Wordless Wednesday ~ Create-a-costume mess!

What's your medium? and your preferred canvas?

EmmaLece has been drawing on things lately. She knows where she's suppose to be expressing her artistic abilities, but has been branching out and discovering different mediums. Medium as defined by the American Heritage College Dictionary Third Edition: Medium 7a. A specific kind of artistic technique or means of expression as determined by the materials used or the creative methods involved. b. The materials used in a specific artistic technique. Having thus defined medium, let's now have a look at hers:The Wall Canvas using a nice well sharpened #2 pencil.The Body Canvas using a wonderful blue ball point pen.The Book Canvas using both the #2 pencil and the ball point pen.The materials for creative expression include: # 2 pencil, ball point any color ink pen, crayons, colored pencils, and markers!

Now with any luck in a few {like 9 or 10} years she will have moved on to these types of mediums:

These are two of Cody's graded art projects. This is his first year of art. He has noticed why the wrestler got a B instead of and A .... do you see it? He only has half a left arm ... and a hand! But everything else looks pretty good {if I do say so myself}! :-)

Trunk or Treat

Here are the carnival pictures from Trunk or Treat..... didn't take any out side actually getting treats from the trunks.

David and Troy -- I'd just told David, he'd dressed up as a looser in that shirt! Pooooor Bobcats! I'm a Griz fan and he bought this shirt to bug me and other friends who are Griz fans. He also bought a Griz shirt, but tends to wear this one more often-- gets a rise out more people... I wasn't the only one to tell him he was dressed as a looser! He then asked his wife for a glass of water to pour on me and my camera--- nice friends I've got, huh?Robby got some stubble for his pirate costume.Hannah Montana {aka Shantel} and Tigger {aka Heather - married to David}.Savanna and EmmaLece get some face painting done.

The jester {aka Cody}.
Spiderman {aka Scott} gives Dora a hug.Shantel tries out the doughnut eating contest. No hands, but you can use your shoulders.It looked so fun, I had to challenge these two .......Sorry ladies, I win! You had to have the whole thing in your mouth to win, I couldn't breathe cause I stuffed in {as you can tell from the picture!}.Savanna competes against her sister.Time for the pinata! The young women made this bat out of a milk jug and papiermache` wings, it was pretty strong. I think all the kids got to take a whack at it.Savanna takes her turn.Cody was the first to actually get 3 good whacks on the jug. Finally the young women's president broke it open -- But I think she was cheating ... her head was tilted up so as to see just where the jug was.
The fight over I mean rush for the candy!
There was also 'booling' in the hall. EmmaLece knocked these over on her first throw... this is the action shot of her second attempt.
Scott and David.

Shantel and I -- Self portrait. All in all it was a fun evening. There were some nicely decorated trunks out in the parking lot and a prize for the spookiest. What a mess there was to clean up inside afterwards! It fell on our turn to clean the church! Thankfully there were others who also stayed and we had it done and headed home by a little after 9 pm.

Wow! I was Tagged...

I was tagged by Steph to share 7 random things about me.
1) I'm pretty sure that I'm boring! No really, I'm sure people only like me because of my children or that my husband is so entertaining. I think that people are friends with us because of Troy and that they just tolerate me. I honestly told one of my friends that, and well, she just laughed at me and said I was silly. :D
2) I love Halloween, I love playing dress-up with the kids. I'm pretty sure that I have more fun than the kids.
3) I hate to fold laundry -- now, I'll wash and dry it all day long but I just can't stand to fold -- my kids learn to fold at an early age, I don't care what it looks like as long as they given it the ol "college try" and it get into their drawers/closets.
4) I love to read, but this wasn't always the case .... when I was in grade school, I had to go to a one on one reading class twice a week with Mrs. (Myrna) Chaney. Once it caught on, well there was NO stopping me. I read mostly historical fiction, fiction and fantasy/sci fi. I fall asleep if the book is too educational or has no story. I also will read biographies, if is someone I really want to know more about. Mostly I read for pleasure.
5) I love babies -- little ones that can't talk back.
6) I have 4 brothers and 3 sisters. I have 9 nieces and 12 nephews {one more due in Feb 08}. I have 3 sons and 3 daughters.
7) I love taking pictures, scrapbooking and blogging.
And one more for good measure. 8) I love getting together Friday or Saturday nights and playing games/cards with friends {refer to #1 on the friends :D}
And now I tag {drum roll, please}......... Heather, Andrea, Angie, Darla, Tina, Michelle, Keeley, Melissa, and Sherri. OK, so I tagged a few extra ... some may have been tagged before-- want everyone to get a chance. There are several others I could have and would have except I read on their blogs that others already tagged you.

