So for Halloween this year I refused to spend any money because I think it is a stupid holiday to spend money on and my family has had to live on cheese and crackers since our trip to Cancun. It's ok for the family to sacrifice for Richard and I to have fun right? So this year we had to use a little bit of imagination in order to come up with costumes from what we already had. Thank goodness my kids have more imagination than me. I think it is amazing what they came up with. Katie and Jenny were the easiest. Little girls are so excited to just be fairy princesses. Katie just needed fairy wings to add to one of her favorite dresses. Luckily Grandma Gubler had plenty of those.
Grandma also loaned some wings to Jenny and this year she fit perfect into my dress I wore at my sisters wedding when I was her age. It was fun for me to see her in it and I remember feeling like a princess when I danced in it when I was a little girl. (Oops, Young Lady!)
Chris did very well also. His first idea was to be one of the men in black. Black suit, black shades, large gun. Easy!!! I approved. Of course no kid can ever really be the thing that they planned for the whole season, so the night before Halloween he decided to be the headless horseman. We pulled out our standard black cape, his pioneer clothes from the pioneer trek last year, and borrowed a horse from a friend (Thanks Tionna!). But the head I thought was very ingenious. He took a huge pumpkin and hollowed it out. Carved it. And presto... Perfect head. Our only snag in his costume was that our pumpkins we grew in our garden weren't big enough. A last minute trip to the grocery store found that all the pumpkins were GONE!! Really!! Panic for a few minutes, but then I remembered that for our ward activity the night before they had used a bunch of pumpkins for decorations. I called the neighbor and sure enough, she had them all in her car. She was more than happy to give us one. (Thanks Andrea!) I thought it turned out adorable. He took his paint ball gun, with no paintballs, and hid behind the house scarring all the trick or treaters when they came to our door. The only problem is that he got sick of having a pumpkin on his head and took it off for most of the night. Oh well. It was cute. Or as he would say in teenage jargon -It was sick! In my day that word meant you were ill but apparently now days it is the new word for cool)
Valorie was amazing. All the other kids planned for a month for their costumes. She never even thought about it until the night before. I thought she had just decided not to dress up this year. But the night before Halloween she took a sheet and some scrap material, went to her room for about 20 minutes and came out like this!
Like I said amazing. I wish I could go to my room for 20 minutes and come out looking like that!
Richard and I never have time to plan anything. But I really wanted to dress up for our ward Halloween party this year. Richard had planned a 4 wheeling activity that had lasted most of the day and when we got home we only had about 20 minutes to get to the party. I figured costumes were out of the question this year. But doesn't duct tape fix anything? Apparently it does and it also only takes about 5 minutes to rape around your entire body. Hence... "Duct Tape Woman" and her faithful side kick "Hunting Man"!!!
This picture is a very bad picture. I had my son take it and didn't check to see if it worked. It is blurry. Sorry. My shield says Duct Tape Woman and I stole my son's shoes that really are duct tape. They are very cool. I also have a role of duct tape hanging from my neck and my duct tape glasses were the best. (It is hard to see in the picture.) To my surprise, I won the prize for the most Creative/Unique costume. Not bad for a 5 minute costume. (Note to anyone wanting to try this costume, don't wrap the tape too tightly around the chest area. It makes it extremely difficult to breath. Also, duct tape does leave sticky stuff on clothing after removal. So don't use your best clothes.) So that was our Halloween this year!
THANKSGIVING!
For Thanksgiving I don't have any pictures. I just wanted to write a few words about what happened because this year I had a lot to be grateful for. Usually every year for Thanksgiving my husband and all the kids get off and have a very fun and relaxing vacation while I still have to cook and clean and answer phones. This year I just wanted to get away for a few days but couldn't afford anything. So we decided to go to my brothers house down in Lavan. He has a nice house with lots of space to go 4 wheeling and it is only about an hour away. I really wish we could have spent more time there because it was very fun. It was also very scary though. On the day before Thanksgiving, Valorie and Chris took the 4 wheeler's out for a little spin. While they were gone, they decided to go up this kind of steep hill. Christopher went first and made it so Valorie decided she could do it also. However, she was riding on my brother's 4 wheeler that did not shift automatically and she didn't realize to go up that big of a hill, you needed to shift into a lower gear. She almost made it but not quite. The 4 wheeler lost momentum and started rolling backwards then flipped over twice rolling over her both times. She was able to ride the 4 wheeler back to the house to tell us. It was amazing that she didn't break any bones or get seriously hurt. She did hurt her back and foot pretty bad and couldn't move for a few days but nothing serious. The 4 wheeler was also ok. Something to be very thankful for this Thanksgiving season! I am so grateful this year that my daughter is healthy and well!!!
The second thing to be grateful for happened the day after Thanksgiving. Richard went with a bunch of neighbor families down to the Sand Dunes to do some more 4 wheeling. As he was riding with one of the neighbor boys through the campground, a kid on a motorcycle came speeding around a tree and slammed into them. The neighbor kid was thrown off and was unconscious for 10 minutes. When they finally got him to come too, he was not very coherent. They called an ambulance and he had to stay in the hospital for 2 days for observation. Luckily, he was fine with no serious injury's. A total miracle. Richard was also fine but our 4 wheeler was totaled. I am kind of grateful that the 4 wheeler's are out of commission for a little bit so that I don't have to worry about any more accidents. I am also very grateful for Heavenly Father's protection this season. Things could have turned out very differently and I am grateful that Heavenly Father protected my friends and family through all of it.
