Happy Birthday Elizabeth and Ryker!

Tuesday morning I woke up to birthday wishes and love from family and friends. Emily put a cute post on Facebook and instagram for my birthday that I loved. 

and I really loved the Ariel gif Ashleigh put on our Lutes hangout

I had told Cyndi a couple of weeks ago that I would substitute dance for one of the teachers who was going to be out of town this week. I subbed 3 classes in the morning and 2 classes after school on Monday and on Tuesday, my birthday, I was to sub 3 classes in the morning and 3 after school. Cyndi called the night before and said she would cover the tuesday after school classes since it was my birthday and I told her I would appreciate that and that I would cover the 3 morning classes on thursday for her. 

After teaching the three classes Rylee and I headed over to Paramount Elementary to vote for our new President. This was a crazy election and too be honest I was not thrilled with either candidate. I prayed about it and took it to Heavenly Father with who I was planning on voting for and felt good about my decision. I was glad that Rylee was able to be with me as I voted and I talked to her a little about the process and why it is so important and what a privilege it is for us to be able to vote for our leaders. I did get a little emotional as I was placing my voting ballot into the scanner and am so grateful to live in this free country where everyone can have a voice. 

When I picked Ryker up from school he saw that a birthday package had come for him and I from his Grandma Bonnie. He was pretty anxious to open it so I let him as soon as we got home. He got money and sour candy and was pretty happy with it all.

My Mom sent me a box of Sees chocolates and a gift card to amazon. 

While I was out and about during the day Lana stopped by and left some flowers for me on our doorstep and her son Drake picked out a bubblegum gun for Ryker. 

Cristal also came by with a gift for me, a package of kitchen items and a gift card to Hobby Lobby. I have such great friends and it was so sweet of them to think of me! I had a cold and although I hid it pretty well in the pictures I was not feeling very good. When Cristal stopped by I was feeling pretty terrible and she did not stay for long. I was bummed about the situation because I like hanging out with her but it was good of her to recognize how bad I felt and make her self scarce.

Kefford made us steak and tater tots for dinner which was delicious and much appreciated. After dinner we opened gifts and I got a new shirt some gloves a bag of peanut butter m&ms and a gift card to Target. I was pretty happy with everything!

Brit sent a present home with Kefford for me and I was thrilled to open it and find she got me a pack of Harry Potter socks! It is nice to be related and friends with people who know me so well. I love my new socks and will be wearing them all the time!!

Ryker got some new shirts. an adventure time game, a neck pillow and a saucer chair. The chair and the pillow he has been wanting for a while and was pretty excited to have received them.

After presents we got to eat cake! I told them I wanted chocolate cake which was the one flavor we did not have in the pantry and so while I was at the store that day I picked up some cake mix and frosting. Kefford made the cake when he got home from work. on a side note: Ryker and I stopped at Wal-Mart for a few things and while we were there we were looking for church clothes for him. I was carrying my wallet, phone and keys in my hand and did not realize until after we had checked out that I was missing my keys. We loaded up the car and then came back in and decided to retrace our steps to see if we could find them. After 5 minutes of looking and after whispering prayers in my head we found them sitting on the dress pants where I must have left them while we were  looking for church clothes. I am so grateful for the tender mercies form the Lord and that He helped us to find them.

Five things I love about Ryker:

1. Ryker has a strong desire to do what"s right and feels really bad when he makes mistakes. He is always very repentant and tries hard to be a better person. He is working hard on developing his testimony and prays and reads his scriptures every day. I love when I pass by his room and find him on his bed reading out of the Book of Mormon.

2. Ryker is very sensitive to my moods and is always concerned when he senses things are not right with me and tries to help me any way he can.

3. He loves his little Cousins and is very good with them. He has fun with them and plays with them and does not get annoyed with them.

4. Ryker loves to play Basketball and I love to watch him. My favorite thing is how he sticks his tongue in his cheek while he is playing. I think it is super cute!

