Birthday Celebration

We took Maggie and a few of her friends to Disney On Ice for her Birthday celebration. We had never been and weren't sure if it would be to immature for the girls, but they ended up loving it and we enjoyed it as well, even Brian. Maggie and Sam's favorite part of the show was Lion King. At the beginning of the party, we made snow globes, had dinner, cake and ice cream and headed up to Salt Lake for the show. Happy Birthday Maggie!

Snow Globes

A pear jar from the $ store

The Mason with water, you can't even see the snowman in there

I saw a cute idea in a Martha Stewart book on how-to make snow globes...I ended up volunteering to make them in Maggie's classroom and also at her birthday party. The instructions seemed simple enough. I started hunting for the figurines and the jars...then, I tried one...there's a small dilemma, because the lids on canning jars are so thick, I have a hard time seeing the miniatures inside....I've searched far and wide for different jars, they recommended baby food jars, which seem to work the best and yet even those aren't perfect because they aren't wide enough to fit more then one or two figurines...hmmm. Lesson #1 learned, don't assume that Martha Stewart projects are easy, they rarely are and Lesson #2 Don't bite off more then I can chew

This is the baby food jar.

Putting it all away

It took me two days to clean up the kitchen from our Halloween dinner including the pumpkin carving, the caramel apples and our Halloween dinner. It took me another day to put away all the Halloween decorations, that's the bad thing about having Halloween being the last day of the month, you have to get it all put away so that November can come...one of my friends doesn't decorate for Halloween, I guess that's one way to do it, if you don't decorate, you don't have to put anything away..., I didn't use to decorate for Halloween when I had babies, but as my kids have grown older, they have forced me to do it (in a way) and I figure that I have to do it while they are excited about it because there will come a time when they won't care as much.

Hallow's Eve

Halloween was a low-key day. The kids wore their uniforms to school, sans halloween costumes, and instead had a crazy sock day. They were a little disappointed, but it was nice not having to worry about getting them dressed and decked out in their Halloween attire. I spent the day cooking and cleaning and thinking about Caleb. He was born in the evening on Halloween, or Hallow's Eve, and would have been turning 4. I have many memories of that day and the day leading up to his birth...it was a long labor, there was an earthquake that rocked the hospital...I remember holding Brian's hand as the building swayed back and forth and just prayed that it would stop...we were only on the 15th floor of an old hospital in San Francisco, scary! The swaying did eventually stop, followed by a long, worrisome, intense labor, but through the entire experience I can't help but remember the intense peace that distilled upon us, a peace that passed all understanding. I know without a doubt, that we were attended by angels, that our burden was made light, and that our little Caleb came to us knowing that his mission on this earth would be short. He was a beautiful baby and he brought the sweetness of heaven with him. How grateful we are to still have him as a part of our eternal family.

I made blankets again for the babies in the heart unit in San Francisco

We visited the cemetery on Caleb's Birthday

They went Trick-or-Treating around the neighborhood

Crazy Sock Day at school instead of costumes