I'm a Proud Mommy!

Every year at my kids school they have a turkey trot. This is where they have all the children from each grade race to win a turkey. This years winners would receive, 1st place~a turkey, 2nd place~a t~shirt, and 3rd place a big candy bar. They choose a boy winner and a girl winner from each grade. Kaiden has entered this for the last 2 years and always came in second place. A boy named Jose has always taken first place and Kaiden was mad. This year he was pumped and ready to go! His grade level was the last one to race. Kaiden ran as fast as he could, and believe it or not he came in first place! When he went to claim his lovely prized turkey they had ran out! He was so upset, they had even ran out of t~shirts, so all he got was a stupid candy bar. They told him when fall break was over they would give him a t~shirt. What a bummer, oh well at least he got the satisfaction of finally winning Jose! We are so proud of him!! You rock Kaiden!!

Let's Talk Turkey

If your looking for something fun and different to take to Thanksgiving this year, these cute little turkey cookies would be perfect! Get the recipe HERE.

Another fun idea are these marshmallow pilgrim hats. I think the kids would be so excited to see one of these sitting by their plate on Thanksgiving! So if your feeling domestic this Thanksgiving season give one of these a try! Happy almost turkey day!

Too Cute To Forget!

ABBY~ Mom when you die will you come back to life and be with me?

ME~ {short version of answer} When we die we go to the spirit world and wait for the resurrection. Then everyone will be resurrected and our family will live together again!

ABBY~ Do we get to come home and pack?

Too Funny!!

The Kid Tree~

One of my very favorite traditions is decorating the "Kid Tree" each year. What I mean by kid tree is, every year since we've been married we let each of the kids go shopping and pick out an ornament {or two} for the tree. Of course when the kids were younger they would choose the little character ornaments. Toy Story, Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Barbie, Batman, or Disney anything, just to name a few. This is why I call it the kid tree. We finally got around to decorating the kid tree last weekend. It was fun. We turned on Christmas music and decorated away! The kids always enjoy going through the boxes and pulling out all the ornaments they have picked out from previous years. Kaiden is glad he is a boy, because the girls sometimes can't remember which ornaments are theirs for sure so there is always a little drama until we get it figured out! I couldn't live with just one tree, especially one decorated with all kid ornaments, so that is why we have a second tree decorated with a much more traditional style. We love Christmas and can't wait for all the fun things we have planned! Christmas is a time for family and traditions and we plan on enjoying it all!

Decorating Fun!

Silly Abby!

Me and the Kids!

I love these guys!!

FYI~ Darrin was home that night, he just refused to have any pictures taken!

The Weekend Wrap Up Birthday Style!

Friday~

Madi's 13 Birthday was on Friday. She wanted to have a Christmas theme Birthday party/sleepover. She invited 6 of her friends, Madi Hipol, Haley M., Haley G., Kenzie, Laynie, and Brittany. We had pizza for dinner, and afterwards we had eggnog and candy cane ice cream. My mom also made Madi her favorite cake, homemade german chocolate, she loved it! Madi had told all her friends she wanted toe socks and scarfs, she got just what she wanted, and plenty of them. The girls played games, did crazy hair, drew on each others faces, ate lots of candy and popcorn, watched movies, and stayed up ALL NIGHT! The next morning I woke them up kind of early because Kaiden's Birthday was later that day and I had to clean up. We made pancakes and eggs for breakfast. The girls finished getting ready and then we took them home.

Present Time ! Yummy Cake!

Crazy Girls!


Saturday~
Today was Kaiden's Birthday party. We had told him it was a surprise all week long, so when Saturday was finally here he was really excited. Darrin and I went to pick up his cake that morning. When we got home and showed it to him he still didn't know where we were going. We had them put a rock climber on the cake. Any guesses as to where we were going? Kaiden had invited 9 of his friends and 10 showed up! When everyone arrived we sang Happy Birthday and had cake and ice cream. Kaiden opened up his presents next. He got so many great gifts. His favorite were a Webkin from his friend Madeline, and a $30 gift card from Sergio! It was now time to go rock climbing. I had rented the rock wall at the Legacy Center for an hour of climbing. The kids climbed and climbed until our time was finally up! They all had a lot of fun and Kaiden was surprised!

Cake!

More Cake!
Presents!
Rock Climbing!
Sunday~
More Birthdays!! Sunday was the Haun Birthday parties! We went to Darrin's parents house for dinner with his side of the family. We had ham and cheesy potatoes! We did lots of talking, and the kids did lots of playing! We had cake and ice cream and the kids opened presents. Kaiden got a Guitar Hero hand held game and a huge set of Bionicles. Madi got a cute scarf set, that included a hat, scarf, and gloves, and a toy called My Meeba? We all had lots of fun. Later that night we came home and decorated our other tree! Wow, another busy weekend for us, but were enjoying every minute of it!

