fantastic trick-or-treating

Happy Halloween!! What a fun night! It started with our Wardling tradional meal of pigs in a blanket and then it was O.F.T. for some trick-or-treating. I love, love, love making memories with my family. Thanks to our friends who let us park in their driveway and family members who made our night spook-tacular!!
One house did give a few of the Wardlings a spook. It kinda spooked them for the rest of the night.The house had it's owners, who wore masks and stood still like statues, until you were right up on you and then moved. It gave the Wardlings a fright...all in good fun though. As we were walking down the street, Penny looked over her shoulder and saw her shadow for the first time, which gave her a spook. It was kinda funny. We realized that she has probably never noticed her shadow before. Just another fun memory.
Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!

...do a little dance...

We were invited to go to a Halloween Dance party, from a girl who is in Penny's nursery class @ church. My little girls all had a fun time. Jacob was invited to participate as well, but didn't want to dance. Erin, having the day off from school, went with us as well. The class didn't last long, or maybe they were all having such a good time, that time flew by. Either way, this was a fun prelude to the trick-or-treating festivities to come & a nice reward for going to the dentist prior to the dance party.

halloween dance party

floss your teeth!

Today was the 6month check-up for our wee Wardlings teeth. A few of them went into the office with apprehension, while others didn't have a care in the world. I love taking them all in @ the same time. Thank goodness it is only 2x's a year.
I forgot my camera, but thankfully I had my cell. Erin had to have a filling and so Josh went up beside her and held her hand...without being asked...to give her comfort. Josh is such a sweet tender boy. He held her hand until it was all done!
Jacob is showing off his freshly cleaned, pearly whites.

Penny's turn. The nurse loved Penny. (She did want to call her Libby though.) Penny put on such a show! Our nurse, Teresa said that our children needed to come into the office @ least once a week, to make her day brighter. It's nice to know that our Wardlings made her day! Penny did fine with the cleaning, but WAS NOT THRILLED with the sealant process. She screamed and screamed. Wiggled and wiggled, until our hygenist asked if it would be ok to use the papoose board. Penny didn't like that either. However, we got all of the sealants in and we won't have to come back for 6 months. whew-

Our sad and mad Libby. She needed to have a baby molar extracted. She wasn't thrilled. The tooth was so wiggily, that it would've come out on it's own, but it was causing damage to the new teeth coming in, causing misalignment. The best bet was to remove it today. Yank.

Josh did excellent in the dentist's chair today. He, along with his sisters have small mouths and big teeth. We have to go back again soon, for a set of spacers for his mouth.

The funny thing is that today is Halloween, the biggest candy day of the year and the Wardlings started it this year, in the dentist's chair. Besides a few tiny issues, they got a clean bill of health. Hoorah for floss picks!

costume preview

Penny has been determined to dress up as a particular character for Halloween. Today, being the day before Halloween, was the day to get started on phase 2 of her costume ensemble.
Penny was so excited, she stood by me @ the sewing machine until it was nearly done. I just had to make buttonholes when she ran off.

She is just so excited...feel her enthusiasm??

I used my same jedi cape design that I have made for my boys and that I made for some boys in our ward. These are the 2 that I made in my Josh sweater barter last year with Shena.

I am so stoked for Trick-or-Treating this year! Tune back in for full Halloween details!

mismarking

Yesterday evening, we had to run get a few groceries. I know there are some out there that do not like the blue store and prefer the red bulls eye. However, I go where ever is cheaper for groceries. Josh has been obsessed with having a yo yo, so we couldn't leave the store without hitting the toys. We happened to come across a clearance shelf and whenever there is a light saber on it we stop and take a peek. We were in luck. This light saber was marked on clearance for .500 . Sweet! We finish up our grocery shopping and go to check out. I showed the gal the label and she scanned it telling me that it was $5. I told her to look at the sticker again, because the sticker says .500, making it 5o cents. She argued with me. She even took the light saber to go get a second opinion and came back telling me that it was $5. This will not do. I argued and argued with this gal, telling her that it doesn't matter how much it rings up @, the sticker says 50 cents. It just so happened that a manager walked by and the gal said, 'this woman says that this is 50 cents when it is $5." and then showed her the sticker, where it said .500 . I was glowing when the manager said, "well, she's right!" The smile/ smirk couldn't be wiped off my face. I think that I spooked my Wardlings, because i wasn't backing down.

