HaPpY HaLLoWeeN!!

Well it's been a busy week for sure! As for the {pre-Halloween} activities... we had our ward Halloween party on Wednesday night. I headed up the booth that the Mia Maids were in charge of- the Bean Bag Toss. Here is my sidekick, Batman, aka Hunter, handing out the bean bags.

I made the pumpkin, which I think turned out pretty good. Just don't ask how long it took me to make it! Seems so simple, but not the case for me! I also sewed the bean bags, which was the last project I'll ever sew on that blasted sewing machine! I'm in the market for a new one. Let me know what your favorite brand is. I don't have a clue when it comes to sewing machines.

I stayed behind the scenes for most of it. Throwing back the bean bags. Collin only got pelted once :)My eye view from behind the scenes.

Trav was a P.E coach of sorts and I was just a country music star with my guitar.

It was a very fun, albeit chaotic, party. They also had a haunted house that went through the primary room. Trav and I went through and I screamed at the very top of my lungs the whole time. Occasionally interspersing, "I want my mommy!!". The best part was, all the people in the haunted house thought I was truly scared and were eating it up! Haha, it was way too fun.

Thursday night, Rach and Tiff came over and we commenced with the traditional making of the caramel apples! This time we rolled them in candy bars and they were mmm, mmmm good!

The finished products- prizes for the party.

Then last night we had our much anticipated party! (Well much anticipated for me anyway.)

I am Taylor Swift. Meet my guitar, Collin.

(I know his head looks cranked, but believe me, it was well supported!)
Also, I know I don't have blonde hair, but the spray I bought, just turned my hair neon green! Reference the ward party pictures. And I couldn't curl a wig, so I had to be a brunette Taylor. :(

And you wouldn't believe it, but Kayne West made an appearance!!!

I almost kicked him out when he tried to steal my VMA award though. Punk.

It was a really fun costume idea. No one recognized Trav when they first saw him at the party. Everyone's reactions were hilarious. They admitted they thought a real black guy had come. He didn't dress up as Kanye for the ward party because, well, we just thought that might be slightly misunderstood in the Buffalo ward :)

I spent way too much time getting the basement ready for the festivities. My goal: not be running around like a chicken with my head cut off when the party was supposed to be starting. Goal accomplished!

Here is the {voting booth} to vote for the best costumes. The purple lights looked way better in the dark.

The food table, before most of the goodies arrived.

And here are all the awesome costumes. I must say, the competition was fierce this year :)

The Daytons won for "Most Creative" costume. Well deserved for sure. They were Facebook and Twitter.

I even made it onto Facebook! You'll have to enlarge it to see though.

The Nielsen's won for "Best Overall". They were Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter. Awesome!

The Lindman's won "Best Couple". They are the two Amigos and their Chili Pepper.

The Marchants won for "Scariest". They were hobos. I didn't even recognize them when they walked in!

Here are the Biggest Losers, the Cardon's! Creed was quite proud of his belly haha.

Meet Tom Hanks and Wilson, aka the Carters.

The X Men made an appearance. (The Finlinsons)

I LOVED these costumes! The Houses dressed up as 80's Rockers. The best part was, they both didn't have wigs- it was their REAL hair!

The Shaheen's should have won for most creative for sure! :)

Natalie and Thayne, respectively a moo cow and soccer player

And the Bennions.... a couple of worker bees! Their daughter wasn't there, but her costume was the "Queen Bee". Too cute!

Devil Doug and Angel Rach with skeleton Gavin! :)

Well I'm sad to say that I lost track of my camera for the rest of the party! No pics of the donut eating contest :( I participated in that this year, but got beat out by Facebook! Definitely my favorite moment though, was Tiffany going crazy after her donut, scaring away the guy next to her. (he was here interviewing at UB and came to the party) He literally finally just grabbed his donut and walked off!! He's married and I think he though Tiff was getting a little too close for comfort. I was laughing so hard, tears were coming out of my eyes. Tiff, you crack me up!! We really had so much fun. Most of the people left around 10:30pm, but we had a few night owls that stuck around til midnight which we loved!

