Various costumes

Its becoming a tradition for Savanna to be dissatisfied with her costume each halloween. In fact I almost always get a grumpy picture of her after her first costume attempt. I've learned to live with it. She has good ideas but has a hard time making that idea translate to something she's really satisfied with. She really wanted to be a Kyoshi warrior this year so we did our best to find an outfit that resembled that and I did her hair like Mulan, but she did not like it.

Fiora on the other hand is satisfied with just about anything. She wanted to be Nuay from The Last Airbender so we made a costume for her. But the day of her school parade she changed her mind and wanted to be Frankenstein's bride. So we scrambled to find a suitible ragged dress and veil and ratted her hair.


Then on halloween she changed her mind yet again and decided to be a bear. A BEAR. She was the cutest bear I've ever seen, but I did not see that coming.



Back to Savanna, she ripped out her hair, and had me do a french braid and went off to school and was a Kyoshi warrior for her school parade. But nobody knew what she was dressed up as, and this added to her disgruntled state.



So on Saturday we decided we really needed some face paint to make her look like a real warrior. Unfortunately she didn't like the way I did her face paint. Not that I was surprised. More grumpy pictures.


Weston was completely satisfied with his Aang costume, thankfully, and we had to put the finishing touches on that costume by buzzing his hair.




Savanna was forced to go with the facepaint to a little halloween recital our family put together Saturday. But as soon as we got home she washed her face and changed her outfit. She was inspired by my sister Krystal's outfit "The Red Queen" from Alice in Wonderland. She found a red dress, red cape, ratted her own hair, and voila, she was the red queen. All I had to do was her lipstick and put a few bobby pins in. Great job Savanna!





No matter what they were wearing, they had a great time running around the neighborhood trick or treating, we were glad the rain and wind stopped so we could take our time and get lots of candy! Happy Halloweeeeeeeen! (Whew that its over)

My sisters Karli and Heidi ran a half marathon that morning in costumes. They are awesome!
Jesse and Kesly.
I dressed up.
I was a fisherperson. The ninja is my brother Joseph.
One more picture of the Avatar.

The Last Airbender

Weston wants to be Aang, the last air bender, the avatar, whatever name you prefer, for Halloween. This is the first halloween one of my kids hasn't been satisfied with some costume in our supply or in Target's large inventory. I researched costumes and found a few suppliers of Last Airbender costumes, but they were around $50 and looked cheap and not that impressive to me. I finally came to the realization that if I was to make Weston Aang, I would need to make the costume myself. Sewing is on the bottom of my list of abilities; however, Fiora volunteered me to sew 20 aprons for her classmates last month, and it somewhat increased my confidence. So Weston and I set out to make an Aang costume. Thankfully Weston was willing to settle for a costume design that resembled the "people movie" rather than the animated series. I found a tomato red cape, a hand me down aisian looking blouse, and an old cotton slip, and with the help of Wendy's sewing machine and some ingenuity, I transformed them into a cloak and an outfit that satisfied Weston. I was so pleased with myself!! (I had to order the staff from BuyCostumes.com., we had nothing like that lying around.) Weston talked me into buzzing his hair too, so stay tuned.

big fish

Jared caught this on one of his scout camp outs. Its a carp.

Homecoming parade

The year the MSWSA entered the BYU homecoming parade. As a member of the student association, I offered our trailer and 4-wheeler, and it ended up being quite a production at my house getting ready and then actually decorating the trailer and walking in the parade. I was glad to be involved, although extra work, it all went very smoothly. We held posters telling what social workers do, and had pictures of humanity on the float, and passed out candy and fliers with resources, and yelled "Strengthening families!" and "The social work program is alive at BYU!" Jared did a lot of trailer loading, transporting, hitching, and kid watching so it could work out. While waiting for the parade to move, we painted all our faces with BYU and Y and NASW, etc. There was plenty of candy and not a lot of crowds and decent weather. The kids had fun and so did I. Good memories!

Violin Recital

Savanna and her violin teacher Cathy Webb.



Savanna did a great job at her first violin recital. She played "Variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." She had literally come straight from a soccer game, change in the car, and was very composed and beautiful. Good Job Savanna!
And here is Savanna at her last fall soccer game.