I Have a Confession.

I feel terrible about it. It happened at the mall on Saturday and it just spun out of control.

We (meaning Ryan and me) were at Macy's boot shopping for my big day.
When we got there I was little surprised by what I saw. Boots toppled over on every display. Shoes strewn across the floor. Impatient customers hemming and hawing. Hmmmmm.......Yard sale at Macy's????? Interesting. I looked over at a sales rep. Harried and fatigued. Yes, it would appear that Macy's had had a long and busy day. I'd look around anyway.

I found some grey boots to try on and sent my helper back into the great abyss of "Shoe Land" , knowing very well it could take up to 15 minutes before she re-emerged. As I was waiting, an unknown woman approached me wearing two different boots. She asked me my opinion and I said I liked the brown boots. In fact, I really liked the brown boots. I continued to eye them as she paraded back and forth in front of me. Where were those boots? I had combed the area looking at all of them and I had not seen those anywhere. Just then my sales lady brought me my grey boots to try on. I saw the afore-mentioned woman eyeing them. Then I heard her ask my sales rep if she could get a pair of "those grey boots." No. Unfortunately, I had the last pair unless you have elfin feet and can sport a size 6. Disappointed, the woman turned back to her chair about 15 feet from where Ryan and I were sitting. I watched her eye my boots as I tried them on. She watched me from the corner of her eye and wouldn't stop. Like my boots, indeed. Then I watched her put on her shoes, grab her purse and leave.

Well. At least I can wear my boots without vulture eyes, I thought. Yes, I liked the grey. But the brown ones the other lady had tried on were cute too. I couldn't seem to find them anywhere in Yard Sale Villa. She had roughly the same size as me because I heard her request it. And I knew she was waiting around for the last pair of grey boots that I possessed. On impulse I turned to Ryan and said, "Go grab those brown boots and I'll try them on really quickly." After all, where was my sales lady?

Ryan went over and grabbed them just as another woman grabbed a pair of shoes from the same stock pile. He brought them back. Ten seconds later Grey-Boots-Lover came back. Oops. Without thinking I hissed to Ryan, "Put them under your chair." He obliged. I couldn't bear to look over, guilty as I was, so I asked Ryan (who apparently does not suffer from any sort of conscience) for a play by play. She was definitely looking for her brown boots. Shoot. I risked a glance. Now she was asking the other woman (remember the one who also stole a pair of shoes from the pile???) if she knew what happened to the boots. I couldn't hear what was being said but I could see two accusing looks being thrown my way and a dark finger pointing in my direction. I looked over innocently wide-eyed and saw a frowny face looking right back at me.

I won't lie. I felt as though I'd just committed a crime. If not a felony, then at least a misdemeanor. Then I left to "peruse" more boots. Actually I was just trying to avoid a confrontation. I watched Grey-Boots-Lover try another pair of shoes on and walk away from the chair. I booked it over to Ryan and gave him the Put-The-Boots-Back-NOW look. He paused a half a second.

That half-second got him caught. And I never even tried them on.

Pumpkin Patch

We took Kendri's preschool to the pumpkin patch last month. Kyson got to go along by default. Poor Lexi was bummed because her class didn't go this year. We had planned on going as a family but it was raining the day we could go. Oh well. But we did bring her home one of these cute little fudge ice cream cones. That seemed to keep her happy! Yummy!

So here we are at the mini petting zoo.

Want to know what Kyson is doing? He is trying to "giddy-up" the little billy goat. I was slightly shocked we made it through without Kyson getting butted by a pair of little horns. Some of the goats were not so patient! But then can you really blame them? I mean, what would you do if a pair of grimy hands had a death grip on your horn and was shaking it?

Kendri had a good time climbing on the tree. It was pretty cool with the huge limb so low to the ground.

They both made it up the haystack castle. Luckily no one fell off. (I did go up and supervise.)

Kendri likes to pose for the camera. Kyson on the other hand does not. See how Kendri's hand is positioned? She was trying to force him to look at the camera. You can see how well that method worked. I have a million pictures of the back of Kyson's head. Such a little stinker. Must take after his father ;)

Does this remind anyone else of "Lord of the Flies?" I think he totally looks like a little warrior. This was actually the very first thing we did. Kyson immediately found the mud hole. And stayed there.

There were a quite a few classes at Fog Willow the same day as us. Kyson was the only one jumping in the mud. Granted, I'm sure every other mother probably threatened their children with death if they got near the puddles. Not me. I went prepared for mud. I knew it would just turn into a miserable day if I was fighting him the whole time. So I just accepted the fact that I would be toting around a muddy child and we all had a great time! And I must say, he was the life of the party. Everyone loved watching him. (Most likely because they knew they wouldn't have to clean him up.) He'd run through the puddle. And then he'd run back. Then he'd jump the whole way across (splashing anyone within 10 feet, mind you) and then he'd splash back. So in the end, Kyson wore mud all day.

And I rocked my paint clothes. Problem solved.

Happy Halloween!

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz..........


Can you guess what we are???? My kids hadn't actually seen the Wizard of Oz until the week before Halloween. I sort of planned it for them thinking it would be fun and fairly easy to pull together. ButI had shown them pictures of the main characters on the internet. After they actually saw the movie, they were hooked!

Here we are carving pumpkins. We didn't actually carve our big pumpkin (big pumpkin #2 that is.....it didn't grow nearly as big as our first one :( We sort of just ran out of time. And it's not really ripe yet. Because it was a late bloomer. So now it's just still growing without a cause.....

Spooky!

Most of our celebrating took place on Saturday where we managed to make it to two Halloween parties. The first was at Gammie's ward where she masterminded the show! What a hit! It was set up like a carnival. And we won 10 goldfish. Hooray! Only 6 of them currently swim. The girls L-O-V-E-D it. Their cousins were there and I must say they were so busy winning fish that they hardly ate any candy. When we got home I told them we had to brush their teeth extra good because of all the sugar they had eaten and Kendri said, "Mommy, I only ate one sucker." Oh. I made her brush extra good anyway!

Then we made it to our own ward activity just in time for Trunk-or-Treating and dancing. My kids sure like to shake it! We were there for another hour. We partied hard and now I'm glad it's over! Happy Halloween!