October & November highlights

I decided to make a collage of pictures I forgot to include in the last 'update'. We have 2 birthdays coming so best stay on top of it all! So you can see our jack o' lanterns--boy, have they come a long way since I was a kid! Between creativity and the patterns you can use, almost makes cleaning out the pumpkin worth it! Except for Taran who decided not to carve this year. We enjoyed our annual Spooky Tales tradition with the Durtschis and some other families. It's the only time my kids get any attention, or so it seems, as they all want to tell a scary story or tell a joke. Except Taran and Timo who humor us with the other teenagers! We had a great time sharing yummy soup and fun! I took a walk with Gwen down the path by the creek near our house just before a huge storm hit and blew all the leaves off that was lucky. We had a nice quiet time. One photo is crazy hair day for the kids at school they do it during red ribbon week, not sure what exactly that has to do with saying no to drugs but they enjoy dressing up! We have been feeding the ducks and geese every Friday but last and they seem more hungry every week. We got snow this weekend so maybe we should try to feed them, I'm not sure the city park people feed them. Usually some migrate but we've had unusually warm weather overall until this weekend. It's VERY cold right now. We live in a windy area which adds to the chill. We enjoyed celebrating my sister-in-law's birthday last Sunday at my mom's. We had a Chinese feast! We hadn't seen my brother and his wife in awhile, they've been busy moving into a new house and getting settled, fun times! My sister also moved into a new place not too far from us, she is in a planned community with a pool, tennis courts etc and that should make visits even more fun! Tim and the boys have been over to help out a couple of times. Taran took the ACT. He didn't study so we will see how this first go went. He felt like he did well except for maybe some science stuff he wasn't sure about. He and his band friends are busy trying a homemade approach to recording an album. We'll see! Timo tried out for the Jr High basketball team. There were 70 boys who tried out and only 12 made it. Only one of his friends made it but he was realistic about it all. I am proud of him for trying! One of the nice things about living here is they have a recreation program for just about every sport so he can still play basketball through the Jr Jazz program, partly sponsored by the NBA team Utah Jazz. Emily and Tim enjoyed a concert with the King's Singers who came to BYU. I was going to go but it was the week Micah & Gwen had had the stomach flu and we were a little nervous leaving Taran and Timo to watch the kids when one might start throwing up. Luckily no one else got it. Gwen has become a maniac on her bike she got for her birthday and rides all around the upstairs. She has been outside a few times with it but it has gotten too cold now. Maybe by spring we can take the training wheels off! Micah and Izak are going crazy with their piano playing. They have 2 Christmas songs memorized already. Their new teacher has been just what they needed, she lets them have quite a bit of freedom in choosing a song to learn along with technique and theory stuff. We only have 2 pianos and I remember reading about the 5 Browns' (5 siblings who all play concert piano professionally and all went to Julliard) parents having to buy 5 pianos so they all could practice. One of our pianos is an antique and needs to be gutted on the inside since you can't tune it anymore. But we have fights over the piano since we do have 5 players not counting Tim! It's a good problem to have! Our niece's marching band that was in the accident last month was able to go to Grand Nationals this weekend due to another miracle but they didn't make it to the finals this year which surprises me. I am so glad they got to go and they still did really well 14th out of 91 bands! (This is what I read in today's paper anyway, Amy can correct me). Still a great part of the whole story! We made turkey and leaf sugar cookies Friday, I found a sugar cookie recipe that won a baking contest here locally so I thought we'd try it out! Very good recipe! I forgot to add that I posted some of our family photos in the collage my friend Merrily took of us last month--she took 63 so I only put a few in the collage. I ordered our Christmas cards Saturday! Friday Tim took the 3 little boys to a BYU basketball game thanks to my sister-in-law who got them for us! They had a blast. Emily went to Space Camp over night Friday and had a wonderful time with her friends--all kids from her school we involved in all the ships. One last thing if you want to try something different check the Delmonico Steak at your local butcher. I got a great deal on it last month. Googled Delmonico Steak and got a simple recipe that was delicious and it had a recipe for Delmonico Potatoes. Everyone loved the food! Sorry for the rambling update, too lazy to organize it all! That's enough, I'm off to bed!