Ryan's First Guitar Concert

Last night Ryan had his first Guitar Concert. He has been so excited for this! The minute he found out about it, he wanted to sign up. I was a little uncertain because he has only been playing for 4 months and told him he really needed to be dedicated to practicing his song. We had to remind him to practice to get ready and he had a couple notes added to fix the ending just the day before the concert but he did great. He seems to have no fear about getting up in front of people and doing what he loves. That is so impressive to me. (He told me after the concert that it was kind of scary-but he sure didn't show any signs of being scared or nervous.)

It was kind of a late night, but for the first time that the music school did this, it was awesome! They ended up being 45 minutes behind in schedule, but bumped Ryan up so he could play earlier, which was really nice considering that he played at 8:15 and he would've ended up playing at 9pm or later if they hadn't. We enjoyed Pier 49's delicious Pizza while we listened to some really talented musicians. We are so proud of Ryan! I will put his video in the next post!

Concussion

Thursday at school, Tessa tripped while running in from recess. Turns out she hit her head when she tripped and so we spent the afternoon in the ER where she got a CAT scan. She she missed her school Halloween Carnival, but the hospital gave her this cute little bear that she named "Chocolate Chip" (who also apparently had a concussion according to Tessa) She has taken the bear with her everywhere and even got it dressed up to go to the Trunk or Treat. Aaron pulled her in a wagon so she wouldn't exert herself too much. After a day and a half of resting she was ready to go again, but she's supposed to take it easy for 2 weeks. And if she jostles her head too much she starts to get dizzy again. She's back at school today so here's hoping she remembers to slow down!

Halloween Costumes

Today the kids get to dress up at school for Halloween:

Tessa has been planning on being Wonder Woman ever since she got her Francie Pants last Spring. Her gold accesories are made from an old tablecloth I never use and even though I couldn't find red boots, Target had these black ones on sale which she wanted for every day life any way! (Ada got some too...) Her magic lasso is a braided rope from the headband we used to make her tiara and luckily I had a red cape laying around in the dress-up trunk. So I only had to go buy the leotard and the boots and it still cost me less than the "wonder woman costume" at the store (not to mention, it looks way better.)


Ryan has wanted to be Anakin for a very long time. He wanted to grow his hair long so he could braid it like Anakins but I wouldn't let him and as his hair has grown he decided he would look best as young Ani. We also plan on get his hair cut next week!

Ada has gone through many ideas this year. She was going to be an indian or Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, but settled on a witch when she received a witch's hat from school-- I think as a reward for Reflections. I made that dress she is wearing for Kielle to be a witch when she was 3. It is more like a tunic on Ada. She is wearing my footless ice skating tights ( I melted the feet off-did you know they had plastic in them?) and her brand new boots from target. Easy peasy!

Here she is trying to look mean.

Kielle couldn't decide what she wanted to be. So last night she decided she would wrap herself in toilet paper and be a mummy. I had muslin left over from Ryan's bday party and so I ripped strips of fabric and duct-taped them to her clothes! I couldn't find my safety pins! We'll see how well it holds up! But she looks awesome! We put white and black makeup on her face and sprayed her hair and hands with white hairspray.


Nathan wanted to be Boy Scout but didn't want his picture taken. Aaron said he thought he should be a zombie boy scout. This photo would work well in photo shop for that concept don't you think?
Kielle finally got a smile out of him! Yay!

Homemade Ice Cream

very Labor Day, my cousin Shannon and her husband, Jim host a homemade ice cream contest. The first time I went, there were a handful of flavors to try. It has since morphed into a full-blown crazy contest with three tables worth of entries and categories! There is a lot of competition at this contest. My cousin Leif made lots of posters and hung them everywhere as well as cups with "inspirational messages" like "Don't eat Nathan's ice cream" (Not my Nathan--another cousin.) I love watching the friendly rivalry among my cousin's family. It just makes the contest that much more fun.


This year was my first year with an entry. I tried my hand at mint chocolate chip Ice Cream. I used fresh mint from my mom's garden and Dove chocolate. It was pretty good, except fresh mint is VERY powerful and I think I overdid how much I put in. The mint was very strong. I'll have to attempt it again another time (with considerably less mint.) My dream is to recreat Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. Maybe next year....