Happy 13th Birthday Madi!

It's official, Madi is finally a teenager. I know she has been waiting for this for a while, but it has come way to quick! She has grown up so fast. Before we know it she will be driving! Too Scary!! I just wanted to let her know how much I appreciate all the things she does. She helps me out so much, And sometimes I don't always acknowledge it. She is a wonderful student and daughter she always does her best and we are so proud of the choices she has made! I hope you have a great Birthday Madi! We love you!!!

The Weekend Wrap Up!

Wow, this weekend was a busy one for us! Saturday morning Darrin took Kaiden to get a long overdue haircut. He took him to a new place called Cookie Cutters. This is now Kaiden's favorite place to get his hair cut. They let him play the xbox while he was getting his hair cut. I will never have to beg him to go for a hair cut again. When he was done they gave him a cookie cutter, a sucker, and a balloon! When they were done cutting his hair, Darrin and Kaiden were off to the BYU game. Me and the girls decided to go shopping for Madi's Birthday. We went to the Orem mall and shopped around for a while, and then we ate lunch at Chick~fil~A! Madi got lots of cute new clothes and some other fun things she has been wanting. I found lots of shoes I fell in love with, but I decided to wait until Christmas to get them. When we were done shopping we called the boys and asked them if they wanted to go and see High School Musical 3 with us. Kaiden wanted to go so we meet them at the movies. The movie was really good. It seemed a little bit more cheessy than the ones before, but I still loved it! {By the way, this movies is defiantly not recommended for dad's, Darrin slept through most of it!} After the movie we went to dinner for Kaiden's Birthday, Kaiden got really sick and just wanted to go home. We took him to my parents house and we headed back out to go and buy Kaiden's Birthday presents. What a long night.

Sunday morning it was up as usual, my parents were coming over for dinner later that night so I had to get some things ready. We went to church and then came home for dinner. We let Kaiden choose what he wanted, he of course chose Hawaiian Haystacks, and peanut butter cup ice cream my mom made a lemon bundt cake, and Madi made brownies. We ate and then sang Happy Birthday. We let Kaiden open up 1 present from us, and my parents gave Kaiden his present. He got his very first $50 bill from my parents and a ds game from us, that he has been wanting {Spongebob Square Pants drawn to life} He is having his Birthday Party on Saturday it will be fun, it's a surprise so I will tell ya more later! Madi's Birthday is on Friday and she is having a sleepover. If I can survive this weekend things will be great! Fun Times!!!

Happy Birthday Kaiderbug!

If I Were A Pin Collector.......

This cute little Black Friday shopping pin would be perfect for my collection! The problem is , I would have such a hard time deciding if I would rather be in Disneyland or shopping on Black Friday? I guess if World of Disney had the same sale prices as Wal~mart I would do all my shopping there, oh the money I would spend!! Happy Shopping!!

22 More Days........

Hey, did you know that there are only 22 more days until the biggest shopping day of the year?!!! Mark your calendars gal's it's just around the corner, and I cannot even describe how excited I am. The day after Thanksgiving sales officially begin my Holiday shopping season, and I plan on doing plenty of it! I know I'm not the only crazy mom out there that will push my way to the front, while getting screamed at by the ladies behind me who have been there since 3:00 in the morning, {I'm the smart one right? It's way to cold to stand out in those lines for that long!}Anyways it's all in fun, and I wouldn't even think about missing it! I would go even if there wasn't anything I wanted, it's just the whole experience that is fun! So if your looking for a die hard shopping buddy let me know, I'll show ya all my tricks! I'm sooo ready, are you?

I Can't Help Myself

Yesterday I started to get the Christmas itch, so I broke out the Christmas cds and started getting out my Christmas decorations! Me and Abby sung our hearts out! Madi said that if I set up my Christmas tree this early all her friends would make fun of her, so what do you think I did?............. I had Darrin get my Christmas tree, and we set that thing up! We have 2 Christmas trees, but for a couple of years now that darn pre-lit tree has given us so many problems. So this year we took off all the lights and re-strung the tree by hand. We decided to put that tree in our front room because it is bigger and nicer than the other tree. Now I have to go and buy a new pre-lit tree for our family room. I can't wait until the day after Thanksgiving to buy another tree and set it up, so I'm on the look out for a nice big decent priced tree! {any ideas?} Well I'm sure all the neighbors think I'm crazy, but you would think by now they would be used to all the Haun madness that goes on at our house during the holidays! I'm hoping to finish up all the decorating by the end of this week. Is it ever really too early?!

My Halloween Wrap Up!