5. Ryker has straight A's in school this year and is working very hard to maintain a 4.0 average. His favorite subject is Math because he thinks it is easy and I love that. I do not like math and do not find it fun and think it is so cool that he had this skill.

Ryker's Favorite Things:

Food: Hamburgers

Dessert: Ice Cream

Candy: Sour gummies

Church Song: Bring the World His Truth

Radio Song: Warriors by Imagine Dragons

Book: Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordon

Movie: Enders Game

Color: green

Friend: Baeden Jones

Scripture Story: Helamen and the Stripling Warriors

Thing to do: Ride go-carts

School Subject: Math

The Flour Game

Rylee asked to look at her baby book and after we got it out she looked through it and we realized how undone it was. I told Rylee since she has the next few weeks off that we should work on getting her baby pictures scrapbooked. We went through all of the pictures we could find at home and then got on the computer and printed off more. It has been fun working on this with her and we already have twice the amount of pages that we started with. I love that I have space in my house to do this project and not have it spread all over the kitchen table. 

Monday night we had family home evening and nobody could come up with a game to play. I remembered one that one of my friends posted about playing with her family and thought my kids would enjoy it. It is the flour game and you take a cup with flour packed into it and put it upside down on a plate and take the cup off. You are left with a cup shaped stack of flour. Put a dime on top and then everyone takes turns cutting sides off the mound. The person who cuts it and makes it collapse has to then use only their face to find the dime. It is a pretty fun game and everyone enjoyed playing. Rylee was the first one to make it fall and had to find the dime and Ryker was the second. After that we decided to clean up but it was fun and definitely one to do again!

Lots of fun!

A couple of weeks ago Kefford sent me a text with a picture saying The Barnyard made the front page of the paper. That was pretty cool except it was a little late in the season and who reads the paper anymore? I did enjoy reading the article and thought it was pretty cool advertising for them.

One morning Avy was eating frosted shredded wheat for breakfast when she found a clump of just the frosting. She thought that was a lucky find until she tried to bite into it and discovered it was hard as a rock. So she grabbed my phone, took a picture and then left it on the counter for me to find and throw away later.

With Ryker turning 14 soon he had a couple of things left to finish in his Duty to God book. It was to plan and make three meals that are healthy. He made a scrambled egg breakfast and then that night for dinner he decided to make biscuits and gravy. His biscuits turned out really good and I was impressed with how well he did. The next day he wanted to do another easy breakfast but I told him he had to do another dinner. We decided spaghetti would be good but I had him make breadsticks to go along with it. He needs to start developing more skills in the kitchen. Again he did a fantastic job with the bread and we all enjoyed the meal. Way to go Ryker!

Avynlea joined th garden club at school which meats after school on Wednesdays for about an hour. In this club they learned all about garden-ning and they used vegetables from their school garden to make salsa and other delicious things. They even went on a field trip to the botanical gardens to learn about floral and fauna. After the first week Ryker decided to stay after with her and do this garden club as well. I think he was thinking if she is staying he might as well stay to save his Mama a trip. They enjoyed it but it ended last week for the season and I was able to grab a picture they took of the group off of Facebook. 

Rylee has been hurrying to finish book 6 of the Harry Potter series and Thursday was her last day of school before track break. I told her she really needed to finish before she went on break so that she could take the test and start reading book 7. That morning before school she was reading on the couch and I was sitting watching her knowing what she was reading and wondering how she was going to react. I watched her read up to it, through it and then beyond with not even a flinch. I couldn't believe it and questioned her on why she has no feelings. She just laughed at me and said yeah it was sad but she is not like Avynlea getting emotional over everything. What a crazy girl. She managed to finish the book that day and took the test which she did great on. The next morning on her first day of track break we snuggled up on the couch to watch the movie of book 6. She liked watching the movie but commented she liked the book better, I definitely agree with that statement. Now she has started Book 7 and is well on her way to finishing the series, Amazing!

Sunday we went to Nyssa for Calebs baby blessing and after I did Avynlea's hair she looked at it in the mirror, said she loved it and then brought me my phone to take pictures of it. She is such a beautiful girl, I love her face!