The Wardlings have their Fall parties this week and as such, they all needed treats to go to their classes. Penny, even though she isn't in school, grabbed a favorite...dum dum suckers.

rice pipes

Today was a most interesting day. It started out as most days do...nothing out of the ordinary. I try not to tidy up while the Wardlings are still here. It defeats my efforts. Once the Wardlings, except for those of us who stay home, were out the door, it was time to tidy up the joint. How does a house become so cluttered? It seems that it is clean when I go to bed, but dirty again when I wake up. How does that happen? In my efforts to clean up the remaining dishes, I noticed that my sink was backing up. This has happened in the past, and the disposal clears the clog. I tried the disposal to nothing. The water went from one sink to the other, without draining. Crud. I get the plunger and try to plunger the sink. Complete failure. I call my Mom to see what her best advice would be. (My Dad is a plumber BTW.) She tells me what to do, but then offers my brother and another worker to come and take a peek @ it. Luckily another team of workers from my Dad's business were here in the Emerald City and they came in my brother's stead. They disassembled the pipes under the sink, to find the main pipe packed, PACKED with rice and some oatmeal. I remembered that I asked one of our daughters to do the dishes yesterday and instead of placing the food in the disposal, she put it down the other sink. Well, once it was all cleaned out, one of my Dad's workers went to clean out the disposal and it rotted off into his hand. They can't selvage it. We must have a new one. Double crud! We knew when we bought the house that it would need replacing and today was it's death. So, one of the men left to get a disposal while the other one stayed here to finish up under the sink. When the first worker returned they quickly installed it and told us that it had been months since they had installed one, due to the construction freeze. Once the disposal was in, one of the workers tells the other one that there is a crack in our pipe, so that also had to be replaced. Then they noticed that there wasn't a slashing under the sink and they caulked it for me as well. Wow! what an adventure! I am so very thankful to my parents and all of their help today. I don't know what I would've done without it! Thank You, Thank You!

bubbie

plus one's party

So, after getting kinda frustrated with the new picture thingy, I have learned that I can't add anything to the post, when there are pictures on it. Maybe I am just a bit slow with this thing.

I am happy to say, again, that we did have a fun filled Saturday. It was filled with a birthday party,an after baptism party, and visiting Bubbie and Pop Pop. What a fun day to be so action packed.

party

afternoon with friends

After our plus one's birthday party, we were off to another party. This one was for the baptism of some good friends' daughter. K and Josh have the same birthday. We refer to them as our twins.

We got to their house and began playing a fun game called 'Apples to Apples.' I need to pick this one up. It was loads of fun!
This is the baptismal gal, K.

These next few pictures are outta order for some reason...

I made our pal a dress for her special day. (It was her birthday most recently...) I loved this embroidered corduroy, however, it turned my hands brown while I was working on it. Usually I prewash fabrics like this, but I wanted it to look newer, so I didn't do it this time. I really should have. I still think that the dress turned out nicely!

room mom

How many of you are room mothers?? I have done this in years past. As the number of children I have had has grown, I haven't been asked to do it, until this year. Libby's teacher @ our very first meeting told us she needed a room mother and looked right @ me. Yesterday was my first room mother responsibility. Libby's class earned character points and when they hit 80, they would have a pizza party. My job was to go and help serve pizza, capri sun's, and bring some plates. Easy this go around. Thankfully, I was having a sewing lesson and the gal that was here said that she would watch the Wardlings plus one, so I could go for 30 minutes. Libby was embarrassed when I broke the camera out. "Why do you have to bring that everywhere??" was her real question. Years from now, Miss Libby, you'll thank me.

uno juno

Uno did nothing yesterday but sleep on several blankets. She wouldn't eat or drink, unless we syringed it into her mouth. She went outside to use the bathroom, but I don't know that she had anything in her to discard. She slept upstairs on our floor again last night well, until sometime when she was brave enough to climb on our bed and we were too asleep to move her.
After the Wardlings were @ school, I checked e-mail and I heard Uno walking across our wood floor coming towards me. I was glad that she was feeling good enough to walk. I excitedly called down the young Wardlings, plus one to show them. They wanted to give her a treat. Yesterday she wouldn't eat anything, so I was hesitant to give her a treat. Once I opened her treat jar, Uno's tail began to wag. And she ate the peanutbutter drinched treat with such ease.
That lead to getting her to eat some actual food. She didn't eat all of it, but some of it is better than none of it. She is also drinking a bit more.

