Crazy Morning, Interesting Home Show, Pumpkin Walk, Primary Program, Halloween Parade,

Kids keep things exciting and embarrassing to say the least.  Yesterday there was a Home Show at the Golden Spike Arena in Ogden.  We decided to go and check it out as a family.  There were plenty of vendors and booths and a lot of them had candy.  Unfortunately, my kids figured out the candy part really quickly.  That meant they ran ahead of Aaron and me to collect all the candy.  Since Aaron and I were slowed down with Noah in the backpack and Sarah in the stroller we didn't keep up.  For some odd reason on of the vendors was "Slumber Party".  Just to let you know this vendor sells intimate items for husbands and wives which really makes me question why they were at a family friendly home show.  Anyway, they had a wheel of prizes you could win.  You just had to spin the wheel to see what "prize" you won.  Josh just saw the spinning wheel and ran right over to the booth and went to town on spinning the wheel.  By the time we caught up to him we noticed all the surrounding vendors just laughing at us when we realized what kind of booth it was.  Nice.  We shooed Josh away from the spinning wheel and was glad they didn't give him the "prize" he won.

Noah and Daniel had their well child check-ups Thursday.  Daniel is doing well, but he has lost two pounds since January which isn't so good.  I can't believe that since he can take down so many chicken nuggets during a meal, but it is what it is.  Looks like I will have to try and get him to gain a few more pounds--Sure wish that was my problem!!  Noah is healthy, but continues to be delayed in his development.  The doctor was concerned enough that he referred us to Early Intervention.  I am taking it in stride, but not too happy about it.  Our last experience with Early Intervention was with Matthew and it wasn't the greatest.  Oh well I will call and set things up tomorrow and I guess we will just wait and see what happens.  I guess it is better to do something than nothing so here we go.  Hope he starts catching up soon!!  I also think he is a little of the strong and silent type....except at church when he likes to scream.

All school mornings can get pretty crazy in this house, however, this past Wednesday morning it seems to be even more crazy and chaotic.  It started extremely early at 3 am when I had to get up with Daniel to give him a breathing treatment.  He was quite wheezy and couldn't breath.  I hate asthma flair ups!  Later on in the morning Matthew took a shower.  Now Matthew has a hard time finding things and if he can't find his shirts, pants, underwear, socks, shoes, etc. he automatically assumes Aaron took them to work.  Aaron has never taken his things to work, but for some reason Matthew thinks he has.  Now after Matthew had gotten out of the shower he couldn't find any clean underwear (even though they were right in front of his face) and was running around the house buck naked screaming that Aaron had taken his underwear to work.  While I was trying to tell him that Aaron had not taken his underwear to work and was trying to help him find some, Sarah wanted a drink of milk.  Since she is always trying to be Miss Independent she got a glass out of the cupboard, put it on the floor and proceeded to try and pour her a glass of milk out of an almost full gallon jug of milk.  As you can imagine the milk spilled EVERYWHERE!!  Since this was cow's milk and Daniel is deathly allergic to it I had to clean up the huge mess right away to try and prevent even more issues with Daniel and his asthma.  As I was trying to clean up the milk mess, I told Josh and Daniel to get into the shower.  As I finished cleaning up the milk mess and helped Matthew find his clothes to get dressed in I passed by the bathroom to find Josh and Daniel had stopped up the tub and was trying to have a bath while taking a shower--all the while sloshing water all over the floor.  They thought I had no idea what they were doing and I didn't until I walked passed the bathroom.  I told them to unplug the tub and to get out of the shower and clean up the mess they had made.  During this time Noah took advantage of his lack of supervision and got into the pantry.  He pulled out a few bags of cereal and emptied them onto the kitchen floor.  By this time I was ready to pull my hair out.  I was finally glad to have the oldest three off to school.  When they left I thought I would be home free, but, again, I was wrong.  This week for dance they had a Halloween party. All the girls were supposed to dress up in their Halloween costumes. I tried to explain this to Sarah, but she flat out REFUSED to wear her Halloween costume to dance. I put her costume on with her kicking and screaming. The costume was on long enough to take this picture before she took it back off and you can tell she is NOT happy about it.

