Happy Halloween!

Here it is! The infamous Ouren Family Halloween costume pics. We have had such a full Halloween this year and Caleb's bucket is already full so I see no need to Trick or Treat tonight....Yeah right! Of course we will anyway. I'm hoping for more Reese's Peanut butter cups. Please, oh Please neighbors..... give out the Reese's!

p.s. Note I finally did it! Both twins are smiling in the picture with Dad. It only took about 5 takes but I did it! Kudos to me.

Light the Pumpkins!

We had another successful pumpkin carving night at our house last night. I think next year I am not getting a pumpkin since I ended up gutting 4 of the 5 and carving 3 of them. So I will just focus on the kids next year. It was fun, just tiring, and Caleb was loving it when we took them outside to light them up for the Halloween night preview. So here's the preview. Mine says "Creepy" on it in case you can't read it. Mike's is the bat and pumpkin and Caleb picked out a ghost. I just did simple faces for the twins since they don't really care much at this point.

Halloween Tunes

Last Friday was Caleb's Halloween Program at school. They did a whole slew of songs but here's just a few of the Halloween ones for fun. I wish I could post them all, but that would take too long. I'll include the words below for each one , in case you don't quite catch them.

Halloween Cat

Halloween Cat, Halloween Cat

Why do you meow and Meow like that?

Neither I, nor the moon

Like your tune

so. SCAT! Halloween Cat

Mean Old Witch

I'm a mean old witch with a hat

And I fly on my broom with my cat

My toes are pointed and my nose is too

So you better watch out or I might scare you

I'm a mean old witch with a hat

lalalala lalalalala

BOO!

Mary Had a Vampire Bat

Mary had a vampire bat, vampire bat, vampire bat

Mary had a vampire bat, whose fur was black as night

It followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day

It followed her to school one day and promised not to bite

She took it out for show and tell, show and tell, show and tell

She took it out for show and tell, the teacher screamed and ran

And school was canceled for 1 week, for 1 week, for 1 week

And school was canceled for 1 week, Just as Mary Planned!

Monster Krispies

We made these for a Halloween party at a friends house over the weekend. We did them once a couple of years ago too when Grandma Braska was in town for Halloween. They are alot of fun. We just use a Frankenstein cookie cutter to make the shape with rice krispies then make faces out of all sorts of candy.

Cruisin 4 Ghouls

While driving through the neighborhood on Saturday night I spotted these out of the corner of my eye. So last night when we decided to take a little family walk I had to grab my camera and take the path that would take us past it for a closer look. This is too fun. I guess that's one effective way to have an extra car in your yard without the city coming in to impose fines. Notice that the witch is driving, even they know women are better drivers! I wish I was this creative sometimes. These Ghouls really look like they are having fun out on the town.

Boo at the Zoo!

At the Zoo every year they hold an event called Boo at the Zoo. Businesses set up booths around the zoo for the kids to trick or treat at as they walk around. We have gone a couple of times before and decided to go again this year since we missed it last year. It was a chilli start to the morning since we got there right when it opened to avoid lines but it was a fun outing and best of all FREE with our membership. Can't beat that.

Aunt Norma

My Aunt Norma from the Forsgren side of the family just got moved back to Elmo from New Mexico after her husband became suddenly ill and later passed away in a matter of weeks. She is in an assisted living facility as she needs constant care due to a stroke several years ago.

My sister and I went over to visit her during our trip to Price last weekend. It was nice to see her and she was getting a kick out of the kids. Here she is holding Zaden. Zaric was being fussy so she didn't get a chance to hold him. We didn't have time to stay as long as we would have liked due to the kids that came along being unruly and the fact that I needed to get on the road back to Salt Lake. But it was a fun visit and hopefully we'll be able to visit on occasion during our trips down there.

Grandma's Halloween Party

The past weekend, we took a trip to Price to visit the family. It was Grandma Nette's Halloween party at the park. It was a quick one but the kids seemed to have fun. Here's a picture of Caleb and Schydi frosting some Halloween cookies



Caleb and Leyton are both being Police Officers. So here they are in their costumes. Looks like partners in crime...more like it.



