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.

Cornbelly's and the Birthday Boy

Sarah has been asserting her independence lately.  Whatever her brothers do she has to do it, too.  The other morning I sent her brothers to brush their teeth.  She followed them into the bathroom and brushed her own teeth as well.  Can you tell?  I think the rabid foam around her mouth kind of gave it away.  She was quite proud of herself, though.

For Daniel's 6th birthday we had a family party and went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Pointe in Lehi. The kids all had fun doing the various activities.  In one corner of the courtyard they had a huge dress up area complete with a pumpkin princess that you could take pictures with.  I just saw dress up area and grabbed Sarah and went over.  Sarah was not excited about dressing up in any way shape or form.  I thought she might change her mind once I put her in the prettiest, frilliest dress.  Boy was I WRONG!!!  I had to force it on her and she spent the whole rest of the time trying to pull the dress off while screaming.  She was NOT happy!

They had a wrought iron carriage you could sit in to take a picture.  The boys crawled up in the driver's seat and I put Sarah up inside the carriage to grab a quick picture, but she would not stay sitting there. I finally had to hold her down in my lap while Aaron snapped a quick picture.  By this time I figured I had tortured Sarah enough and took the dress off her.

Thinking she would be more cooperative since the dress had been taken off her, I put her next to the pumpkin princess to take a picture.  She was still not at all cooperative.  It wasn't until they bribed her with a sucker that she stood next to the pumpkin princess long enough to take a picture.  Hey I am not above bribery if it works!

 The boys had fun being her carriage driver and riding the horses.

They had water duck races.  The kids had fun playing with those except Sarah kept stealing everyones' ducks.

We did eventually make it into the corn maze--and got lost inside it.

Throughout the corn maze they had different posts asking you trivia questions.  Whatever answer you picked it gave you the direction to go in.  We either answered a few questions wrong or took a wrong turn somewhere because we eventually had to be led out of the maze by a worker.

 They had a barn with dried corn kernels spread all over the floor.  The kids had fun playing around inside for a while.  The corn and dust got everywhere, but they had fun.  They even unknowingly brought home some dried corn kernels inside their shoes.  I found them on the carpet in our house--nice.  In the picture you can see Josh doing the backstroke in the corn.

 We took a turn on the grain train.  It was a train pulled by a tractor through the haunted part of the maze.

Noah had lots of fun going down the slide with Grandma T.  You can hear him just giggle when he gets to the bottom of the slide.

 We rented a wagon to help pull the three youngest kids along.  Matthew helped Grandpa T pull it all over the courtyard.

 Here's all my cheese balls hamming it up for the camera:

 Everyone took their turn at trying to lasso the cow heads.

 They had a bunch of inflatable slides that everyone had fun going on.  Sarah even got me to go on it with her a few times.  Ah the joys of being a parent.

 They had a bounce pad that everyone took a turn on.  Noah didn't quite know what to think about it, but Daniel took Sarah out and they had a good time.  Matthew did, too.  Josh was all over the place so I couldn't get him to stop long enough to get a picture.

 Of course we had to pose in the huge rocking chair that we sit in every year.  With five growing kids it is starting to become a tight squeeze to fit all of us on it.

 Here's the Happy Birthday Boy before he left for school that morning.  I still see him as my cute little 2 year old!  These past 6 years have gone by really fast!

 We drove by our house Friday morning and saw all the stakes out for them to start digging the foundation.  We are getting so excited!!

 

Daniel's Family Birthday Party, the Staypuff Marshmallow Girl, and the "Brother Hitter"

Again I must add we will probably not be getting our rental deposit back.  I found Noah's handiwork just a few days ago.  He has decided teething rings are for sissies--blinds are the best things to teeth on.  We have bite marks on all over our blinds at about Noah height.  Don't they look lovely?

 Anyway, this week is Red Ribbon week at Josh and Daniel's elementary school.  To celebrate it they have different fun things for the kids to do every day.  Yesterday was crazy hair day.  Josh wanted me to shave him bald, but we ran out of time.  Instead they both got their hair spiked up everywhere.  When Sarah saw me taking their picture, she insisted on being in it as well.  She had a serious case of bed head so she fit right in with crazy hair day.

