latkes (potato pancakes)

and applesauce.

And some parmesan chicken, which isn't traditional Hanukkah food, but we wanted it with our meal.

I think this was the first time we did food for Hannukah.  Usually we spin the dreidel.  We sometimes talk about where the "Festival of Light" came from.  This year after we do our scripture study in the morning and the kids get their mint M&Ms for answering questions, we talk about Hanukkah and the kids get a donut for answering questions.
Again it's a nice way to learn about different cultures.  And eat food.

For the past couple years, Jeremy's also been able to twist balloons at a Hanukkah party at the synagogue in Park City.  He builds a large (you can see how large by this picture) menorah for them and has a nice time there.

Happy Hanukkah!

It's My Slumber Party

Fall Break.  We decided to celebrate with... a slumber party!  We haven't had a slumber party for a while for various reasons.  Either we have to get up early the next morning or the kids haven't behaved in a way that we want to reward them with it.  But the kids were so well behaved yesterday that we decided to let them stay up to watch a movie in the living room (with popcorn) and sleep there with their sleeping bags.

We continued today since October 11 is It's My Party Day.  The kids and I started with pizza (good slumber party food) and Jello, and they got to watch another movie.

Later we played Connect Four.

When Jeremy came home, I put on Lesley Gore's song, "It's My Party," and the kids and I danced around.

He brought treats from a wedding reception to share, then we settled down to watch yet another movie with the kids' sleeping bags.

Yeah, Fall Break is fun.