Above Danell was inside a play coffin.
They got to bob for Apples. Caleb could bite it but it kept slipping through his teeth so Aunt Tracey helped a little.



The kids also blew bubbles



Above is my Nephew Jaxson in his Bumble Bee costume and below is his brother Shane also as a bumble bee.

Glue Ghosts and Paper Bag Pumpkins

We managed to get in a couple of crafts this week. Caleb only had preschool 1 day this week so we needed something to keep us sane. Caleb loved Making these Glue Ghosts and was dissapointed that we used up a whole bottle of glue and insists that the next time we go to a a store we need to get more.



These pumpkins were fun. I ended up doing the majority of the work since it was hard to keep Caleb focused after having to stop a lot to allow for drying time but they turned out cute. Mike thought they were too plain so he made a couple into Jacolanterns. They are cute either way. Now I have a couple to use just as fall decorations then a couple that are specifically Halloweeen. It works out great.





Ideas and instructions can be found at Kaboose

When We Go To Kari's

We are planning a trip in a few weeks to Omaha to visit Mike's family. We keep telling Caleb that we are going on the airplane to see everyone there but he has become obsessed with Aunt Kari. So whenever he wants to tell us something about the trip he says "When we go to Kari's..etc...etc." I keep telling him we are going to see more people than just Kari there like Great Aunt Sue, Great Aunt Peggy, Uncle Sean, Uncle Chris, Grandma Braska and the Great Grandparents but he says nope it's only where Kari lives.

I keep explaining to him that everyone else lives there too, but it's doing me no good. Even the Nebraska football team is no longer the Huskers. They have become the Kari's. Here's a picture of something he built yesterday out of pieces of a few different toys. He told me it was "The Grand Old Flag of the Kari's" notice the topper is a Nebraska Huskers helmet.

So look out Aunt Kari, your numero uno fan is on his way!

Crazy Neighbor Lady

Tank wouldn't eat much before falling asleep last night so of course he's been up a couple times. The first time I was able to get him back to sleep then he was up again at 3 am and we decided just to go ahead and feed him again. But now I can't sleep so I am up having a cup of hot chocolate. Well we were sitting in bed and talking while Mike fed him when we heard some sort of boom outside. I asked Mike what that was and he said a car or something probably just backfired. A few minutes later we heard sirens coming. This is not uncommon since we live right on the corner of a busy street and the firehouse happens to be a straight shot up 3100 S. from us. So I made the comment that I would be really mad if someone had just ran into our fence outside. Mike assured me that it was further down. The sirens stopped blaring eerily close to our house so I went to the Master Bath and looked out the window. Mike was right it wasn't our house but something was going on about 3 or 4 houses down on 31st. Eventually about 4 firetrucks and 2 police cars and an ambulance showed up. Something was definitely on fire down that way. There was a lot of smoke coming from something. Mike came to the window to gawk with me since I have finally peaked his curiosity as well. I am waiting for the local news to come on to see what happened. I sure hope no one was hurt.

While we were gawking, I asked him if I could be "Crazy Neighbor Lady" and go down there to see what's going on and wait for the news crews to show up so I could be on tv telling them about "the boom." He told me no. I was a little disappointed since I had all of the ingredients:

1 head of disheveled bed hair
1 puffy bathrobe
1 pair of pink fuzzy slippers
and a whole lot of crazy

A few minutes later Mike pointed out that another lady was actually walking down the street in her bathrobe now so there was no need for me to be "Crazy Neighbor Lady" and besides I would have had to truck it down there.

My response: "And I totally could have beat her there!"

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday afternoon was our yearly outing to the pumpkin patch in Farmington. This is the 3rd year in a row we have gone to this one and are still loving it. So here's the pics from this years fun.

Zaden woke up toward the end of the fun and we were able to get this shot. He smiles so much until the camera is on it seems. But it's still adorable.