Last week was a crazy week for us! We had so many fun things going on. Wednesday was our Young Women's Halloween party. We put the girls in charge of it this year and they had so many great ideas. We played the candy bar game, a game called Trick or Treat, and we had a good old fashioned cake walk! Many ladies in our ward donated cakes to give it that old carnival style feel, and the girls were so grateful! They had so much fun! We also had a costume contest, and to make it fair we let all the girls judge.

Here are the winners!
Madi won for most unique!

This is our 2nd counselor Bro. Moss glamming it up during the candy bar game!

A group picture of all of us!

Thursday night was our traditional pumpkin carving night! Every year the night before Halloween we have a sloppy joe dinner, a yummy dessert and of course we carve pumpkins. Everyone gets their own pumpkin to carve, and gets to choose what they want to carve on it. This year Madi choose a cool mummy, Kaiden choose the Grim Reaper, Abby choose Mickey as Dracula, I choose Minnie Mouse, and Darrin Choose a complicated picture of a guy holding a torch and bending over a diamond. They were a lot of fun to carve. I usually choose a really neat but hard to carve picture, but this year I really didn't want to be up all night so I choose a simple one, and encouraged everyone else to do the same. {it was a school night} Here is a picture of the finished pumpkins, I couldn't get a very good picture of them lit up, I guess I should figure out how to use that camera of mine. Friday was finally here HAPPY HALLOWEEN! The morning started out with getting Madi up and ready to go. They got to dress up in school, but she thought everyone would laugh at her devil egg costume so we searched through the Halloween tote and rounded up a Gypsy costume for her to wear to school. As soon as she was out the door we were off to my aunt Karen's house to get Kaiden's make up done for his costume. It took a little longer then expected but she finished and it looked great. It even stayed on until that night, Wow! She's amazing! After dropping Kaiden off at school we headed back home to make tortilla soup for dinner. When we finished I had just enough time to get Abby dressed in her costume for school. I dropped her off and went home to finish getting stuff ready for her school party. The kindergarten classes had a parade at school. I remember these when I was kid and I loved them so I wasn't going to miss Abby's. It was really cute, but over really quick. After their Parade it was time for their class party. I volunteered to help and did a craft. The kids made monster hands with green popcorn, candy corn fingernails, and a spider ring to finish it off.When the kids were all home from school, my brother, his wife, and kids came over to show off their costumes. They looked so cute, Breann even showed off her monkey impression!When Darrin got home from work, we ate dinner and the kids were off at about 5:30. Madi had huge plans to trick or treat all night. She ended up back home at about 8:45, which seemed late, because we hadn't had any trick or treaters after about 8:00. I hoped to have lots of kids this year, but it seemed a little slow. I think lots of people must have had Halloween Parties? Kaiden and Abby went trick or treating with the neighbors, so this was the first year I got to stay home and hand out candy, It was so fun to see everyone dressed up!
Me and Darrin as Alice and the Mad Hatter!

The Best Costume Ever!
Madi and her peeps, Trick~or~Treating at the neighbors!

Haley G.~ Haley M.~ Madi~ Kenzie

Sorting and counting candy, Priceless!

So that was our Halloween excitement for the year! Saturday we took everything that had to do with Halloween down. Darrin stayed home and we worked on putting up Christmas lights ALL DAY LONG! So you would think we are done right? Nope, we still have 5 1/2 trees left to wrap, and we still need to put up all our decorations. I'm hoping to slowly work on the trees and the rest of the outside decorations the rest of the week, and put up the trees and the inside decorations this weekend! Kaiden's birthday is this weekend and Madi's is next weekend, so we have lots of fun things going on. I'm looking forward to shopping with the girls and High School Musical 3 this weekend while the boys are at the BYU game! I hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

Hee~Haw Field Trip

Tuesday Abby's kindergarten class went to the Hee~Haw farm for a field trip. I got to be one of the mom helpers and was in charge of a group of 6 kids. This is the cute little group of kids I was in charge of. They were lots of fun, but now I know why I only had 3 kids! This is a picture of us getting ready to ride the hayride.

This is Abby jumping around the mini hay bale maze. The kids thought it was more fun to jump on the hay, then it was to actually walk through it like a maze.Abby's favorite thing to do there was the big slide! She had a lot of fun, but she only got to go down it 1 time because there were so many kids there that day.Another highlight of the trip was when the kids each got to choose their own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch to take home. Abby's class kept them at school and painted them the next day. Abby painted Mrs. Paxman! This is Abby's kindergarten class with their pumpkins!

Abby got to ride on the school bus for the first time. This is a picture of her and her "friend" Jared on the way home from Hee~Haw's!

This was Abby's first field trip! She had so much fun, and was so glad that I got to go with her!