Halloween on Veteran's Day?? So sue me.

The Halloween Wrap-up! Adam was Himself 15 years ago... This is what a Busy Mom's Halloween costume looks like. I happened to be wearing a zebra-striped shirt that day...add some fake lashes, and voila... Zebra!

This was the Annual Pre-Trick-or-Treating Chili Dinner - the only way we actually get to eat a decent dinner before the candy influx - Thank you McCooks!
This is the face of Halloween Night anticipation!!

This is after we have Tricked and Treated ourselves to exhaustion. Now we're all hanging out on the driveway passing out candy to the last trickle of Treaters.

This is Lizzie playing with the Funny Glasses.
Oooh! Scary Ninja with the humungo glasses!

This is Ivy after asking if we can have some of her hard-earned candy:

This is what the beginning of a late night sugar crash looks like. Time to go to bed!

Park Time!

This is what we do after school when the weather finally cools down: We sit in the shade and talk while the kids play in the greenbelt after school.



We've been waiting three months since school started for it to finally cool down enough - and this week, it finally did!

Thanks for taking the picture, Ivy! :)

Pranksters

The kids brought home their school pictures today!


Here's Eli's:



You probably think it's pretty cute, huh.



But if you know Eli, you know that he has lips. So look carefully at the picture.



This is what we call in our family "Eli No-Lips." It's this game that the kids play when they smile a ridiculous smile in which the lips are pulled in and tucked up into the gums and completely out of sight. The kids regularly make this face to drive me crazy.



Couple that with his mischevious twinkle in his eyes, and what do you get? A pre-meditated prankster picture! Argh!!



It reminds me of another school picture taken of another such mischevious prankster a few years ago. Check this out:




The truth is, Matt doesn't even wear glasses! Can you imagine holding that pose wearing fake glasses without cracking while the school photographer took your picture??? Takes alot of guts, I say. And for the record, this was way before Twitch came along with his fake glasses.

And Matt didn't even tell my mom - he just brought home the school pictures a few months later and dropped them in front of her on the kitchen counter. She almost had a heart attack.


It's like Eli's been taking lessons from him or something.

Oh, and today is Matt's 19th Birthday!! Keep Smiling, Brotha! Cant' wait to hear about your mission call!

Ivy Stewart

Did you know what we just found out? Well, Adam's ancestor, Levi Stewart settled Kanab Utah back in the 1800's and he had a great-granddaughter born 1889 named Ivy Stewart! Ha! We didn't know "Ivy Stewart" was a family name! Isn't that cool?

Hooray for geneology!

Ivy's a swimmer

Ivy is a swimmer!

It's really a must here in Arizona especially when you have a diving pool in the backyard. But we are so proud of all she has accomplished in swimming lessons in the last six months!

Check her out! She's graduated from the Otter Class!

http://www.evoswimschool.com/blog/student-graduates/ivy-stewart-otter-graduate/#comment-300

Happy Halloween!

Did I mention that Whitney came to Visit?!

I forgot to mention during all the busyness of Childhelp that my sister, "Whitney the Magnificent," as Lizzie calls her, came to visit over her Fall Break.
Look at those two girls! Put them in a magazine already!

Superstar.

Eli has been named Star Student of the Week!

He wasn't too surprised, because in his mind, he is a Superstar every week. This week, the school just formalized it.

Don't believe me? Just look at his completely self-made poster. This is not a poster of self-doubt or insecurity. No, no. Confidence is not something we feel we need to work on with this child, yo. Yeah, he Rocks, yo.

Now, take a look at his little Superstar Statements.

Isn't he funny?! He is just dying to learn Karate. I didn't realize how badly until I saw what he wrote here on the "Stuff Everyone Should Know About Me" section.

Although, this priceless little clip should have tipped me off sooner... (don't hurt yourself laughing at this)

Eli: he's a Superstar.

My bro Matt's latest

Get ready to swoon...

Chandler Children's Choir at Childhelp

Our first performance! I was so proud of them! :)

Cool Idea from Lisa

Whitney, who is visiting us for her Fall Break, helped me make these cool necklaces for the Scrabble Girls in our family:
E for Elizabeth
A for Aimee
E for Erin
and of course, W for Whitney!

Childhelp Tonight

Well, some things are just meant to be.

Tonight is our Children's Choir's first ever performance! We were asked to sing at a fundraiser at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel for Childhelp, a National Organization for the prevention of child abuse and neglect.

We are so excited! The choir will be singing music as the guests arrive, and the favorite song for that is "The Waltz" written by my former Salt Lake Children's Choir director, Ralph Woodward. It talks about watching a ball with ladies all dressed up and music playing - how appropriate is that!

Then, the Event opens with 3 soloists from our choir singing on a stage. As the song progresses, the rest of our choir will start walking in with candles and singing a song written for us and for this event: "I Am a Light" by David Grover. It's going to be awesome.

So the most amazing thing is that this morning, I was talking to one of our choir parents. She told me that about 8 years ago, she and her family were in a horribly bad situation, and she found herself a poor single mother to a daughter that needed some serious help. She couldn't afford therapy, and didn't know what to do or where to turn. She desperately prayed to God to help her, then opened up the Yellow Pages right to Childhelp. They started going there, and she and her daughter both graduated from the therapy program 2 years later. She credits this organization with giving her daughter back to her in a much healthier place.

