November

Well..I tried to add another post and Google has informed me that I have maxed out on my available free space. So I started a new blog under Jake's Google account.

So for the latest photos from our family you can go to our new blog.

www.powelllife2012.blogspot.com/

Halloween Fun

Halloween is one of my favorite Holidays.  It's just SO fun.  There are no gifts that have to be bought or ridiculously huge stressful meals that need to be prepared. I just love the silly decorations, carving pumpkins, going to the parties and the costumes. The abundance of candy doesn't hurt either. The month of October was loaded with Halloween activities for us.  I think Ellie was in a different costume every day, although that's nothing new for Ellie. 

On our way to the Trunk or Treat

This is one game my kids excelled at.

And one game they didn't! HA Ha 

 All month long I wanted to take the kids to Cornbelly's. Its basically a giant Halloween carnival. The weather and other obligations kept getting in the way.  Finally, one beautiful day, the stars aligned and we found a few free hours to hop in the car as fast as we could and head down the canyon to try and catch this Halloween wonderland. I nearly ran out of gas on the way there, but we made it and had an awesome time.  Grandma Andrea was able to meet us there and join us for some fun. We had such a great time and stayed as long as well possible could.  That is until the sun had gone down and the kids forgot how to do anything but whine.

The first thing we did was head for this huge slide.  The progression on these photo's is all that is needed to explain how it went.

The kids loved riding on this cow barrel train.  Unfortunately I was little too wide to fit inside.
Ouch! The things we do for our kids ha ha.

Ellie found paradise. There was an entire section dedicated to being a princess.

Ellie couldn't pass up the stage they had set up for the princesses to dance.

Fortunately, they had an area set up for the kids who didn't want to be princesses.

In the back ground of this picture you can see a number of bounce houses.  This bounce house village was fenced off and so full of children it looked like an ant hill.  We let the kids play in there until Ellie managed to get hysterically trapped inside one of the things.  I then had to crawl inside the disease infested bounce house of terror and make my way through the swarming children and tight squeezes to rescue her. I'd never wanted a shower so bad in all my life. YUCK!

Not quite a princess, but still pretty cute!

We will definitely be going again next year!

 The day before Halloween Gram Andrea and Grandpa Gary came up to see the kids in their costumes and share some Chili and Donuts with us. The kids are always happy to have a reason to dress up, and they always love spending time with their grand parents.

The next night was Halloween.  We were treated when Gram Wendy and Grandpa John came up to join in the fun and bring us beef stew and caramel apples.  We love living back in Utah where we can see our family so much. The kids loved trick or treating.  Even Autumn got into the fun.  She clung onto her treat bag so tight no one could have stolen her candy if they had wanted to. It was fun to go around our neighborhood and see so many people we know.  The kids like handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters who knocked on our door even more then they liked getting candy for themselves.

Our WALKING lady bug.
Jake and I had a bet going about when Autumn would start walking.  He bet November, I bet October.
Autumn must like me best, because she pulled off October just in time. HA HA

A friend of ours told us a story about a Halloween witch who comes if your leave your candy out on the table during the night.  She takes your candy and leaves behind a prize. We were curious and thought we would give it a try.  Ellie was a little worried, but the next morning when she came out of her room and found the ponies and legos that had been left by the witch she was pretty excited. 

The kids have wanted to go camping so bad.  They keep begging us to take them.
I guess they have given up on us and come up with their own alternative.

Better Late then Never

I used to be a blogger.  I can’t believe I have gotten nearly six months behind on writing about our family.  Not only have I not written but I have done a terrible job of taking pictures.  It has been a very event filled six months and the idea of trying to remember all the highlights and get it recorded is leaving me feeling a little overwhelmed and causing me to put it off even more.  There is just so much I want to remember and my mind starts reeling as I try to order all of the details. So I have decided that instead of picking up where I left off in MAY I will just start in the present and back blog when I get a chance. 

The last I wrote was in the spring as we were preparing to leave State College and move back to Utah. At present we are happily settled back in the “Brown House” nestled in the very beautiful Heber City, and I don’t think we could be happier if we tried.  I really don’t. Life is wonderful, and we are incredibly blessed. 

When we moved back to Heber we were relieved to find our home had been taken well care of and was still in good condition.  The yard had been forgotten and I wished I had thought to take pictures of the forest of weeds before I began haling them out of the yard by the truck loads.  Aside from the transformation of our yard it felt like we had never even left. It was a little strange unpacking our house and putting things back in places they had been two years ago. We had wonderful friends here from before, and it was fun to see how their children had grown while we were gone.  One strange thing is that our neighborhood had exploded.  We were one of the first families to move into this development in 2009  and while we were gone nearly 100 new families built homes and moved in nearby. Our first Sunday back in our old Daniels Canyon Ward left us amazed at the growth.  We felt lucky to get back just before they split the ward so we could have the chance to see so many wonderful people we had missed from before.