See how she is holding her left arm up. It is more swollen today.

We usually do not allow Uno to eat on the carpet in our red room, but she was sliding on the wood floor and I thought that it hurt her more to eat, while she was trying to keep her balance. Who did I turn into? Taking pictures of a dog and nursing her back to health?? The things we do for our Wardlings and their pets. I do want her to feel better though. I hate to see her or anything in pain.

sick uno sick

Yesterday afternoon, when the older Wardlings arrived home from school, they noticed a change in Uno. One- she was limping and b- she just wasn't feeling well. Odd. This is the dog that can jump over Jacob and Penny's head and will chase her pal, Wilson (our volleyball..get it Wilson??) around the yard for hours.
We did take advantage of her calmness, to give her a nice bath, which she fell asleep during and to clip & file her nails. The last task is usually a 2 person job. Clyde holds her while I clip. I called the vet this morning to see what was up. To have her seen and possibly x-rayed, along with meds, would cost us around $200. I think that we will hold back and see if our pal Uno feels better on her own. I mean really, our children's dr. appointments don't run us that much. The Wardlings have been quite attentive to her needs. They have brought her treats, which she isn't too interested in, blankets, water, and all the love a puppy can get.

On a happier note, we have had some pals over to play. They all piled on the escalade and rode around the yard. Well, until we could hear the escalade saying, "I think I can, I think I can..." and that's when we decided to let the escalade rest.

voting conspiracy

Clyde has all sorts of conspiracy theories and I think that, over the years, they have rubbed off on me. Tonight's events have brought out a few theories of my own. This year, Clyde wanted us to do the early vote. We snarfed down dinner and left, giving us a little time to get to the early voting poll. When we approached the intersection that we needed to turn down, this is what we saw...The police had blocked off the road from this intersection to about 50 feet past the voting poll. Clyde and I thought of several possibilities as to why the street was closed. One being that maybe there were so many people going to vote early, that the police were there to help direct traffic. Two- something or someone had been such a disturbance causing possible harm that they were there to calm things down, C- an accident had occured or 4- that they were setting up a barrier to prevent voters. (hmmm...)
We thought that we'd be smart and drive around the block in order to enter the street from a different direction. (Remember...time is a tickin' to get to the poll...) When we came to the street that the voting poll was located, it was blocked off again. dang it... This time I stopped and asked the policeman how we were to get to the poll to vote. The policeman told me that the street was closed due to a bad accident which led to a death & was being investigated. Then told me how to get back to the main road and urged me to go. Weird. The only cars we saw on the street were police cars, blocking the road to traffic coming in and going out, but only around the voting poll. If there had been an accident wouldn't there be 1- the smooshed car and a gurney, b- EMT's or firetrucks or d- a tow truck of sorts or 4- a crime scene investigative person or crew?? Where were all those people? We are talking 20-50 people that should've been in the street. Where were they?

Clyde had me drop him off at the corner, closest to the poll and he decided that he was going to walk down to the voting station. The police allowed him to walk through and then said that I could get through with the car. I did have to turn around again to get down the street. Then once I got to the corner, another police man stopped me to see where I was going. I told him I was going to vote. He said that I could go down the street, but had to exit back the same way.

We did make it to vote...with mere minutes to spare...7 to be exact. We didn't have to wait either. nice. The Wardlings cast their votes as well.

And mysteriously, the intersection and street were completely cleared after the voting hours were over. (This was taken 13 minutes after the polls were closed.) Seriously-Was this a conspiracy to keep people away from the polls??

youtube gal

At the beginning of summer, Clyde showed me this gal from Youtube. I think she is great. I love her quirkiness and enthusiasm for music.
I heard this song first....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NHPrYcJpo

I just like this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REL5R-Ls3oU

And this one is my favorite. However, stop it after the song, because the college friends get a bit ranky... You have been forewarned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXPlhNIjq3g

Clyde sent me this one tonight...again, she rambles on a bit in the end, so feel free to stop it after the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Tk2-L9dwI

I can so totally see Libby doing this. Clyde says that she reminds him of me. Either way, I think that these songs are great... Enjoy!

chili cook-off derby

Tonight was our ward's chili cook-off and no rules pinewood derby race. We were a bit naive when it came time to the cars. Me, being a girl, didn't think to look in the box to check out the car, until this afternoon. That's when I saw that it was simply a block of wood. Panicked, the boys and I ran to get a few supplies to help shape it...sandpaper and a saw. The Wardlings all had their input into the car. Either the choice of paint color, or who to put in the drivers seat. Next year, we won't be so naive and get a better go @ it, along with having a car for each of the Wardlings, instead of just the one family car.

