2011 HALLOWEEN FUN

It's been a fun, exhausting week!! I took Ashlie and Paige to a Halloween party at the library on Wednesday, then to a neighborhood party on Friday, then we had a family party down in Kaysville on Saturday, Megan's classroom party on Monday, then trick-or-treating! We toasted pumpkin seeds, made white chocolate covered strawberry ghosts, and ate rectangular shaped homemade pizza instead of our traditional pumpkin shaped one (because I was in a serious hurry!). I dressed Ashlie and Paige in their costumes 4 times, and Megan 3 times...and washed Paige's witch costume 3 times this week! :) We trick-or-treated until the kids couldn't go anymore, and they came back very happy kids! Here are some pictures I wanted to share...

All ready for the neighborhood party at the Ray's house:

The doughnut game!


Decorating pumpkins!


My family, my sister Kim and her family, and my mom & dad.


Me & Brad the leprechaun, my two cute cowgirls, and my cute little witch. Brad has the most perfect leprechaun voice by the way:


Happy girls after finding goodie bags in the leaves:



Playing a game that Brad and I put together for the kids:


Sunday I came home from choir practice and saw this cute spider web hanging in my living room! These two were responsible:


Sunday night we carved our pumpkins. I was proud of Megan for drawing the face on her pumpkin for the first time. I thought she did great!
Megan's pumpkin:

Ever since I did a jack-o-lantern activity with my primary kids, Paige has known that she's wanted her pumpkin to have these eyes with the eyelashes. They turned out cute!

Here's Ashlie's pumpkin!


Monday I got to help do a Halloween party in Megan's class. I did a couple of games with the kids. For one of my games I had a basket filled with about 20 or so Halloween items, and I had all of the kids come up in groups to view them. Then I gave them probably a couple of minutes to write down what they remembered. The boy that won remembered 18 items. I was impressed! This is Megan's copy from the game:

Megan playing the doughnut game:

Megan won her round of the doughnut game, so she got to be one of 4 kids to repeat the game in "The Challenger's Round"! To win your round you had to be the first to pull your doughnut from the string. You didn't have to have it eaten entirely. I couldn't believe that Megan won the challenger's round, and that she ate 2 large glazed doughnuts during class!


Our ward did a trunk-or-treat at 5:00, then we went as a family to a couple of different neighborhoods. The second neighborhood we went to had tons of kids out and about everywhere, and it was a lot of fun. We don't have sidewalks or very many street lamps by our house, so we don't get trick-or-treaters (so we visit other neighborhoods). We were out until 8:00 and the kids' buckets were full!
Ashlie at the trunk-or-treat:

Megan and Paige's hauls:


2 year old on a sugar high!

Some very happy kiddos!!


Favorite moments from last night: Megan skipping down the sidewalk while trick-or-treating, and Ashlie saying trick-or-treat louder than her sisters (the entire way up people's sidewalks). She was so much fun last night. She wanted me to carry her in between houses, but even when her bucket was getting heavy she wouldn't let me hold it. She was not going to let it out of her sights! :) I put all the candy buckets away up high in their closets before bed last night, and Paige told me she wouldn't go to sleep until I put her bucket on her bed. She said "I promise I won't eat any". I guess she just wanted to know it was close by? :) I didn't find any empty candy wrappers in her bed this morning, so I'll assume she kept her word.

Now it's time for some fun November memories! Happy November everyone!

Future Athlete Maybe?

Megan loves exercise. She loves P.E. at school. She's not aggressive, so although we keep putting her in soccer, I'm thinking track might be a better fit for her. She's also the kind of girl who rarely says she is bored - only because she's so creative that she comes up with her own fun. Last night while I was doing dishes, she was doing all sorts of crazy moves back and forth from the living room, down the hallway to her bedroom. Turns out she was timing herself to see how long it would take her to go from her room to the living room, doing different moves. Here are her results (which she charted herself on a piece of paper):

• Snake (1 minute 25 seconds)
• Spider (36 seconds)
• Hopping on one leg (15 seconds)
• Kangaroo (10 seconds)
• Horse (9 seconds)
• Crab (32 seconds)
• Twisting (1 minute 26 seconds)
• Karate (13 seconds)
• Turtle (2 minutes 23 seconds)
• Run (7 seconds)
• Heels (16 seconds)
• Tip Toes (11 seconds)

My favorite was when she came into the kitchen (where I was) and said, "Wow! The turtle was a slow one!" I asked her what she did for turtle, and she showed me her super, super slow crawl. It was seriously hilarious.