Everyone was excited for the big shake down of the ward splitting as we were told it would affect 5 wards. When the day came, they announced that our neighborhood would be turned into a brand new ward. I was really excited until the next day when our new Bishop came to our home and asked me to be the primary president. I was really surprised.  Jake is the one who always gets these sort of callings, and I felt very unprepared for a leadership role.  I wanted to do a good job, but I didn't feel like I had any idea how to do what asked of me.  I spent an entire day crying and praying and then crying some more.  The next day I felt a little better and I read everything I could find about being a primary president. I still felt overwhelmed but not quite as panicked and full of anxiety as I had the day before.  I got good counselors and we worked hard to get the primary as set up as possible for our first day of Church for the Wheeler Park Ward.  Things went fine and nothing was as big a deal as I thought it would be.  Afterwards I got set apart and our new Bishop gave me a wonderful blessing that helped me SO much.  The things that were promised me have come true and it has been another affirmation to me that my heavenly father knows me and my thoughts personally. He loves me and wants to help me so that my life can be filled with joy, and it is.  I’m really enjoying my calling in the primary and although it is a lot of work at times, I don’t feel over whelmed anymore. I feel gratitude to have the opportunity to serve a lord that has blessed me so abundantly.

As for Jake, he has been called to teach gospel doctrine and is enjoying it. He also loves his job working for the Utah Association of Conservation Districts.  He has had to travel around the state to go to quite a few training's  but he has gotten to do a lot of very fun things, like getting paid to look for artifacts while hiking or shocking fish in the rivers to check the trout population.  He also, works with farmers to help them get federal funding to help them make improvements on their land. Everyday he does something a little different and he really enjoys what he does and the people he gets to associate with.  The best part of all is that I have a husband who comes home happy everyday.

The kids are doing good as well. I went from having three kids to watching six kids most days, but the kids have loved having friends over to play with and its sure nice to have a little extra income.  They are little busy bodies, but they are sure a lot of fun.  More then anything they have enjoyed being close to their family.  They tell me all the time that they miss Pennsylvania, but they love living in Utah. Hudson loves going to preschool, and soccer, and music.  Ellie in a neighborhood Co-op preschool and takes a music class, and dance.  Autumn has been busy just mastering the stairs.  The day she figured out how to go down the stairs and I was finally able to take down the baby gate was such a happy day for me.  She also just started taking her first steps last week and it is so cute and fun to see how excited and pleased with herself she is.  The kids are so great. 

We are all happy to have our big tub back.....especially me!

Ellie is loving her Ballet class. Watching her is just about the cutest thing I could imagine.
She loves to show off her diamond plie and sashays. 

Hudson is doing great in Preschool.  He is getting really good at reading and has gotten 100% on all of his spelling tests so far. He has been learning Spanish and loves to come home and tell us the new words he has learned.  He is quite fascinated with math facts and loves to show off his counting to 100....all the time :).

 We got Hudson signed up for fall Soccer.  He really loved playing even though he managed to get himself hurt with a black eye and a bloody nose.  We had so much fun going to his games and watching him get better every time.

Hudson got a lot of support from his fans on the side lines.  It was a lot of fun having family come up to his games.

Baby Autumn turned 1

I guess we can't call her our baby anymore since she is turning into such a big girl. She had a really fun birthday party where she got to do her favorite thing.....Slip-n-Slide! My heart is a little broken that we have no pictures or video of her doing it. Our crazy little dare devil loves to slip-n-slide down the big grass hill in our back yard. The slip and slide was 50 feet long and she was fearless with it.  In fact I couldn't keep her off of the thing. She just couldn't get enough of it.

Aunt Jenny got Autumn this cute birthday outfit. 

Hudson has always said Autumn was little like a lady bug,  so Grandma Wendy just couldn't resist getting her this cute lady bug cake for the big day.

After two years of vacationing in Bountiful, Boston came back to live with us again.  We are so thankful that Gram Wendy and Grandpa John took such good care of him for us.  The kids were sure happy to have him back.

In our family Fall means being outside.  We have an almost panicked sense of urgency to enjoy ever last minute we can under the fleeting sun. We do a lot of hiking and biking...well as much as anyone with three small kids can do. Heber is beautiful and offers us lots of places to play.

