Parent Teacher Conferences

I got to go and volunteer at the school again last week. I ended up just doing teacher prep work for both Corbin and Gabby's teachers. It's nice to take a break from the routine and do someone else's busy work for a change. Gabby only had school Monday and Tuesday and Corbin had Thursday and Friday off last week. We didn't really do anything special for the long weekend.

We had parent teacher conferences last week. Corbin and Gabby are both doing great. Corbin was invited by his teacher to participate in a special 18 week after school STEM program. I'm not sure exactly what it entails but I think they will build projects and have field trips and stuff so it should be cool I hope. I'm excited for him to be involved in something like that. The only downside it that it will conflict a bit with scouts when he starts in January. Tuesdays may be long days for him going to school and them STEM and then scouts. We'll see how it goes. It doesn't start until December so we have awhile before we will know. I hope he enjoys it.

Yesterday the kids and I went to a 5 year old birthday party. It was kind of awkward because it was just me and my kids plus the host and all of her family. It was fine and my kids had fun so I guess that's all that matters. It helped break up the day and especially with an extra long weekend that was definitely a good thing.

My only picture this week!

Nightmare Pumpkin

Lets see what to report at the Cannon household. Same old activities going on around here. The girls are loving their dance class and ask everyday when they get to go again. Ryan all of the sudden has started using words and he's talking a lot. He's gone from practically saying nothing to repeating back all kinds of things. He still likes to do it on his own accord and doesn't appreciate it when I try to make him use words to get things that he wants. Everyday I'm learning new things he can say. Just today I opened up our cupboard with popcorn and he said opcorn, ease (popcorn please). His favorite things to say are "MINE!, and OP IT! (stop it). Whatever the big kids are doing he wants to be involved. He will run after them to join them on any activity they are participating in. Even last night we sent all the kids to their room to get their jammies on and Ryan came back screaming at us pulling at his clothes so he could get his pj's on immediately like the other kids. It is dang cute! (Well not the screaming demanding pants part just the trying to be like the big kids part).

Everyday is a pretty long exhausting marathon of a day ending with the most stressful parts; dinner, homework, reading time, clean up, bedtime. But luckily there are cute funny things that happen that help relieve some of the stress. For example, I have this Halloween pumpkin decoration that has straw and other things popping out of its top hat. I was talking to Ryan and I was saying pumpkin and he would try to say it back and every time I said pumpkin Piper in the background would say, "nightmare pumpkin" me to Ryan, "pumpkin" Piper, "nightmare pumpkin" me, "pumpkin," Piper, "nightmare pumpkin." It was so funny! I guess she thinks that decoration is scary. Also a few weeks ago at Nana's house there was this creepy witch and Nana said something about the witch and Piper said, "ya and she eats children." HAHA! Hilarious! Now this is from my child whose favorite movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas and she's been watching that since she was probably two. That is kind of a creepy movie. I may be doing some permanent damage there.

Corbin says he doesn't like school but he's a good sport about it and I think he likes it more than he lets on. The school doesn't have chess club this year and he doesn't like jump rope club. I was worried about him not being involved in anything but then I remembered that he turns eight in a couple of months and then he's going to have scouts for the next million years so I think that he will be good to go.

On Friday night Gabe and Christy hosted their soups and sweaters party for Gabe's birthday. It was delicious and fun as always. Christy wrote a hilarious poem that had many gifts given to him along the way. Some including a Mexican sombrero and a poncho along with a legit Christmas sweater. All things Gabe really wanted. Plus we got to see our cousin Quinton and Stephanie who I haven't seen in years along with their two adopted children and their miracle surprise baby after 10 years of infertility.

Corbin took this picture and it's a little blurry but sometimes I want to read in bed before I get up in the morning and this particular morning I'm pretty sure I didn't make it through one page.

I bought the girls their Halloween costumes and I told them they could try it them on. Piper is a witch and so they are all riding on the broom and of course Ryan is right in the thick of it. So cute.

