How Halloween Goes at the Abel's (although a little different this year)

This year Halloween was pretty easy at our house.  Besides Evan, the boys just picked out costumes we had in the dress up costume box.  Evan on the other hand, really wanted to be a mime.  He knew exactly what he wanted for his costume.  I went out to several stores looking for the pieces.  We were lucky enough to borrow many of them and only have to buy a few things.  He won a costume contest at a carnival we went to at the high school earlier in the week.  He really played the part too.  He wouldn’t do any talking, just lots of facial expressions and hand gestures.  I am sure it was especially hard because he was hanging out with his friends most of the night.  He was really good! 

 

At the kids elementary school they have a school Halloween parade every year.  The parents come and pack the gym and the cafeteria to watch the students, staff and teachers come through in their costumes.  This year the audience was pretty sparse.  We usually have a hard time finding seats, but this year about half the seats were open.  Not sure why, but it also seemed like we had a lot less trick or treaters in the neighborhood at night.  We still had many cars from other neighborhoods “visiting our neighborhood” for trick or treating, but not as many as usual.  I don’t think we had anyone ring our doorbell past 8:30, maybe even 8pm and we never even turned our light off Halloween night.  It was strange. 

We had our usual trunk or treat at church but it started at 5:30, which seamed pretty early to me. We didn’t have time to eat dinner before and it was still light outside when we got there.  You might not think the kids care about not having dinner before trick or treating.  But Halloween dinner is a big tradition in the Abel house and something the kids always talk about.  As a matter of fact it had been something they had been talking about for weeks (I thought maybe I would get off the hook this year, but no).  I had been busy the entire day making the Halloween dinner (one of the reasons I was so glad they chose costumes from the costume box).  I was pretty disappointed they weren’t going to be able to eat it while it was going to be fresh, but oh well, what can compete with candy!!  After the annual trunk or treat we drove to see some of our friends that we see every year, some of whom do special treats for our kids or just like to see them, then we did a few streets by our home.  Then finally home for the long awaited dinner….. 

Snake with protruding guts

broomsticks and witches fingers with fungus

q-tips with earwax

Evan left the chile can out the night before and the worms came out!

 

Vampires blood with their bloody teeth and eyeballs inside.  This is the only one we have every year because the kids request it.

   Dallen had a few friends come over who joined us for dinner after they were done trick or treating.  That is where a few of the extra snacks in the top picture came from (i.e. pop, wrapped cupcakes, pretzels) I don't think they knew what they had in store when we invited them to join us for dinner.   

Honorable Mention for Evan on the News

Evan is famous!  He was mentioned on the news for something extraordinary, okay well maybe not.  Judge for yourself......
 (Make sure to watch the whole thing)

Dedicated to Grandpa and Granny Swift

This post for (Great) Grandpa and Granny Swift.  My parents came to visit for the weekend.  They mentioned that they needed to take a lot of pictures while they were visiting.  They needed to blog about their weekend with us.  My grandparents had informed them, that they are able to see what all the other grand-kids and great grand-kids are doing, from my siblings blogs.  Since I never update my blog, they don't know how we are doing.  Sad huh?  I think it has been over a year since I made a post. A funny thing happened today so I thought I would share.......  It was a marathon weekend, which we have had a lot of lately.  I will try to post about this later.  Anyway, my mom had made a sample T-shirt for a Relief Society activity she was in charge of.  It was a tie dye one, and she did James' name on it.  Tonight I gave the T-shirt to James and he proceeded to put it on right away.  

 While our family was watching a movie together Ashton must have slipped away unnoticed.  When he returned I was shocked to see what he was wearing!  He must have thought that T-shirt was a good idea.  Since he is the artistic one in the family, he figured he could make his own.  Of course he didn't use a plain white T-shirt like Grandma did. 

Lasting Memories

As I was helping Ashton and James get ready for school this morning we were talking about going to Grandma and Grandpa Swift's house tomorrow. They were very excited! James said "Are we going to go with the wagon?" At first I wasn't sure what he meant. I quickly realized he was talking about going on a walk with Grandpa and Grandma and the red wagon, he usually rides in. Then Ashton said "You know what I love about Grandma and Grandpa? I love that they take us for walks and to the dollar store!"

Simple things that make traditions they will always remember, you can't beat that! Can't wait to see lots of family tomorrow, and of course one of my favorite traditions- playing LOTS of games!

A Day in the Life.......