I'm already scheming ideas for next year's party. Thanks to everyone who came!

Sweet Boy

Collin is 7 1/2 months and seems to be growing up so fast to me! He now sits up on his own for long periods of time before crashing. He is making all those "consonant/vowel" sounds like ba ba, da da. On his tummy, he pushes his whole upper body off the ground and has attempted to get the knees involved a couple times. About a week ago he even {reached} for me when Trav was holding him. Kinda a bummer for Trav I think, but I was elated. I suppose when you spend the majority of your time with him and provide all his sustanance, that's bound to happen. And my favorite yet, is that he's discovered how to scrunch up his nose and blow air in and out really fast so it sounds funny. This cracks him (and us) up.

Last week, I was folding clothes on our bed, when I realized that the second I stopped paying attention to him and kept folding, he'd do the nose thing. The second I'd turned to him, he'd laugh and enjoy the attention, but once I went back to folding, it would only take about 15 sec. for hime to do it again. What a mischievious boy!! :)

Also last week, we were shopping at Sam's Club, and had stopped to talk about something when we noticed Collin light up and smile so big. That's when we realized we had conveniently stopped right next to a large, high def. t.v. that was playing a cartoon. He was loving it, Trav I'm sure was seeing this as another good reason to purchase said t.v., and I just groaned.

My back is feeling better, but it has been a long (and boring) few days trying to rest and take it easy. On one of those days, we were chilling on the spare {chiropractic} bed and Collin was hamming it up, being SO happy. I love this picture.

If you enlarge this one, it shows really well what his eye color looks like. We still don't have a "name" for them. Are they hazel, brown, grey?? Who's to know. Perhaps on his driver's license, next to eye color it will just say: trippy.

This clip would only be interesting to grandma's and maybe a doting aunt :) Nothing special, just a bit of his mannerisms and laughing.
Well we had a few weeks of {this} kind of weather. Say hello to marshmellow boy.

But for the past several days we have had glorious {fall} weather. Trav looked out our window and commented that we had a "traffic light" in our front yard. I think he was right :)

Sorry if fall leaves bore you, but I'm fairly fascinated by them. Must have been all the deprivation of them growing up. I think the Shaws have the prettiest tree on their street. A big mix of color!

Just a few we enjoy on our walks.

I've been doing some crafting lately.... I pulled out my decoration box and found a grocery bag full of wooden "parts" that I thought made a turkey. I missed an enrichment activity in my old ward, but had paid for the craft, so they gave me a bag full of parts to assemble on my own. Two years later and I had forgotten what it was supposed to look like. Thanks to Facebook, someone posted a picture and I was able to copy it. Funny thing was, she showed me that I had the parts for a turkey AND a cat. And here I was trying to make them all work into one decoration. Would have been a pretty ugly turkey. :)

And for our last bit of exciting (but not really that exciting) news, Ole' Dirty (remember, pronounced Deer-tay) hit 100,000 miles! What a trusty old car we have. Although not so trusty, since it's still doing the whole "rocking" back and forth occasionally if you're going over 65mph.

We had the Elders over for dinner on Sunday, and Trav was dropping them off at their next appt. when they were nearing the monumentous 100,000 mark. When they arrived at their destination, Trav realized that Elder Mckee had directed him via the "scenic route" to get to the house because he wanted to be there when the odometer struck 100,000. Oh, Elder Mckee.

Back on my Back

Let me introduce you to my new stance. It's not comfortable.

Thursday afternoon I felt a twinge in my lower back that usually tells me it's about to go out. But it can't be!! It just went out two months ago! Oh, but it can be. By evening I was hunched over once again, like a little old lady. What a cruel joke.

