Halloween Costumes

Halloween is tonight!  These are the costumes that the kids found.  We even managed to get them to wear them to the ward party.  It's not shaping up that they will wear the same things tonight, but that's ok.  It's about fun, not being consistant right?

Emily is a clown, Shelly is a fairy princess (her words) with wings, and Jason is in a to-small-lion costume.

Here you can see the wings better

Emily and Jason are both having fun.  Just trust me on that one.

I had them stick their tongues out.  I consider it a good sign that most of the kids have no clue how to do that on demand (they've got it down in the moment,though.  Have no fear.)

I love the faces that this little munchkin can pull!

This just makes me giggle.

Pretty much every time I think about it.

Her faces look so much funnier with those glasses...

They make Jason looks lots funnier too

That hat doesn't hurt anything in the funny department either

It was a hard hat to keep on, but he sure tried.

Shelly got to wear her costume to school on Friday.  It was cold though, so she opted to wear her pants and a jacket with her dress...  It's probably just as well she doesn't have a good grasp of how she looks yet...  

Yes, I should have been a good parent and refused to let her out of the house dressed like that, but I must confess, I don't really care.  My priorities are elsewhere.  She's a good kid and is learning how to be responsible for herself.  If she leaves the house in an outfit that is totally embarrassing, at least she knows how to behave while she looks ridiculous...  :) (most of the time)

Ethan was a pirate.  I wish I had the ability to pull stuff like this off!  I lack the skill, and I don't have enough of the right kind of stuff to really pull something like this together (and I wouldn't know if I did - since I lack the skill in the first place).  All they had to go get was the hat!  

Pretty good looking pirate!

Water - again. Noticing a theme?

Giraffe in the tire.

I love Jason's head peaking around Ethan's legs.

Ready, set...

Drop!

Who knew that pumpkins floated?

At least the giraffe is getting a bath.

I love that he is usually the one to turn on the water, but he rarely gets wet.

This is about as close as he usually gets to the water.

Emily has some strange eating habits

We went across the road for a visit and Elaine had made cake.  Everyone got a piece, and most were able to put the cake into our mouths with little trouble.  Emily, on the other hand, seemed to have a unique way of eating her piece....

With her hands.

But not just 'with her hands', with her hand shoved as far into her mouth as she could manage

I assume she was licking all the frosting off of every inch of her fingers, or something

And she had to get both hands at the same time

so as to not miss any of that tasty stuff

Or just to be a ham...

I'm quite she she doesn't get her eating habits from me...  

Weaning the Cows

It's that time of year again...  Time to separate the cows from their calfs.  We take them out of the pasture where they've spent all summer (and eaten all of the food - there's nothing left for them to eat in there) and put them into the corral.  We put the cows (mammas) into the bigger part and the calfs into their own pen that's attached to the big corral, but separated by a fence.  It's easier to feed them this way than out in the pasture, and it weans the calfs so they are ready to sell at auction in a few weeks.

There's only one real problem with this.  The cows don't like it.  Many of the mamma cows have already weaned their calfs, and there's no problem with them.  But there are always a few cows who are still nursing and they and their calfs don't like the weaning process, and they let us know in the only way they know how (i.e. mooing - loudly) that they are unhappy with this new arrangement.  It takes a couple of days for everyone to get on board with the idea, but by about day three they all calm down.  It's not so bad during the day, but bed time is a different story...  Every time I think I'm about to fall asleep, I get serenaded by the cows. 

It's going to be a long couple of days...

Picking Pumpkins

We waited until almost the last minute to pick pumpkins, but we got to pick them from the garden, so the kids could pretty much pick as many as they wanted.  We stopped them at one big one each, and let them grab a few small ones.

I think this is the one that Ethan picked (at least for that minute - when you have a pumpkin patch on your lawn, half of the fun is picking a new pumpkin every 10 minutes!)

Jason could almost pick this one up!

Emily could pick up her choice!

Comparing pumpkins

This one just watched.  She was not as interested in pumpkin picking as her siblings.

Emily found the ones she wants!  

Her face does not show it here, but she loves this cat.  She and Ethan have named it Fatty Watty.

I love hearing her say that name in her cute little two year old voice.

Here's the stash of cooking squash this year.  The small dark ones are called something really close to butternut, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's official name is. (butterball (that's the turkey), butterbell, blue butter...  I give up)  The bigger light ones are blue hubbards.  The one in the back right is HUGE!  There are plans to take pictures of it with all the kids before it gets cooked and eaten.

Shelly's School Pictures

Shelly got her school pictures back.  I'm not quite sure what face she was trying to make, but I'm super tempted to have them re-taken.  I would seriously consider it, if we weren't planning on taking formal family pictures soon...  Oh well, I still think she's cute!

Broken Toe

I have not had luck with my lower part of my leg this last little bit.  Just as the ankle was starting to get better, I slammed my toe into Aunt Grandma's vacuum.  I'm just glad Amy was there to help diagnose me (turns out if it hurts when you squeeze it, it's sprained, but if it hurts with tapping on the end - into the foot - it's broken...) and then help set the toe so I could sleep!  Thank goodness for awesome cousins!  :)

At Home Durring Comb Wash

Mark took Shelly and Jason to Comb Wash - a regular camping trip to the middle of Nowhere-Southern-Utah over UEA break.  It's an area with history attached to the Clingers.  Their (great)grandpa (Mark's (great)great-grandpa - I might be off a generation or two...) was among the first to settle the area, and they have journals that mention some of the natural bridges he saw.  His journals are dated before the official 'finding' dates posted in the visitors centers down there.  This great-something grandpa used to graze his cattle through the area.  It's really a rather fun trip.  There are caves and indian ruins to visit, and the bridges are pretty cool.  I've only been able to go once, when Shelly was a baby.  The other times I was either pregnant, had a brand new newborn, lived out of state, or the family didn't go for some reason.  It is also one of the few actual 'camping' experiences I've had.  I've been camping many a time, but there has always been running water and some sort of bathroom facility nearby (either port-a-potty or actual bathroom).  The place they camp down there is equipped with neither of those.  They haul their own water in, and dig their own hole for a toilet.  