Zaric is fighting off that ear infection and slept most the day yesterday. So this is what we got.....thrilling was his experience I would say :).
Here's Mike looking for a gigantic pumpkin!

Caleb's head poking up from the hay maze

Caleb in the patch, humoring Mom with a photo

Caleb in a hat with the scarecrows
Caleb riding Dad's gigantic one in the cart.
Caleb showing off his which pretty much was just the first one he saw
We picked out two of about the same size for the little boyz and I got a cute round green one. I thought it would be fun to get to watch it turn orange over the next couple weeks and if it doesn't then it will truly be unique.

One Year ago

One year ago today we found out that we were pregnant again, but this time with twins! My how time flies when your:

No but really we are:

Back track 6 months to May and we had also found out we were pregnant (after almost 2 years of trying and numerous Dr. visits) then and on June 2nd, 2007 we found out that I had miscarried. That was probably the hardest thing we had ever been through together thus far. But we made it through somehow. I wanted to talk again about the quilts my sister made for the twins (one pictured fully yesterday). See originally she had started making a quilt top with the colorful animal patterns on these quilts the moment I told her I was pregnant that May. She was one of only about 4 people that knew then and couldn't wait to get started. Well with the sad news, she put her quilt top and all of her hard work away not knowing what else to do. So when we told her that now we were pregnant with twins, a new problem: there was only enough material for one quilt and the store no longer had this pattern. But my crafty sister picked apart the squares of the quilt she had made and found some different material to try to match with it and off she went making the once "sad" quilt into something the twins could make into two "happy" quilts for us. We love them and we like that it's also a subtle reminder of the one we lost. Thanks Aunt Tracey!

The Brrr is Not so Bad

I have been complaining a lot lately about it being so cold with the cold front that moved in last weekend. I am constantly telling Mike how cold it is in this house and telling him to adjust the automatic setting on the thermostat. Well this morning I decided that I should write about the simple comforts that come with it getting colder. Maybe this will warm me up!

1. Hot Cocoa and Apple Cider
2. Lap quilts while watching TV or a movie
3. The clean smell of the air
4. The promise of loads of cherry pie in the next couple of months
5. Slippers
6. Putting on my cardigan to lounge around the house and take the chill off
7. Turning on the fireplace (we haven't yet but I am sure we will soon)
8. Lazy Sundays spent sitting at home watching football with my boys
9. That the twins have been able to start using the cute heavier quilts that were made for them. Here are a couple of them made by my mom and sister. They have been loving the one with the multicolors these last few days. We love all the blankies that people lovingly made for us but we have been longing to use these.

My Brain, have you seen it?

Grandma Nette had asked Caleb what he wanted for his Bday this year and he told her a big Mario and Luigi. Since she had no idea where to get such things she asked me to find some and pick them up for her. Well I found some on Amazon.com and went ahead and ordered them. They arrived separately on different days and I wanted to wrap them together (naturally) so I threw them in the coat closet on Friday thinking that when Caleb napped this weekend I would be able to get them out and get them wrapped and that he wouldn't be getting into the closet for anything since he didn't need his backpack until today (Tuesday) for preschool. Well of course, I completely forgot about them in there and it didn't dawn on my this morning either when I told him to get out his backpack to put his show and tell in it. Well apparently Mario's hat was sticking out of the packaging a little and so around the corner he comes asking a million questions about who they are for and are they for a birthday or are they for dad. Dang it! So I decided honesty was the best policy. I told him that Grandma Nette had gotten them for his Bday (next month) and that he could have them at that time. He was actually very good about it and just said ok. I called Grandma Nette to tell her what I had done and she said that it was ok for him to have them early. So when we got back from preschool I got them out for him. He's very happy with them and has been packing them around ever since. So good job on the gift Grandma Nette!