I know you are probably all in shock!! I am sure you can't believe your eyes. Could it really be true, an update on the Abel blog? I just happen to have my camera with me as I went through out my day today, I decided to take a few pictures so you could see what a day in my life is like.
As usual my day starts pretty early. I usually take Amery to seminary, then head to the gym for a quick workout. Then pick Amery up and bring her home to have family scripture study and prayer. Only to turn right around and take Amery up to high school and drop Dallen off at band practice. All before 7:50 Am. Only this morning I didn't do some of the usual things. I have been sick, so don't want to go to the gym until totally better and Dallen didn't go to band because I had to have him to the Doctor by 8Am.
About 3 1/2 weeks ago Dallen broke his thumb. He was being
a typical boy, by hurdling over the couch. He had used his hand as support to get over and somehow his thumb got bent wrong. He was in a lot of pain and it was pretty swollen. Of course this was on a Saturday, when the doctors offices were closed. I thought it was probably just sprained, and it would feel better soon. When Monday came around and he was still complaining about it, I figured I better take him to the doctor. After an exam, x-rays, etc., we found out his right thumb was broken and he would have to have it in a splint until the orthopedic surgeon could look at it on Friday. In between Tuesday, when it was put in the splint and Friday, Dallen decided to do his swimming merit badge in scouts (not a great idea) and play tether-ball, as well as other typical boy activities. I thought maybe there was a mistake and it wasn't really broken. But no such luck. Needless to say the orthopedic surgeon wasn't too happy about his activities. He put him in a cast for 2 1/2 weeks. Which also meant, I would be spending an hour or two with him each night writing his homework. ( I think he will miss that part)

So this morning was the big day, Dallen was finally going to get his cast off. The assistant did a great job sawing it off.

Dallen was so excited to have his arm free. He could cleanwash it (hurray for me). The first thing he wanted to do was try to write with it, which still kind of hurt.

He was so excited!!! That is- until the doctor came in....

It wasn't healed thoroughly and so Dallen had to get another cast. This time he chose a black cast with glow in the dark stripes. I hope he doesn't stay awake all night looking at it in the dark :)
Then off to drop Dallen off at school.... and to pick up Evan for the next Doctors apt. We woke up this morning to find Evan looking like this, only his lip even more swollen before he iced it all morning.
Apparently, last night while I was grocery shopping and Jim was gone, Evan was hit by a flying TV remote. Amery said he had been gushing out blood everywhere! She had cleaned him up, given him an ice pack and sent him to bed. WHAT!!!! We can't leave the house for two minutes with out our children calling us about anything and everything. How come when there is a real emergency, we get no phone call??!!?? It was after 11pm when I got home from the grocery store (this tells you a little more about my typical day :), and everyone was asleep. Wonderful right? Guess not :( When we saw him this morning, Jim thought he might need stitches because his nostril was split pretty badly. He had a huge fat lip, a super red bloody looking nose, and a scratch connecting the two. Luckily, I called Evan's doctor on the way to Dallen's apt and got Evan in for 9:30am. We barely made it on time. The doctor said it probably could have used stitches, but it was too late now and it seemed to be coming together correctly, so he was lucky. She added for him to not be rough housing for the next week or so (REALLY! She has been Evan's doc for 8 years now. IMPOSSIBLE!!). If it was to split open again we should take him right to the ER, like I have time for 6 hours of that. While we were there, I decided we might as well give Evan and James their flu shots. Of course, they didn't think that was such a great idea. James didn't keep his cute smile for long.....
Evan said he wasn't going to go to school. He was sad because there was a special party today, but he didn't want all the kids to make fun of him and laugh. I tried to assure him that they wouldn't do that, and he should think about going back to school after we stopped quickly at the store. We ran, and I mean ran, into the grocery store to grab something really quickly. The first person we saw said "Do you want me to grab a tissue for his nose?" Evan just about died! He was so self conscious already, now I had no chance of getting him to school.
Luckily, Jim had a light day and was able to come home to watch James and Evan because, I had to get to the next appointment. Off to pick up Ashton from school early. I was so sad because today was there special Thanksgiving Feast with their 3rd grade buddies. Both Evan and Ashton had been talking about it. They were very excited! I didn't realize it was this Wed. until after I had made Ashton's dentist apt and couldn't really reschedule. Evan's class is Ashton's kinderbuddy class. Evan and Ashton are usually partners, they both are very excited about it. The feast had just started when I had to take him out. He wasn't as sad as I thought he would be, because his brother wasn't there with him.
Ashton had a marathon dentist appointment. We were there over 2 hours, and they had got him right in. Ashton was so good, but it must have been hard for him to be so still for so long. Unfortunately, he has bad teeth. He has the best brushing habits out of the 4 youngest boys, but he has had the most trouble lately. He had to get crowns on two of his front teeth, and they were thinking another crown on a side tooth, but I told them to really look at it when they get in there, and he was able to get away with out the third one. He also got a couple of other fillings. Poor guy!