Well, this time, I sprained my ankle really bad about 3 weeks before the trip (when I saw bad, I mean I couldn't touch it for 2 days and couldn't put any weight on it for 3 days and was on crutches for 2 weeks before I could get down to just 1 crutch, and have been limping with a brace on it since - and I consider myself rather tough about these kinds of things...), and realized that if I went I wouldn't be able to hike to any of the places they would go, so I would be stuck in the parking lot or at camp with a baby (probably two) and have a hard time getting around to keep Emily out of trouble, there were few places to put Annie down and there is little shade.  We also have the youngest kids of the group that usually goes (other than Shelly and Jason, Ethan and Elmina were the youngest kids there), so our kids would hold up the group.  Basically, as much as I was looking forward to going, we decided that it would be better all around (and for my ankle) if I didn't go.  

Anyways, while everyone was gone, we had some adventures!  I gave Emily a bath (she needed it, but it was a challenge since I couldn't really pick her up and walk at the same time).  I got her hair all cute and done (not always a common thing around here) and put in some pajamas for the night - it was early evening, and then turned my attention to the baby.  The next time I noticed her, this is what I found...

She had gone into the bathroom and decided that she needed soap in her hair.

I knew there was a reason I stopped worrying about how their hair looks.  

I have no control anyways, why pretend?

I love when I make up a rule (i.e. snacks at the table), and then forget why I made the rule, then stop enforcing the rule because I forgot why, then suddenly one morning turn my back for a minute and it all comes flooding back why I created the rule in the first place... (yea, mess on the couch) It's called inconsistency! :)


Unfortunately, in our current house, the only non-carpeted places big enough for a table are blocking the door/hallway in the kitchen or in the bathroom (not happening), so our table is over carpet - annoying, but with a drop cloth under it, we've managed to not destroy the carpet too badly... The rule is (when I remember) that food goes on the table or in the kitchen, but every now and then, for a treat, we'll spread out a blanket and let them eat a snack while watching a movie (popcorn, etc). So, the rule gets broken occasionally, and I forget when to enforce it - and I don't monitor the kids anything close to constantly (it rarely even hits 'often'), and so, much happens that I don't notice until after the fact...

Darn Crutches!

On Monday I was waiting for Shelly's bus while cooking lunch for the kiddos.  I saw her bus out of the kitchen window and rushed out the back door to go meet it.  Our back steps don't have a railing on them and they just go straight down out the back, but if you want to get to the front, it's easier to step off the side of the bottom step than to actually step off the bottom step correctly and then turn...  One less step - I take all the short cuts I can.  Well, this time was a bit different.  I don't know if I was distracted and in a hurry because I didn't know how long the bus had been there (I glanced up from the stove and it was already stopped), or if it was because I wasn't wearing shoes and the ground felt different, or what, but I decided to take the one-step-shorter way to make myself visible for the bus so they would drop off Shelly, and stepped off the second step, instead of the last step.  My foot landed with a lot more velocity and momentum than it had been expecting (I'm sure almost everyone has had the experience of missing a step they didn't see), which normally would have just been an annoying jolting experience, but somehow it also landed slightly off center, and it bent underneath me.  I heard a good size pop and felt instant shooting pain.  Then I heard the bus driver honking.  I was behind the house, and he couldn't see me to make sure I was there for him to drop off Shelly (some school policy that they won't let kindergarteners off the bus without a parent present).  I then had to hobble on what I was sure was a broken ankle about 3 yards around the side of the house to wave at the bus.  Shelly comes running down the lane to ask me why I wasn't there waiting for her.  All I could do was cry, wince, hobble back to where I could sit down, and have her go fetch me the phone.  I called Mark in tears, informed him that I had just broken my ankle and wondering if he would be willing to put off studying for a bit in order to help me (I was glad it happened when he was studying at school and not at work - I don't know what I would have done if he had been at work).  He packed right up, called his mother and sister to come help me (I'm not sure why my brain wasn't working enough to do that instead of disturbing him - my brain doesn't always think logically in crisis mode).  They came over, took one look at my super swollen ankle and stuck me in the car.  JB stayed to watch the kids for me, and Mom drove me to the ER where we met Mark.

Turns out it was just a really bad sprain.  I get to stay off of it for a few days and then slowly get back to putting weight on it.  Yup, looking forward to dealing with kids without a functioning foot!  (or not...)


Here's a Facebook post of mine from earlier (let's try not the think about how lazy this makes me sound):
Darn crutches! I'll be excited to be able to walk again! My plan to wait until Mark got off work to have him change the baby's blow out diaper is failing... Too bad the time from blow out to getting off work was really more than 5 hours. Wishful thinking at his finest.


Thankfully my in-laws were awesome help, and I've been able to mostly just rest - which has sped up recovery. I can walk now - even a bit with just one crutch, but more than a few yards and my foot starts hurting again, so I try to stay off of it.