She did NOT want to wear it to dance...that is until she saw all the other girls with their costumes on. After seeing everyone else wearing their costumes, she allowed me to put her costume on her. She is such a strong willed little girl!!

As the day went on we went to play group which was a nice break.  After play group it happened to be 2 pm which is Happy Hour at Sonic Drive In.  Wahoo!!  With the crazy day I had I decided to treat myself to one of my favorite drinks--a Diet Dr. Pepper with strawberry flavoring.  I picked up the drink and brought it home.  I was going to lay Sarah, Noah and Daniel down for quiet time.  Daniel doesn't usually take a nap, but since he had been up half the night wheezing, I made him lay down.  As I was putting Noah in his crib Sarah took advantage of my lack of supervision, crawled up on the counter where my drink was and helped herself.  When I came down the stairs to grab her to put her in bed, she got scared and dropped my full drink spilling the entire thing all over the kitchen floor.  I quickly put her to bed made sure Daniel was in bed and cleaned the kitchen floor up yet again.  I do believe that was the 4th time that day I had to clean up the kitchen floor from the spills I had NOT made!  GRRRRR!!  So much for Happy Hour it really ended up being Frustration HOUR--or frustration day for that matter!!  However, I called to whine to my husband at work about everything that had happened that day--even though he is at work and can't do anything for me.  He took pity on me and came home from work with a brand new drink from Sonic for me.  That was the highlight of my day right there--and no I did not share with ANYBODY!!  I earned that drink fair and square!!!  I guess it is bad days like this that make you really appreciate the good days if I am trying to put a positive spin on things!!  However, my crazy day didn't end there.  That night I had to take Daniel in to the pediatrician's office about 11 pm because his wheezing got worse.  His oxygen saturations were actually 90% which if it were any lower would have been a hospital admission.  Thankfully he did improve after a breathing treatment and a steroid shot and taking two steroid pills for the next three days.  We ended up getting home sometime around 12:30 am which made for a long visit.  Luckily, he is doing great now.  We also got the news that day that my Kitchenaid mixer that I had taken in to get repaired was officially dead :(.  Whoa what a rough day, but things did get better as the week went on--thank goodness!!

Josh and Daniel leave at the same time in the morning to catch the bus.  They have to walk to their bus stop so they have to be ready even earlier.  The other morning Josh was ready before Daniel so he decided to wait for Daniel out on the front step.  I thought he just sat there and waited, but I was wrong.  He passed the time by carving things into our front door with a rock.  Lucky for Josh I didn't catch the door carving until after he had already gone to school.  Grrrrr!!  Another reason why we will probably not be getting our deposit back from this rental house!

Friday Josh and Daniel's elementary school had a Halloween parade.  They got to wear their Halloween costumes to school.  The school did not allow face masks so I had to paint their faces instead.  I was ok with that since I am not a big fan of face masks anyway.  Here's the scary mummy and Frankenstein before they left for school:

Here they are in their Halloween parade around the school for all the parents to see.

Matthew and Josh have been insisting more and more on bringing home lunch to eat instead of eating hot lunch at school.  Well the morning around our house can be pretty chaotic so I don't always have time to fix their lunches.  The other morning Matthew decided he would try and help me out by making his own sandwich.  He wanted a Baco Bit and Butter sandwich.  He got out all the stuff and went to town.  By the time I came back into the kitchen it was too late.  He had basically used about a cup of butter per slice of bread and poured out half a bottle of Baco Bits.  I had to take pictures and even the pictures don't do justice to the vast quantity of butter and baco bits he used!!  Have a side of bread with those baco bits and butter!!