Hudson's Happy 5th Birthday

We have been telling Hudson for a whole year that we weren't going to let him have another birthday. Five years old is just too old, so we decided he would just have to stay four forever.  He thought this was terrible and would sometimes get close to tears when we teased, but we kept it up for a really long time.  One day after this teasing, he seemed extra heart broken and I couldn't do it anymore, so we decided on a compromise   We agreed that as long as he stayed just as sweet at five as he was at four years of age he wouldn't have to be four forever.  Hudson was so relieved and thrilled...maybe a little too relieved and thrilled.  Jake and I realized we probably shouldn't have teased him quite as long as we did.  To make it up to him we wanted to give him a really fun birthday.  Hudson was set on having a spooky Halloween birthday so we did all we could think of to make it a fun one.  We planned a costume party with a bunch of his little neighborhood friends, decorated the house, came up with some fun Halloween games, and I made a whole bunch of spooky food.   

 My sweet boys.  Everyone was happy to get to eat Hudson's favorite breakfast....DONUTS!!!

CinderEllie was concentrating pretty hard not to drop the balloon and  have a spell cast on her from the spooky ghost who stole all the kids prizes. 

The kids had fun with a pumkin toss, and ghost bowling.

We might have planned a little too much.  Hudson was SO tired.

One funny thing Hudson really wanted to do, was have an Easter Egg Hunt on his birthday. We hid lots of prizes out in the park.  I  used all the orange and yellow eggs I had saved from Easter and turned suckers into ghosts with tissues and ribbon;  we also hid lots of little Halloween prizes.  We had quite the treasure hunt in the back yard.

Dr Grandma even dressed up and joined the fun.

 I spent a lot of time making all sorts of silly food for the party, unfortunately all the kids really wanted to do was play, so most of it went to waste.  Lesson learned...Adults like food, kids like playing.

Bread stick bones that had blood dipping sauce (marinara).

Witch fingers carved out of string cheeses.

Black cookie spiders.

Spider Pizzas 

Apple marshmallow mouths

Black Widow Cake

 Ever since we found a black widow in our garage Hudson has been a little obsessed with them.  So for Halloween he wanted to be a black widow. Then when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he was set on having a black widow cake with blue guts  On the kids birthdays I love to have their birthday cakes decorated and waiting for them when they walk out of their room in the morning. So the day before I headed to the store to get all the supplies I needed for Hudson's cake. Except I could not find blue food coloring anywhere.  He was adamant that his cake needed to have a blue center so I came up with the idea of mixing blue cool-aid into the batter. He helped me mix up the cake and when we added the cool-aid he complained that it wasn't blue enough, so we added a second pack; once again I was scolded for the light blue color of the batter so to please me birthday boy a third packet went in. We poured the batter into the pan and gave the mixers a lick.  WOW, that was some sour batter. Hudson was thrilled because he loves sour treats, but it sure didn't taste like any cake I had ever eaten before. I was still optimistic that finished product would put a smile on his face.  My plan was to bake it in a bunt cake pan and cover it in black frosting to transform it into the black widow he had requested.  Well, for some reason the chemical reaction of the cool aide stopped the cake from rising and to make matters worse, when I tried to get the cake out of the pan it stuck and came out in pieces. I was disappointed but quickly decided to mix up another cake, this one I used red food coloring to die it blood red. I thought he would still be happy if I cobbled the blue layer together with frosting and added a second layer of red cake to make it a little bigger. So while the red layer baked, I got the blue layer ready. The red cake baked up beautifully. Unfortunately, when I turned my pan upside down, once again the cake stuck. By this time the kids were in bed and Jake was off working late.  I stared at my pile of cake pieces and tried to come up with a plan.  I didn't have time to make any more cakes, nor did I want to waste all the cake I had already failed with. The thought of cake pops came into my mind but I had no idea how I could get a cake that big to all stick together. Then it hit me.....Jello. Hmm Would it work I wondered? I knew I probably wouldn't enjoy eating it, but a bunch of kids might find a jiggly bug gut cake fun.  I quickly crumbled and mashed my cakes together and pressed it into a large bowl. I then poured Jello that I left at double concentration over the entire thing and put it in the fridge to set. I took a deep breath and crossed me fingers that it would work....and it did. It was a little hard the frost, but all in all it was a success.  The texture was perfect for bug guts. It was a little sweet even for my taste but the kids loved it. Disaster averted! Hudson loved his cake.

Another happy Birthday.  Maybe we will even let him turn six next year....well maybe.

Jake built Hudson these soccer goals for his birthday.  We have had a lot of fun with them.  Sometimes the neighbor kids even come out and join our family soccer games. Sometimes Ellie will pay attention long enough to kick the ball  all the way to score a goal.