Preparing for Trunk or Treat...

Friday {well, I guess that should read Today as it is after midnight as I type this up.. and it's still Thursday in my mind since I've yet to get to bed.... so either Thursday is extra long or Friday is a bit short in hours.... anyway,} is our Trunk-or-Treat and Halloween carnival at church. Some of the kids spent the evening working on their costumes......

When they got it just right, they put it in a safe place and got to a friendly game of

chess. Now I'm not any good at this game and frankly I can't ever remember how the pieces move, but Cody has always liked it and in 2nd grade he checked out a book that taught him all about how to play. So he played Savanna and then she played Robby.. {Robby is a SORE looser} and Cody killed Savanna and Savanna creamed Robby! He started in on his usual tantrum, but at the suggestion he should then head off to bed, he changed his tune.

Others still were involved in making cupcakes for the Cupcake Walk, that the Bishopric is in charge of. I found the recipe in the National Geographic for Kids:

Pumpkin Cupcakes

1 cup vegetable oil 3 cups sugar

4 Eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla

4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

2 cups canned (or stuff you've cooked) pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with baking cups. In one bowl, mix the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Stir the wet ingredients into the wet ingredients just until blended. Add the pumpkin to the mixture. Distribute the batter evenly among the baking cups. Bake for 20-25 mins. Cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting.

For your viewing pleasure:

The batter.The frosting.
Creative juices flowing. Cody did the first one, then it was getting time for bed and so I had to suffer through the rest.....

Let your Light shine...

I just went to put a new movie on for EmmaLece {I know, I know, they shouldn't be watching movies to go to bed-- bad habit} and she started to sing {she sings a lot, like all the time} I am a Child of God. It nearly melted my heart. So I stood there and we sang together. Then when we finished, she asked me: "Mother, but where does Jesus live?" I said: "In Heaven." Em: "But it is far?" {Now, last Sunday, I taught the 9 and 10 yr olds and the Primary Pres taught the kids how the songs in the Children's Song Book can answer a lot of questions....} So I sang to her {not that I can sing very well, but I like to sing .. guess she comes by it naturally} A Child's Prayer and she said: "OK, in Heaven. Now could you put my blanket on?" My little teaching moment with EmmaLece.

Earlier today I turned around to see what the monkeys I mean kids were up to and found them like this:

What came first to my mind was "Let your light so shine before men, that they might see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." St Matthew 5:16

Our older boys....

The girls have been doing a lot of babysitting for McKelle {piano instructor and friend}. The girls are getting to be good little sitters. Learning all sorts of useful skills. Wouldn't want Cody to get left out in the skill area, and since Wednesday is our busiest day, he helped out. Here is Cody reading a story to Alyssa. He watched her until time for Young Mens {church group for boys 12-17}, so about 2 hours. Cody likes babies. He was always so good to help when the twins were little but not so much as they have gotten bigger {guess he's like his mom! -my favorite stage is the little baby stage}.Just thought I'd throw in a few shots of Cody helping when the twins were little. Little history on this first picture: The twins were sleeping in their swings {18 days old here} and I ran downstairs for a quick shower.... when I got out, standing outside the door was Cody holding both babes! Meaning that he had carried them DOWN the stairs TOGETHER! I nearly freaked! I carried them back upstairs and then gave them back for the picture.Needed to use up the last of the film before taking it to be developed, so Cody showed us how strong he was and "carried" the car seats. {They were 42 days or 1 month 12 days in this photo.}I was having a look at Robby's hair and told him I thought it was time for a trim, he said: "No, I like it like this!" This is how he looked as he told me this. Silly boy! He actually is just coming to like his hair, coming to terms with its fuzziness. He has had issues in the past and even been known to come to blows over remarks about his curly hair. So we're making progress! :-) He use to always want it shaved off.