Here's what we came up with... It is our orange, R2D2 race car.
...the competition.
Our race, which we lost.
Enthused spectators...
And the Wardlings in it's entirety. That's right...Penny also has her finger up her nose. Classy!
Clyde had this brilliant idea to bring our chili in with style. He was planning for us to bring in the chili while blasting the Rocky theme song, but we couldn't find the right cd, with the song on it. Clyde searched for a minute until he came across "We are the Champions!" by Queen. I have to admit, I was a smidge embarrassed but I did it with pride for my sugar lump. I love my Clyde! We didn't win the chili cook-off either, but we did have some dang good chili from our chef Clyde!!

netflix

Do you Netflix? If not, it is so worth the money. The expense isn't that much for this spectacular service. We have had so much fun getting movies in the mail. The turn around speed is very fast, since there is a distribution center here in the emerald city. I also love that the have instant movies to view on your pc, or if you have the right wire attachment, it connects your laptop to the tv and you can watch the movies on your big tv's. Genius!
Our most recent movie was "the Mighty Ducks." The Wardlings watched it last night for FHE. It was hilarious. I really enjoyed watching the children watch the movie. Once the movie had finished they were all abit spirited. The boys were talking the hockey lingo and repeating their favorite parts of the film.
I also like the instant thing, to listen to a film while I sew. I usually only listen to films anyway, because I can't just sit through a film @ home without something in my hands to embroider or knit. I feel like I am wasting time otherwise. If you don't have netflix, try them out. You might just like them as much as we do!

icelandic wool

It is official. I am allergic to wool. I am working on Penny's Halloween costume, which requires a scarf. I had the colors necessary to knit her one in some beautiful handspun, icelandic wool. As I am knitting last night, my nose gets runny, my eyes start to itch and alas, the sneezing begun. I am so sad. I have such a nice stash of icelandic wool.

just another day @ duke

We had to go to Duke again yesterday for some annual testing. I really like the Duke Children's Hospital. We have been to Brenners, but the Duke Children's Hospital, is really for children. We didn't have to wait long before we were called back and the testing went well. And, our girl did fine!!
The testing process is long but the hospital had a great waiting room, with all kinds of toys to keep little Wardlings occupied.
Some of us read...
Some of us knitted...
Some of us beat the crud out of these green toys, until.....

he pooped himself out.

insert evil laugh

Even though we had a big day @ Duke, it wasn't over. Erin had another Dr.s appointment, to get a booster. Since we were already going to the Dr.'s office, and the walk-in flu clinic is now open, we had the nurses give the Wardlings their annual flu shots. (evil laugh goes here...) We told them on the way to the Dr.'s office and they were less than thrilled. They were good storm troopers through the experience.

We told them if they all behaved well, then we would take them out for ice cream. It was also dinner time and Clyde remembered that the deli that we like has free ice cream. That made our minds up about where we were going to dinner.
We walked around with our ice cream, until it was all gone. When we got to the fountain, the Wardlings all stuck out their little hands for some change to throw in it. I only had 1 penny, 1 nickel and 1 dime. We let the younger 3 throw money into the fountain. Jacob accidentally dropped his in the grate below their feet and Penny thinking that's what we were to do with it, dropped hers in there as well. They both were upset, so I reached into the fountain grabbed a couple of penny's and let them throw them back in. I got some nasty looks from a couple eating outside @ a table. I didn't keep the $, it was thrown back in.

We wondered over to this gazebo to finish up our ice cream. That's when the excitement hit and the boys climbed the wall and started dancing away.
I don't think that they minded, @ this moment, that they had to get their flu shots.
After church last night, and considering it was a very long day, the soreness of their wounds began to hurt. Penny really didn't nap well in the car and was so overly tired, it was comical. She kept moaning and moaning about her boo boo on her leg. I felt bad about her soreness but the noise she made was funny.