Marlene's Wish List

Eric Dowdle print

Lyn Snow's "Sweet Pea" print

dish

Flat iron

Candy dipping tools



Round pan set



Square cake pan set




Tamale steamer
Crepe maker



Tortilla press

Thanksgiving Point

After picking apples, we headed to Thanksgiving Point for the Scarecrow Festival. We went to Cornbelly's corn maze last year, but decided to try something different this year. Good choice on our part. The area we went to had 16 different bounce houses, games, food, a train ride, wagon ride, face painting, even a helicopter landing. We spent several hours there and could have spent several more. Most everything was included in the price of admission, which was great. It was a great day and I'm sure we'll be back for another round next year.

Apple Picking

After living in Maine and enjoying all the "pick yourself" farms, we miss that here in Wyoming. There aren't any wild blueberries growing here, nor are there pumpkin patches, strawberry fields or apple orchards. So I went in search of somewhere to pick apples. I found one a few years ago not far from Scott's parents in Utah. After that first year, the orchard had to replant all their trees, so we were out of luck. When I called this year, I found out that they still had plenty to pick, so we headed that way. While the apples aren't pretty to look at, they got hit with hail in the beginning of the summer, they are tasty. (It's more about the experience anyways, right?) It was a great day for picking, sunny and warm. They also had a pumpkin patch, too bad we already had ours at home.

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Gardner Village Witch Festival

We headed to grandma and grandpa's house for the 4 day weekend. We planned several outings with the girls, one of them being Gardner Village. We found the festival last year and had a great time, so we headed back. The girls, especially Addyson, loved all the witches and there was plenty of them to see. My favorite is the one in the outhouse. It was fun to wander through all the shops too. The girls favorite by far was Just For Girls. We spent the majority of our time in the tiny little shop. They had money that was burning a hole in their pockets, so of course they had to spend it. It took them forever to finally decide on little stuffed dogs in purses. They have been sleeping with them, so it appears that they made great decisions.

Haunted House

I bought a haunted house kit last year after Halloween and saved it to build this year. We decided to put it together for FHE. The girls were having a blast, but having a hard time not eating the year old candy. The kit was pretty fancy. It had all the pieces ready to go and a base with slots to put the walls in to help with stability.

How much frosting can the roof take?

Other side of roof

Oops, apparently that was too much frosting! Or maybe the year old frosting was the problem. Either way, the house is not longer in existence. We had a good time making it and truth be told, I'm not really all that sad the the thing isn't sitting on my counter or table for the next few weeks. I definitely didn't shed any tears over the collapse.

Uncle Jarrod

A few weeks ago, Uncle Jarrod came to town. The girls were excited to see him for the 5 minutes that they did.

Janae's Baptism

Here Janae is in her beautiful white dress. She was so excited to have a white dress to wear after she was baptized. She was able to help plan the program and she chose Grandma Neff to say the opening prayer and Uncle Brock to give the talk on baptism. She was most excited to be invited by the bishop to sit on the stand the next day. She had been looking forward to that for a long time.

Janae and dad in front of the font right before he performed the baptism.

What a happy family

Janae's Earrings

My gift to Janae was a pair of earrings. When she opened them up, she looked at them and then at me and said in a disgusted voice, "I can't wear these. I don't have my ears pierced!" To which I replied, "Well then I guess we'll have to get your ears pierced." It took a second for that to sink in, and when it did she was excited. We went to the mall on Saturday morning to have it done. She picked out the earrings she wanted quickly and hopped up into the chair. I was a little afraid that we might be leaving with only one pierced ear that day. (Claire's apparently has a policy that parents can't force kids to have a piercing done, even if that means leaving with only one earring.) The girl pierced one ear and all Janae said was "OUCH". She turned her head and let the second ear be done also, no tears. She was so brave! Now she can't wait for November 7th to get here so that she can take them out and wear one of the many new pairs of earring she got as gifts.

The Birthday Girl

Can my Janae really be 8 already? She had a fun filled day from the moment she got up. We started the tradition a few years ago of serving the birthday person breakfast in bed. Scott woke her up while Addyson and I made pancakes. (She decided later to have breakfast at the table). I didn't make her drink milk like I normally do, so the hot chocolate was a hit.

Scott started getting shirts for their birthdays and this year was no different. Littlest Pet Shop, what could be better? I had to get special permission to take a homemade treat to school. Janae wanted dirt cups, for the 3rd time, as her treat to share with her friends.

A few of her friends came at dinner time for pizza and cake. We decided to have a roller skating party this year. After calling to verify before the invites went out, we planned on walking to the rec center to skate night. Once we got there though, we were informed that there wasn't skate night and so we had to go to plan B. What was plan B? I wasn't sure at the time. On the walk back home I was furious, but realized that I needed to come up with something to do for the next 1 1/2 hours until parents came. Janae and I decided to get out the Dance, Dance Revolution. So some of the girls danced and some played with the toys downstairs. Janae was let-down because of how things turned out, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

Look at the smile on this girl!

Don't look too close at the cake. I learned several things while making this cake.
1. If I ever decide to make a cake with fondant again, I will call Deirdra and see if she wants to come "hang out" for a while. While she is here, maybe I can talk her into "helping" (aka- doing the cake)

2. I need real cookie cutters to cut out shapes. The lids to spices and flavorings are not sharp enough on the edges to make clean cuts.

3. Never, never attempt to roll out fondant on the counter above the dishwasher that has just run a cycle. It makes a sticky, gooey mess.

I hope that even just one of you reading can learn from my mistakes.


Janae ended the night late, snuggling with her new LPS blanket and pillowcase.