 As difficult and strong willed as Sarah can be, she sure does look like an angel when she is asleep.  I am just going to come back and look at this picture next time we are in the middle of a full blown tantrum to remind myself she can be a sweet girl.  That is when she is asleep and not screaming...

 They finally broke ground for our new house on Monday.  They were supposed to pour the footings on Tuesday, but it ended up being quite stormy.  Unfortunately, it will continue to be stormy the rest of the week so who knows when they can pour any cement.  Hopefully soon because all this close family togetherness in our small rental house is wearing on everyone's nerves!!!

Daniel's birthday was last Friday, but we didn't have our family party for him until Saturday because he went to a friend's birthday party at the zoo all day Friday.  To celebrate Daniel's birthday we went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze Saturday morning.  Afterward we headed over to Dairy Keen to have our usual heart attack on a bun and then on up to the cabin.  We didn't let Daniel open his presents or have his birthday cake until we got up to the cabin.  By the time we finally made it up to the cabin Daniel was very anxious to open his presents.  In his haste to get to his presents, he knocked over his cake and of course it landed frosting side down on the floor.  Luckily the cake pan did have a lid on it so it wasn't a huge mess, it just massacred my frosting masterpiece :(.  I try to decorate the kids' birthday cakes with a theme or hint of what they are getting for their birthday.  Daniel was getting a Wii Mario soccer game for his birthday so I decorated it with a Mario Mushroom that was supposed to look like this:

But it instead ended up looking like this after Daniel knocked it over:

  After mourning the loss of all my hard work on his cake he finally got to open his presents.  He got a football, transformer, a Wii game and a Nerf toy in the shape of Thor's Hammer.

I had to laugh when I saw the warnings on the Nerf version of Thor's Hammer:

 Do not hit or swing at people or animals, Use away from breakable objects, and TO AVOID INJURY: Discontinue use if core is exposed.  Really what fun would that be if you followed the rules?  Right out of the box we nicknamed it The Brother Hitter.  He had fun with it, however when he set it down Noah got a hold of it.  Noah thought it might be a good teething object like the blinds and bit a chunk off the handle.

 Daniel was not happy about that when he saw what Noah had done.  Well so much for following the rules.  Daniel has hit people with it (and animals too if you count his siblings), and has also broke stuff with it as well as played with it when the core of it has been exposed--thanks to Noah.  Who needs the rules anyway?  The Brother Hitter is still alive and well, but for now it has been put out of Noah's reach, though.  That's ok, Noah has gone back to teething on the blinds anyway.

While we were at the cabin the kids were swinging on the tree swing.  They like Aaron to pull them high so they can reach the leaves of the tree on the other side of the swing.  It was Josh's turn when Aaron swung him super high.  Josh reached for the leaves and grabbed a branch of the Aspen tree on the other side.  Josh held on so tight he ended up pulling the whole Aspen tree over roots and all.  Afterward Josh kept telling us about how strong he really is.  It didn't take any convincing for him to pose for this strong arm pose in front of the tree he pulled over:

While at the cabin we roasted some marshmallows.  Sarah LOVES them.  In fact Sarah loves anything.  I have yet to find a food she does not like.  Anyway, she ate quite a few marshmallows.  I don't know how much she really ended up eating versus how much got smeared all over her face, hands, hair, shirt and pants.  She started resembling the Stay puff Marshmallow man by the time we were done roasting "smarshmallows" as the kids call them.  When we were done roasting marshmallows she was so sticky she had to take a shower.

 While we were up at the cabin we did listen to Conference...that is if you can call this listening: 

 Matthew fell asleep next to Grandpa T. and they were both just a snoring away during the session.

Noah had lots of fun roaming around the cabin, playing and biting chunks out of Daniel's Brother Hitter.

  We also enjoyed the beautiful Fall foliage on the drive up to the cabin.  I love the Fall season!!