Trick or Treat

50's Fun

Princess Minnie Mouse

BFF Jake and John aka Optimus Prime



at Trunk or Treat

Optimus Prime, Cool Dude, and Princess Minnie

Okay, so now I have time to finnaly finish posting our Halloween night fun. We started at 4pm and went to the local shopping center to trick or treat at the stores. That is where we saw the best homemade Optimus Prime (OP for short) costume ever! We just had to take a picture of it.

For those of you that don't know, Transformers is the big and one and only thing at our house right now. Alison was actually supposed to be OP for Halloween as well, made me buy her the costume and everything. Then a week befor she said, "I am going to be Minnie Mouse because there is only one Optimus Prime." Sounds like her brother got to her, what do you think? I thought for sure she would change back to OP on the night of Halloween, but she held firm as being Minnie Mouse. However, when she has her friend over for a play date and they dress up, Ella puts on the princess dresses, and Alison puts on OP. You win some, you loose some.

Then it was dinner at McDonalds and the kids kept asking if McDonalds was handing out candy. I had to tell them no. They were very sad. The McDonalds here has an ice cream case, where you can choose scoops of ice cream or "Dippin Dots". So then John wanted to know if they were handing out ice cream instead of candy. That boy just never gives up.

Then we headed over to the church for Trunk o Treat which started at 6pm. We were done and home by 6:45 where we handed out candy. The kids were so funny. They enjoyed running to the door each time they heard the bell. I had playdough and fruit snacks so that each of them got to put something in the bags. Alison has told me that she is going to be a Care Bear for Halloween next year after seeing someone in costume. As we were pulling out of the church parking lot to head for home John proudly exclaimed, "Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the next day is Christmas!" Both kids cheered and were so excited. Oh if every day could be a holiday with candy and presents!

A Spooktacular Family Home Evening

Witches Fingers and Monster Scat on a Log!

Monster Toes and Mummy Face Pizza!

Minni Witches Brooms!

These are a few of our favorite things! Well at least I had fun making them. We also had frozen blood(jello), pumpkin seeds(cheese Sun Chips), and pumpkin juice(orange soda). John really got into the spirit of dinner, not so much the food. Alison got into a lot less of both. Since they are older and really understand the holiday, I thought this would be a fun thing to do. At least Mark and I had a good meal, and so did my neighbor. That night befor bed I told myself that this would turn out to be one of those fond memories for the kids, even if they don't remember that they really didn't touch their food. The next morning at breakfast, Alison told me, "Mom let's just have regular dinners okay? No more halloween dinners." Well there went my theory about fond memories about the food! We had fun using Ghostly Table Manners- thought you would enjoy seeing this!



After dinner it was time to carve the pumpkins. This is what they really wanted to do. John kept saying, "Give me the knife!" Thank heaven for the wonderful pumpkin carving tools.

Carving Time

Squeeze Time!

Alison decided that this was the best thing about carving pumpkins! She had so much fun squeezing the insides.

Happy Halloween

"Sit by my sister, Yuck!"

On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch as a family. We all had a really good time. This year we went to Fantasy Trail. You follow a lighted trail through the woods and stop to look at the various "spooky" decorations. They even have a huge pirate ship with a maze and a suspension bridge! After picking pumpkins from their well picked over an empty patch (we literally took the last 3 that were not rotten, broken, etc) you follow the trail back. Along the way the kids stopped to go through the Jail House maze and slide down the slides. Then comes the "haunted" castle. It is a lot of fun. I was surprised that Alison did not want to be held when we went through it. John led the way, of course, and Alison was following right behind him!

After School Activities

This year Alison is taking ballet classes. She is in a 10 week program that will run year round. She is really enjoying it. She will be performing in the Nutcracker as a Solider on November 30- December 1. If how the kids do in class is any indication of what the performance will be like, it will be quite a show! Bless the teacher for her patience.

John is just as active as ever and so we felt that gymnastics would be a good fit for him. He has had 4 weeks of classes now, once a week for an hour. He is finally understanding that he has to pay attention to the teachers and do what they tell him. He keeps telling me that he just wants to do whatever he wants to while at gym. Poor guy, just hates to have rules. This last week they finally used the balance beam, rope swing, and bounce boards. He was in heaven!

Our Family

This is life!

John 5 years old

Alison 3 years old

July 2007

In July we had our family photos updated. This is a small sampling. John is in Kindergarten now and loves it. His favorite thing to do at school is recess. However, he does enjoy music class, computer lab, math and science. Alison goes to pre-school and loves it. She is so excited that this year she gets to stay and do things. The teacher tells me that she can see so much of John in her. From the way she chooses to play Lego's and trains with the boys to things she says and does. Of course we can not forget how she too likes the mud when it is time to play outside just like her brother. Mark is doing well with his job. Still travels, but is trying to come home on Thursday night instead of Friday. Jennifer is trying to keep up with the kids. She just got done doing a fashion show for the stake Young Women Standards Night. If I can figure out how to post video, I will put it on here for your viewing pleasure. Hope all is well with all of you.

Sean's Mission

The Thompson Family

The Missionary

Jennifer just went home for 5 days to say goodbye to Sean. Sean has been called to the Taiwan Taichung Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He enters the Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, October 17. We love Sean very much. It was so wonderful to be with all of my family again. When I got home the kids looked at a scrapbook my sisters and I put together and John started to cry because he was going to miss uncle Sean.

Family Vacation

This year we went to Eastern Oregon. It was a lot of fun. We went rockhounding at Richardson's Rock Ranch in Madras, OR. The thunder egg is the state rock and we were able to dig them ourselves! They are geods, so when you have them cut open you have a whole new suprise waiting for you. Jennifer was put in charge of the ward youth conference trip and she took the youth there as well. Then when Grandpa and Grandma Davis came for a visit, we took them.