Happy Halloween!

What a great day! It was busy, but filled with happiness. I absolutely love having Halloween in Arizona. It can't be beat. I guess Megan is growing up, she went trick or treating with friends. Sammy and I went out with my friend Samantha and her kids, Sarah and Niko. A great time was had by all! I hope everyone had a fun day!

Odette from the Swan Princess


Our business woman of the year!

Exchange City

In second grade they have been learning about supply and demand, producers and consumers. To make it fun they decided to do Exchange City. They asked if everyone could bring in an item worth between $1 and $2. No problem. I headed up to Dollar Tree and found a cute wooden box with jewels on top. I gave it to Sammy with the instructions that she must exchange it. Well, Sammy really liked the box. Ingenious child that she is, when she got to Exchange City, she scouted out the one kid that brought the same box and traded with her! I don't know if that is quite what the teachers wanted them to do, but she followed the rules and got what she wanted!

Wisdom.....and Dance Dance Revolution

Last Thursday I had my wisdom teeth out. Owwweeee! I went under general anesthesia, so the actual procedure was quite pleasant. Not so much as the day wore on. I was pretty much comatose on the lazy boy due to the anesthesia and the pain killers. Thank you Nate for staying home with me! The next day was the Fall Festival at school. The girls had a great time. There was a cake walk. Sam won and you can see Megan helped her to eat her cupcake :)

The pumpkins were up for judging. I think that both classes did a great job! I am a little biased on Elvis though.

Then it was my turn to run the Dance dance revolution booth. I swear I had it explained to me 4 or 5 times, but since I hadn't eaten and I was on pain pills, nothing was sinking in. I was like a zombie! Luckily I was running the booth with another guy and he was nice enough to take charge.

On Saturday we went shooting again. When we got there, Megan and Sammy got out a gun that used to belong to Nate's grandpa and started loading it up! (Supervised of course!) Nate has taught them well. We had a great time shooting up our targets! We were pretty wiped out by the time we left. You can see the girls shot til they dropped!

We took it easy on Saturday night. The girls were watching the Goosebumps marathon on t.v. and they were all freaked out. They were huddled together on the lazy boy wrapped up in a blanket with the lights off, so Nate and I thought it would be fun to go scare them. Nate snuck up behind them with an air horn and blasted it! They jumped so high! I tried to video tape it, but it startled me so bad, I hit the wrong button. It's fun to be a parent!

Extreme Pumpkin Makeover

Before
Well, we finally did it. Got those pumpkins carved! I think they turned out pretty cute!


After!
It's funny, I was scooping all the junk out and I remembered how cold the pumpkin guts were in Utah, but they are quite warm here. It makes for a very pleasant scooping session!

Sunsday!

Today we had the great opportunity to go to the Sixth Man tip off party for the Suns new season. We had a great time and they had a lot of activities for the kids. We saw the gorilla, met some of the dancers, met two Globetrotters, and had a ton of fun!







Now, at this point you may be wondering, why are they taking pictures with the Globetrotters and not the Suns? Good question. Apparently they decided not to do autographs with the Suns this year. Excuse me?!? Aren't they the reason we buy the tickets in the first place? We had a great time regardless, but that was a little disappointing. The girls had autograph books and everything. They loved meeting the dancers and getting their autographs.



They picked someone from the crowd and played Deal or No Deal with the Suns players. The guy they picked ended up going home with $7500!

All in all, we had such a fun day. Sam said it was almost as good as Disneyland!

Elvis

So....Megan's class needs to decorate a pumpkin for fall festival and they all voted to do Elvis. It didn't quite look the way I envisioned it, but it was fun!

I bought white pleather and rhinestones and we had a wig, but those darn faces are so hard to pull off! I thought the end result was such a crack up. The class had a great time.

My true color

you are lavender #E6E6FA

Your dominant hue is blue, making you a good friend who people love and trust. You're good in social situations and want to fit in. Just be careful not to compromise who you are to make them happy. Your saturation level is very low - you have better things to do than jump headfirst into every little project. You make sure your actions are going to really accomplish something before you start because you hate wasting energy making everyone else think you're working. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

I stole the quiz from crazy mama. Looks like we should get together and meet!

