Harvest Time

Homemade Salsa. 

Aaron and I hope next year our garden will happen.

In the meantime, I'll take others' 'garden left-overs' any day.

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The girls enjoyed a little pie-making with G-ma M.  

Best FHE treat we've had in a long time:)

With extra tomatoes around, I also made fresh salsa and bruschetta - love 'em!  

Quinn didn't bat an eye when he tasted this lime -  ate the whole thing!

Everything is a costume these days - even packing material (on head).

All the kids have been trying out various costumes in anticipation of the big day.

Jedi Knights and Cleopatra

Haley and Brinley wrapped as mummies after one of the games we played.

Our activity day leaders hosted a Halloween Dinner Date for the girls and their parents.

We enjoyed yummy chili in pumpkin bread bowls (no pic but cool), 'freaky finger foods' and decorated our own sugar cookies.  

Doesn't everybody carve pumpkins at 6am?

All smiles before the Cub Scout pack night contest.

The boys tried their hand with this old-fashioned cider press.  

Our cub master (from WA) has 24 apple trees and he knows his stuff.

The results were amazing!

Preschool party-time for this fairy-princess.

Anna and Rachel are raising their hands.

With all of the educational budget cuts, fieldtrips do not really happen much anymore.

Since the 1st and 2nd graders were scheduled to visit a local establishment, I decided to make it work even though that meant bringing Quinn and Elsie along.  No problem.  I figured they would enjoy listening to stories, decorating pumpkins and eating lunch at a nearby park.  

The weather was fantastic!

What I couldn't anticipate was the appearance of the storyteller...

Hmm, she was a bit frightening to the school-age kids so you can imagine Quinn's response to her grand entrance.  He eventually recovered but the whole gig was a bit more stressful than I planned on.  Ironically, I don't think Anna would have cared whether I was there or not (although she did like escorting her younger siblings).

Elsie and Anna

Elsie gets her face painted by Brinley.

Friday night was the elementary school Halloween carnival.  

Sponsored by the PTO, it is THE fundraiser event of the year.

The flow and function of the evening improved by leaps and bounds over years past.

Brinley and her friends were recruited to be face painters.

After the carnival, I dropped Elsie off with Aaron and Quinn, picked up Tanner and his friend Tim, and headed to the BYU-I's 28th Annual Halloween Concert.   All six shows were sold out but we were lucky enough to score a few tickets from a friend of mine.

A prop near where we were sitting 

The theme of the show was:

"Idaho Jones and the Treasures of the Lost Art"

Jantzen - wearing leftovers from his carnival football costume 

We laughed at the crazy and clever costumes worn by all the orchestra members.

Many in the audience were also in costume.

Tanner and Tim conveniently found two seats by a group of girls from school.

It was a fun but late night for the kiddos and me:).