I think I blinked

I think I blinked, because my daughter seems to be growing up faster than I can keep up with. She's only 11, but I can see the makings of a young woman coming into play. The other day she asked me if I could take her to get a haircut. She knew exactly what she wanted and then informed me that she was going to pay for it with her own money. Leigh is very good about saving her money. So I thought it interesting that this is what she would choose to spend her money on. She is her mother's daughter (what can I say).

Halloween Treats in all Shapes and Sizes!

My enthusiasm for Halloween seems to grow every year. This year, I made sure we had spooky music playing in our van when we set up for Trunk R Treat this year. I even dressed up. I didn't have my wand, so I don't think many people knew that I was "Herminone Granger" from Harry Potter.
I may have gone overboard using the theme song from Halloween, some of the little kids were afraid to come near our van for candy. It was fun though. On the way to Mililani, we played our Halloween list which gave us a blast to the past. It was funny to hear the kids ask "who's this song by", and "when did this song come out." Micah fell in love with "Ghostbusters", the older ones thought "Nightmare on My Street" was cool. We sang and listened to scary sounds all the way over.

We did Trunk R Treat with my sister-in-law. Not a big turn like it used to be but still fun.

Kara wanted only to hand out candy this year. At the last minute, she decided to dress up as a "cute witch".

Jett and Raiden were clone troopers. That's Tyler as Capt. Jack Sparrow.

The boys having fun.
Leigh was a Japanese princess.

"Lollipop", seems to be Taizo's favorite. He had three by 10am today.

Micah was the "Black Spider-Man". (year 3 BTW with the spider-man costumes).

There wasn't a big turn-out at the Trunk R Treat, so we closed up shop after 40 mins, and headed back to Jan and Aaron's.

Aunty Jill, Uncle Cory, and Grandma back at their house handing out treats. (Sorry Jill, you still look great).

The boys coming back a little tired from going around the neighborhood with Aunty Jan and Uncle Aaron.




TREVOR COLTON MINORU

Here was the last Halloween treat for the night. Trevor Colton (aka TC) was born at 11:05pm on Halloween night. We all got to see him today. He's sooooo cute. I got my baby-fix holding him, wrapping him. I almost went into postpartum mode with Terri, but I held back. Congratulations Ryan and Terri, he is cute!

The Haunted Lagoon

My kids have been dying (no pun intended) to go on the Haunted Lagoon ride (cue the scary music). The Polynesian Cultural Center put on this cool Halloween event. We kept hearing about how scary it was. Tyler and Leigh couldn't wait. Kara and Micah were sure that they did NOT want to go. Randy, being the great dad that he is, volunteered to hang out with the younger ones. We went early which was good. The line was LOOOOOOOONG! I was very impressed with some of the stuff they had there. The kids and I did a lot of screaming! My favorite was the "Laie Lady". That one freaked me out.



Randy and the kids had fun. They went to the game room at BYUH. They were having a halloween special there. $5 at the door gave them access to everything from bowling to video games, to all the food they had there. Randy and the kids were the only ones there, needless to say, they got the VIP treatment from the student workers. Happy Halloween!

P.S. In case you're wondering, I sprained my hand. How? I'm not sure. I have had few comments made as to what probably happened. "Quit beating your husband" "Quit beating your kids" My favorite was "Did you punch a werewolf" LOL. Inside Twilight joke. None of the above. Hopefully it gets better.

Loss of a Child

I was debating whether or not to blog about this, but I thought it's been on my mind, maybe blogging will help with my sadness. I found out a couple of days ago that one of my friend's lost her boy to cancer. When I read her post I teared up and was immediately sad for Karen. People say I can't imagine, but I can. I have never had this experience, but to think about losing one of my own children would be very devastating. To actually have it happen, I'm sure is much harder. He died Sunday, Oct. 26th, at home. He had lost his battle with brain cancer at the age of 17. When we first moved to Arizona, it was to the town of Flagstaff. There we connected with a family in our ward, the Russell's. Karen and John are great people and we had fun together while in Flagstaff. Our kids played together all the time. Her son Noah and Tyler are only days apart in age and would play every day. Her other son Aaron was a little older than Leigh, and would come and pick her up and they would walk together to the bus stop for school. Karen and I would hang out at each other's house and we even had them over for dinner at least once (that I can remember). They moved to Utah a couple of months before we moved to the valley. We've known Marcus since he was 12. He was a great kid. Very talented musically. He played in the school band, and from his mother's blog, continued it until he wasn't physically able to. We were fortunate enough to be visited by the Russell's this summer. They came to our house and had dinner with our family. We had great fun talking, just like before. John and Karen, we love you and will pray for family during this difficult time. They have three other boys, Marcus was the oldest.

Dinner & Dancing!

