Krispy Kreme

Krispy Kreme doughnuts have a deal where you can bring in your report card and get a free doughnut for each A (up to 6 per person). We decided today was the day to get some doughnuts!! It's a fun place because you can watch the process of making the doughnuts.

Here the doughnuts are about to go under the "waterfall of glaze."

Enjoying the doughnuts with some hot chocolate. Perfect breakfast, and pretty balanced diet too I'm sure.

On the way home our odometer flipped to 100,000 miles, pretty exciting. (Our gas is not out, the needle is just freaking out a bit, guess that's a sign of a car with 100,000 miles on it.)

Hey Yah!

Seth got his blue belt in Little Dragons last month. The two boys on either side of him are in our carpool too. Yay, for carpools!!
Maddie got her blue belt which means she's in Max's class now, that's easier on the driving too.

Max got his red belt which means he gets a blue gi for an added cost. He's really working his way up the belt ladder. I think he only needs three more for his black belt. Amazing he's staying with it this long!!

Microwave caramel recipe

My sister, Lyssa, and I always make this caramel recipe whenever she comes to visit. We also make it on our own when we're apart because we just love it so much. It's great for caramel apples, turtles, or just by itself. Here's the recipe, it's pretty much every form of sugar you can think of. Don't make caramels for your health, just if you need something that tastes super good.

1/2 C. melted butter

1/2 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. sugar

1/2 C. corn syrup

1/2 C. condensed milk ( I just do 1/2 the can)

1/2 T. vanilla

One assistant (Maddie in this case)

I always use this glass bowl but it probably doesn't have to be glass, just something that does well in the microwave for a while. Start with the butter since it has to be melted. The rest of the ingredients can be added in any order. Don't put the vanilla in yet. Stir it all up and place in microwave.
Here's Maddie stirring it all up. Microwaves vary greatly I have learned. You may have to try a few times to get it perfect but once you do, write that time down and never forget it. Put it in the microwave between 5-8 minutes. Mine takes 5:30.
Take it out of the microwave and stir in the vanilla. Grease an 8X8 (or so) pan and pour it in. After they cool you can cut and wrap in cellophane, this part takes a while but after you taste it you'll see they're worth it!! Yum!!

Crazy Hair Day

For Red Ribbon week the kids do something different every day. Today, Friday, was "Crazy Hair Day." I got to ask the kids questions about drugs, "Why don't you want to take drugs?" etc. and after they gave a very informative answer, "Cause I'll die!" I handed them a Red Vine. This was during lunch recess. I also brought my camera along to take pictures of the crazy hair.

Seth got to put red dye in his hair and spike it, he was in heaven.
Maddie, that's as crazy as she can get.:)
A neighbor, her mom said she used a coat hanger.
This is done using a cup, it's not very comfortable.
Nicole used floral wire, it started straight up at the beginning of the day. Pretty crazy day.

child's personality + situation = changing strategies

Saturday is our day to clean and find our house again. It actually stays clean until about Sunday night. Last Saturday Jon wasn't home and I was in charge of getting the kids pepped up to clean. For some reason there's a lot more fighting when I'm in charge. I decided I would stay calm and every time a fight broke out I would calmly just add another chore to their list. Genius! It worked for a little while but then I heard a huge yell from downstairs. I went into the boys room and one brother (no names) decided the other brother wasn't helping enough so he opened the bin of summer clothes I had just switched out of their drawers and dumped it all over the room. I lost it. After yelling for a good five minutes, I stayed down in the room with them telling them exactly what to do and helping them until it was done. Complaining to my husband about it later he said, "You should have tried the strategy where they have a certain amount of time to finish then you check their work, that almost always works for me." It's hard because each child has a very different personality and what may work for him may not work for his sister or brother. One of my children will cry if I look at him/her funny where another one has to have a big blow out to get him/her motivated. I just wish there was a formula that said, "In this situation and with this child do this and you will get the result you want and the child wants and everyone will be happy." I guess that's part of parenting, I'll just keep trying the best I can and hope it all turns out for the best!

More Halloween Stuff

On Friday I helped with Max's Halloween party at the school. We had 3 groups of 10 for about 10 minutes which is pretty manageable. I played a game that our family would always play at our cabin when I was growing up. You tie a string of yarn to a marshmallow (ghost) and put it in the middle of the circle. Someone has a pan lid and if they roll a 7 or 11 they crash down the pan lid to try and catch as many ghosts as possible while the kids try and yank out their ghosts before the lid comes down. I'm not very good at explaining it but it's a lot of fun!

This is Max's teacher, Mr. Wise who is really nice, not devil-like at all.

After Max's party was over I went into the other kids classrooms to get a picture of them.

Seth with Miss Jones

So, in the past I made soup in pumpkin bread bowls for Halloween dinner then Jon would take the kids trick or treating while I stayed in the warm house passing out candy. Last year and this year it started changing. This year we had Wendy's drive thru because we went to a BYU soccer game all day and each of the kids had a group of friends they wanted to go with. Even though those were simpler times, I'm okay with this change, everyone is still happy.

So here is Max and Seth's group...scary?

Tanner's group, which hid behind the bushes scaring "older" kids. Michael is wearing a book cover. Then they went to the neighbor's house to watch a movie.
And Maddie's group. One of her friends is from Alpine so I had to drop them off there and then her mom brought them back to our neighborhood to finish, a little complicated. It was a fun and safe night.