Some of you wonder why I don't update my blog very often. Maybe this explains a little. It seems like most of my days are filled with excitement, drama, adventure, sorrow, joy, tears, laughing, teasing, arguing, group hugs, and lots of prayer. Maybe this also explains a little about why I seem a kind of crazy sometimes, I probably am! Yes! I actually made a post on the actual day it happened, just barely :)

Busy, Busy!

I have lots to write about. Maybe someday my life will slow down a little so I can update you all on the latest with the Abels! I really enjoy reading all of your blogs, although it takes me a while to get to that too. Better yet, come visit us then you can see it all in person for yourself :)

Free Stuff!!

I guess by now you all know that I love a good deal. I also love sharing my good deals with others. I just ran accross this good deal this morning. It is a way to earn free things by just doing what you already do, searching the internet. It is called "Swagbucks". If you click on the link on the side of my blog you can get signed up. I guess you can use their search engine and just by using it they give you points. If you sign up, remember to sign up under me, so I can more points. With your points you can get free stuff. Here is some more info I found about it on Yahoo answers:

Good news! While it may seem too good to be true, Swag Bucks is not a scam.

Swagbucks.com is absolutely legit.
It pays out. We've been using it for 6 months and have earned $310 in Amazon gift certificates.
And it is EASY. All you do is use their search engine for your everyday web searches. No answering surveys. No clicking on adds. No completing 'offers'. No need to purchase anything (even shipping is free) and no need to supply a credit card. No email spam. No viruses.

Fist off you need to sign up

Then it’s easy as 1-2-3!

1. Search the web as you normally would using SwagBucks.com search engine. You’ll get results from Google.com and Ask.com.
2. SwagBucks will be periodically awarded to you as you search. You can win up to 5 SwagBucks with a single search and on Fridays you can win up to 100 SwagBucks with a single search. You can also find and redeem SwagCodes which will add to your SwagBucks total.
3. Redeem your SwagBucks for prizes ranging from gift certificates for Amazon, Target and iTunes to televisions, video games, iPods, movie, music and sports collectibles and more!


If you sign up under me, I get more points which of course means more goodies.

Annual Tradition

We have an annual tradition to go to Silverwood amusement park as a family. We usually go on Labor Day, but this year Labor Day was supposed to be rainy and cold so we went a few days early. Unfortunately, Amery couldn't come this year. She had a football game she had to preform at. We have some fantastic friends who worked at Silverwood this year and we so kind to save enough tickets to get us all in for free! We were even lucky enough to enjoy their company for a short amount of time while we were there. Thanks Greens, you guys are the best!!

This is the Panic Plunge. I rode a couple of rides like this at Lagoon, in Utah, many years ago.


This is a pretty cool roller coaster. You go through the whole thing forward then get to the end and you do the whole thing again backwards.

I didn't really ride on many rides. I spent most of my time with the little kids. I have learned the older I get, the more sick I seem to get on the rides. I love being with my family have a good time though.

No, I didn't let the little kids go on the scrambler by themselves :) I went with them. It just about did me in. I wasn't sure I would make it off before I got too sick. Lucky for everyone, I made it with out loosing my cookies.

James was so funny, he went on the scrambler and didn't seem very nervous at all. But as soon as the little kid squirrel cages started, the tamest ride in the park, (Dallen was probably too big, but they let him go with James) he cried and cried like he was scared to death. They had to let him off after one time around. Later he even went on the kiddy coaster without too much fuss. Maybe because I went on the other two rides with him.


I had the hardest time convincing Ashton to bring his helicopter down so I could get a good picture of him. He wanted to stay up high the whole time.


Dallen and Evan had a great time on the bumper cars and bumper boats trying to get each other.

James and my favorite part was the water. He loves playing in the water and I love the water tube rides. This is Jim on the middle slide.




And,of course, you can't go to Silverwood with out getting a funnel cake. Well at least Jarom can't :)

All in all, a great and exhausting day!