Today I found out another guy was taking over Adam's office at work. Take a look....

He looks a little like Adam, just 30 years older...

at least the goatee is the same...

the silly expressions are the same...

any idea who this guy is?!?

Yeah, so when Adam got home last night he sprung his Halloween Costume on me. He wanted to be himself-only 30 years older. So he pulled out his trusty razor and there you have it. We added baby powder for the color and he "fattened up" with a towel around his middle.

He actually startled me this morning. I forgot about the shaving of the head and it surprised me when he got out of the shower.

No one can say he doesn't get into the holiday spirit!! You rock, honey!

Here's a reminder of what he looked like yesterday (okay, it was a month ago)....

Now today...scary, huh?

My only question is, what is he going to do when Halloween is over?!? Stay tuned for pictures...

Pumpkin Painting

Dallin and his friend painted a pumpkin while Maura and I were busy carving the other one. (Okay, so I carved and Maura held onto my legs and cried.) It was a fun activity to do before the carnival.

Why are they naked? No, it's not some weird tradition at our house, it's just easier to wipe off bodies than it is to wash shirts. And, it's much faster than running around the house trying to find the painting shirts.

Plus, they thought it was cool.

MWAH-HA-HA-HA

(evil scary laugh)

This is our scary Halloween house and our gigantic pet spider that eats little trick-or-treaters!

Come and try trick-or-treating us....ha ha ha ha ha.

Last night was our annual neighborhood Halloween Carnival-going on 30 years now. It is always a ton of fun with food, games, and lots of friends. Every year it amazes me how many people come to our neighborhood to party with us. We never get an exact count, but the guy in charge of the soda said he sold 850 cans of soda, so I guess that's a good estimation of how many people really show up!

This year we had a pumpkin carving contest. Dallin and his friend Gavin painted one of the pumpkins (very abstract), then they helped me carve another one. (Okay, so they picked the design, I did most of the carving, and they ooohed and ahhhed). We ended up winning first prize in the "Over 30" category! Guess what we won??? A pumpkin pie!

Dallin is a football player this year (he wants to be just like Brady)

and Maura is a bumble bee. It seemed appropriate given her "busy" personality.

Happy Halloween!

Have YOU ever tried taking a picture of a bumble bee?

It's really not that easy. First the bee comes right at you...
often getting too close unexpectedly.
Bees rarely look into the camera and smile...

They turn away quickly even if you holler and whistle.

They often fall down (tripping on the bee tu-tu)...

and wander off to find something more interesting than the camera.

Rotten bee! I could never get a good picture!

It's a good thing we have friends who take better pictures.
Leisa took these, she even got the bee to look at the camera.

We're still working on the smiling part.

Helpful Friends

This week has been full of helpful friends. Maura has become a little social bug. When friends come over she is so happy!
Boe, our neighbor friend came over for a while this week. We love having him and his brothers and sisters come and play. He and Maura get along wonderfully!
The Mookster loves to be outside lately and she is learning to climb up on things...she just hasn't quite figured out the climbing down part.
Today I have another helper at my house. Jack, another neighbor friend came over to play (and help clean). He is such a stealthy quiet little man. He is so inquisitive and loves to find things around the house to play with. Today it was the broom.

It became a little tug-of war game...so the broom had to be put away.

We love it when friends get to come over (especially when they help babysit and clean).

My son, the blogger!

Dallin and I have been talking about who he wants to invite to come to his baptism. We talked about writing letters and making invitations then he said, "Mom, just put it on the computer". I asked what he meant and he said, "Where you put pictures and then everyone knows what we are doing and will come.". He knows the power of the blog.

So, here it is!


You are invited to my baptism. November 8th 4:00 pm at the Mesa South Stake Center (on Southern between Stapley and Gilbert)

After the baptism you are invited to have pizza and cake at my house. 1421 E. Grove Ave.

Please tell my mom you will come so we will have enough pizza and cake and stuff 480-358-1466.

Dallin

(Okay, so he had a little help with addresses and spelling, but overall it is his idea.)

Random News

Where have I been? As my dad would say, "Chained to my desk".

I've been doing a lot of busy work lately and my desk has suffered. Most of the time it's nice and tidy, but lately it's looked more like this. Hopefully clutter and productivity are directly proportional!

One of my projects was a Keller Family Culture night for our school. We celebrated Dia De Los Muertos and had an ofrendas "offering" to the dead. The kids made masks and an altar with sweets and decorations to entice the spirits of those who have died to come back and visit. It also included pictures of the dead and humerous stories. It's an interesting Mexican tradition we learned about. There was a terrific turn out!
We had performances from students in the school. K-2 kids sang a song with masks, the 3rd and 4th grade did Azteca dances and then we had a polynesian group do hula. It was so fun. Dallin is right smack in the middle. (The color is weird because the picture was dark and I messed with it a lot to be able to see anything....it turned out kinda wierd and sepia toned.)

I am enjoying learning about the culture of our community. The more I enteract with the families in our school the more I learn. I think my next goal will be to get serious about learning Spanish.
On to other things....
Mookie is a cutie. She just looked so grown up one day I had to take some pictures.

Love these cute cargo pants! I think they cost me 50 cents! Yard sales are the way to go.

I don't know if I could clothe my family and have furniture to sit on if I didn't venture out several times a month and scour the neighborhood. I usually go with my friend Leslie, but I think I inherited the yard sale bug from my mom who got it from my grandma Jones.

Other news...
Did I mention that Adam is training for a half marathon?? Yeah, he's a little nuts (but oh, so hot).
He and some co-workers have a schedule all arranged to work up to the 13.5 miles they will run in the P.F Chang run in January. He's been getting up at 5 am every morning to run and workout at the gym. I admire his persistance! He's amazing!

More news...
Dallin is getting baptized on November 8th! Today we had is baptism preview and he learned all about what was going to happen.
Aren't my boys handsome!?!

For some odd reason we all dressed in black and white today and we were EARLY for church! We just had to take a picture. So we tried...

and tried...

and tried to take a good family picture.
Oh well, maybe next time.

Whew! That's what we've been up to this week.

Another Saturday Project...

that got way out of hand.

It all began with huge branches falling out of our tree and our neighbors coming to rescue us by chopping them up and distributing the branches in green barrels throughout the neighborhood. Then Brother Hansen said he would help us chop down the one big branch that needed to go...and Brother Schnepf offered his chain saw... and so it began!

See the big branch off to the right that could fall on our house? Yep, that one needs to go. So we started there.
Adam climbed the tree and tied a rope to pull the branch away from the house.
Then Brother Schnepf stopped by with a chain saw. "It will be easy" he said and promptly got volunteered to go up and chop it off.

Here it comes....see the men making sure it doesn't hit the house?
Perfect landing.

Then Adam climbed to the other side and started chopping out the dead limbs.

We got a little carried away.

What a hunk...or is that ham?

It turned into such a big project and as we were feeling overwhelmed here came our neighbors the Ethington's, then the Fischer's, then the Woolf's (and all their green barrels). We filled 7 green barrels and a trailer full of branches! It turned into a block party. I should have taken pictures of such hard workers and wonderful people. We couldn't have done it without them!

Here it is, the naked tree!

It looks so much better and with some luck, we won't have any gigantic branches falling on our house! Before:
After! Whew! Much better.

Vicious!

Girls are sweet and nice an filled with sugar and spice...right?

Well, someone needs to tell that to the Mookie.

Dallin bought a sword at the dollar store and Maura took a liking to it.

She liked chasing me around the house with it!

She's a vicious one I tell you!

Somebody needs to tell Maura about girls being full of sugar and spice...