Cortney's Crew

Monday night for Family Home Evening we did our traditional Monday before Halloween carving of pumpkins. Which this time meant Mommy did all the work while the girls cheered her on. The girls wanted nothing to do with the yuckiness, but both wanted cat faces on their pumpkins. For the 3rd pumpkin I decided it could be a Pirate Jack-o-lantern. I didn't feel like doing another kitten, which is what I'm sure they would have asked for if I had let them decide. Yesterday was Alexandra's Halloween party at Joy School. They had a great time. They got to carve a pumpkin as a class and they learned Halloween songs. Then all the Moms came for the party and they sang for us. I did record it, but Alexandra refused to sing, so I'm not posting it for all to see her "not sing". They had a "house" for each kid and then they all got to take turns trick-or-treating each other. It was so cute to hear them saying trick-or-treat and thank you. Here is Alexandra handing o...

Saturday night was apparently the night for getting in trouble for my girls. First I hear Riley and Alexandra talking in the other room about the gum in Alexandra's hair. So I yell for Alexandra to come in so I can see what kind of mess is in her hair. She had mushed the gum in really good, but luckily I didn't have to cut too much of her hair to get it out. But then she got mad at me because she wanted the gum back. Yeah not gonna happen. Then about bath time I notice that Riley has a hole in her pants. Now this hole is very definitely something that was done on purpose with scissors. So I ask Riley what happened with her pants. She proceeds to lie to me and say "I don't know" twice. Now this is the first time Riley has ever lied. Not only can I tell this was a purposely cut hole, she's horrible at lying. When I tell her to tell me the truth she says she cut her pants with some scissors. So then I ask her when she cut them. Again "I don'...

I just wanted to praise my friend Meredith. She makes purses and I bought a few the other day and they are wonderful!!! I used one today at the zoo and it held so much of my stuff, plus I was able to just keep stuffing papers and bags of popcorn and all the other hand outs from the booths. I also had snacks and water bottles in it too!! Plus I put my camera in one of the side pockets and it was so easy to get it out when I wanted to take pictures. These are the two I bought! I love the red and black one it has ribbon laced up the sides. So I'm promoting her website where she sells them. It is http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6063726 Meredith you rock!!

Yesterday night was our Ward's Trunk-or-Treat party. For those of you who don't know what that is, the members of our ward get together in our church parking lot and the kids go from car to car trick or treating. Usually you sit in the back of your car and hand out the candy (although I've never had a "car" there, so it might suck to sit in a trunk, but the back of Grammy's van worked great. It makes it a safe environment for the kids to trick-or-treat. You know everyone and it's all in one spot. We also had a potluck dinner and activities before the trick-or-treating started. Here's my cute Ariel and my Cat Witch holding their Halloween Webkins. One of the activities was eating a donut off a string with no hands. Of course you can see that Alexandra cheated. They also had face painting and fishing for prizes and musical chairs. One of the lady's in our ward handed out caramel and candy apples for her treats. They were so yummy!!! Again, since you...

I love school breaks!! Right now it's their fall break and we have a 5 day weekend. Riley had yesterday off and today and Monday as well! They love it even more than me because they know they can con Grammy into letting them come and have sleepovers. I just love it because I don't have to wake up to an alarm (not that I'm able to sleep in anymore). Grammy picked up Riley after school on Wednesday so that she could have a sleepover by herself. She's been trying to let the girls have individual sleepovers lately so they don't have to "share" Grammy. So I took Alexandra with Meredith and her kids to the museum because it was free day!!! I love free days, although I had hoped since it was a school day that the museum wouldn't be that packed - and I was horribly wrong. The best part of the day was going through the new dinosaur exhibit. Meredith's boys were so fun to watch, especially Jordan. He's so little (not quite 2) but he would get so excited ...

Last week was a good week. Monday was my first Troop meeting as Brownie Leader. We took a field trip to the pumpkin patch. I forgot my camera, so I wasn't able to get pictures. It was a great time though. We went through one of the cornfield mazes with the girls. Thank goodness I can sort of read a map, we'd have been so lost! The troop is 11 girls, which is kinda big, but they are great girls and I'm looking forward to having fun with them this year. The pumpkin patch we went to was great. You go out to the fields and pick any pumpkin you want and the prices were great. Because we had so many pumpkins it ended up being only $5 for each pumpkin. The only rule I had was the girls had to be able to carry whatever pumpkin they picked because there was no way I could carry them. One of the girls said "Yeah because you're not an octopus!" Which made me laugh. Then on Tuesday I got to go with Alexandra and her Joy School class to another pumpkin patch for their fiel...

I loved Conference this weekend. It just felt like a breath of fresh air, compared to all the worldly woes and problems that have been happening lately. I loved that a lot of the talks were about hope and not being afraid or in despair. Those were the talks that really stood out to me anyway. I loved Elder Wirthlin's talk the most. He looked so much better then he has in a long time. And I loved that he told funny stories!! I loved the one about the blind date the best. For those of you who didn't get to see conference or just want to see this talk again, here ya go! The girls did really good with listening to most of the conference sessions. It helped that they got to play conference bingo. My mom and I made cards a couple of years ago that are better then the ones we had when we were little. I loved conference bingo! I'd play for all 4 sessions and get tons of treats to last me for a while. We always played with snacks, M&M's, skittles, almonds, Wheat thins and su...

Today was Riley's field day at school. I know most school's have them at the end of the year, but a few years ago they decided to switch because of weather issues. It was a good time and Alexandra got to participate in everything (although she is not a good loser, so we had quite a few tantrums). By the end of the day Riley was so tired, she even skipped one of her races. She claimed her feet were just too tired to do it. Alexandra latched onto Riley's friend Alison and wanted to be on her team every time or just run with her. Alison was great with her and didn't mind, but Riley did. She told me at one point "She's acting like Alison is her sister, what if she forgets that I'm her sister?" Poor thing. I think Alexandra was just excited that someone besides Riley was actually paying attention to her. These are pictures of the beginning flag ceremony. These are pictures of the 50 yard dash. (I think it was yards??) Parachute! Frisbee Throwing ...