Double Digit Kid!

Can you believe my little girl is TEN YEARS OLD!?!? My precious girl is growing up. She said she couldn't have had a better birthday. She woke up to do presents and found that Nate had made her french toast, her fave. Did the presents thing and got to wear her new clothes to school. (She wanted Sammy to give her a doll as a gift. ??? She never wanted a doll even as a little girl. Go figure.) She had a great day at school. For dinner, she wanted sushi, so we went to Sekai in Mesa. It was a great day!




Ten things we love about Megan:)
1. She loves to dance like no one is watching. (But prefers if everyone is!)
2. She isn't afraid to try new things. Adventures, food, it doesn't matter.




3. Her smile!
4. She has a great sense of right and wrong, and a desire to always do right.
5. She can make friends easily.
6. Megan loves to help others.
7. Megan is very even-tempered. I appreciate that more than words can say!
8. She sets goals for herself and accomplishes them.
9. She can take a joke.
10. Megan always has a positive attitude. This will get her sooo far in life!

We love you Megan. Hope this year is the best one yet!

WOO HOO!

At Nate's work every week, they have a football pool. It's only $2 so I started playing, thinking it would make the game interesting. Now I actually care who wins and loses! And guess what!!! I won! $110!!! And I am going to not be sensible with it and I am going to have FUN! Maybe football isn't as bad as I thought.
I guess we had another lucky thing happen. Sammy bought some "special" magnets last time we were in Moab, but they were of course lost in the grass. When I was out there today admiring my growing grass we found them! Happy day for Sam
Believe it or not, today is Megan's tenth birthday. We are still going out tonight and I will want to add that to the post, so I will do a birthday post later. Man, time flies!

A new funny

Disclaimer: I am not making fun of the children, I just really enjoy what they have to say!

In our primary class the children were discussing who could read and how well, and one child announced that not only did he/she know how to read, he/she could read American!
I love my class.

PUMPKIN ALERT!

If you haven't bought your pumpkins yet, I found the best place to get them! ValVista and Mesquite. There is a farmer living there and he just went up to Utah and pick up a huge trailer full and he only charges $1, $2, and $3!!!!! And he has some HUGE hybrid squashes that you can make pumpkin pie out of. I got a big one for $2. Check it out!

Busy body...

So, I do have have a lot of time on my hands so I like to try and stay busy. Fake busy, real busy, don't care :)
Cara and I have started walking again now that Fall Break is over. Two days in a row and no shin splints for me. Yeah! (Is that an accomplishment?) The weather is just perfect right now. It's great to be outside. Poor Sadie (my dog) gained some weight over the summer so I need to get her slimmed down. I realized yesterday that Thanksgiving is in just over a month and I hadn't planted my winter grass yet, so I got that done yesterday. I didn't compost over it, hopefully that won't have a negative effect on it. I would love to have a thick, lush lawn for when Nate's fam comes down for Thanksgiving.
Last night I had a meeting for room moms. That's right, I am a room mom for Megan. I am in charge of the Dance Revolution booth at Fall Festival. They put the girl with the least amount of rhythm in charge. Hee hee. Hope I don't have to demo! Afterwards I went to my first book club get-together. I had such a good time. This month we are reading Playing for Pizza, the new John Grisham. The New York Times review said it has food porn (?!?) What? I think they mean the descriptions of food are luscious? I'll let you know.
Got to help my friend Samantha at her school today, then I went over to WalMart to get a few things. The people watching today was FANTASTIC! I almost took my phone out to take some pics, but thought better of it.
Sammy gets of the bus today and she has a big red scratch on her face. I guess she got kicked in the face on the playground right before school. It looks like it might bruise, and she can be sensitive about marks on her face so I told her if she gets a cool bruise, I'll take her picture and post it. Megan then declares that she wants a bruise and asked Sammy to kick her in the face. No, my girls don't constantly compete with each other. Busy, busy! By the way, thanks to Kristy for the very nice email! It made my day!