We Love Dr. Joe

Today was the twins 6 month visit! I can't believe it either. So here's the skinny on how it went.
Zaden weighed in at 16lbs 4 1/2 oz and was 25 inches long. Zaric was 15 lbs 9 1/2 oz and was 24 1/2 inches long. The gap between the two seems to be closing and Zaric is catching up (thanks in part to Zaden losing weight with his sickness).
Zaric has an ear infection that surprised both of us since he hadn't really shown any signs of anything. So we will be filling that perscrip tomorrow morning and onto another 10 days of antibiotics. Other than that he's doing well and nearly sitting up on his own. We're working on that as much as we can.
Zaden's inflammatory markers from the Kawasaki's disease are going down which is good news. We will do more blood work in a week to 10 days and keep him on an aspirin regiment until then as well. I need to call and make his appt for his next EKG tomorrow as well since that will come up next month. Dr. Joe is concerned about the flat spot that's still on his head so he's sending us to a specialist that will determine if he needs a helmet or not to correct it. So I will be calling for that appt tomorrow as well.
Caleb enjoyed the visit as well even though it wasn't for him. Dr. Joe is so good with him. He took him out to the nurses desk with him and let him click the mouse for him while he looked up Zaden's blood work results. Then he let Caleb crawl up on the bed with Zaden and help him hold the ear flashlight and put the cover on it for him so he could look in Zaden's ears. However, we decided with the nurse since we were there and the twins were getting their flu shots along with 4 others that we should just get Caleb's flu shot done as well. So HOLY MELTDOWN BATMAN! That was the worst thing ever! I had to literally hold him down kicking and screaming and fight with him to pull his pants down far enough that she could get to his thigh.
Afterwards we took him to Artic Circle for a Square Pumpkin meal, which my cousin's wife reminded me I had never taken him for. After a little chicken, some fries and a mini ice cream all was forgiven and he even stopped his limping from the shot.
Overall I felt like it was a better visit than the last one and I was reminded why we love Dr. Joe so much. I hope our kids get to stay with him for a very long time.

Halloween Tile

My friend Holly had this great idea to make Halloween tiles. She showed me the ones she made and I just had to try to make one of my own. I like the way it turned out and the best part was that I can cut out all the shapes with my cricut machine. I had fun doing this one and it's fun that if I make more they will all be a little different. I can add a skeleton here, pumpkin there. etc. The possibilities/arrangements are endless. I have enough tiles to make 4 more so any special requests should be sent to my email address :) .

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've seen.......

That's the song Sophie would be singing if she had a tin cup to rake against the bars by the look on her face in this costume. I wasn't going to buy her one this year but then it was in the TRU ad and fit perfectly with the theme this year. Plus it was on SALE! She didn't like the hat much and absolutely loathed the ball and chain but it made for funny pictures.
For the theme this year Mike and Caleb are being Police Officers and I am being an inmate. So this is perfect. My sister is making some inmate looking bibs for the boys' sock monkey costumes too so they fit right it. I love it when a plan comes together! On a better note though, she actually is very happy with just the jacket part on.

EEEEEK!

