Happy Halloween - Adventure Style!

It was a Spooktacular Halloween for us Thompsons! The day started off with the Halloween parade at the school. Ashlyn was in the parade for the last time, since they stop letting the kids be in the parade once they are in 3rd grade. It was so fun to see all the cute costumes. Ashlyn was the cutest gypsy EVER!! A few of the kids in Ashlyn's class grabbed their younger siblings to join them in the parade, so Emma jumped in the parade during the last lap around the school and loved being a part of the fun with her big sis.





Following the parade, I stayed to help with Ashlyn's class party. It was a big hit! There were some of your usual games like Twister, Halloween Bingo, cookie decorating and then some of your more unusual games like dressing up your classmate as a mummy! The kids had a great time!I made a quick stop in Blake's class. They had yummy fruit and donuts for their party.


(Blake and his wonderful teacher- Mrs. Pine!)

After school was out, Blake, Crew, and I went to Grandma's house to raid her closets for a costume. Blake ended up with Uncle Justin's football pads and helmet and Uncle Micah's Toro practice jersey from a couple of years ago. Crew came home with an old football helmet that my brothers played with when they were little. You can see it's been well played with!

When all was said and done, Crew wore Blake's old Toro jersey, Blake wore my brothers old jersey and pads, and Emma was their cheerleader. Ashlyn was the odd one out being a gypsy. Oh well, we weren't going to change since I made her costume. Yes, I did get the old sewing machine out to put that baby together. I know you're all shocked... it happens once in a long while.

A little side note: When I was in 2nd grade I was a gypsy too! My mom was also frequently a gypsy for Halloween. I guess the dressing up in make up and jewelry bling runs in the family!



For dinner we went to Grandma Teresa's cul de sac for our annual pot luck. It's fun to see my neighborhood friends that I grew up trick or treating with. The food's great too!! You just can't beat a good hot meal before going out and trick or treating and getting all tanked up on sugar.

We then rushed back to our neighborhood to hook up with our friends for some trick or treating. Our group was like a MOB this year! It was out of control crazy. I had to keep calling out my children's names to make sure they were still part of the costume mob. In our neighborhood we were the only large group of trick or treaters on the street so I would reassure the neighbors that we would be the only big group of trick or treaters they would have as I went up to the door with Crew and see how overwhelmed they were with the crowd.

(This is just a portion of our original group)

Well as our mob made its way down the street, our group changed all night. We would loose a family here and there and pick up another along the way. One of those families we picked up was my brother Nathan and his family. We were soooooo excited to have them. They don't usually come out here for Halloween since they have a 40 minute drive. Since Halloween was on Friday night they decided to come and hang out late with us!! The kids were so happy to have their cousins with them. It just made the night!





When we got home from our first round of spooking, we had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Thompson. Yea!! It's so great that they came to see us. Our kids love all their grandparents sooo much and they enjoy seeing them. After our quick photo op we hopped in the car to make more visits.

We went to my brother Jake's house to check out his spooky door. As we drove down his street we could see his entire cul de sac was covered in fog. Jake had 3 professional fog machines going and a black light , strobe lights etc. You get the idea. With a graveyard for a front lawn and real bugs hanging in the spider webs, it was a creepy sight.



We were off again (with Nathan's family) to actually trick or treat Grandma Teresa and then Great Grandma and Grandpa White. It was pretty late... 10 o'clock to be exact, by the time we left Great Grandma's house. They were troopers to stay up and wait for us to come by for a very quick hi and Happy Halloween.

To top off the night, on our way home we caught some kids tee peeing my moms house. It was so funny to run them down and put them in the spot light of our car! You could see how horrified and embarrassed they were. Justin made them come back to clean it up. He knew he would be the one to have to clean it up and he did not want to. So he dragged them back for a clean up.

It was definitely an adventurous Halloween for us! But really it wouldn't be a Thompson Halloween without a Thompson adventure!!!

COOKIETASTIC!

It's a tradition in the Yetter family to have a cookie decorating night before Halloween. We've been doing it for years! It's always fun to see what kinds of creations we will get. The kids get to decorate and eat their own cookie. Some can be a little scary looking and I mean scary not spooky if ya know what I mean.

It's nice to be together as a family enjoying one another's company for a fun FHE! This year we missed Micah who is serving a mission in Portugal. I know he is missing us and our yearly cookie tradition. We made sure to decorate a few cookies in his behalf. (Those who know how he decorates his cookies know what I'm talking about) We also missed Marcus and Jamie's family who are away at school. Marcus said they would be making cookies at their home since they wouldn't be able to join us.

(A big thanks to Amy for putting together the photo collage! I snagged it from her blog... hee hee!)

Family Photos!

Okay folks so my friend Ashley (who is in my fabulous bunko group) does photography. She is wonderful and sweet as can be! Check out her blog and check out her photo shoot giveaway! I hope I win! I would love to get some pictures done this holiday season by her. Here's her blog:


http://believeittoseeit.blogspot.com/2008/10/giveawayits-still-this-week-right.html

Why Don't I Post More Often????

Crew Happens!!

As I'm editing my last post this is what occurred in my house: Crew decided to "go bathroom". He took his diaper off (that unbeknown to me had poop in it) and hopped up on the toilet and felt around. As you can see, after he felt around, he cleaned his fingers off on his legs.


How about that? Where's the poop? Crew is checking to see if it's in the potty, but we all know where it really is....

After the poop was cleaned up and Crew bathed for the 2nd time of the day, I'm back to posting. While posting, Crew found some nail polish and painted his toes, mainly his big toe.

Then after that he found the binky that has been missing for 2 days! We thought that since it was gone we would be done with the binky. Well, guess not. Dang it!

So much for keeping up with my posting. I have to keep up with my sanity first!

