Trick or Treat

Daymia spent most of October trying to convince Levi to be a police officer and she would be the prisoner.  He agreed, right up to about 4 days before Halloween.  He didn't want to ruin his rap sheet by switching teams.  So, once again I got to see him in a prison jumper (minus the stripes).  

The bruises they walked in with scared me a little. Just another of Daymia's many skills.  I don't mean punching Levi in the
face, I mean makeup!

The Jamba banana costumes came in very handy, especially when Justin had no intention of going trick-or-treating but Levi, Daymia and the little boys convinced him to go around the block with them.  He still wasn't sure he wanted to go so last minute (to hide his face a bit) he added the creepy face mask to go with his banana.

They also went over to Daymia's house to show her mom their costumes. . . . where Hyrum was traumatized by seeing
Levi and Daymia kiss "on the lips!!!!"

Nathan and Hyrum spent the afternoon dressing up as Batman, Spiderman, karate guy, Hiccup, Tigger, Wyatt from Super Why, and bananas before they finally settled on Indiana Jones and Red Ninja for their costumes.

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When the kids walked in from school they were surprised to find that their mommy had turned into a witch.

October

I got a call from Derek's friends one afternoon.  Allyn was in such a panic that she couldn't explain the situation to me but I did get enough information to know there was a lot of blood and they wanted to know whether to take Derek to Community Care or the hospital.  I was relieved when Sierra's mom got on the phone but I soon remembered that she is high drama when it comes to anything medical (and she herself admits this).  The basic story was that he smacked his head on an open cupboard door.  First, I could not imagine how my 6'4" son could hit the corner of a cabinet door that I'm positive he is taller than.  Second, I now understood why there was so much blood and panic.  I know from motherly experience that head wounds bleed A LOT.   I also know from experience that Derek easily gets light headed just from standing up so I was not at all surprised that he seemed dizzy and couldn't talk to them after hitting his head.  I've done that and it hurts like a ..... well, it hurts.  My instincts told me he was okay but because I wasn't there and couldn't talk to or see Derek myself and I didn't want to seem like a bad mother I told them to take him to community care and I would meet them there.  Allyn, Sierra and Sierra's mom were convinced he was on his deathbed and I had no intentions of scarring them further.

I got to Community Care first because we live closer so rather than wait I signed him in. When we met up he still looked dizzy but he tried to tell me that he was okay.  Sierra and her mom were talking so fast and dramatically that Derek's version was left in the dust though I did understand enough to know that he had saved his favorite white shirt.  "Not a drop of blood on it."  

At this point I still had not seen the wound, only the bloody rag that he was holding to his head.  The nurse quickly called us back and we left the others in the waiting room.  They took us to the procedure room assuming from the dramatic telling of events that he was going to need stitches. As the doctor pulled out the stitching supplies and snapped on his blue gloves Derek calmly told his version of the accident. I also informed him that I had not even seen the cut and that his dizziness and lack of communication was very typical of Derek right after an injury so immediately claiming a concussion was a little extreme.  Doc removed the bloody cloth and....merely a flesh wound....a very long flesh wound but no depth to it at all.  There was nothing to stitch.  He was left with a "scratch", a very tender bump on the head and just enough reason for the girls to pamper him.

  

We all had a good laugh at this point.  Not because it was necessarily funny but because of the dramatic vs. practical perceptions of the whole thing.  If LeRoy is in charge?  Drama.  If Kimber's in charge? Practical. Derek? Practical, though probably light headed and doing deep breathing.  Not that I don't get concerned, there's just a certain calm in me that takes over when a medical situation comes up. After laughing about it with us the doctor whispered, "don't worry, I won't charge you for it." 

I'm not sure Sierra and her mom were convinced it was all okay. They took the "Concussion" what-to-watch-for paper very seriously and promised to watch over him for the next few hours.  I drove home alone knowing my boy would be in good hands as they provided a soft couch, pillow, movie and ice cream for him.  

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Hyrum really wants to be as tall as Derek, "without someone holding {him} or standing on something".  

So, for at least a minute or two, Derek made it possible.  

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The BYUI portable rock wall was the main attraction at our ward party.  While I was mingling with friends I had no idea that my baby was braving the wall.  LeRoy captured it (or at least the shadows of it) on his phone.  He has no fear!