I officially got my Halloween scares early this year. Today upon arriving home from the dentist I pulled in the garage to notice that the door going inside was open. So that was a little un-nerving. After I came in I noticed nothing was out of place or missing so OOPS! I must have neglected to pull it completely shut when I left this morning. No harm, no foul right? I brought the twins in from the car and opened the back door so the dog could go out. When in came a gigantic something and zoomed past my head with enough wind to make my hair move a little. All I saw was this streak of black then I heard a zzzzzzzzzz. And up the stairs it went and into the babies room. Was it a fly, a bee, a wasp? So I went for the flyswatter because whatever it was certainly not welcome in the babies room. So I went up the stairs and could hear it zooming around the room. I tip toed in carefully swing the flyswatter around just in case it was something with a stinger, I didn't want it landing on me. Then I opened the curtains so I could get a clear view. I cornered it by the diaper genie and SWAT! I got it on the first try. Turned out to be just a fly, but it was the biggest housefly I have ever seen. This thing was huge!
So crisis averted.....or so I think. I walk myself toward the master bedroom and turn the corner and there in the doorway lies a dead mouse!!!!!!!!!!! I must have jumped 15 feet high, let out a yell and jumped over it in one move. So now I am in the bedroom feeling cornered. I am guessing that the kitty got out into the garage with the door I accidentally didn't close all the way and has brought this lovely prize in to share. I go for the phone and call Mike at work, who laughs at me and tells me that he'll clean it up when he gets home. That's a couple hours away and the boys are waking in the carseats downstairs so I decided I can't just hold up in the room until he gets there and I must summon the courage to go past this thing one more time. So with a 1...2...3... I leap over it again and down the stairs I go. Out of sight, out of mind right?
WRONG! The kitty decides it's time to come out of hiding from under the bed and then picks up the mouse to bring it downstairs which I have just declared my safe-zone. She brings it to the top of the stairs then proceeds to set it on the floor and bat it around and down the stairs like a toy. When she gets to the bottom she picks it up in her mouth and throws it in the air a couple of times just for fun like "look what I have mom...fun huh?" eeek. So now I am in the living room and the nearest phone is in the kitchen. I must go past the mouse AGAIN! So with one baby in my arms I run past it and call Mike again.....THIS IS NOT FUNNY I tell him and I sit on a kitchen chair to beg for him to come home. While sitting in the chair I all of the sudden feel the kittie's head nudging my leg. I have no idea at this point if she has that stupid thing in her mouth again so I scream and jump and therefore both babies jump and start screaming because I have now scared them. So Mike finally feels bad and he decides to come home and rescue me...after some laughs of course.
He finally made it home and got it cleaned up, but eeek I have had enough frights for this October already. At least my doggy doesn't do stuff like this to me, I would hope she would just tell me a scary Halloween story like this.

Sprinkler

With no planning, today turned out to be a baking day. I got up this morning and had some banana's on the edge of extinction so I decided to make some banana bread. YUM! As I was getting into the cupboard to get out some ingredients for that I saw some Halloween cupcake liners left over from our party last year so I mentioned it to Mike when he got home. He was all too willing to run to the store for a cake mix and frosting. Nothing fancy but they turned out great and Caleb had a great time being my official sprinkler with some Halloween sprinkles I also found in the cupboard. I think I will send some cupcakes to work with Mike though as I think 20 of them is a little much for the 3 of us.

Shifty Eyes

The fence people came today to finish their install of the new fencing we had to buy since the city made us move our shed. When they were finished one of the workers came to the door to ask me to look at it and see if I approved. I did and I have to admit that I am impressed with their work, they did a fine job. Something about this guy really creeped me out though and made me uneasy. After I told him it looked good he asked right away if he could get a check. Maybe I am being too judgemental and a little prejudice but it just didn't feel right. I have always been taught to go with my gut feeling so I told him I would rather work with Devin, the salesman, and to have him call me tomorrow and I would gladly pay him with my credit card over the phone. He said ok but you could tell he was annoyed. Of course they had to come while Mike was in Vegas too which made it that much worse. So I will definitely be making sure all the doors and windows are locked tonight........Maybe it was just his shifty eyes.

We LOVE Halloween

Halloween is one of the big holidays here in the Ouren household. All of us get excited for it so yesterday since it was the beginning of Oct, I got all the boys dressed in some sort of Halloween garb and took some photos. I also wore one of my Halloween shirts. It is seriously impossible to get both twins to look at me at the same time and smile. So this is the best I got. Zaden is smiling but looked away. I take what I can get.

Let the Halloween activities commence!

aaahhhh

This afternoon I had 2 fussies so I ended up holding them at the same time while watching Ellen on the TV. Well they were both on my legs facing away from me when I started watching them. They are getting pretty good at using their hands which is fun (except the pulling my hair part). I watched Zaden deliberately reach over and grab Zaric's hand. It was so cute to see them holding hands. When Zaric turned and looked at him, Zaden's whole face lit up like the 4th of July in one of the biggest smiles I think I have ever seen from him. It was all so cute and I admit the Mommy in me did tear up a little.