The Votes Have Been Cast

The last few weeks have been filled with politics. Not just your McCain-Obama junk, but serious stuff like Elementary school elections. Yes. Blake decided to run for his school Vice President! I thought, okay, I'll support him in this even though he is only a 4th grader. So we gave it a good run. Blake did awesome! His campaign poster was by far the BEST! And his speech had character to say the least. But as fate would have it a 5th grader beat him out. Did I mention that 39 kids were running for office and out of that 39, 15 of them were for VP???

After the disappointing loss, Blake was a little bummed even though he know it was a tough run with so many candidates. A trip to Sonic with mom (and a pep talk), a "way to go" call from Grandma, and a cute candy poster from his buddy Brad and his family quickly dispelled any sorrow from loss. (Thanks guys!)

Ya it was a long shot from the beginning (for all the candidates), but a great, slightly stressful, fun experience for our whole family. Way to go Blake. I'm proud of you for giving it your BEST!



Aunt Kristi Marie had the best speech ever, but we had to cut it down a little and make it easy enough for the kids to really "get". It will be perfect when he's in Jr. High running for Pres! http://kmcriddle.blogspot.com/2008/09/getting-political-relatively-speaking.html
You have to go check this out, it's awesome!

So here is the speech final cut:

Let's get down to business people. My name is Blake Thompson and I'm running for the office of Vice President. Let me tell you a little about myself. I am a smart and responsible student. I have CreAtiVE and FUN ideas.
As the oldest of 4 kids and the oldest of 20 cousins, I KNOW about Leadership! I KNOW how to handle TOUGH SITUATIONS!!
My courage, talent and compassion are unsurpassed and what's more, I KNOW how to get things DONE!

I will be a big help to HV. As VP, I will guide the new president into the RIGHT decisions for the RIGHT kids at the RIGHT times!! You can count on me to do my VERY BEST to represent OUR school. I KNOW I'll do great, vote for Blake!



And hey, you know what the difference between a pit-bull and a leader? That's right, this SKYHAWKS SHIRT!!

HV ROCKS!!

It's a piece of cake, vote for Blake!
I'm not a snake, vote for Blake!
Give me a break, vote for Blake!
For goodness sake, vote for Blake!



Make NO MISTAKE! VOTE FOR BLAKE 2008!!!

Summer Fun

I noticed that I have 3 drafts saved from this summer in my "edit posts" category but have never finished any of those. I guess that means a recap...


Well, school has started and summer vacation is over, so now what? Time to remember how great summer was!!

Swim team...
I have to say that the first swim meet was a real downer for Blake and Ashlyn. They both finished last. Actually I think it was really a great thing because everything else was up from there. Ashlyn got 1st in breast stroke. Blake got 3rd place in butterfly and breast stroke. An improvement for both. I am proud of them for sticking it out and finishing the season strong. This was Ashlyn's first year of swim team and Blake's 4th. Great job kids!













The Beach!
What can you say about the beach. Ocean breeze, cool water, sand, cousins, fun! Yep, super good time. I even started off the beach adventure without Bill. I drove to Cali with the kids by myself. Fortunate for me, Amy was also husband-less so we took on the adventure together. I think we managed pretty good. Although we were sure glad when our husbands made it over. Of course the kids had a blast and it was swim suits and jammies everyday. I don't even know why we packed clothes.

I do have to say that on our last day at the beach we were trying to get a big family photo. The family was facing the ocean and a couple of girls were taking our picture with their backs to the water. As they were taking the picture Nathan noticed that there were dolphins out in the water and pointed to them. I thought he was just trying to get the kids to all look at the camera, but when I looked out, a dolphin did a big flip in the air and landed in the waves. They couldn't have been that far out! It was so amazing. It was almost as if we were at Sea World for a few minutes. There were several dolphins out swimming, but they didn't stay too long.

Oceanside Rock Jetty:

This was a fun place to find some interesting creatures. You can see that Crew has a baby crab crawling on his arm. The kids were all looking for these little crabs. It was a good thing Aunt Jamie was there to help them. She was expert in finding and catching those little guys. She good at finding those sand crabs on the beach too.

Oceanside Scripps Aquarium:

We just happened to hit the Aquarium on the last day of Shark Week. Totally awesome dude! The kids got to see a shark feeding with some divers, check out some neat looking fish and pet a baby horn shark and another shark that I don't remember the name of. Crew even touched one of the sharks and got it a little stirred up. Emma got up close to a tank with a large octopus. That was really interesting to see all the suction cups on the tentacles.

All in all it was a fun adventure.

Musical Theater with cousins:

Can you really beat having a summer music camp singing and dancing with some of your very most favorite people? I just don't think so. Ashlyn and Emma were so lucky to have their girl cousins from both sides of our family in the musical theater. It was a Disney themed good time.

The 4th of July at the cabin:

It is our yearly tradition to spend the 4th of July at my parents cabin. The parade is fun, fireworks are the best, and the weather is awesome. Best of all we spend time with family. The kids love playing with their cousins. They cut flowers, make crafts, fish, play games and go crazy! I love to spend time with my brothers and sister in laws too. We usually get some good games in.

Fun with Thompson Cousins:

We did a lot of swimming and playing when our cousins were in town. It was so fun to have Bill's sister Heather and her family here for a week in the summer. Blake even had the chance to go see them for a few days and fly home on an airplane by himself!

Memorial Day and

Emma's Birthday at the cabin

We did have several fishing poles end up in the lake with Crew fishing. Bill spent a good amount of time trying to fish out poles instead of fish!

Emma turned 4 on Memorial Day this year. She thinks it's so great to have her birthday up at the cabin. We had the Jackson/Lambson/Higgins family up with us too. The more the merrier and much more excitement to be had.

Wow! We had a great summer!! Fun Fun Fun!