Happy Halloween!!!

 I love Halloween.  I love having a day that we celebrate children.  Children love Halloween.  They love dressing up.  They love the candy.  They love the parade.  They love the excitement.  I don't like the dark side of Halloween, but I love the light, happy side- the part where children are celebrated.

Knowing how I feel, each Halloween, our family shares many pictures with us of their festivities.  I can't get enough!  Here are some of this year's jewels.

Jaron was milk . . .

and Gabbi was a cookie!

A pretty great combo, I would say!

Kenny was a banana

And William was popcorn.  What a delicious family!

Oh, and Michelle was a delicious-looking doughnut.  What a cute group! Here, William was one of the Kratts brothers.  He kept changing his mind.

The Prince kids decorated Halloween cookies.

Our tradition since my kids were little is to make Halloween soup for dinner on Halloween.  All three of our daughters are continuing the tradition.  This is Michelle's delicious pot-full.

I know when my kids were little, one of the best parts of Halloween is the sorting that takes place after you get home from trick-or-treating. The kids sent some cute sorting pictures.

Shonna had a busy day on Friday before Halloween, helping put on parties in a couple of her kids' classes and eating lunch with all of them.  Such a great mom!

The parade.  Hannah is the prettiest witch! 

Yes, Lily is a cookie, too.  Michelle found the costume and knowing how much Lily LOVES cookies bought one for Lily too.  It is the perfect costume for her.  She is our little cookie queen.

And Caleb was milk, too.

Anna and Olaf at the school party.

Kristen knocked herself out making "How to Train Your Dragon" costumes for her kids.  They turned out so stinkin cute and you can see in their faces how much the kids loved them.

Elisabeth was an adorable, little dragon

So scary!

Always expressive Samuel

These dragons practiced  their fire breathing.

Audrey

Jake

I don't know the movie, so I don't know what Nathan and Bria were.  But the costumes and make up are fantastic!

Sorry, Bria.  Nathan is definitely taller!  The two of them have be vying for the tallest honor, and Nathan has definitely passed her.

I love this picture of a tuckered out little guy after trick-or-treating.

Happy Halloween!!

The Thing About Luck

 

The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really love this author. I have loved every book I have read of hers. This is a sweet story of a Japanese/American family who work as wheat harvesters in the 1960s. It is from the viewpoint of the young girl in the story, making it very relatable for a young adult. Two children and their grandparents try to do the job their parents usually do as cook and harvesters on a harvesting crew, as the parents were called away, but they run into many difficulties. They seem to have no luck at all. It is a coming-of-age story, full of interesting characters and relationships.

View all my reviews

My All American

 This was a really good movie depicting the true story of a very fine young man who faced a very difficult trial with courage and integrity.  He was fair dinkum.  You should watch it.

Woodlawn

 This is a true and inspiring story.  It is a football story, but it is much more than that.  We give it 5 stars.

Family Reunions

 One of the things that is the very most fun for us both are our annual family reunions.  We love being with our family.  We really do have a lot of fun together.  It is so fun to watch the cousins love each other and have so much fun together.  We are so grateful that they are fully committed and willing to sacrifice a week each year to gather as a family.

This is one great group of people.  Being with them is truly fun for us!

Post-Surgery Trips to the Temple

 We scheduled two trips to the temple about a month after Ken's surgery, but he just plain wasn't ready to go, so we had to cancel both of them.

I got online and found that all ordinances in Cedar City were booked through December.  But I kept checking back and I found a cancellation for an endowment for Friday, October 29th, so we signed up.  It was wonderful to be back in the temple, post-surgery.

Tradition has it that we eat at Chili's after attending the Cedar City temple.  We were both starved and had a delicious lunch/ dinner before heading back home.

As soon as we got home, I got online and found another opening a week later on November 5th for sealings.  I signed up.  We made the hour-long drive again.  We were able to finish up all of our sealings.  That is such a glorious feeling to do all the work for an ancestor.  There are few greater joys.  Other family members help us in this work and we are most grateful for them.  

We are so grateful, that despite the pandemic and limited temple opportunities, we are able to still do this marvelous work.  (I can't believe I am publishing this awful picture.  It was windy and sunny and I look just awful!)

Yes! Again!

 I have posted on two previous occasions about our sprinklers leaking in a certain spot in front of our house.  Ken dug down and fixed it both times before.  But shortly after his surgery, he saw they were leaking again.  He called a man that does lawn maintenance who lives in our ward and eventually he came and hopefully fixed it for good this time.  We were at our family reunion when he finally came, so there is no picture of the hole this time- just the final result.  Ken has reseeded the lawn and hopefully it can just grow in peace now.