Jeremy's New Hobby

It's been a while since I've done any digital scrapbooking. Since I had half the day off today, I had a little bit of time between work and celebrating Jeremy's birthday. We had a nice day today. We went out to Tex Wasabi's for lunch and then to the mall to look for a birthday present. He still doesn't know what he wants. Anyway, a few months ago we had a conversation about how I go out and scrapbook once a month or every other month and he doesn't go out to do anything but work. I encouraged him to find something to do, so he decided to start fishing with his friend Jeremy G. Jeremy G has a really cool family, and for this trip he took his kids. I believe JD was in Stockton for this trip, but Sariah and Becca got to go along.

I wanted Jeremy to take pictures, but the kids ended up with the camera instead. Regardless, I think some of the pictures turned out cute. I actually kind of like the crooked one of Becca.

They had fun, but unfortunately all Jeremy caught was a sock and some seaweed (or whatever they call what grows in the river). There were a lot of people around in canoes. There were also some ducks. I think the kids' favorite part was the doughnuts Jeremy bought for breakfast. Anyway, I'm glad he's having fun. Eventually maybe he'll even catch something.

Costumes Part III, Stockton

This font is called Australian Sunrise. I thought you would like to know. We’ll see how it looks on the blog. Anyway, for the last part of our Halloween weekend, we decided to go to Stockton so that Jeremy’s family could see the kids in their costumes. Tonight Becca decided to be Pocahontas. By now the hated wig looks like a big, black haystack. I pulled it back in an attempt to tame it a little bit.

Daniel and Justin were Thing 1 and Thing 2. I love the blue hair. Daniel was very excited to show me the spray bottle and looked about ready to apply it himself while he was still in his Sunday clothes.

They went to see Grandma and Pop, Grammi and Pop, and Daniel and Julia. Jeremy didn’t get any pictures of Grammi’s house, but apparently she had a talking tombstone that Sariah didn’t like very much. It was supposed to be someone buried alive that said “Help, get me out of here!, It’s dark in here!, I’m not dead!” and it had little moving hands poking up that would scratch the tombstone.

The girls like to play computer games with Grandma.

Here are all the kids in front of Grandma’s house. I love JD’s smile.

I got a kick out of Brian and Julia’s pumpkin throwing up.

So Brian was Thing 1 and Julia and Tyler were What thing 1? and What thing 2? They had red hair and blue clothes instead of blue hair and red clothes.

Brian and Becca have a special connection. Maybe it’s because they can both be punks sometimes.

Trunk or Treat

This is JD and his friend Daegan. I love Daegan and I love his mom, they are really good people. JD and his buddies are so cute together, I'm glad that he's had such an easy time making friends. This is at the ward Trunk or Treat. I didn't take a lot of pictures. Sadly, my Canon broke and is currently in for repairs. I don't like hauling the Nikon everywhere. All of the pics from the last few days were taken by the loaner from Fry's. It was a Fujifilm Finepix. The camera had a lot of cool features, but the shutter delay was awful. Many of my pics turned out fuzzy and eventually I gave up. I miss my Canon.

Jeremy handed out candy at the party. Here he is trying to get JD to say "trick or treat". He wasn't cooperating.

Here are Daegan, JD, and Cody. Love those boys. JD told us this morning that he likes the name Jason better than JD. I think it's because they make him write Jason at school. I like calling him JD though.

These two below are from the parade of costumes.

Costumes Part II, The Carnival

There is a charter school in our neighborhood called Creative Connections Arts Academy. Most of the kids in our ward go there. Somehow we missed the bulletin that this school is the place to be. Now there is a waiting list. Anyway, we went to their carnival with some friends. The kids had a lot of fun playing games. I came home $20 poorer with a grocery bag full of stuffed animals. I told my friend Joanie that I see a trip to the DI in my future.

In this game they were supposed to fish a duck out of the "pond" with a net. If there is a black sticker on the bottom, you win! Even if there is no sticker, you still get candy.

I will never buy a wig from Wal-Mart again. I didn't want to spray Sariah's hair because someone told me that the stuff stains blonde hair. I didn't want to find out if they were right or not. This wig didn't look right from the second I took it out of the package. Sariah was a good sport though. This is especially true since she wanted to be a vampire but she was afraid that they wouldn't want her to dress up as that at the church Trunk or Treat. That is partially the reason that we bought her the kitty costume. I really appreciated that she didn't complain about Pocahontas.