It really puts meaning into the part of your prayer (I know you all say it too!) when you thank Heavenly Father for your health. I know I'll be ship shap in 4-5 days, but what if I wasn't? What if I was one of those people who had to deal with chronic pain? I can't imagine. There's nothing worse than being limited by your own body, consequently making you feel unproductive or useless.

This back back pain alone is pretty debilitating. I can't lift Collin for very long, or far for that matter. And it's worse this time. I can't even get relief laying down. It's just too painful. I finally fell asleep last night on my side, in the fetal position. I took a couple Advil, but for some reason I just don't want to take too much medicine. I'm kind of weird about pills, sometimes I have no problem popping them in, and other times I just feel like I should do it on my own.

Yesterday evening I was sick of being inside and so we went to Babies R' Us and then to dinner with some friends. After walking a few minutes, my upper body is pretty much horizontal (much worse than the picture) and I'm a little embarrassed for myself because people stare and I'm sure they understand why I'm hunched over, but just in case, I feel like holding up a big sign that says, "Yes onlookers- my back went out. I know I should be at home resting, but I'm bored so don't judge!!" And thankfully Trav isn't embarrassed to be seen with me. Or maybe he is, but he knows well enough to not let me know.

There is a silver lining. At least it seized up this weekend and not next weekend when all the Halloween parties are and we have a guest staying with us. And I always know there is an end in sight. Unlike those who suffer with much more serious health issues. So, I guess I shouldn't complain. And I feel like I can still truthfully say, "Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing me with good health."

Family Pictures

Amidst all the fall festivities it occurred to me that soon after Halloween comes Thanksgiving and then of course Christmas! And I really wanted a family picture outside for our Christmas card. Lucky for us, we've made friends with some talented folks out here and Megan was able to snap a few for us before the weather turned too nasty. As it was, Collin didn't last too long in the 50 degree weather before his nose and cheeks got red and his fussiness got to be a problem! He was pretty amused by this crate, but thankfully didn't try to suck on it, as he does to everything!

I LOVE the background of this pic.

 Don't I have a handsome hubby?! I think he's pretty darn cute. And I just want to eat my babers up! How did I get so lucky?!

Thanks again Megan! Once again, you've outdone yourself :)

A Bit Down

Tonight, I went to a Stake Leadership meeting and listened for nearly two hours about all the things I should be doing in the YW presidency. They talked for quite a bit about Personal Progress and I couldn't help but feel frustrated. We have 29 girls on our YW rosters. There are 13 names of girls that I have never even met in over a year of living here. I can think of only 3 girls who I can say are truly "active". I was astounded during my first time to YW to learn that it was a struggle to get the girls to not just be modest, but to even wear a dress to church. My first presidency meeting was completely depressing. It seemed like every girl was struggling with trials I can't comprehend, let alone relate to. Broken homes, drugs, eating disorders, abuse (of ALL kinds), depression, poverty. When I dropped off one girl after mutual, no one was home at her house, so she came back to the car to tell me she was going around the back to let herself in. I seriously worried for her safety as she disappeared into the darkness. She lives in a SCARY neighborhood! These girls are up against HARD things. We are just trying to get them to finish high school! How am I supposed to make sure they also finish experience #4 in the faith value? I feel like every time they come to mutual or make it to the lesson on Sunday, it's a huge victory. I want them to feel the Spirit. I want them to know I care. I know we are making a difference, but when I am told the standards the stake wants us to live up to(really the general church standards), I just get discouraged.