I was able to bring out my fall things to decorate and was so pleased with how my fireplace and shelves look. I love this area in our new house and love that I have so many shelves and a mantel to put things on. When I first opened the fall/thanksgiving box and put stuff up I only had enough for the mantel and three shelves. I kept thinking I needed to get more fall things. After organizing and cleaning in the garage more Kefford brought in a box to put in our inside Attic space which I assumed was filled with kids papers and projects. Before putting it up I opened the box and took out the top papers which were little turkeys we made out of the kids hands and feet. Under the papers I found more fall and thanksgiving decorations that I had completely forgot about and had not seen in years. I have no idea how long these items sat in their box lost and forgotten in the attic but I am sure glad I found them because I have more cute things for my shelves!

Halloween Night!

Halloween night 2016 was not how I imagined it to be. But as the kids keep getting older I realize I need to let go of my expectations and go more with the flow. Ryker was invited to hang out at his friends house and I was not happy about that. This family does not do trick-or-treating now that their kids are past the age of 12. I think that is fine for them but it meant Ryker was not going to dress up and go trick-or-treating with us. The non trick-or-treating was not a big deal, Kenedy was not going either. It was the fact that for the first time I was not getting my traditional everyone dressed up Halloween picture. I was sad and frustrated and mostly sad. For the Verona ward Harvest party he dressed up as Malfoy and I think if I can convince him to put it on really quick for a picture then I can collage pictures together and at least my Halloween Banner will have all four kids in it for 2016. I don't anticipate leaving kids out of it until they start going off to college which will happen sooner then I am ready for. 

Kenedy did her make-up again as the dead girl and I was able to get her to let me take a couple of pictures. 

Kefford wanted me to take a picture with him posing with the Halloween candy and I love how Kenedy was caught in the frame being a spook.

Kenedy had some of her friends over for a night of treats and games. I was happy with that because it meant she could be here to answer the door and Kefford and I could both go out with the kids together. She said their was not a lot of trick-or-treaters that came to the door which did not surprise me. This is still a mostly under construction neighborhood and a lot of empty houses surround us. We discovered more of this as we went around trying to trick-or-treat door to door and having to walk past all of those empty/under construction houses. The girls still got quite a bit of candy because people were letting them take more then one since they did not have a lot of people stopping at their houses. We were able to meet some of our neighbor and that was nice. After going around our new neighborhood we drove over to our old neighborhood to pickup Ryker and stop at some of our old neighborhood friends houses. That was nice and I think they enjoyed seeing us as well as us seeing them. 

Lauryn, Megan, Ashlynn, Anna and Kenedy

After we got home I told the girls to get ready for bed and then if there was time they could quickly look through their candy. Having Halloween on a week night is pretty hard since they have school the next day, which means it is not a good idea to have late night fun. Rylee was the only one that wanted to go through her candy. 

Pumpkin Carving!

Sunday after church we carved pumpkins. Rylee was really anxious and wanted to start the pumpkin carving right away. The rest of us were not so anxious and wanted to eat and watch a movie and take a nap, which we did. Poor Rylee. Finally I let her get out the supplies and we decided that our foyer was the perfect place to carve pumpkins. Kefford and Kenedy were still off dozing so it was just the four of us for a while, I sent Rylee up to wake up the other two but Kenedy did not want to carve a pumpkin and Kefford ambled down a little while later just in time to help Rylee carve her design.

We got our pumpkins from the farm again this year which is pretty awesome that they have the resources and let us take as many as we want. I love having pumpkins to decorate with on my front porch and now that we have used some of them for Jack-o-Lanterns I feel a need to go back to Nyssa to get some more for decor. 

I decided to go with a classic Jack-o-Lantern face and am pretty pleased with how my guy turned out. 

Ryker wanted to do a cyclops and used a cookie cutter for the eye. He tried to use one for the mouth but it was starting to bend the cutter so he backed off and just used a knife. 