The kids raking leaves. This was really cute to watch too. Of course I wish it would have lasted much longer. We have to rake up soooo many leaves in our tiny little yard.

We pulled out a crib mattress and  made a bed for Ryan in the kids room and tried to see if he would sleep in there. He only laid down for 2 seconds and he was ready to go back to his pack in play in the closet. All of my kids were scared to leave the security of their cribs. It's kind of a hard transition. We'll try again another time. 

Gabe and his birthday loot. 

Gabby's Kindergarten Picture.

Corbin's 2nd grade picture.

10 Year Anniversary

It was a busy week as usual around here. On Monday I just worked the whole day cleaning, and doing yard work, and laundry. On Tuesday I was finally able to go in a volunteer in Corbin and Gabby's classrooms. With Corbin's class I was just out in the hall cutting things out. I would have rather been interacting with the kids. Oh well. I am happy to go in and help the teacher where I can. I mostly just want to get on her good side. Ha. Gabby was sooooo excited that I was there to volunteer in her classroom it was adorable. On Wednesday I ended up painting for a friend most of the day. I'm friends with a 50 something lady in the ward and she bought a huge amazing house in Eagle and is redoing most of it. My friend Jess watched my kids so I could go help Cheryl paint for the day. It was fun to get out and paint with her. On the way home she bought me a burger at a cafe in Eagle. It was good.

Thursday was our 10 year Anniversary. I can't believe it! It's gone pretty fast I have to say. We already celebrated our anniversary in Utah last week but I want to at least do something on the day of. I was able to find a sitter for a couple hours which is pretty good for a school night. We went to a dive cafe and got scones. I've been hearing about the scones at Merritts for years and I've always wanted to try them so I figured a 10 year anniversary is a good time to check something off the bucket list.

Scott worked all weekend at a home show in Nampa. Friday night the kids had popcorn and movie night and slept on the hide away bed in the front room. On Saturday I went with a group of my friends out to breakfast to celebrate one of their birthdays last week. Scott was working so I didn't think I could go but my friend Jen just told me to bring my kids over to her house so I did. We went to Moe Joes and it was really good. It ended up being spendy for me between paying a tip and splitting the birthday girl's ticket, plus I had to get hot chocolate. Oh well, it was really good and fun. Afterwards Jen wanted to go shopping for her trip to Mexico coming up so we went shopping for a couple of hours. Bless the Holyoaks for watching my kids for 4 hours. When we got back the house was not destroyed and everyone seemed happy so I think it went well. I made them cookies today to thank them.

I bought this table and lamp from my friend. The table was scratched up and the legs were chewed up. The lamp has birds on it if you can see that.

I redid the whole thing. Now I need to find a few more things to put on that table.

Crafty, artsy Gabby. She laid out all of the papers and taped them together. She then had me trace her body and then she drew herself. Ha. This girl is going to kill a rain forest by herself. So many projects. 

Daddy reading to the kids.

We spent a few hours on Saturday and Sunday making our Halloween village.

I am so challenged when it comes to these kinds of projects. I cannot build those things. I helped Gabby with the double stacked building and could not figure out how to do it so I ended up hot gluing the dang thing haphazardly together. Corbin wanted help building his project to the furthest left but I couldn't do it. He ended up figuring out how to build it himself. Good job! I struggle with that stuff!

Here's some of Nana's pictures from our Utah trip the previous weekend. 

Scott is such a dork!

All the Cannon grand kids minus Hannah.

Picking Papa's pumpkins. 

ATV rides in Colie and Rustin's awesome backyard.

 Just because it's been 10 years!

Halloween costumes.

We're Lobsters! Haha.

Edward and Bella from Twilight

50's housewife and the milkman. Oops!

Stay tuned for this year's couples costume. I just got everything at DI last week. Get excited!

