Fall Festivities

Dear Family,

The harvest/fall fun is in full swing at our house. We've attended a few pumpkin playgrounds/corn mazes, with our kiddos. Here's a picture of us in front of a corn maze in West Jordan:

Our Cute Family Corn Mazing October 2010

After dark, some creepy monsters and haunts came out to scare everybody. Emmy, safe in her father's big arms nonchalantly said, "Hi Monster," to every creepy thing she passed. No fear shown whatsoever. The haunted tunnel had pictures of fire breathing dragons. Emmy touched them and said, "My giraffe! My giraffe!"

Another pumpkin playground we visited this month was Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. We stayed there on on Friday from opening at 10:00 AM almost until closing at 11:00pm. I (Erika) brought the boys' friends, Josh and Ryan Speckman along until 7:00, when Ron arrived to play with Thomas and Matthew and I took everyone else home. We always love going to the corn maze there and playing on all of the fun go carts, jumping pillows, and hay/tunnels, etc. I was really tired by the end though. Here are some photo's from that day:

Princess Emmeline Looks Out Over Her Pumpkin Kingdom

Open the Window! I Want To See The Loft!

Thomas Takes Emmy on The Cornbelly's Cow Train

Thomas Gets Buried in the Corn Box

Thomas, Matthew, Josh and Ryan after going though the maze with the Corn Cop.

Cordelia Enjoys the Shade of Her Stoller

Sometimes, after the kids go to bed, Ron and I do workout videos. On this particular night Thomas joined us for P90X extra stretch:

The yoga "frog" pose (best performed with a headband)

Last week, I enjoyed the privilege of chaperoning Matthew's class field trip to the Weber State University Planetarium and Museum. Our school doesn't use buses, so I brought a load of kids up in my minivan. The kids watched two whole movies, "Garfield" and one hour of "Americas Funniest Home Videos" and ate chips, candy and Propel water to stay occupied on the two and a half hours of driving. It was fun for me to see Matthew interacting so well with his friends in the car and on the tours. He has so many great friends and is a very kind friend as well. The kids from their class seemed to know more about the solar system that the Weber State University Student tour guides. The American Prep. kids were correcting the guides all over the place. Next time we should go to BYU :)

Matthew and his fellow American Prep. friends hold up their
planet earth with light and shadow sides at the Weber State University Planetarium

Matthew and his school class sit in learning position at Weber State University

After school Thomas and Matthew do their homework, while I make dinner in the kitchen. One day I snapped these pictures of them studying hard:

Matthew's homework session

Thomas's homework session

We enjoyed family dinner and FHE at Sherry's house this month. Steven and Jeana lead a discussion about our favorite General Conference talks and for our activity we did a Murder Mystery in Witch land. Here are some photos from that night:

Emmy LOVES going to her grandma's house and is
eager to get back down to play with the TOYS

Matthew shows his best side during our extended family FHE activity:
a witch-themed murder mystery

James and Bret were the murder mystery private investigators

A wizard and his lovely witch

The Murderer looking so innocent...

Sherry was so sweet to send us out on some fun date nights. Last Friday we went to a Halloween-themed dinner party at Al and Anita Dickerson's house. Anita is a true southern belle who always hosts the best parties. This time we arrived and the table wasn't set. This is very unlike her.... After a while she held out a big black trash bag and asked each one of us to reach in and take one item. The surprise items were pots and pans. We used them as dinner plates and we used funny things such as tongs, and spatulas as our utensils. It was funny to watch everyone try to eat that way. After dinner we turned the lights off and told scary true stories from our own lives. Here is a picture of us, just before we left for the evening:

The Galiant Knight wisks the Princess away to the party.

Emmy is at a really fun age. She keeps me smiling all of the time. One day Ron was trimming Thomas and Matthew's hair. Ron had folded part of the rug up so that the boys could watch a movie and so that the hair would fall on to the wooden floor. As soon as Ron had turned the rug up, Emmy stopped playing with her toys, ran over to him, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, "Dad, don't move my ground!!!"

In the mornings Emmy watches her
potty training video, while her mama styles her hair.

One day I made some pumpkin pasta with fresh Rosemary sprigs on it. Emmy ate a few bites of it. All of the sudden her eyes got wide and she started crying. I touched her arm and asked, "Emmy, what's wrong? What is the matter?!"

Emmy answered, "OOOOOooo. Gross! Emmy ate BUG!!!!!!"

LOL! I then showed her a bunch of fresh Rosemary sprigs from the refrigerator and explained that they were herbs, not bugs :)

Emmy is relieved to find out that she didn't eat a bug.

Just one more funny Emmy story: Sometimes I smell something and I know it's time to change someone's diaper. So I ask, "Emmy, is it time to change your bum?" She then answers,

"No. CoCo's bum."

I answer, I just changed CoCo, she's all clean. Shall I change Emmy's bum?"

"No. Daddy's bum."

"Daddy's all clean!" I answer.

"Mommy's bum!!!"

Emmy styles in her monkey PJ's, her bead necklaces and shades.

Emmy plays kitchen with our neighbor, Kayleigh

On Saturday, our family drove down to Spanish Fork to tour the Hare Krishna Temple. We learned a little about Indian/Hindu customs, enjoyed a vegetarian Indian buffet, did yoga, and visited the Llamas and other animals. It was a lot of fun. It felt like we were visiting the other side of the world.

This temple is located in Spanish Fork and is an exact replica of one in India.

After the tour, we enjoyed some Indian Cuisine...

And some yoga...

Emmy made a cute little friend, who did NOT want her to leave

After the yoga class the teacher lead a short discussion on why they do so much chanting in their religion. They say the name of their God, Hare Krishna over and over again. He said that they believe this is important because "wherever your mind is that's where you're going." And he wants his mind to be on God. It made me think about how important it is to control our thoughts -- that when we think positively we feel better and when we have a negative attitude we feel worse. He inspired me to think more about Jesus and my own personal blessings & goals and less about what I don't have.

Yesterday, for our Sunday Halloween dinner we ate off of pots and pans and ate with funny utensils. The kids were fun to watch.

Our mom is so funny :) She makes us eat off of spooky dishes

Forget the spatulas, we're using our fingers!

Our family home Evening lesson, last night, was about following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I hid some treats in the basement, turned all of the lights off, and closed the blinds, until it was pretty dark down there. I gave each person a flashlight (Holy Spirit) to find the treats (blessings/truth). We talked about how we choose to use the on/off switch on the flashlight to control whether the power is on or off. Likewise we can decide to let the Holy Spirit use His power to do things the way Heavenly Father would want us to, or we can choose to do things own own way.

Turning on the "light of the Holy Spirit" to find the "blessings" (treats)

Cordelia loves to snuggle up next to her Daddy

I wrote so many stories about Emmy. I'll include some stories about the boys as well. One day I walked into their school and the receptionist said, "Erika, I heard you and your boys on the radio this morning! I answered that I wasn't on the radio that morning. She said that the caller on the radio had said that she was driving Thomas and Matthew to school at American Prep. and that I was the only parent at the school who had both a Thomas and a Matthew. I said that it must have been Thomas's teacher's assitant, Mrs. Davison, who called the radio station, since she is the one who drives the boys to school. That afternoon I asked Thomas and Matthew about it and they said that Mrs. Davison called the radio station and they called her back. She held the phone towards Thomas and Matthew and told them to "MOO." They mooed into the phone and she won some concert tickets.

Baby Cora's news is that she is rolling all over the place:)

I better send this out and go get the kids from school!

Much Love,
Erika, Ron, Thomas, Matthew, Emmy, and CoCo