Adult Supervision Required

I decided that other day to give the kids something to do other than watch T.V. and fight. So I gave them each a bowl of rice and put several small items in each so they could find them. I thought they would love it. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take a little nap on the couch since Claudia was sleeping. 

I guess I was WRONG!

 

Madison  decided that she wanted it to SNOW in our house. So she walked around the kitchen sprinkling her rice ALL OVER THE PLACE. I was half asleep and remember Charles asking me if he could use the vacuum to clean up the mess and I kept telling him to get the small broom. He was pretty persistent that the broom would NOT work. So I got up and found this huge mess. I guess it was not the best time to take a nap! Note to self, do NOT give the kids rice without supervision.

Tommy Boy

"Is there a mark on my face? 

It doesn't hurt here or here, but right her in this region." 

 "Nope no mark."

"Man it really hurts."

 (this is the best picture I could get that showed the mark well.She looks more like a Pirate.)

The other night Madison was running around the house and slammed right into the corner of the wall. When I saw the bruise and red line appearing I immediately thought of Tommy Boy. Poor girl had this nice red mark on her face. I asked her if it hurt and she said only when I do this (as she squeezed on her cheek with her fingers. It was too funny!) I was very grateful there was NO blood. I CAN NOT do blood.

Halloween

 Master YODA

 

Pirate Girl 

(can you tell she wasn't feeling well.)

Zebra

 

 

Claudia LOVED her costume and giggled every time we put it on.

Halloween for us is ALWAYS very eventful. On Thursday we had Mom Garthe's annual work Halloween party filled with lots of food, games, and fun!

 

 

Friday we had our ward Trunk or Treat. 

Madison woke up in the middle of the night on Thursday night with a fever and a lovely CROUP cough. Then she threw up all over me. So after giving her Tylenol and resting on Friday she was finally feeling a little better. We took her to the trunk or treat anyway. On the way there she kept telling me her stomach hurt, I kept telling her she was probably hungry and just needed to eat. When we got there she asked to go to the bathroom so as I was walking her to the bathroom she PUKED ALL OVER ME and all over the hallway and bathroom of the church. Yeah! Not so fun!!! But she did feel much better after that. John and I cleaned everything up and then her and I hung out in the back of the car until Charles was done trunk or treating. 

Saturday morning John and I went with our friends the Woolfs to the Newport Temple for a session. (Oh how I miss going to that Beautiful temple. There will always be a special place in my heart for that temple.) Then we went to Cafe Rio for some YUMMY lunch. It was our first time and we really really enjoyed it!

After lunch we picked up the kids from my parents house and headed to John's parent's house for a birthday party for my nephew Nathan. After the party we headed back to my parent's house to attend their ward Trunk or Treat party. Madison fell asleep on the way back to my parents and stayed asleep on the couch. So John stayed there with her while I took Charles and Claudia to the party. Charles loved it! They had a Star Wars room. It was really neat. They gave each person a light saber then the walked in and were taught how to fight and then they had to fight Darth Vader. It was pretty cool. Charles wasn't too into trick or treating and Claudia just sat in the stroller and enjoyed her sucker. It was a nice mellow night, which included NO VOMITING so that was good!

On Sunday we had our friend the Johnson's over for dinner and pumpkin carving. We had a BLAST catching with them and letting the kids play. 

 

Can you tell the kids were NOT happy about having their picture taken! Haha!

Then Monday was another eventful day. I babysat my friends little boy Parker, we had a Halloween party at the park with some friends from church and preschool. Then we went to Charles' school to see him participate in their Halloween Parade. Then we did some Trick-o-Treating around our neighborhood when John got home from work. The kids really enjoyed it and were not shy about knocking on doors. 

 

Definitely a VERY busy couple of days. But a LOT of FUN!

We ♥ MUD

John's sister Jennie invited John and I to do the Del Mar Mud Run with her. 

It was SO MUCH FUN!!!

We had a blast and would do this type of race again and again. I think next time I'd like it to be a little more challenging. But it was still great. We were a team of 4 consisting of my sister-n-law Jennie, her friend Brittany, John and me! Our team name was "Anna's Warriors" (John's other sister Anna is battling Breast Cancer so that is constantly on our minds and we are always looking for ways to promote awareness and support her.) I made these totally cute shirts and we had a blast playing in the mud. 

Enjoy the photos!

   

BEFORE

AFTER

 The showers totally SUCKED! They were more like misters. So I could not get the mud out of my hair.

 

YUCK!

YUMMY!!!

I really should be using this time to catch up on my blogging since I am really behind. But I just had to quickly share this incredibly delicious fall recipe that I found. I've had an abundance of apples since they have been on sale really cheap and my kids are not eating them as fast as I thought they would. So I searched the Internet for a recipe that would give me the ability to freeze the left overs so I wouldn't eat the whole batch myself. (John and the kids are pretty picky about fruity desserts.) I found this Apple Pie Muffin recipe and they are OH SO YUMMY! Just thought I'd share. Enjoy! 

Teeth, Teeth, and More Teeth

Claudia had only two bottom teeth for the longest time. Then she started getting a Dracula tooth or fang tooth. I'm not really sure on the proper name for it but it looked funny. She would smile and there would be NO top front teeth, just one lone tooth over on the side. But just yesterday 3 more teeth on the top have started cutting through. Hallelujah! There is a reason for her excessive crankiness lately! I love this stage when they start to get more teeth, it totally changes the way they look. I can't wait to see her with her teeth grown in. My baby is getting so BIG and growing way TOO fast!

Bye Bye Cable tv..

....hello Netflix & Hulu. 

I've been doing a lot of research on-line lately trying to figure out the best way to cut our cable bill. After calling At&t u-verse I was able to cut our bill by about $15 a month. (Just call your cable provider and tell them you have found a better offer somewhere else and you are looking to cancel your membership and 99% of the time they will discount your bill to keep you as a customer.) It's worth a try. 

I still felt like what we were paying was more than I wanted to be paying. So I finally cut the cord with my cable company and now we just stream our shows. Now the kids watch what they want on Netflix. We have it streaming through our Wii in the family room and through our blu-ray player in the loft. And any current episodes of shows John and I want to watch we watch on Hulu.com We have not yet upgraded to the hulu plus, but I am sure we will soon. It actually feels great to not be paying such a huge amount for the t.v. The kids love having Netflix and being able to chose what they want to watch. I think in the future we will buy a Roku box to be able to have the hulu stream onto our t.v. but for now it's working just watching it on the computer. 

When I canceled our phone service I asked about upgrading our Internet since we would now be doing streaming exclusively. They had a promotion going so I upgraded our Internet from the slowest DSL to the fastest DSL and am only paying $6 more for the Internet then I was paying before.

Here is the break down of our savings. 

 $103.15 - This is what our total was before I got the $15 discount

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$88.15 - This is what we were paying (this is with our $15 discount they gave me for staying with them)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$88.15  - Internet (slowest DSL)  + T.V. service (this included DVR on two televisions)

Now we pay :

$33 + taxes (not sure what those will be yet) for Internet (fastest DSL)

$7.99 (there is no tax) Netflix (streaming only) 

for a total monthly payment of ......

$40.99 that is a savings of $62.16 from my original bill

yes if we add hulu plus it will be an additional $7.99 a month. But that still would only be $48.98 a month compared to $103. 

I'm sure there are lots of people out there that pay more than the $103 a month that we were paying. 

I'm so glad that I finally made the switch. I was very nervous about canceling our cable but we are actually enjoying it! And I feel great knowing that I just cut a bill in half and am not really losing anything!