And now, she is in the Chandler Children's Choir, singing at the Fundraiser tonight, and helping to inspire others to give money to help children in the same situation she was in 8 years ago. She's an emotionally healthy young woman with a strong character now. It's come full circle.

How great is it for these kids to give back to society by using their talents and by just being the sweet pure children that they are! I think it's great for them - and hopefully it will remind them - and all of us - how very very fortunate we all are.

And I'm inspired by that.

See Ya Later, Crocodile

That's what we said to Arizona when we went to San Diego last weekend. The crocodile was a favorite for the kids at the San Diego Zoo. And the Kids Get In Free during October was a favorite for the parents.

Tennis with Grandma Muir

Kids on the GO!

Restaurant Suggestion

Have you ever dreamt of eating lunch at a cafe, doing your laundry, picking up a candy bar at the convenience store for dessert, and having an all-around "Good Time" all at once? Well, have I got a find for you!! I stumbled upon this new place last week as we were driving to San Diego.

It's a little out of the way, but it's totally unique and worth the drive. It has xerascape landscaping; with wide, expansive views.

The directions are easy: Take I-10 to I-8 and drive until you get to the first restaurant you see. It's about a 3 hour drive.






That marginally creepy happy face just makes me want to do laundry.


You know, doing laundry makes me thirsty. Thirsty for Drinking Water. In our family, we prefer the Salty version. So you can imagine our disappointment when we found this place:



Dang!! We wanted SALTY Drinking Water. Argh. Sometimes you just can't win.



Directions: stay on I-8 for several more hours or until the kids start eating the seat cushions because they're so bored. Here's the view while you're driving. Not to be confused with Africa. (The phone lines are a dead giveaway.)



So let's make a date at the Good Time Cafe! Come on down! We'll do our laundry together!

Trip to Cali

We were able to take a quick trip to California this weekend!

Coronado Beach,

San Diego Zoo,

Dinner at Grandma & Grandpa Muir's...

It's been lovely to get away and relax!

So You Think You Can PARTY!!! (Four Real)

Me and my cutie blonde friends Kim and Sara went to the Premiere event of the year last night! Yes, that's right, the So You Think You Can Dance concert!!!

Yes, I'm sure you all have lots of questions, so I will try to answer them all for you in a Q/A format:
Q: Was it amazing??

A: Yes, it was! It was like watching live TV!

Q: What dances did they do?

A: All the favorites from the show! The mattress/roses dance with Kherington and Twitch, the Briefcase dance with Chelsea and Matt, the "Imagine all the People" dance with Will and Katee, and my personal fave, the dance with the door with Courtney and Twitch.

Q: Did you scream like a 13 year-old when Will danced his solo?

A: Yes! How did you know?! Were you the poor sap sitting in front of me?

Q: Would you go again next year?

A: Consider me Committed to SYTYCD! I'm a huge dorky fan. I love it. :)

Q: How grateful are you to Sara for saving you from total shame and embarassment when you arrived at her house with a W.T. broken black purse that you had indiscreetly taped together with black electrical tape?

A: Very grateful. Oh, and also thanks to Sara for letting me borrow matching black shoes too. I can't match.

Q: Do you really think Kim will pay Sara $20 for yelling during an especially quiet moment for Will to "take his shirt off?"

A: I only promised to blog about it. I can't speak for Kim.

Thanks for a totally fun Girls' Night Out! Oh, and ps - Kim and Sara, consider yourselves "Visit Taught" for October.

I'm not asking much - just a trifle, merely a token...

Lizzie just submitted this list to me.

Lizzie's Christmas List:

-american girl doll (matching look &
clothes),
-dolly(if you know what i mean........),
-littlest petshop,
-webkinz,
-dream club blue, soft, uniform with badges and club meeting
tent,
-a pet (hamsters, dogs that don't bite, extra),
-my own kitchen (
with real food),
-make my bed machine,
-my own t.v.,
-laptop,
-cell phone,
-i-pod
-clean my room machine,
-robot horse that
carries you around and acts like a real horse,
-any other present you think
I will like really much.

Oh! I just got a text from Santa! Let's see what it says...

"Fat Chance, Sweetheart."

Oh, funny. That's the same thing I would have said!

Creating

Last weekend, I was inspired as I watched with women of my faith from all around the world the Relief Society Broadcast.

Most especially as I listened to these words from Elder Uchdorf :

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No
matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an
inherent wish to create something that did not exist
before.
Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or
influence in order to create something of substance or
beauty.
Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop
ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it
into something of beauty..."

"Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment...

...We develop ourselves and others...
... when we take unorganized matter into our hands ......and mold it into... something that did not exist before...
...something of beauty."

Man Date

I get two comp tickets for each performance I'm in.

One goes to Adam, naturally.

Well, he can't take a female, now can he?

Thanks for being man enough to go on a Man Date, Ward.

When I told my girlfriends that Adam had a Man Date, they all thought it was a "mandate" ... so no, it is not mandatory. It's just for fun.

And they're just friends.