Utah in October

On Monday this week while I was doing the yard work a kitten came around and continued to hang around and play with my kids for an hour. After I was finished with the yard work I shut the cat out and went in the house. Well with it being a cat and all it climbed over the fence into our backyard. My kids couldn't help but love it and want to keep it. I resolved that we would feed it and keep it outside and see how long she hung around. The kids played with her all day. She is a very patient cat. All of the kids were carrying her around like a sack of potatoes and she didn't lash out at them. That night as part of FHE the kids voted and named her Lily. She hung around until we left town for a few days. When we came home tonight of course she was gone. We will leave some food out tomorrow and see if she comes back. She is a pretty cute cat I will admit but mostly because she is still little, and she's nice to my kids, and because she's OUTSIDE!

My parents were in town Monday to Wednesday because my dad had some county commisioner meetings. On Tuesday my mom ended up coming over and hanging out for the afternoon. Anna and Lexi met us for lunch. After that we just hung around and chatted at my house for a few hours while my dad was at meetings. It was fun to spend some time with my mom that day.

The kids didn't have school this Thursday and Friday so we headed down to Utah. We got up early and drove down. We met the Cannons at Hires. Scott and I left our kids with Nana and Papa and we went to stay at the Anniversary Inn to celebrate our anniversary next week. We stayed in the Twilight room again just like last year. It's so cheesy, but seriously it's my favorite room. Scott and I had a nice time together without our kids. The bad part was my head started hurting on Thursday afternoon and it progressively got worse to the point that I ended up throwing up and going to bed even more sick. That was not awesome! Luckily when I woke up I was feeling much better and all was not lost.

When we came back to the house we got ready and we all went to Lagoon Frightmares. I love Lagoon and I love Lagoon in October. It's so much better when it's not hot. Gabby was a total chicken last year and she wouldn't go on one ride. This year she was super brave and wanted to go on all the rides. Piper loves the rides too and of course Corbin. Ryan wasn't too happy any time we tried to put him on a ride. After a few hours of fun Nana and Papa ended up taking our kids and Carole's kids home so we could stay and go on adult rides for a few hours. Corbin stayed with the big kids and went on the rides with us. He is brave. We went on the new ride Cannibal and loved it. With my old age it totally makes me sick now to go on rides, it makes me super sad because I love rides. I had to quit near the end because I was not feeling well. I think next year I am going to try to take Dramamine and see if that helps.

On Saturday after the morning session of conference we went down to Thanksgiving point because Janet had bought tickets for us to go to Corn Belly's. The kids enjoyed that and Janet, Carole, and I escaped to Gymboree so Janet could redeem some Gym Bucks. At check out there was some confusion and miscommunication about coupons and we were standing at check out for about 45 minutes. There was only two check outs so the line behind us was giant. That was pretty stressful for everyone! Whatever, we finally figured it out. It was dumb! Oh well. After dinner and the priesthood session we played a game. Scott and Jeff set up the projector so Scott and I could watch a movie outside because I love that.

This morning we got all packed up and after the morning session of conference we headed up to the canyon for a picnic. Janet has a tradition of making a turkey dinner and eating it in the canyon in between conference sessions. It was cold up there but the food was good. Afterwards we headed home. We were able to listen to the afternoon session on the drive home. The drive seemed to take FOREVER. That drive is pretty terrible. Ryan didn't sleep a wink and kind of screamed off and on the whole way home so that was awesome. Go to sleep baby!

The weather rained off and on but we still managed to do everything outdoors we wanted to do, which was great. It was a great trip and went too fast. We love the Cannons and Utah in the fall. It's the best!

Gabby made her doll a paper wedding dress with a long train.

Corbin outside holding the cat before school.

Playing with the cat. Gabby made paper cat ears, tail, and whiskers. She even wore her cat ears to school the next day.

Ryan carrying the kitty to the table.

Lagoon

This ride terrified poor little buddy.

Tea cup ride.

Scott, Corbin, and me as lab experiments.