Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

I will have lots to catch up on next week when we return from California. We get to spend Thanksgiving with Joel's sister Lindsay and her family, Joel's brother Mitchell is coming and we are actually having Thanksgiving dinner at the Hahn's (Lindsay's in-laws.) We can't wait! We had such fun with them when we went to Lake Tahoe. But, for those who know me, you know the 9-10 hour drive is gonna about kill me!!! At least we aren't going through snow!

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Harvest Festival

We had our ward harvest festival this last friday. Another thing that I am glad to have over. (This one we got to plan without a second counselor to bear some of the burden.)

We made wanted posters and used them as part of our decoration. We had a desert scene on one wall with a hitching post, old saddles and straw where people were able to get pictures with their families.

Food consisted of shredded beef sandwiches, baked beans, cole slaw, green and fruit salads, dutch oven potatoes and apple cobbler with ice cream. Yum!!

It was a bit stressful since some people didn't follow through on the assignments they agreed to take on and several people did not show up with the food they offered to bring. To top it off, we planned for 120 people and many more showed up. But we had activities for the children and lots of people said they had a great time. Mission accomplished.

The other side of the Barbers

Keddi wanted to be Jasmine this year and for some reason switched to this. But we are back to wanting to be one of the princesses next year. We shall see. Gone are the pretty costumes days for this girl I think!

School Halloween parties

Shinara's preschool is held at a High School and most of the "teachers" in there are students. They took the kids to several classrooms around the school to Trick-or-Treat. The teachers got a kick out of seeing the different costumes, but most of the kids in the classes seemed bored about the whole thing. (Perhaps they didn't have time to get out of the stupor they'd been in while their teacher was talking.) Anyway, Shinara enjoyed the comments she got occasionaly about how cute she looked and when we returned to class there were plenty of goodies to choose from for snack. She actually wasn't that interested in food. She wanted to do preschool stuff. So she went off to play.

Thank heaven that Shinara's party was held on Tuesday because Keddi's was on Wednesday and that day was already packed with things for me to do! Shinara came with me to Keddi's class and was included in the activities they had for the children. They decorated cookies first, went to a different table to eat them and have some juice, then played some Halloween Bingo and finished off with making tootsie pop ghosts. The elementary school kids had not been allowed to wear their costumes and were encouraged to wear black and orange instead. Mardi's class only had doughnuts at one point to celebrate. Tersa elected not to go to school in costume and she was not allowed to attend the dance after school which was their way of celebrating. We told her that the church allows dance attendance after the age of 14. But she may be allowed to go next year because the acitvity was more like a carnival than a dance!

We weren't familiar with Halloween goings on at school because we have always been on our track break. This year we will be missing Christmas stuff, much to Keddi's dissappointment.

Happy Halloween

This year was a bit different for us because Tersa went Trick-or-treating with a friend this year, in another neighborhood! I wasn't going to let her go. I'm shocked at how many teenage kids go after their early teens. But she went and had fun. I think we will be hosting parties when the girls get too old to go from house to house. (And when we have the room to host them!) Anyway, here are their costumes. Keddi lost all the love for her character after I painted her face. She thought she couldn't move the muscles in her face. We got her over that so that she could cackle and then she found it frustrating to ride her broom, keep her hat on and keep up with Shinara and Mardi.

Shinara began the night with gusto, running from house to house and telling people to have a good night, commenting to them about their decorations and trying to show me what she'd been given at each house. After just two streets she slowed down on her own and by the time we got to the back of the neighborhood she was done! I had to carry her bucket between houses on the last two streets and all the way home because it had gotten so full. But they enjoyed themselves and are stocked for the next several months! Not many people came by the house so we are stocked too. (Not good.) And there is talk of what we will be on the next halloween...then the second...and the third.