In making the sandwich I think Matthew realized he had gotten too many baco bits so he tried to scoop them back into the container--including some chunks of butter, too.  Yummy.

  

Every year Syracuse City puts on a Pumpkin Walk around Halloween.  In keeping up with tradition (we have been every year since we have moved here) we visited it last night as a family and was impressed by all the intricately carved pumpkins.

They had all kinds of carved pumpkins!

For all the Angry Birds fans they had an Angry Birds display set up.  They had one pumpkin showing the sling shot.

Right next to the sling shot they had the pigs set up in their protective covers.  

This pumpkin display was very patriotic.

 There were so many pumpkins.  It took us over an hour just to see them all.

 At the end they had some people dressed up in Star Wars costumes.  The boys wanted to get their pictures taken by them.

 It was a tad on the chilly side last night so we stopped by the fire to warm up.

 This picture is so Josh.  He saw the vendors all around and decided to go up to the spinning wheel of prizes to try his luck (thankfully it wasn't a "Slumber Party" booth!!)  Aaron and I were too busy herding kids back to the car to notice him walking over to them before it was too late.  He did get a few pieces of candy from them.  He did this exact thing this summer during a parade.  He saw them throwing canvas bags out to the crowd.  He didn't get a bag so he followed the float down the road and walked up to one of the people on it and asked her point blank for a bag.  Surprisingly he got one, but it just encourages him to be even more bold which isn't always a good thing....

 I think kids are around to keep me humble--that's for sure!!

The primary program was today and I loved it.  All the kids got speaking parts and I love hearing their little voices (or big voices in Matthew's case) over the pulpit.  They practiced during primary and the organist sat next to me in Sunday School.  She leaned over to me and told me how excited Matthew was during practice.  She said he was so cute.  They all did well.  G & G T came up to watch, but had to leave right after since they weren't feeling too well.  We are glad they came to watch, though.  This is one of my favorite sacrament meetings every year!!

Man Eating Ducks, Eating Sandy, Spooky Piano Recital, Pumpkin Patch Hayride and Promontory Point

 The power cord to our computer died so we had to wait over a week for a new one to come in.  Since I haven't had access to the computer during that time, here's my feeble attempt at trying to catch up on the blog--and we have been busy!!

Yesterday Josh, Daniel and Matthew had their Halloween piano recital.  Since it was a Halloween recital they all got to wear their costumes.  Of course Sarah can't be left out so her and "Know What" (Noah) got to wear their costumes as well.  I love little kids' costumes.  Surprisingly enough, Noah didn't mind wearing the costume which was a plus.

In the few minutes we got the kids to hold still we took all their pictures.  Josh is Frankenstein, Matthew Batman, Daniel a Mummy, Sarah a Strawberry, and Noah was a Monkey.

 Here's Matthew performing.  His mask didn't slow him down at all.  He did great.

 Josh's mask got in his way so he ended up pulling it up to play.  He is concentrating hard because you can see his tongue sticking out just like Aaron's does when he is concentrating, too.  Like father like son!!  He did great.

 Daniel's mask didn't bother him at all.  He got up and did great.

Grandma T was able to come up to the recital which was nice.  We were able to have lunch beforehand and then headed over to the recital.  It is always nice to have some extra hands with so many unruly kids.  In the middle of the recital Noah decided it was time to wander around so Grandma got up with him so Aaron and I could listen to the boys play.

Afterward we came home and changed the kids out of their costumes and into regular clothes.  Then we headed over to the park to play enjoying the beautiful fall day.  Noah has discovered slides and loves them.  He went down so many times it made his hair pretty staticky.  As you can see from his shadow it was sticking up everywhere every time he came down the slide.