Then I come home and Trav and I watched the tape of the Glenn Beck show that aired earlier today. Did any of you see it? Leah? If not, you should. He showed a tape of Anita Dunn. She is the White House Communications Director and was a major advisor to Pres. Obama during his campaign. She was speaking to high school graduates in June earlier this year and said that she considers Mao Tse Tung to be one of her favorite political philosophers. In case you didn't know, Mao was a Chinese dictator that killed millions. MILLIONS. And he is one of her favorite philosophers. Oh, right next to Mother Teresa that is. Seriously, that is exactly what she said. This is why I struggle with learning more about politics. It either gets me hopping mad or so depressed. Another clip I watched today... Keith Olberman. He is a political commentator who has a show on MSNBC. He declares people to be "the worst people in the world" on his show and yesterday he gave the "bronze" to Elder Oaks for comments he made to BYU Idaho students regarding same sex marriage. At the end, Keith says, and I quote "these are subjects on which he should shut the hell up". I must say, this was just the icing on the cake for what has been a pretty depressing night. I can only assume that when the media slanders the Lord's apostles, things aren't looking bright. Sorry for the downer post, it's just how I'm feelin.

For ev ev ever, For ev ev ever!

I know I've been a blogging fiend the past few weeks, but I am an addict. The first step is recognizing you have a problem, right?!

Anyhoo, my musings for the day are that:

* Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of!

Does anyone else think that saying/poem is really, really weird. It's on almost all boy baby shower invitations and I think we should just put a stop to the madness . I mean really, snails and tails?

(Grandma Sharon gave him this hat and it is PERFECT for this chilly weather we have been having.)

* We took Trav some lunch at school today (Mickey D's to be exact. Soooo healthy)

We ate outside at a picnic table and some of Trav's friends stopped by to coo at Collin (they were girls) And they loved his mohawk. Only, they wanted to know if WE did it to his hair. No, future dentists, it grows that way.

Then Trav made the mistake of tossing Collin up and down after he had just eaten. Maybe I should have warned him. What's funny is I caught the moment at the perfect time. Isn't Trav's face that of a loving father? Haha.Much better!*This pic is more for my mom, than anyone else, but I wanted to show off the new sling that Kendra gave me (thanks again!) He loves it. I actually folded clothes, vacuumed, and brought in the trash cans all with Collin on my hip. Fantabulous.

* And last, but possibly most important- I LOVED the Office episode last night! I'll admit it, I got teary just watching the previews of Jim giving his toast about waiting for Pam because he knew she was going to be his wife. (Leah, you did too, right?!) And then when we watched the episode, they actually got married at Niagra Falls!!! What the heck people! Why wasn't I informed of this?!!! Just ask Trav, throughout the whole episode I kept lamenting that we were SO CLOSE and didn't go to the filming. I mean, I don't know if those are actual tourists on the Maid of the Mist, but they sure could have been!! Major sigh. And then the last five minutes of them dancing down the isle was so good. I know I'm Mormon, but maybe Trav and I could like renew our "vows" or something and do the same thing. It could be awesome. Apparently the dancing was an idea from a You Tube clip of some people doing it at a real wedding. If you haven't seen it, click on this link. If you're anything like me, it will make you so happy. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

BaBy FooD - YuCk!

HELP!

Gerber has failed me. Collin is such a stinker when it comes to eating! We started giving him rice cereal a couple weeks ago, which he tolerated ok, until he realized he could blow it off the spoon and all over Mama! Case in point below:

Then on Sunday we started with real baby food. No bueno. You know those Funniest Home Video clips of the babies making hilarious faces while eating? Well, come to find out, those faces aren't that abnormal! Collin makes them EVERY time he eats!

I believe these are carrots he is disdaining.

Oh, that happy face isn't going to last very long....

Meal time consists of at least a half hour endeavor to sneak the spoonfuls in. After a while he gets smart and purses his lips tight until I get him to laugh, then shove the slop in. THEN, he discovered, he doesn't have to swallow! Why not just let it chill in your gaping mouth, until the saliva starts accumalting and slides out? Sigh. The past couple times I've literally become nauseous after watching this ordeal.

Well I stuck with the veggies since I heard that was what was best to start with, then yesterday I broke out the pears. He just loved them. Can ya tell?

He loves to nurse. What is going on here?! Hmm, I remember he loved that candy apple. I may have produced a mini me. I'll nickname him Mr. Sugar Addict. This is not good news.