By the way, we're hoping our new camera comes today! Megan's been forgiven, and I've learned my lesson that I'll only take pictures when she's not looking!

Hole-In-The-Rock

I thought some of the John family would like this. Maybe you know this, and maybe you don't:

Until about 2 years ago when I was reading Gerald Lund's book "The Undaunted", I had no idea that I had ancestors that were Hole-In-The-Rock Pioneers. As I read the book I kept reading the name "Decker", and I quickly learned that my Grandma John's relatives were part of this neat history. Anyway, there are some good websites out there: trekholeintherock.blogspot.com, and others, as well as a book called Hole in the Rock by David E. Miller that mention my ancestors. If you've read the book, or know the story, I think you'll like these paintings that I found online by a man named Lynn Griffin:

This one is of the last wagon:

I found out that the following Hole-In-The-Rock Pioneers are related to all of us John's: (I've done some reading to figure out exactly how they're related). Hopefully I've recorded it all correctly. Anyway, it's pretty neat to find out information about these ancestors online.

- Cornelius Isaac Decker & Elizabeth Morris (married; they are my grandma's great-grandparents)

- James Bean Decker & Anna Maria Mickelsen (my grandma's great-grandpa's son & his wife; his father is Zachariah Bruyn Decker, and his mother is Nancy Bean)

- Nathanial Alvin Decker & Emma Morris (my grandma's grandparents)

- Zachariah Bruyn Jr. Decker (my grandma's grandpa's brother) - he's married to Emma Seraphine Smith

- Zachariah Bruyn Sr. Decker (married to Nancy Bean; my grandma's great grandma)

- George William Decker (my grandmas grandpa's brother)

- Peter Mickelsen & Harriet Emily Decker (married; Harriet Emily Decker is the daughter of Zachariah Bruyn Decker Sr. & Nancy Bean)

Ever since I read The Undaunted I've kind of taken an interest in family history work. I thought maybe I was a little too young to be interested in it, but Elder Bednar's talk in conference proved me wrong. He said, "Many of you may think family history work is to be performed primarily by older people. But I know of no age limit described in the scriptures or guidelines announced by Church leaders restricting this important service to mature adults. You are sons and daughters of God, children of the covenant, and builders of the kingdom. You need not wait until you reach an arbitrary age to fulfill your responsibility to assist in the work of salvation for the human family..."

A little research on the new family search website taught me that I'm related to all sorts of Lords, Kings, etc. on my mom's side of the family. It's pretty cool!

A Halloween Primary Music Time

I'm the primary chorister in our ward, and we've been reviewing songs since the first week of September for our upcoming Primary Program. In preparation, the Primary Presidency gave me the entire 40 minutes of sharing time / music time this past Sunday. I know the kids are growing tired of the songs, so I knew I had to make the 40 minutes of music time fun. I was thrilled yesterday when all my work paid off! It was fun for me to see the kids creating these jack-o-lantern faces.

• First, I went to pumpkinlady.com and found some great jack-o-lantern faces that I dragged onto my computer desktop. I hand drew the mouth, nose, & eye pieces that I liked onto yellow construction paper. Once I had as many as I wanted (I ended up making 14 of each), I put masking tape on the back of each piece and taped them onto an extra white board that I have. Then I made 14 different shaped pumpkins out of construction paper.
• I had all of the pumpkins hung up on the chalkboard with magnets when the kids came in, and had the marker board (with face pieces) on an easel low to the ground. Anyway, the whole concept was to make it fun for the kids to sing through all of the primary program songs, and to encourage them to sing the best they could. I told the kids that I would be looking for the best singers, and that they would be the ones that I'd choose to come up and pick a piece for our jack-o-lanterns.
• So the singing went great! After each song we sang, I chose a child (well, normally about 3 - 5) that sang the song well and told them that they could choose an eye, nose, etc. The kids completed one pumpkin at a time, so we could make sure each face got completed. They turned out real cute I think! Of course, about the last 5 minutes was spent saying "Who hasn't had a turn yet?" and making sure they all got a chance to come up. It helps that we have a small primary. Every single child got a turn, and at the end I invited one girl who sang awesome the entire time to come up and have a second turn. I only had about 3 pieces left over, meaning that we had about 38 kids in our combined junior & senior primary. See, sometimes a small ward has it's advantages. You nearly always get a turn!