 The other day I had to head over to the repair shop to turn in my mixer to get fixed.  The repair shop happened to be by a huge park with ducks.  I took a loaf of bread along so we could feed the ducks after I dropped off the mixer.  We got to the park and got out of the car.  Once the ducks and geese saw we had bread, wow we were swarmed!!  These ducks and geese were not afraid and very aggressive.  Daniel being the fraidy cat of anything other than people, ran far away and had nothing to do with feeding the ducks.  Noah since he was strapped in the stroller he didn't get much of a choice.  I gave him some bread, but he thought it was for eating.  He picked it up and before he could get it in his mouth, a goose came over and ate it out of his hand.  Noah did not like that AT ALL and ended up screaming for a bit.

 Sarah didn't quite know what to think of all these feathered friends.  Here she is warily eyeing this goose and trying to decide whether she should feed it or run away.  I love this picture!!

This goose was the most forward of all.  If you didn't feed it fast enough it would nip at you.  It is one ugly goose!!  It came over and bit me a few times.  I had to grab around it's neck to push it away since it was so aggressive.

 As you can see Sarah didn't not feed it fast enough so it is biting her leg.  After this Sarah gave up on feeding the ducks and ran away to join Daniel who was safely out of duck/goose range.

Every fall the local nursery does a pumpkin patch hayride that we go on.  After donating some canned food items, you ride a hay wagon out to the pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins.  On the ride out to the pumpkin patch we made a rule that the kids could only choose pumpkins they could carry by themselves.  We made the mistake a few years ago to try and find the biggest pumpkins in the whole patch--BIG MISTAKE!  We had to try to handle all the kids as well as the huge pumpkins. We have since learned to only let the kids pick pumpkins they can carry by themselves!  Here's Sarah's: 

 Here we are on the hay ride after picking all our small pumpkins:

 Josh's pick with Daniel in the background still trying to decide on which one to get.

 Matthew's pick:

After the hay ride we wanted to take our annual car ride up to Logan to see the pretty fall leaves in Sardine Canyon.  We missed the highlight of the leaves this year, but we still saw some pretty leaves on the drive.  Logan is such a pretty place. 

Of course you can't go to Logan without a stop at Casper's Ice Cream Shop.  Everyone picked out their own ice cream (Daniel had a huge package of oreos and got to order some Rootbeer).  I was giving Noah tastes of my ice cream as he was sitting in the high chair.  I guess I wasn't feeding him fast enough because he climbed out of his high chair and across the table to help himself to my ice cream.

 On the way home we stopped by the Cheese Factory and picked up some shelf stable flavored milk for the kids sack lunches and a bag of squeaky cheese--yummy!  We also stopped by to see the progress on the Brigham City temple.  It is almost completed and looks so pretty.

 This weekend was UEA/or fall break for the kids.  That meant there was no school Thursday and Friday.  Luckily we kept busy.  Thursday we met a friend and had lunch at the park.  Friday Aaron only worked half a day so we headed up to Promontory Point to see where the Transcontinental Railroad was completed.  We went out their because Matthew LOVES trains and we thought he would love to see it.  Here's the commemorative place where the last golden spike was driven in the rail line.

 We got to take a tour of the shop where the replica trains were being worked on.  Being inside the shop was really loud so Matthew did not like that part of it, but everything else was pretty interesting.

There was a auto tour around Promontory Point that we took.  One stop was the Chinese Arch.  It was a natural formed arch we climbed to.

Here the kids are waiting to take the tour up to the shop to see the replica trains.  We had a really quiet speaking tour guide so we really had to listen close.  That also meant we didn't get to hear most of what he said since our kids were a little loud.  We still had fun seeing the trains, though.

Last week in the middle of Saturday night Daniel ended up getting sick and throwing up.  When we got up to clean up the mess we noticed it was extremely hot inside our house.  Either the kids played with the thermostat or it reprogrammed itself to heat to 87 degrees.  We had to turn off the heat, open all the windows and turn on the air conditioner which seemed so wrong since it was only 50 degrees outside.  Luckily it cooled off pretty quickly and that was the only time Daniel threw up.  Maybe it was just a random puking--who knows?

