Hey - it's only been a month!

I suppose that after a month, I really should update my blog...

In case any of you are worried, my thumb is just fine. I do have a scar, but it's hardly noticeable.

So - wanted to fill you all in on our Thanksgiving festivities. I've also got a list of things that I'm thankful for floating around in my head, and I'm pretty sure I want to get that posted sooner rather than later. I get teary-eyed every time I sit down and try to organize my thoughts, so I'll do my best :).

We ate with Jon's family at his parents' stake center. There were 36 of us, and it was unbelievably fabulous!

Someone organized a family talent show, which my boys kicked off with a karaoke ala MP3 player in the ears version of "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. The very next day, you gave it away..." Carson and Evan were supposed to sing along, but they got Griff onstage and left him up there! Griff was too nervous to stand there and look at all of us, so he turned around and sang to the back of the stage. I expected a couple of booty shakes, but that dang stage fright kicked in and kept his posterior fairly still. It was pretty dang funny. My neices performed a few impressive piano numbers and a tumbling pass.

One SIL is getting her Tae Kwon Do black belt this coming weekend, so she and 3 of her kids (all of whom have or are also getting their black belts) did a thing with num-chuks, pin-chuks (don't ask me the difference), and black lights. Afterward the kids all got up on stage and danced around until a couple of them got beaned and we had to put a stop to the ninja brigade.

We had a volleyball game in which all but one of Jon & his brothers chickened out of playing. Turned out to be a competition between the aunts and the Father-in-law and the nephews. I don't think anyone used a camera, but I'm positive that there would have been some incredible photos.

We cleaned up the church and then went over to Mom & Dad's to eat left over pie. Fabulous day!

Of all the...

You know those handy little single+ use tubes of super glue? Well, I don't think they're so handy.

In one of my less stellar mom moments last week, I accidentally broke the foot on one of Griff's Power Rangers. I promised I could fix it with Super Glue. So into my office we went and pulled out one of those handy tubes.

I fixed the foot - except that now it doesn't turn like it's supposed to. I told him that at least it was on and that sometimes parts of a Power Ranger don't work - just like the rest of us. I put the lid on the tube and put it on my desk.

A few minutes ago I decided to put it away - it's been busy around here with the big candy snagging event and all. Guess what - It was stuck to my desktop. The stupid thing leaked! No wonder the things are single use. You can't save them for next time.

I pried the container up off the table, but it's soft like a tube of toothpaste, and part of the tube decided to stay stuck on the desk. Remember that thumb that had the screwdriver shoved into it last week in a separate stellar mom moment? Well now it's covered with super glue that glopped out of the completely open tube. I don't dare bite off the dried glue (isn't that what you do when you get super glue on your fingers?) because I'm afraid I'm going to open up the wound. Don't even make me think about soaking the thing in nail polish remover because really how much would that hurt?

FANTABULOUS.

Stupid single use marketing ploy. There was too much in that tube to use at once anyway - unless of course I was trying to attach a bumper to a car or something.

Must be a Monday.

Hello Weiner!

I'm sure that the term "Hello Weiner" comes from some place, but Griff woke up yelling it at the top of his lungs and would follow it up with his best Beavis & Butthead laugh. Completely annoying...

The boys decided to be a Ringwraith, Ghost Rider, and an ewok.
I've included a photo of what they were supposed to look like and then one of what they actually looked like.

C:

After I'd finished his cape, C wanted nothing to do with his mom. Didn't want his face painted, didn't want me to dictate what he wore under the cape. Didn't want me telling him what time to come home. Didn't want me asking who he was going T-or-Ting with. This made me highly suspicious. Turned out that he just wanted to go with his friend, S, and that they needed to start at 5:00 because S was taking his 2-yr-old cousin. Go C!

E:

E was my most persnickety character. He would not wear the brown leather jacket I'd found OR blue jeans. "Because no one will know who I am if I wear those colors!" Whatever. I think his hair turned out all right, but we could have done a much better job on his make up. He's just not very patient in that arena. Jon said he looked like a skeleton with pork chops. Next year Jon gets to be in charge of face painting.

G:

And then there's G. G had raided our costume box a couple of months ago and put on C's Chewbaca costume. Grandma Hill did a fantastic job on this, and I was so excited to be able to use it again! G wore a dracula costume to the ward party last weekend, and I was a little nervous that he may just go the bloodsucker route. At the last minute he declared that an Ewok it would be. I think he was dead on, but the costume was a tad too warm for last night's temperatures. These photos were taken before he'd even left the house, and you can tell how uncomfortable he was - although some of it was that his bro C was out T-or-Ting and he had to wait for Jon to get home... Poor G came home sweat sooaked. We ended up putting him in a brown t-shirt and brown pants so that he could finish sugar gathering. By the time he came home, the hood was off, and I'm sure we'd offended more than one neighbor with what they must have thought was some sort of Soulman rendition.

We took today easy and will be putting away the scary Halloween stuff tomorrow. Here's what we had out:

Inside:



Outside: I love the hand in the trunk. It scared quite a few kids this month. The thing was so gross that when we bought it, Griff wouldn't carry it through the store.