Those of you who went to BYUH, remember those days of going to the school balls? Kind of like prom but older. Do you remember all the angst of getting a date, finding the right dress (which in our LDS culture is maybe a little more stressful, seeing as not only do you have to find a dress that you like, it's gotta appropriately cover your anatomy. But I digress). Well, maybe Randy and I are in denial of getting older, but we decided to relive those days again, except after being married for 12 years, we subtracted the angst and just had fun. We saw the Fall Ball as an opportunity to do something different for a date. We dropped our kids off with my sister-in-law and headed to the Koolau Ballroom.
From getting the tickets till we left the event, we were occasionally reminded of our place in life. When buying the tickets, the guy helping had to stop and think for a second after I informed him that no, we weren't students. He said in surprise, "Oh, you're not students." I guess he had to jog his memory for the training he recieved for the off-chance that a staff member in old-age-denial would buy a ticket for the ball. Maybe the advertising on the posters that staff and faculty are invited is just for sake of avoiding being seen as ageist (is that a word?).
Old or not, it was so much fun to get dressed up and attend this event. They had a buffet with good food! Another reminder came at dinner when some students were sitting at our table. They did not say a word to us. They were probably bummed and thinking they got the chaperone's table. LOL.
After the dinner, they had two areas for dancing, one with a DJ and one with a live band. Randy and I danced the night away. We left at about midnight (the event didn't end till 1:30am). Got to bed at 1:30am, then had to be up at 6am for some church things going on. Here was our last reminder for the night, while we were there, we ran into my siser-in-law's nephew, who incidently is waiting for his mission call. He knows us and talked to us for a bit. . He was very surprised to see us there. I had to laugh when he hesitantly asked if we were at the ball as "leaders". I wanted to say, "Look here you young whipper-snapper" (Just kidding, I didn't). I smiled and said, "No. We're just here to have fun like you." His expression to that reply was hilarious. The look said, "Huh. Really. Weird." LOL.
Thank you Randy for a fun night, and thank you to Aunty Julie who had the kids sleep over her house.

Food Fest!

This was an event that I had been waiting for. Every semester, the different BYUH clubs have an event to raise money by selling food. The great thing about BYUH is the diversity of students, which means diversity in clubs. They had Fijian Club, Samoan Club, Hong Kong Club, Phillipino Club, etc., you get the picture. Each club made food from the native country. It was so hard to decide what to eat. Micah, Kara and Tyler weren't as adventurous in their food choices. Among all those choices of ethnic cuisine, the begged for a corn-dog. The club that sold that should have been shut down (j/k). I guess seeing as I don't buy that kind of stuff, it was a treat for them to eat. Later they did enjoy some Thai chicken.

Lumpia from the Filipino Club.

Roti from the Fijian Club (a favorite of Leigh and I).

I went back for some spring rolls and noodles from the Hong Kong club.

Micah being funny. He did a whole dance with the music that was playing.

Kara with her Thai chicken and peanut sauce on the side.


We picked up a Japanese bento before leaving to eat tomorrow. No picture of Randy, but he had his plate of food from the Hawaiian Club. Good eats!


Tyler trying out some of the inflatable fun they had there. It was so great walking around and seeing all the different things that were there. When we were full, we headed home.

Jett's Baptism

To end the busy week we have been having, we had the honor of attending cousin Jett's baptism! I especially had the honor of giving the baptism talk. Jett is the oldest child, so therefore the first of the kids in his family to be baptized. Jett is a smart boy, who loves playing with his cousins. He's a big help to his mom, always helping with his younger brothers. He's going to make an awesome Cub Scout. We are excited for him. Congratulations Jett! And thank you for inviting us, it was a GREAT party. Food, food, and more food.

In case you can't tell, Jett's the one in white. The others are his two younger brothers with Tyler.

Raiden, always smiling.
Aunty Julie (Randy's sister), Uncle Earl, and Conner.
Haupia cake. Mmmmm. Wish I had some now.

Before blowing out the candles, my mother-in-law and I noticed that while the kids were singing "Happy Birthday" to Jett, Jett was studying the cake and candles, deciding what angle would be best to blow those babies out. He opted for the side and got them all in one blow.

Aunty Jill (Randy's baby sister) and her boyfriend Uncle Cory.

Randy, playing with the nicer camera.

Aunty Terri (who hasn't had the baby yet), Aunty Jan (Jett's mom & Randy's sister), and my mother-in-law Jane. If I were in that picture, I'm about a foot taller than them. Yes, I am a giant.

Uncle Ryan (Randy's brother), Tanith, and Aunty Terri.

Kids at the craft table. Kara and Micah loved this table.





















These guns were the highlight of the party. Who knew PVC could be so fun. The kids would shoot mini-marshmallows out of them. So picture this, people eating at rows of table, while kids (some of them teenagers), were running around all that shooting marshmallows at each other. A lot of fun, but not to clean up. There was stuck marshamallows all over the floor when it was done.
Micah with his three visors he made.

This pet was found at the end of the party. No there aren't three centipedes in there, just one cut into three. Nice huh. Hopefully PETA doesn't read this.





























After everyone left, Randy played some ball with the kids.

There's my Leigh.

After cleaning up, we headed back to Jett's house to open presents, watch football, and eat. I was exhausted by this point and took a nap.