Last Friday night we were having our movie night.  In the middle of the movie I noticed Sarah and Noah were missing.  I got up to find them.  I found them in my bathroom.  Sarah was brushing her teeth with a random toothbrush and Noah was eating the tube of toothpaste.  Better safe than sorry we called Poison Control to make sure he would be ok.  We were relieved when they said he would be fine, but to try and get him to drink some milk.  That way the calcium ions could help soak up the fluoride ions.  Noah survived none the worse for wear except now when he sees a tube a toothpaste he screams because he wants a "snack".

Speaking of pica (which is the eating of nonfood items) Noah loves eating rocks.  I don't know what it is about them, but he loves them.  I have to watch him because every time we go to a park it doesn't take him long to start chowing down on the sand.  I caught him here and tried to wash the sand out of his mouth, but he wasn't too happy about it.  What a weirdo!

Snow Wipe, Pinewood Derby, Don't Shop While Hungry, Midnight Alarm

The terrible twos are continuing on into the terrible threes with Sarah!  She is truly the Queen of Tantrums!  She wants things her way or it is an instant tantrum.  I have never had such a strong willed child before!!  She only wants to wear what she picks out and if you try to get her to change--heaven help you!!  Last week I was getting her ready for dance.  I luckily talked her into getting her leotard, tights and skirt on without too much of a problem.  Now with her ballet slippers she is not supposed to wear them outside.  That means she either has to wear her clogs over the top of them until she gets to dance or wear a different pair of shoes until she can change into her ballet slippers when she gets to dance.  Last week she decided she HAD to wear her ballet slippers and nothing else.  When I tried to put her clogs over the top of them she had a melt down.  When I tried to take off her ballet slippers to put a different pair of shoes on she had an even worse meltdown.  I finally had to just let her wear her ballet slippers and just carry her and Noah over to dance.  Luckily the dance teacher lives across the street from us, but by the time I got there my arms were just burning under her and Noah's weight!  However, when we got to dance Sarah was still in tantrum mode.  I set her down in the dance studio kicking and screaming.  I couldn't calm her down so I just told the dance teacher, "Um, I think she will stop once I leave."  On my way out the door I was thinking to myself as I listened to her still screaming, "Good luck with that!!"  When I came to pick her up after dance the teacher told me she refused to do anything and sat in the corner and pouted all during class.  AWESOME!  I can't wait until she grows out of the terrible twos and threes.  Hopefully they won't turn into the terrible fours, fives and sixes!!!

We almost had another huge meltdown before church this week.  Sarah saw everyone getting their church clothes on and wanted to get her own church clothes on.  She went and found her "Snow Wipe" (that's what Sarah calls Snow White) dress up dress and tried to put that on.  Luckily I caught her before she had her mind absolutely made up on wearing that particular dress and was able to steer her to a different dress without a tantrum.  Whew!

Why oh why do they make midnight the default alarm setting on alarm clocks?!  This is something that has always been a minor inconvenience to me as long as I have been dealing with alarm clocks.  However, it became a major inconvenience last week.  Josh and Daniel played with their alarm clock before they went to bed.  We didn't know about it until their shrill, beeping alarm went off right at midnight.  It took Aaron a minute to figure out what was going on.  When he finally aroused to consciousness and realized that horrible beeping noise really wasn't actually part of his dream, he ran downstairs to turn it off.  He had to fumble with it for a few minutes because he didn't know where the off button was and he didn't want to unplug it because he didn't want to reset the time.  He finally got it turned off.  However, it didn't bother Josh and Daniel seeing as they slept through the whole thing.  How you can sleep through that is beyond me!!  As soon as Aaron came upstairs and got back into bed Noah started screaming because it woke him up.  I thought if we let him scream for a bit he would fall back asleep.  I was wrong.  After 20 minutes of horrible shrill screaming that actually was waking everyone else up, I got up with him.  I held him in my arms while watching some TV.  Noah fell asleep pretty quickly so I tried to take him back to bed.  As soon as I laid him in his crib the horrible screaming began again.  We did this little routine multiple times until about 3:30 am when he finally decided laying in his crib wasn't so bad and stayed asleep after I laid him down.  Again I ask why oh why do they set the default alarm to midnight?!

