Happy Halloween

Halloween was fantastic as usual at our house.  We recycled a few costumes, and added a two clone trooper costumes to our collection of Star Wars Costumes.  Maybe I should have dressed Lauren up as Princess Leia, but I just couldn't do it.  She was Cinderella, and a cute one I would have to say.  

Our partying up was done over several days, as usual.  We had the ward Carnival one day.  We had a birthday celebration for my Grandpa's birthday, and some of the grandkids brought their costumes, since Grandpa Hollingshaus would have loved it.  Hence, the picture of Lauren and her cousin Sadie. 

My parents joined us to watch the school parade. We love to have them along for the fun.

I love it when I catch beautiful moments of love and kindness.  Austin is really good at sharing with his sister.

After trick or treating, Austin and Lauren stayed home with me.  We ate lots of candy, and Austin loved passing out the treats.  For the most part, I didn't have to even get up to help him.  He actually insisted I didn't most of the time.  The only bummer was when kids were punks and would take more than their fair share of candy, as Austin would tell them not to take too many.  Most little kids were good, but its the really old kids that shouldn't be out trick or treating that seemed to be the most greedy.  

Lauren has a sweet tooth. She probably inherited it from me.  She loves suckers.  Not something she inherited from me.  I just laughed to watch her eat two suckers at a time, funny girl!

The Carving

The good ole' pumpkin carving night!  This year Jayden and Dylan did their pumpkins mostly themselves, and Dylan helped Austin a little as well, so carving this year didn't seem too hard - though it is always quite a bit of work.  Austin was a little bit leery of the gooey mess, though he did get his hands dirty for a few minutes. 

Lauren was feeling pretty tired and was giving lots of empty stares and didn't want to participate much, though I think she liked just sitting there and seeing everything going on.

Austin was being a character when I was trying to take a picture of him and his pumpkin.  This little boy is so much fun!

Lauren was very excited to see the final results of her pumpkin.  She was so cute about it!

Jayden carved the "Deathly Hallows" from Harry Potter.  The boys' school does a "Pumpkins on Parade" and they encourage the kids to do something from a book.  I think its the first time our kids have followed the suggestion.  Jayden did an awesome job cutting it all out!

Dylan really wanted to carve a wolf, and got frustrated when he couldn't figure out how to do it. In the end he carved out a nice traditional pumpkin.

Bring on the Halloween!

Fall Sports

We had all four boys play sports this fall.  I signed Austin up for soccer.  This is the first year NUCS has offered U4. I thought Austin would love to play soccer like his big brothers.  Boy was I wrong!  He was so excited when I told him he got to play. He was so excited to go to his first practice.  And he was so excited to go to his first game.  Once we got there, he didn't want to go in.  Finally about the 2nd quarter, he went in.   I got a few cute pics of him playing.  Once he came out a few minutes later, he refused to ever go back in again.  It was really quite frustrating!  Pregnant, tired, and toting all the kids myself except for Jayden who was at his game with Dad, this did not make me happy.  So, just a  little bit before the game ended I decided we were done with the game and tried to leave.  Of course as we try to leave he throws a big fit, saying he wanted to play, but I knew he would refuse to play once we turned around.  I told him next game he could try playing again.  I was hoping it was a fluke.  At the next practice he was happy, and playing, when suddenly he came to me crying and refused to practice anymore.  So strange from this kid - he is usually so happy to do things.  He refused to do any practices or games after that.  I'm not really sure what happened - its so not like him.  So, really, he didn't play soccer this fall, and I'm doubtful he will play in the spring based on his reaction in the fall.  Poor kid.  I'm really not sure what traumatized him.  Hopefully he will play soccer again, for real.  Until then, I just have a few cute pictures of our first attempt.  

Here is Ethan at his game:

Dylan prefers flag football:

Jayden loves, loves, loves soccer, and it is a lot of fun watching him play so hard!

BYU Football

I'm proud to say that I've instilled a love of BYU football in my children.  It was something passed on to me and my brothers by my mother (my sister didn't quite catch the vision).  In fact one year for Christmas my main present (and my brother Stephen's) was for us to go with our mom to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to see the Cougars play.  What fun it was, too!

I took Dylan and Jayden to a game this fall, just the 3 of us.  We decided to go down early to see what the Cougar Walk was all about.  We had heard it was to greet the team as they entered into the property and locker rooms.  So we arrived plenty early, got free T-shirts, and brought along the football Grandma Gibson gave Dylan for his 10th birthday to get signatures.  His #1 dream was to get Cody Hoffman's signature.  We had great hopes of getting signatures as the players walked by.  

Unfortunately as they walked by, they were all dressed in the same clothes, and not in their jerseys.  Sure is hard to know who is who when they don't have a name on their back.  Not to mention that when they are wearing helmets, we don't get used to what their faces look like.  We didn't get a single signature as the team arrived, mainly because we didn't know who to ask.  We still had fun giving them fives, and all the team members had more T-shirts that they were giving out.  All three of us received one from different players.  For all we know it could have been Cody Hoffman, Kyle Van Noy, or even Taysom Hill.

We were super early since we came to the Cougar Walk. I think we were like 2 hours early, or was it 3?  Either way we had plenty of time to walk around the pregame festivities.  We got lots of free things, including backpacks, pens, beanies, blankets, scarves, and magnets.  Jayden decided to give the bucking bull a try. It was slipperier than he thought it would be.

We ran into Cosmo and of course had to take a picture.

 

We sat in the Gibson's seats for the most part, but spent some time sitting with Grandma Kirk, Tyler, Spencer, and Uncle Jon as well.  One of the boys did spend the game with them.  We had two tickets with the Gibson's and picked up a third ticket for cheap.

After the game we planned to stake out a spot to get signatures as the team left the field.  We thought we had the perfect spot.  Unfortunately as most the players walked by, they just ignored the crowd.  A few skipped nearly the whole crowd, and just signed one or two things for people at the end of crowd as they entered the locker room.  For so many of the well known players, all the people would call out their names, hoping to get them to sign footballs and posters.  It was so sad to see these men walk past these kids who thought the world of them.  Several of the big lineman took off their gloves and game them to kids, which was a kind gesture.  I don't think I would have wanted one of the sweaty gloves, by had my boys recieved one, I'm sure they would have loved it.  One of the last players off the field was Taysom Hill.  Let me tell you how impressed I am with him.  He took the time to go down the entire line and sign ball after ball, and poster after poster.  He was probably one of the most tired men who came off the field, but he recognized how much it would mean to all these kids for him to give them some attention.  His signature is the one that looks like it says Pay #4.  Dylan traced over it when we got home, because the pen was quite dried out after us holding it out to so many players, and none of them responding.  After that we kept the lid on tight as much as we could.  Dylan was so bummed he didn't get Cody Hoffman's signature, so we waited around quite a while, getting a few other signatures as some players came in and out of the locker room for various reasons.  Finally I got the guts to ask a player headed back in if he would mind taking Dylan's football into Cody Hoffman as see if he would sign it.  I told him that it was the one signature that Dylan really, really wanted.  He took pity on us, and did it!  Totally made the day for Dylan. His is the C. Hoff #2 that you can see.  Dylan loves this football and proudly has it displayed in his room.