Cole was Steve from Minecraft. These heads were $50 each on Amazon. I made this myself with a PDF I found on the internet. Cost: $2.50 each, plus many hours of work! Good thing for all the work, the boys wore their costumes three or four times. Here is Cole at the school Parade.
Tal was a minecraft creeper. Tal's bestest cousin Sam made the Creeper PDF for this one. It took him a couple of hours. Thank you, Sam! Here is Tal at our neighborhood party.
Jack going to a costume party of one of his class mates.
Tal with his minecraft diamond sword.
Jack is a Soccer Vampire. He said, "Mom, I'm the only Vampire Soccer player in my class!" I'm thinking the only one in the world. Remember his Irish Warrior costume? He has a gift for being ultra specific.
Trace, our little Frankenstein, had a Preschool costume parade and here he is at the Laird Park Halloween Party. I had so much fun making his costume. Felt, an old sweatshirt, old PJ bottoms and the zigzag stitch can take you far.
He only tolerated face paint for trick-or-treating.
Getting ready to Trick or Treat. We went on the Pulsiphers' street and the boys pulled in quite a haul!
Clint stayed home and frightened teenagers. We had fun carving pumpkins. Can you spot the Romney pumpkin?
Clint and I are having a little fitness contest. We have the advantage of two small gyms in his buildings at the NOSC (that's: Naval Operational Support Command, or Naval Reserve Center). He had a Friday off and we didn't quite get the workout in before the boys came home from school. So we took the whole family. The boys had fun on their scooters in the parking lot.
Can you see the pioneer era, Fort Douglas buildings in the background? That's were the Federal Troops came to keep their eyes on them Mormons.
Then the boys did their best to get a workout of their own. Jack even ran 1.6 miles on the treadmill--barefoot!
I know I've mentioned it before, but I love Trace's preschool teacher. I don't think she could possibly cram more fun and learning into each day! In this week they were studying "M" for Metamorphosis. They had real monarch cocoons to observe and here they are singing a song about the butterfly life cycle. The silk scarves are covering them in their cocoons.
Then their scarves become their wings as they jump up and fly away. They did an art project that day with all different dried pastas representing the life cycle. Orzo=egg, Fusilli=pupa/caterpillar, shell= chrysalis and bowtie=adult/butterfly.
Our good friend Brittani came to Salt Lake City in August because, Mormon though she is, she's never been to Utah! So Gerrilyn hosted her for a few days and we took her on a tour of Temple Square. Here we are on the roof of the Conference Center.
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And on our way home we encountered the annual Zombie Walk. SLC is a funny town. Our tour did the trick and Brittani moved to Utah County! Welcome Brittani!
I can't believe our boys are all in sports they actually like right now!
Talmage is in Karate. It's the fantasy element that appeals to him.
Cole is in wrestling: picture to come. The coach says he's a natural. I don't know that is the correct term. I think he comes to the sport very well trained!
Jack is in his fourth session of soccer. He's become quite the mid-fielder and can be counted on to get the ball going in the right direction.
Trace is also in soccer. As much as a four year-old boy can be!
I was feeling cabin fever one Sunday evening in late spring. So we loaded up the car and when for a drive. We ended up going to Park City then up Guardsman Pass and came back down Big Cottonwood Canyon. The view was worth the drive.
Clint and I went on a dating binge this week! On Mondays we always get 2 1/2 hours to ourselves because Clint is home and Trace is at preschool. So we did our Monday ride up Emigration Canyon on our mountain bikes (one day we'll buy road bikes). This week we cut 8 minutes off our climb time from the week before.
Wednesday night we went to see the Piano Guys at Red Butte Garden. It was being recorded for PBS television so a) they pulled out all the stops with a flash mob orchestra among the audience, five guys on the piano at one time, playing the piano upside down and a guest appearance from Alex Boye. b) they redid every song two of more times whenever they messed up :) But it was a great time! Look to see Clint and I on TV on PBS in November. We are sitting between the flashmob violinists and the harpist.
Friday Clint and I left the boys in the care of a babysitter and headed up to Park City for the night. We went mountain biking, which turned out to be pretty lame. They didn't have maps for their trails at Park City, even though we paid $40 to ride the lift up to them. The ones we found had us hike-a-biking because they were so rocky. There was one highlight though. We came upon an open meadow with moose on either side of the trail. We stood there for a long time and then decided to ride ahead and that sent them running ONTO the trail right into the woods ahead of us so now we really couldn't go forward. So we just headed straight down the mountain, which was steeper, but much smoother than the trail! We went out that night to dinner on Main Street at Bistro 412--really lucky choice, as it turned out, because it was fabulous. Thank you, smart phone. I'm still thinking about that mushroom plate appetiser. On the way out of town in the morning we went to the No Worries Diner in Summit. Again, thank you, smart phone (it was rated Best Breakfast in Utah). The best omelet I've ever had--soft all the way through. It was a very nice get away.
I took the boys to see the Brigham City Temple open house on Friday, September 7th, since the boys only have a half day of school on Fridays. It was such a wonderful experience. The boys bore their testimonies to me through a rare display of reverence. The temple workers smiled at their faces full of wonder as they went silently, but very quickly through the rooms.
Talmage said he could feel the spirit of his "favorite prophet" (Jesus) in the temple and , "Angels painted that gold there!" When I told him people did it, he said, "What I mean is, who ever did that had a must have a lot of spiritualness." He commented as soon as he left the building. "I don't feel the spirit anymore."
Trace contained all this cute energy through the whole thing.
Cole acted with quiet dignity and respect. He liked the celestial room the best.
Jack loved the room where people get married and the fountain outside.
See, Talmage was right! I thought it was amazing that one of the builders created this sculpture to portray how they prayed for inspiration in the construction of the temple. It is hard to see, but the man is in construction clothes and there is a hard hat on the ground.
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