I tried to get a good group picture. My kids had other ideas. These are my kids with the Grover kids and a friend of theirs whose name I don't remember. She might actually be a cousin or something, I'm not sure. Anyway, this hearse was parked in front of the school. They had a fog machine and scary music going, along with a person on the ground doing a very believable impression of a corpse.

I think everyone had a lot of fun and I am glad I went. I'm sure Joanie could have done without her kid eating the spaghetti from the Funhouse that was being used for the "guess what kind of gross thing this is" game. The kids didn't like the haunted house very much. They were excited at first but then once people started jumping out at them, they got scared. Becca started crying and I literally had to push them through (they froze up) as I was cracking up at how hysterical my kids were. I probably shouldn't have laughed but it was really too funny. I don't remember being scared of the neighborhood haunted houses as a kid. Maybe my mom can enlighten me.

Halloween Costumes Part I

JD loves Iron Man. He will run down the street yelling "I am Iron Man!" He sings the song and pretends that he has a blaster on his hand. There was never any question that he would be Iron Man for Halloween. He's also the only child in the family that actually stuck to one costume this year.

This is Becca as Jasmine. She was Jasmine on Friday at the carnival and at the church Trunk or Treat/Chili contest. I think she was happy with it, even though the wig was itchy. Dora was nice enough to give us some of the costumes her grandkids used to wear and have since grown out of.

If you are thinking that Sariah looks a little bit grumpy in this picture, that's because she is. She couldn't find her favorite sweat pants (the ones that are actually an appropriate length for her) and it was cold outside. She was going to wear a black skirt and leggings. She looked really cute, but I thought the trunk or treat was going to be outside and I didn't want her to get cold. This is costume #2 for Sariah. We found it for half off a Claire's. She was Pocahontas on Friday.

At work they make me dress up every year. This year the theme was the circus. I was a circus tiger, but people kept calling me Tigger or Catwoman. People need to get their comics straight. Catwoman was not striped and she didn't have a tail. Sariah really liked that she had a costume similar to mine. I liked that it allowed me to wear sweatpants to work.

Making the Bear

I was a little nervous about having JD make a bear for Sariah because I figured he would want to keep it. I really wanted her to have the bear though, I just knew she would love it when I got the email from Build a Bear. This is him giving it a hug before it was stuffed.

He thought the process of stuffing the bear was pretty cool. Notice the sunglasses on the back of his head, just like his dad.

Here he is checking the bear to make sure it has just the right amount of stuffing.

Now he is rubbing the bear's heart on his ear so it could hear. He also rubbed it on his nose so it could smell, and on his elbow so it has a sense of humor.
Here, he is making a wish. See how hard he is wishing?Last, he needed to give the bear a bath to make sure it was clean.

He did tell Sariah that he made her a bear when she got home from school , but she didn't understand what he was talking about. When she asked him where it was, he said he didn't know what Daddy did with it. I was very proud of him. He was so excited to make a bear, he didn't even care that it wasn't for him.

Sariah's birthday

Last year Sariah was sick on her birthday. I ended up having her shop at Toys R Us website while I was at the store on my phone so I could get her a present. I also brought her home a balloon. We did have a party a week later when she was baptized and all the family came to town, but she still talks about being sick that day. This year, I wanted her to have a really good day. Her friend Jacquelyn spent the night Friday and we went to John's Incredible Pizza on Saturday. We really like to go there. The food is pretty good and the kids always seem to win a lot of tickets when they play the games.




We had a coupon for a free hour of rides and non-ticket games. This mean that they go to go on all the rides that we don't normally do because usually they are focused on getting more tickets for a prize.


They love the Incredible Express. I rode it once a while back. I hated it, never again.

JD made this bear for Sariah at Build a Bear about a week before her birthday. He was very excited for her to get it.

A year ago or so (I don't remember how long) Sariah left the bear my parents bought for her when she was born at a school play. Someone found it and decided to take it home with them. It was Halloween colors and she took it everywhere. We bought her what was supposed to be a replacement bear, but she's never been quite happy with it. She really loves this one.