End of October Fun!

This was an unwilling subject for this photo but I had to have a good picture of our Birthday boy! Peter's birthday was on Thursday the 28th and he says he celebrated the 6th anniversary of his 26th birthday-in other words he is 32. Sorry dear!

I am going to brag about this man for just a few minutes. He has been exercising and eating a bit more healthy and has lost 20 pounds over the last few weeks. I always think he looks good but I must say that he is looking great! He is a wonderful husband that works hard to provide for our family and do lots of extra things to help keep me sane. I am especially for his listening ear and words of encouragement as of late. My kids adore their daddy. I am grateful to be married to a man that finds so much joy in his children.
I did not have time to make a cake and Peter did not really care but the kids insisted. I did make his favorite dinner. And so Thursday marked the first of a few days of celebrations.

Friday afternoon we went on a costume parade around our neighborhood- organized by my fried Monique. She had some fun Halloween songs for the kids to sing and they made ghosts from suckers at her house. Jon was a vampire for the third year by his own choice. He has a great laugh for it.

This is the whole parade group. Joey was a front loader. Peter did a great job with the costume.

Out little Fairy Princess. She screamed when I first put on her costume that I had spent hours making but gratefully she loves her wings and so that made it better.

Another shot of the front loader. He wanted to be a crane but we didn't know how to do that so a front loader was a good compromise.

After the parade we carved pumpkins to take to our ward fall festival.

It was a chili cook-off and there were no costumes or trunk or treating (it is a "rule" in our stake). Lots of yummy chili and good desserts.

After that we went to a friends house for a Halloween Costume party. Arabella was the only one that held still long enough for me to get a picture and it is not a great one. The kids made really good use of that drum set and guitar. So funny to watch!

Saturday night the kids got a babysitter while Peter and I attended the adult session of stake conference. It was really good!

Sunday, we had the elders over for dinner. We had a halloween themed dinner. I meant to get a picture of all of it, oh well. This is our mummy meatloaf. Also on the menu were mashed potato ghosts, zombie brains (spaghetti squash), witches fingers (sweet potato baked fries), cornbread, and meringue ghost cookies. We handed out candy to trick or treaters and let the kids eat all they wanted since they did not get to trick or treat themselves.

The first day of November was spent taking care of a sick Joey. He started of complaining of a headache as we were sitting down with the elders. I felt his head and it was warm and his temp was 103.5. Oh my Joey that doesn't seem to know the meaning of low grade fever. We dosed him up a few times but in the morning he was still at 105. I doesd again and waited for the doctor's office to open. He has strep. We started antibiotics but he can not go back to school until Wednesday, which is just about the end of the world for Joey. I thought we were doing better this afternoon when I gave him medicine and he fell asleep but at 5:15 we were at 106. Urgh!! More meds, cool bath, ice packs under the arms (you will see it in his picture), I attempted to get him to eat ice cream but he did not eat much. When I left for work it was down to 103.4. After a few more doses of meds we finally got a 98 at 11. I am really hoping he is the only one who gets this and I really hope he starts to feel better today. I hate seeing my kids sick and it is really frustrating when with all of my knowledge I can not fix it!

Taken just before I left for work.

This is Jon's new smile, lower jaw jutted out. Silly kid!

My sick boy that is still smiling. I love these three kids (and the one man I mentioned earlier), they are everything to me.