Smiles from Heaven

Do you ever have a morning where you are sure that heaven MUST be shining down on you? That would be me today! Long story short, we had a late night yesterday and didn't get the shower thing done and Megan didn't get her homework done, so I promised her I would get her up early. I'm having visions of tears and missed bus. But lo and behold, Megan gets up right away, and has a better understanding of the math this morning and does it all with no complaining. Nice, I am thinking. Now I have to go in and wake Sammy up early so she can shower. This is the kid that doesn't like to be woken up on Christmas. So I go in and rub her back and ask her if she wants to shower first or eat first. And she tells me she wants a hug first. (Remember, this is Sam we are talking about.) I am oh so happy to oblige. So she gets in the shower. And doesn't take 45 minutes. And Megan finishes eating and takes a quick shower. And they are both ready for the bus 10 minutes early!!! I am sooo thankful for this morning. I can't think of anything that would have made it lovelier. I want Nate to know how much I love him. He does so much for me and I love him so much. I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Wild, wild west

Warning! Warning! If you are not a true redneck, you cannot truly appreciate this next post :)
Occasionally Nate likes to go out to the desert with some buddies and they shoot their guns and do target practice. He invited the girls to go along and they had soooo much fun hanging out with Nate and practicing gun safety and shooting. Nate and I both come from a long line of hunters, so this is a natural progression for our kids. Of course, Sammy is wearing a skirt!
(Disclaimer: No one was injured in the making of this post!)






The really cool spider web at the top is on our back patio. We named the spider Charlotte of course. I think it was really nice of her to build this for the Halloween season.
We had a pretty busy weekend. After shooting, we had a dead tree to tackle. It was damaged in the frost we had last year, so we finally realized it wasn't going to come back. These projects always take a lot longer than you think. We were going to plant our winter grass yesterday as well, but I guess I can do it this week.
We are part owners of Suns season tickets and last night was our first pre-season game so Nate and Megan went.
Tonight Nate made dinner. I love it when he cooks! He made french onion soup from scratch. It was unreal. The thing that makes it even better is that Nate hates to cut up onions, and I love to eat them! He has come up with a great solution and that is to wear his ski goggles when he slices them up. Megan does everything dad does, and I noticed she had gone out to the garage to get her goggles! Too bad I don't have pictures of that! I wish you all could have had some. He is an awesome husband, and that is an understatement.

I belong in....

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern. A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock. A unique soul like you needs a city that offers everything. No wonder you and London will get along so well.

What City Do You Belong In?

I am a little punk rock, you know? (Yeah right) This is kind of fun. Take a look!

Girls day out

What a fun day! This was the first day of Fall Break that we didn't have appointments and it was so enjoyable. And to top it off, all three of the Woodard Women were all even tempered. I thought this deserved to be written down. We took it easy the first half of the day and then headed out for some shopping. Megan has birthday money positively burning a hole in her wallet. First to Deseret Book, where she has gift certificates, then the mall to Build a Bear of course. Megan has a serious BAB addiction. I guess if you have to have an addiction, that is a good one to have. Mrs. Fields for cookies and icees and then.....IKEA! Sam loves to go play in the kids area there, and Meg and I did some grown up shopping:) All in all, a perfect day. Nothing like cruising down the freeway with your girls and singing to Prince at the tops of your lungs!
Nate has his softball game tonight, but the girls needed to stay home. Twitches 2 is on tonight. It is a jammies, pillows and blankets kind of night.

Why girls need dads

Tonight when Nate got home from work, the girls asked him if he would make a fire in the back yard with them. He was happy to accommodate. I never would have done that! And then after they were done, Megan informed him that all she had to do was spit on it and it went out. Now who else but a dad would teach girls how to build fires, and then spit on them to put it out. My girls know what pneumatic tools are and how to spell it. They can change a tire (with help, of course) and know what axles are. How cool is that? Dads are great for teaching how to spit or tie cool knots. They teach you how to oil up a new softball mitt and how to throw really hard. How to swim and how to play softball. But most important, he is teaching them the way a man is supposed to treat a woman and he is a great provider and support for his family. I hope my daughters know how lucky they are to have such a fabulous dad!