Rylee wanted to use a bunny cookie cutter for her design but it was not working as well so Kefford helped her find a bunny design online and had her trace it onto the pumpkin. He carved the shape out for her since she was not wanting to handle a knife just yet.

Avynlea had the idea to do the cookie cutters. She said she thought of it last year and then saw people doing it online, but it was her idea first! :0

She used the cutters to do a cute clover.

I think our Jack-o-Lanterns turned out pretty awesome this year. It was a painless and pretty fast process for all of us. A member of the Bishopric stopped by in the middle of our carving to ask Kefford, Kenedy, Ryker and I to speak in church on December 18th. So much time to prepare and worry and stress, I am not sure how I feel about how much time we have but hope we can do a good job. Hopefully this will help our new Ward to get to know us a little bit better. 

Peterson Halloween Party!

This year our annual Peterson Halloween Party was back at my house, where I hope and plan to keep it at from now on. I like having something that brings the family together in my home and taking the stress off Alison for once. 

Before the party Avynlea and Rylee got dressed up in their costumes and we headed out into our backyard for some picture taking. 

Rylee and Avynlea both decided a year ago what they wanted to be for Halloween this year. Rylee wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood and I found the cutest pattern at JoAnns to match her vision and mine also. I did not realize until after I bought the pattern that it was an adult size and they did not have it in her size. My friend Deena came over and helped me adjust the pattern so I could make her dress. It turned out so stinking cute and her and I both love it. Now that I know our new ward is a dressing up for Halloween type ward I am seriously considering making this costume for me. I do have it in my size after all. Rylee is such a beautiful Red Riding Hood!

Avynlea was Belle in her yellow dress last year and this year she wanted to be Belle in her blue dress. I could not find a pattern for this dress anywhere and so I had to piece different pattern pieces together and get creative with cutting up said pattern pieces to get the look I wanted. I think her dress turned out adorable and she looks like a beautiful Belle straight from the movie. 

Little Red Riding Hood

Belle

I wanted some pictures of the two of them together and Avynlea could not find her black shoes so she borrowed Rylee's for her individual shots and then had to go barefoot for the duo shots. 

I love these beautiful girls!

I couldn't believe how tall Rylee looked in these pictures and had the girls do a back to back picture so I could compare their heights. Rylee is definitely outgrowing her big sister!

For the party I did a baked potato bar and had a lot of yummy fixings to put on top, I also baked rolls to serve with them. I went to Costco to get some things and I was planning on buying rolls there but could not find any so I decided it was no big deal to make them myself. They must have been really good because they went fast and out of the 4 dozen I made I ended up with only 6 left over. Bob even told me they were good!I had the party guests bring their favorite Halloween treats and we had a lot of goodies for everyone to choose from. 

One of my kids thought Sadie and Charlotte were too cute and took pictures of them. I love that my kids love their little cousins and love having them around.

Ally-Nerd, Madi-Owlet, Brooke-Angel, Asher-Goofy, Tayvia-Minnie Mouse, Qiana-Pocahontas, Rylee-Little Red Riding Hood, Evalyn-Piglet, Hazel-Daisy Duck, Brielle-Mulan, Isabelle-Bat

James-Clown, Sadie-Doc McStuffins, Kelly-Bumble Bee, Avynlea-Belle, Kinsley-Mermaid, Jenna-Sophia the First, Audrey-Butterfly, Xander-Mickey Mouse, Charlotte-Owl

Caleb missed out on the group shot so we had to get a picture with him and the other two babies. Caleb was a penguin and he looked so cute and comfy.

Baby Caleb on his first Halloween.

Kefford told Kelsey he could go to the party and that he would take over at the Barnyard until he got back and then they would switch. By the time Kelsey got back to Emmett it was pretty busy and Kefford just stayed until closing. I was bummed that he could not make it to the party at all and again hope that next year things can work out differently. 

I had a really great time and enjoyed being around my Peterson family and having them in my home. Here's to another successful Peterson Halloween Party!