The ice cream is displayed out on the tables and everyone is given a number-it is all very anonymous.;) Then we all went around tasting the ice cream and got to vote for our favorites. Tessa didn't like any of the fruit flavored ice crams and refused to even give a sympathy vote to any in tht category. What a trip!

The other fun part about the party is of course being able to see our family and spend time with them. The kids were happy to see their cousins there.

Saving the best for last, is that my mom and dad were celebrating their 47th wedding anniversary that day too. Congratulations Mom & Dad.

oesn't this cake look Devoine? It was! Ryan requested an ice cream cake for his birthday this year and since Coldstone is out of the budget for now, I decided to try my hand at my own version. Which was so incredibly easy I think will do it again sometime. He wanted chocolate cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream. At first I thought it was just for our immediate family so it was going to be a 3 layer cake, but then he told me he wanted it for our extended family to share after his baptism. Thus it became a 5 layer creation. To give it more of a gourmet touch I put chocolate ganache between each layer and over the top. Well, actually Aaron took the Ganache job away from me. After I had finished making it he started pouring it on and didn't want to stop. He is such a gourmet. And I that is one of the many reasons for which I love him!

Ryan's Baptism

Ryan was baptized last Saturday (Sept 26). We are so pleased with his decision to be baptized. I was nervous for him because he hates getting his head wet. He won't go under water at all when he's swimming and he hates getting his hair washed because he gets water on his face and in his eyes, so I wasn't sure how he would respond to being fully immersed in water. But he did great! I asked him how he felt about going all the way under water and he told me he didn't mind it. I asked him what was different and he told me that the spirit was there and the water temperature was just right. :) We also talked about how he was prepared beforehand so he knew what to expect. I think that is really important and I am so glad that he felt prepared and ready for baptism. Not just physically but spiritually as well. He has read his scriptures every night since he was baptized and asks me to read them with him. And then we talk about what the verses he just read mean.

It was fun to have our family there and friends from the ward. I wasn't on top of it enough to get a photo of everyone together, but we are so glad that they came to support Ryan. Our kids were asked to sing at the baptism and Ryan chose "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam." They were a little nervous so we invited the other primary children there to sing also--I think they had 2 more voices added to their 5. They did great.

Labor Day Weekend "Camping"

We had big plans to go camping over Labor Day weekend. We've been planning on it most of the summer knowing that all other weekends wouldn't work for us. Then a week ago I realized we hadn't even thought to reserve a camping spot and weren't too excited about just taking our chances on such a big camping weekend. On top of that Aaron just started up fall semester and has a paper due on Tuesday as well as 5 chapters to read. So we decided to fill the weekend with fun activities at home. So the kids went camping in the backyard (while mommy and daddy slept on their bed inside) I think they really enjoyed being able to sleep outside. The first night out I didn't put the fly up and it ended up raining on them at 6am! So we let the tent dry out and put the fly on but did it rain again? nooo. Although it did get chillier so the fly probably did help with keeping them slightly warmer.


I loved watching the glow from the tents as the kids read their books inside them with their flashlights. I think they really loved their backyard camping every night this weekend (even though they would have loved real camping more-but were such good sports about it.)

We also went to the BYU Women's Volleyball game (they won). That was a ton of fun. We should really do it more often. And then we went to a BYU tailgate party and watched the BYU Football game (they won). Also fun.

Aaron got really sick over the weekend so we took it easy and I spent time hanging out with the kids. We had a lot of fun with Legos especially. Kielle and the other kids worked hard on a camping scene.

These guys are roasting marshmallows over a fire.

And this is their tent. We found the "plans" to make these at legofamilytime.com/familyfun. There were all sorts of other cool plans if you want to do fun lego stuff too. Ada made an apple and there were plans for trees and pencil holders-Kielle made that and a tic tac toe board. Nathan is the LEGO expert in out home and didn't need the plans because he just creates this stuff out of his own head. He kept wanting to improve the designs we had.