Noah has since decided that sleeping through the night is not the fun thing to do anymore.  The bad thing about that is we live in a small enough house that you can hear anything from anyone at anytime on any floor.  I swear they put no insulation on any of the walls.  In knowing that, I don't feel like I can just let Noah scream it out because everyone suffers--especially the three oldest boys who go to school and Aaron who has to go to work.  Since I don't like having a family full of "Chuckles" (aka extremely ornery husband and kids) the next day, I get up with him. He likes to start screaming around 1 am and not stop unless he is being held at all times until 3-4am.  Then I have to get up at 7 am to referee breakfast and the morning chaos while Noah quietly slumbers on in his crib.  **YAWN!!** I can't wait until our house gets built so Noah will have his own room and will be able to scream it out while not bothering anyone.  Our house is coming along--they just poured the footings yesterday and should be pouring the rest of the foundation either today or tomorrow.  I can't WAIT!!  I need my sleep!! 

Since the majority of the summer Noah wasn't walking we didn't bother with shoes--or even socks for that matter because he would pull them right back off as soon as you got them on.  However, once he started walking he did need to start wearing shoes.  Last week I forced a pair of socks and shoes on him and he did NOT like it at all.  As soon as they got put on he refused to stand or walk at all.  It took him a few hours to finally decide shoes weren't so bad after all and start walking with them.  The little stinker!!

 

This is why you don't go shopping while your kids are hungry:

We ran out of grocery basket space so we started putting the last couple bags up by where Noah sits.  Before we knew it he had reached inside the bag, pulled out a package of hot dogs and started munching away.

We called him out and this is his I just got caught red handed or my guilty hot dog face:

 

Yummy!!  Chewed up hot dogs in an unopened package.  Can't wait to hear what the other kids will say when I try to serve this to them.  I am sure I will hear, "Ewwww!  What's wrong with these hot dogs?"  I will just tell them they got Noahized!

Noah has started mimicking a few more words.  He lately will say, "Tickle, tickle, tickle" and I think it sounds cute.  I could only get him to do it for the camera during dinner so that's why he is chowing down on his noodles.  He is a sweet guy as long as he is not screaming in the middle of the night!!

He also knows what, "Go bye bye" means and let's get a drink.  When he hears bye, bye he walks over to the stairs and starts sliding down them to get to the front door.  When he hears "drink" he immediately 'assumes the position'  by lying down on the ground wherever he is at and awaits his sippy cup. It's pretty funny to watch.

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for our scout troop.  Aaron wanted to do better than last year because last year Matthew was in the bottom three finishers.  This year, after borrowing a saw from a neighbor (since all of Aaron's tools are packed up never to be seen again until we move) he made both boys' cars.  He used the same outline Aaron and his Dad used way back when Aaron was in Cup Scouts doing his own Pinewood Derby.  Good thing, because judging by the results it looked like that model of car did fantastic!  After 19 races the Mancil boys took 1st and 2nd place.  I don't know who was more excited, Aaron or the boys.  This was Matthew's last Pinewood Derby so it is nice he can go out on a high note!  Matthew, of course, wanted to make his car YELLOW his absolute favorite color.  Josh's car was a silver/gray. 

 For their trophy they got a big model car to play with.  Once Matthew got that he wanted to race the big car instead of his actual Pinewood Derby car.  It didn't go nearly as well.

 Here's Josh's winnings:

 Mark, set, GO!!!  Josh and Matthew are standing with Aaron to make sure their cars are put on the track properly.

 Sarah, Daniel and Josh later on settled just to watch the races toward the finish line.

It was a fun night.