Going to that website: pumpkinlady.com made me wonder why I still think and think about how I can carve my pumpkins each year. From now on I'm going to that site (or one of the gazillion others) for my inspiration! Megan's called dibs for the pumpkin that is on the top row, second from the left (That's why it has eyebrows. She used the extra eyes and turned them into eyebrows.) Anyway, that's how she wants her pumpkin carved this year! Paige wants her pumpkin to have "woman lips" like the pumpkin on the top row, 2nd from the right! :) She's funny. That's actually the piece she put on during primary time. :)

Book titles to pass on

My blog will temporarily have to do without any photos, due to the death of our digital camera #3. The blog is to blame actually. I was taking a photo of something cute, and by doing so upset my daughter, causing her to knock it out of my hands - causing it to die a sudden death on the ceramic tile in the kitchen. It seems not everyone is happy to have the cute little things they do photographed.

I actually wanted to write about some of the books Brad and I have been reading. I don't know what has happened to us, but lately we both love to read, and will stay up late just to do so. I keep a long running list of books I want to read, and I'm always adding to it. A few months ago I searched online for "Clean Reads", because I was tired of checking out a book, only to find it filled with language I didn't want to read. I found a couple of excellent websites. On one of them, a suggested book was "The Witch of Blackbird Pond".

I never read this in school, and actually thought maybe it would be a good book to read before Halloween. It was actually more a story of independence, friendship, & romance, and had absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! I finished it last night (early this morning at 12:15), and am convinced that I want a copy for my book shelf. There wasn't a single boring page in the entire book in my opinion. It actually reminded me a lot of Little Women. Most people have probably read it, but I hadn't, so maybe you haven't either. Anyways, GREAT book, and a quick read!

You'll be surprised by the titles of these books that Brad is reading. There's a story behind these. Dan Wells (the author of the series) actually worked with Brad as a writer for ICON HEALTH & FITNESS in Logan. Brad and I became friends with Dan & his wife while we lived up that way. Anyway, Dan wrote his first book series. Our library didn't carry the books, so Brad put in a purchase request. The librarian laughed at the titles and said "Are you going to leave those books lying around with your girls in the house?" The first one, which he just finished was "I am not a serial killer", and now he's 30 pages from finishing "Mr. Monster". The third book in the series is "I don't want to kill you". Keep in mind, this guy (Dan) is a good guy - we had no doubt that they were going to be clean books. Brad has really liked them, and thinks that they are really clever.




We both liked The Mark by Marilyn Bunderson


I loved this book, and am excited for the sequel that's coming out in November:


Brad recently read and liked:
Slathbog's Gold - ML Forman

The Horn of Moran - ML Forman


I read "Flipped" by Wendelin Van Draanen, which I'm hesitant to recommend, because it does seem like it had some language in it. It was good, just not my favorite. However, when I finished it I couldn't stop thinking about the message of the book. One chapter would be from the girl's point of view, then the next was in the boy's point of view. You relive the same exact instance two chapters in a row, but completely differently. It's all about how sometimes we judge, but we don't know the whole story. What we're thinking might actually be totally wrong. It did have a great message.


I'll be taking a night off, so I can watch TV. It's Biggest Loser tonight! By the way, anyone else liking Terra Nova? Those are the only 2 shows were even watching. Maybe that's why we have time to read! :)

Fall Photos

Since winter weather is supposedly hitting tomorrow, I thought I'd better get around to posting these fall photos we just took. Fall is a fun time, but it just doesn't last long enough around here! Brad and I have enjoyed taking fall pictures ever since Megan was really little - just for fun. I'll be thinking of my sister in Arizona tomorrow while I pull out the winter coats.

I LOVE Ashlie in this picture - I kind of think she steals the show! :)


Here's Us:

Choose To Be Happy Now

After listening to Pres. Uchtdorf's talk about the forget-me-not flowers this past week (if you didn't hear it, go to lds.org to view his address he gave at the General Relief Society Broadcast), I've kept in the back of my mind a couple of the things that he said. He talked to women all around the world, counseling them to take joy in even their "small successes". He also related the story about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (where people forgot the simple pleasure of the chocolate bar, and were only chasing after the golden ticket), and compared it to us, and how sometimes we forget to be happy NOW in our lives. Well, this stage of my life entirely revolves around my children, and it's the small, crazy, happy moments that make up my life. These girls remind me that I'm doing something right. They make my life happy. Enjoy! Hopefully this post will help you see the small things in your life that make you happy!