Utah days...

We had a perfect Utah weekend! I am soooo glad I was able to go. I had to force Megan in to going, but in the end, she was also glad to be there. I've said it a hundred times, but you just can't beat Utah autumn. I love going out in a sweatshirt and feeling cool, but if you get in the sunshine, you feel all warm. And the air smells so good! I swear I could smell a wood fire burning. I spent a lot of time outside that first day helping my dad winterize the yard and just enjoying. Check out the huge acorns falling off his tree!

You can see that Sam loves the perks of being at Grandma's house. All the chocolate you can eat!

We made good time getting up there. Nate is very proud of his 9 hours and 57 minutes. It is a new Woodard record. Of course, we left at three in the morning and the girls and I slept until Kanab. Fine by me! When we got there, I dropped Nate off at my brothers house so they could go scout out where they were going to hunt the next day and then I headed over to my parents house. That night we went to my favorite chinese restaurant. I've been going there so long that they all recognized me and realized I was visiting from out of state. I'm nothing if loyal :) The next day we did our shopping and I got great deals at the Childrens Place. Go there! I got a ton of stuff for $5 each.

Nate and Jeff had a great time duck hunting. They were able to get eight ducks. Apparantly it was really cold and snowed buckets on them. I guess that only adds to the thrill?!? If you have good eye, you can see Nate. I guess that is the point of camo.

Saturday night we had a birthday party for Megan with my family. She got a lot of fun stuff. We made her a three layer cake. The girls always want Nate to make them a cake, since he can cook and all, but he was hunting Saturday. Soooo, I did it! It was a little lopsided, but once you chewed it up, no one could tell.


Sunday we went to Gardner Village to see all the witches. It is a fun outdoor shopping center with home decor. The stores were all closed, but they have all these fabulous witches all over the place.

These are my nieces on my side. Shannae is missing, wish she could have been there. (That is my sister poking her head up, by the way)

Nate's folks hosted a party for Megan Sunday night. It is never a dull moment in that family! Everyone has a great sense of humor and I love being around all of them.

Sadly, we had to leave Monday. But not before having breakfast at Nate's beloved Carls Cafe. Speaking of loyal, I think he has been eating there for about 15 years. But it is always great to get home. Thank you everyone for the best weekend! Love you all!

Nate is Great!

Coming home from Utah, and downloading all the pictures we took this weekend, I realized that Nate had a great time doing self portraits all weekend. I love the way he always keeps me smiling! I guess you just can't take the boy out of the man! Love you honey...don't kill me!

Utah or bust!

Well, let me tell you how lovely my morning was. Sammy didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed. She woke up on the wrong side of Arizona. After screaming at me and locking me out of my own room, she morphed into nice Sammy. Then she managed to get a toilet clogged and miss the bus. :) So I drove her to school and realized that all the alarms were going off and all the kids were lined up outside. Hope the teachers have fun with that! I had to get home and blog.

Bless Megan's heart. She is always so full of sunshine with a smile on her face. Thank heaven for that. I took the girls shopping yesterday to get some warm clothes for Utah. We are going to be experiencing a 40 degree drop in temps people!!! So we got new jeans and warm shirts. You know how fun it is to wear your new clothes. I hope Megan doesn't drop dead of heat stroke today at school. It is still 96 here. But she looks great!

I'm way excited to head off for Utah. I haven't experienced Fall for 3 years. I want to see pretty leaves and smell the cool air! We are going to do a family birthday party for Megan while we are there, since her birthday is in a couple of weeks. 10 years old. When did I get this old? We will be busy, since we only will be there 2 1/2 days, but I think it will be well worth the drive.

A little update on my garden! It has only been six days, but I have soy beans, lima beans, peas, lettuce, and onions sprouting up! So exciting!

These are not my pets, by the way. I would never do this to my dog :) Yes I would.