It's cold here. Snow has come for Christmas--Yeah! I have caught the baby's cold. That's what you get when you share his lunch spoon. We started the Anti-Plague today, so we should be well sooner than later.

Are you all done with your Christmas preparation? I'm not. But that's turned out the be good today. Because I was out shopping today I saw an old friend from high school. Stacey Morrow and I were friends with lots in common. Same first name, born in the same hospital, born the same month of the same year. And now I find out our moms have the same first name. It's was neat to see her.

Off to bed.

It's a rather gloomy day outside today. Jeff came home early to take the boys swimming. They were thrilled. Last night we bought a pass to the Rec Center for Christmas. We are hoping to take the boys swimming once a week, and workout daily ourselves.

HEre are the pics of Halloween--at last. Enjoy. I must say The Hippies are my favorite.

Sorry, the pics didn't download and I don't know why. It said everything worked, but upon publishing you can clearly see it did not. I'll try again later when I get to use the main computer. I've been put onto the laptop for now.

Life is good today.

Every Sunday I intend to update this blog, and then the day happens. Well, only a day late this week.

The past week has been quite adventurous for us--or more specifically ME. I swelled up again and ended up at the IHC instacare facility for anaphalactic shock. Thankfully it cost less than the emergency room of the hospital this time, but I was put on steroids again. They make me feel awful, yet it is worth it to get the swelling to stop. Once again there is no obvious reason for the swelling up of the eyes and throat. We did notice, though, that it coincides each time with my monthly cycle. Now to start looking for an allergist to figure out what is going on. It is very scary to feel one's throat closing up. You just hope it will stop, try to get the Benadryl down before it can't go down due to swelling, and pray the air can still get in. This is the third occurrance since September 12th.

On a happier note, we are putting up the Christmas tree this evening. The kids are excited. Mom is excited because the tree is only 3 feet in diameter this year. Dad is excited Mom is going to put the lights on it.

As promised a month ago, here are the Halloween pictures. The boys dressed up as follows:

Josh was just a gruesome, bloody fellow
Chris was the Phantom of the Opera
Nate was Link from a Nintendo game
Matt was an indian
Ben was an orange M&M
and Mom was a little girl

I quite scared the boys when I bounded out of the bathroom in pigtails and freckles skipping and singing. It is fun to catch the kids surprised. We had fun and Deb and John's place trick-or-treating, eating, and movie watching.

I've also added pictures of Deb and John and their awesome crew of hippies. Theirs were my favorite costumes of the night.

Another week, a new set of challenges. Sewing costumes for the Harvest Party at church is now completed and behind me. I got the car emissioned and licensed. Took the family on a fieldtrip--more later on that. We picked out the new countertops for the kitchen. Plus all the mothering, wife-ing, household care and neighboring that goes with a typical weekend.

Sewing for Halloween costumes has now become the standard of operations for the day of the church Harvest Party each year. We are consistently 30 minutes yearly, but we do show up fully costumed and with a pot of chili in hand. The sewing was less than normal this year. All completed in about 4 hours. I just have a bit of velcro to put on a cape and an M&M. The boys love to dress up. I love to make the costumes for them. It's a winning combination.

For the kitchen remodel we have selected solid surface, quartz in a greenish color. I love it. Jeff loves it. Yeah! Decision made. We have to finish deciding on a backsplash now.

Oh, excitement. Our plumber says it will work to put a bathroom in the basement. The plumbing will not be an issue. He'll install a pump system to get it up and out. YEAH! Now, where will it go in the basement? Decisions, decisions.

Let me share the highlight of the weekend with you. We went to visit the Crandall Historical Printing Museum in Provo. It was amazing. All hands-on and interactive. One of the first things Mr. Crandall told us was that he wanted us to be sure and touch everything we saw. It was great for a room full of little and big boys. The girls enjoyed it as well.

We got to see a full-size, fully operational Gutenberg Press work. We operated it. Then we saw over presses that developed after the Gutenberg Press. The Linograph was the boys favorite. If you don't know what that it, look it up. It's neat. We saw how they used to bind books and the world's greatest invention. What do you think the greatest invention in the world is? I'll post in a week the answer. See if you can figure it out before the posting.

I was priviledged to operate the antique pump organ by playing "I Am a Child of God" for the opening song of the tour. Hard, heart pumping, but fun, fun, fun.

If you ever get to Provo, be sure to take the time to book a tour. Tours cost $3.00 per person, minimum of 15 people, and last 1 1/2 to 2 hours. You will be glad you went.

Off to work on another project--the Family Photo of the year. Where to do it? When to do it? WHAT TO WEAR? Answers to these questions and a sneak peak at the results next week. Happy trails to you and yours.

Well, I've done it at last. Got a blog! Now I have to post. Wow! I'm so excited. My two sister-in-laws--Erin & Heather--along with my sis Karina have truly inspired me to jump on the blogging band wagon. It is so much fun to read about those I can't visit often. Hopefully this will be a bit of fun for you as well. Be prepared, though, I love to talk about my 6 little guys and homeschooling them.

The littles thought they would prepare my hair for church Sunday. What do you think? They did get the clips in pretty straight lines. Ben takes all credit for the lipstick. Wow! It was THICK.


Off we go to Tae Kwon Do. We'll post pictures of the new outfits for class next time. Happy reading--you know we will be (reading that is).