(This is courtesy some kind person who posted it on sugardoodle.net)


Crazy morning hair! (Apparently this is what curly hair sometimes looks like in the morning)



Playing in the Halloween costumes:


Homemade earrings (which she taped to her ears):


Paige demonstrating a stretch that she had to do for a "test" in PE:


Milk mustaches at dinner time:



Picking fall leaves in the mountains with the Johns:


Taking the round about way home from picking leaves, so we could pick acorns:


Taking the long ride home from picking leaves caused us to drive by the Cheese Factory, which is when I saw THIS. What you don't see, is that all three of them are standing on Brad behind the sign!


Watching Megan's soccer games twice a week! The season was half over, and she'd never volunteered to be the goalie. However, this particular game she shot her arm straight up in the air when her coach asked who wanted to be the goalie. That's her, wearing the "red goalie shirt":


Here are some un-photographed, but recorded moments that made the list:

When Ashlie saw her daddy getting dressed in church clothes to go Home Teaching, and she immediately stripped off what she was wearing and insisted that we dress her in tights, church shoes, and a dress.

When Paige came home from kindergarten and dropped onto the living room floor because of utter famish-ment. She was too hungry to even walk into the kitchen for lunch - I had to carry her there. Wow, it's amazing what 2 1/2 hours of grueling school work can do to someone! :)

You know how people ask for things and say "pretty please with sugar on top"? Well, Paige REALLY wanted Frosted Flakes the other day, and this is how she asked for them: "I said please with all the candy in the world...and that means a really please. It means I really want it."

Not to be forgotten was the moment this week when I had to deal with the following tantrums:
#1 - Ashlie insisted that I pour milk into her baby doll's plastic bottle. As you know, they don't open. So, after telling her over and over again that I couldn't put milk in it, I finally decided to fake it. I pretended to pour in the milk, I handed her the bottle, and she shook it next to her ear. She didn't hear any milk jiggling around in there, and she was NOT happy with me! :)

#2 - Ashlie was insistent the other day that I add sugar to her Frosted Flakes. Have you ever tried to explain to a screaming 2 year old that Frosted Flakes don't need any extra sugar? Well, after weighing over in my mind whether it was worth listening to her cry any longer, I gave in and let her add a spoonful of sugar onto her Frosted Flakes. Needless to say, she really enjoyed that bowl of extra sweet cereal.

Afraid of dogs, & of something else too!

I'm sure every one has things they see at their homes that are unique to where they live. For us, hot air balloons have been one of our most favorite things about living where we do. The kids never get tired of seeing them. In fact, we all saw one on our way to school this morning. When you see the hot air balloons, you know summer has arrived! Well, this was the first hot air balloon we'd ever seen look like this! (I know the photo's small. If you can't see it, it's a Pepsi can!)

The kids thought it was hilarious!

Yesterday I was talking with Brad in the garage. Ashlie and Paige were home with us, and I had noticed that Ashlie had walked up the front porch steps and was standing by the front door. From the garage I heard her instantly begin to cry. It wasn't a hurt cry. I recognized it immediately, because she had cried like that this past weekend while visiting family. Every time Brad's parent's dog came near her at all, the panic cry began. It was bad enough that we asked Brad's dad if he could put the dog away for a while. Well, it was the panic cry. I immediately scoped the front yard to see if there was a dog in the yard. Nope, no dog...
...a deer! A buck was just strolling past the house, causing my 2 year old to want to escape into the house as soon as possible. It was really funny, honestly. We have a love / hate relationship with deer around here. In the spring, they devour our plants just as they are beginning to grow. Come fall, we have forgiven them a little, and we're able to laugh again when we see them. We get excited to see them walking along the road, and we laugh when they creep into our girls' club house (in the field across the road). Last night our girls' friend, Trevor (who helped create the club house with them) shouted over his fence that there were two chickens in the club house! Off Paige and Megan ran to go see if they could get a glimpse. Fun stuff!

Kindergarten Begins!

Paige has waited, and waited, and waited to go to school...and finally today, she got to! Just like Christmas morning, she woke up super early, and without even being asked she made her bed & got dressed. School is only 2 1/2 hours long, but when I picked her up she said, "Mom, you said I'd only get to go half a day, but I got to go ALL day!". Of course it's hard to get too much info. out of a 5 year old, but she didn't forget to mention that she got an M&M cookie & chocolate kisses. Sounds like the year's off to a good start. Megan seemed so excited to have her little sister going to school too. Now I have a couple of hours just with little Ashlie, & I have to get in the groove of what the two of us are going to do! :) It's a good problem to have though...I'm not complaining!