Hyrum was the Star Student in his kindergarten class.  The teacher requested that we send in a few pictures so I printed this collage in an 8x10.

Man, that kid is adorable!

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While Bret's family was in Rexburg they went to the Teton Flood Museum.  Erika sent me a very excited text while she was there.  From the time she was little she has heard about our family connections to Rexburg and how her Great Great Great Grandfather opened the very first ice cream shop in Rexburg.  Unfortunately, I have never had pictures to show her because, according to our knowledge and connections, all pictures were lost in the flood.

Her text included this picture:

"Mom!!  We found Evans Ice Cream Canisters!!"

We were thrilled! Erika even sent the picture via email to my dad.

Recently, I was looking for something else related to old Rexburg and came across a website that anyone 

could post pictures on.  There, I found pictures of the ice cream shop.

I wish I could share these with Grandma Fullmer. 

FHE: Jack-o'-lanterns

We began with a light dinner of mummies, monsters and pumpkins to give us the strength we would need for
our creative carving of the pumpkins.

There was some serious focus taking place as everyone drew, gutted and carved.

Super results they were!

A week later I asked the boys to take care of our rotting, wilting creations.  They had a blast doing that chore!

 They began with dry ice bombs and quickly progressed to dynamite.

FHE: Booing

When Derek invited Sierra's family over for dinner and family home evening he had no idea that I was taking the opportunity to make all my saved pinterest pictures of gross Halloween foods into a dinner reality.

Dinner was a morbid success!

Our coffins (hoagie buns) were overflowing with disgustingly delicious fillers and our lips were stained red after
slurping down our vampire juice.

We all broke out laughing when Sierra's mom stated, "that pumpkin vomit is delicious, I think I'll have more!"

When I set out the dessert of kitty litter and droppings I had to practically bribe everyone to try it.

I admit it did look extremely real and even though I knew it was a moist Better-Than-Anything Cake drowning in caramely goodness it still took great mental effort to get myself to try it.  All it took was one bite of cake and a nibble of Tootsie Roll poop and even the thought of kitty litter couldn't stop us from finishing the whole thing.

After eating there was so much goofing off that we had a difficult time getting the kids to focus on making the treats. We finally decided to let those play who wanted to play and those who wanted to make treats could.

Finally, after we ate our share, we had enough treat plates full of donut monsters and toothy mouths to take Booing to neighbors.
 

Our family chose two families to Boo and the Hinckley family chose two families from their ward to Boo.  We loaded up in the vans and headed off to the first family.  It was difficult to hide two vehicles and get twelve people hidden before we left our goody treat on the doorstep, knocked and ran.  At the first two houses we had to bribe dogs to not give us away.  Among the loading and unloading of the vans we had smothered laughs, a couple scraped knees, frozen noses, constant shushing and yet we still managed to gift all four families.

Fall Conference

Nathan was so excited for general conference that he couldn't fall asleep Friday night.  I thought I would tire him out by having him help me clean up the basement and pack all of our conference party stuff downstairs.

However, his excitement escalated to hyper and it was nearly 11pm before he fell asleep.

At the beginning of each session we had a buffet of food favorites to keep our mouths quietly occupied so that our ears and minds could focus on the spiritual buffet offered to us.

The food even lured Levi into the family room with us on Sunday morning and with the help of the food, Daymia's presence and some really good talks, Levi stayed with us for the rest of the day.

He even surprised us in the days ahead with comments like, "I thought it was funny to hear about President Eyring's parents" or "what Elder Oaks said was pretty profound".  I thought he was just with us for the food and Daymia but evidently a few more important things caught his attention.


This time we did the apostle treats as mystery bags.

Last April we had interruptions with those who didn't like the labeled apostle treat bugging those who were trying to listen.  This way, they didn't know what the treat was so they took notes or at least sat quietly just in case it was one of their favorites.  Derek even suggested that for the April sessions we have unlabeled bags for the members of the Seventy who speak.
Conference just gets sweeter and sweeter!

By the time our conference weekend was over we had wrappers, abandoned blankets, juice boxes, bingo cards, crayons, color pages, and dirty dishes cluttering the room but more importantly, we had our minds and note pages full of stories, challenges and counsel to base our family home evening lessons on for the next six months.