Rylie's 10 !!!!

When Rylie was 5 she wanted a slumber party and I told her she would have to wait until she was a little older. How much older she wanted to know, I said oh like when your ten. Boy did those five years fly by and she held me to my word. So we had a scrap'n fun slumber party!!! Rylie and Ashton decorated and I whipped up some snacks and ordered the pizzas.

They had a great time. I finally gave up and went to bed at 2:00 am. At 5:30 I was up with Skylar going potty and they were still up, still playing twister. The last official time before they all crashed was 6:15 in the morning. They thought it was great to break all their "records".

I was a little worried that their parents were going to kill me.

But all in all I learned there are just a few things needed in order to have a great slumber party!

A basement away from the fun and lots of diet coke for the next day!!

Slumber Party 101

Have lots of FOOD!! Scrapbooking is a must!

All night pajama dancing!

Twister Competitions!! And of course pillow fights!!

Gifted and Talented?????

Having survived for 7 plus years with our darling Ashton, where on a daily basis I ask myself "Why am I being punished?" I was a good kid, I never talked back to my parents or threw fits of rage that made my parents question the possibility of an exorcism. But because of Ashtons head strong personality we have been down that road a few too many times. But just when I was about to throw in the towel, give up, face the music, we must just be bad parents, I found out the truth. This is how it all happened....

Rylie brought home an application for the Gifted and Talented program at her school. She was interested in applying for a spot in the program. There were several steps that needed to be completed before she could turn in her application. One of those being a "parent form" , I proceeded to do my part by filling out the information. I came to a section where several character traits were listed. I was to choose the ones that best described Rylie.

Statement 1: Is curious- wants to know how and why, asks a lot of detailed questions.

I smiled as I thought not so much Rylie more Ashton.

Statement 2: Questions rules. A bigger smile breaks out across my face

as this is definitely an Ashton trait.

Statement3: Solves problems in unusual ways. If getting out of trouble counts,

this is Ashton also.

Statement4: Responds intensely to frustration. This may be the greatest defining trait of Ashton.

Statement 5: Tend to rebel against what is routine or predictable. Are you kidding? For 7 and a half years Ashton has had to go to bed each and every one of those nights, yet you would never know it, for she hates to go to sleep and we battle it every night. (This is where her personality trait #3 comes in very handy for her nightly defense.)

Statement 6: Resents being interrupted from something that interests her. By this time I have gotten Doug and we are laughing uncontrollably.

Statement7: Gets others to do what she wants. With Ashton it is her way or the highway, but she is very sneaky and uses reverse psychology often when playing with her friends, so they don't even realize that she always gets her way.

Statement8": Is strong willed. If there were a competition for this she would win.

Statement9: Is frustrated with imperfections in others and self. And she will let you know it too!

After finishing reading through the form Doug and I came to the only possible conclusion and we wanted you all to know that we have ourselves a GIFTED and TALENTED child! I am sorry I did not recognize the signs earlier, no wonder she has been so frustrated with us as parents she really is so much smarter than we are. I don't know how many times she has tried to tell us that and we just would not listen.

What I really want to know is who in the #@** designed this character trait check list to determine the "gifted and talented".

Happy Halloween!!! Ha Ha yes I know it's November!

Tooele County School District doesn't allow the kids to wear their costumes to school, which I am actually glad about, even though as a kid it was a memorable part of my Halloween tradition. So instead we get fun Halloween t-shirts that they wear on the day of their class party. We always try to add a little something fun each year, last year we got the striped tights, this year we got a few fun things for their hair.

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There really isn't a lot we can do for Davin, he wanted spray color in his hair but I was afraid that might be crossing the line so he settled for a skull tattoo that you can't see in this picture.Skylar is not old enough to go to school, but oh how she wishes she could. But she still wore a fun t-shirt and wacky bats in her hair!

Rylie had spiders in her hair and some fun ghost earrings she was dying to wear!!

Ashton only allows one-tenth of a second for me to do anything with her hair at all, so if it gets brushed through daily, I feel like we have had success in the hair area. But today she allowed me to put an elastic and a spider in her hair!

We always have a picture in front of Nana's house on Halloween. She made a big pot of hot chili, warm breadstix and of course donuts and hot chocolate! That filled us up for a long night of trick-or-treating. We also participated in the town Halloween parade! After we visited 200 friends and families houses we headed for Tooele to see Grandma and Grandpa Ekins. There we had sloppy joes, hot dogs, and of course candy. All the cousins dump their loot, counted how much of each kind of candy they had and then the candy trading began!! It was a fun night!

Pumpkin' Carvin'

Carving pumpkins is of course one of our favorite Halloween activities, I really think the kids like it more that trick or treating! Everyone new exactly who they wanted to carve this year. After many paper and pencil drawings of eyes, noses, and mouths, everyone had their picture perfect face. They quickly realized it is much easier on paper than on pumpkin!

Ashtons "witch"
Davins "Vampire"

Skylars "Happy Face"

Rylies "Frankenstein"

All lit up!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

We look forward to the family Halloween party all year!! This year we rented out the Army Depot Bowling Alley it was a great idea, everyone had a great time the kids loved bowling!!!

The Pirate Family

(we were all suppose to be making scary pirate faces, in case you were

wondering what the heck we were doing)

Davin did us proud by bringing home the

BEST CHILD COSTUME award!

He won the same award the night before at a soccer family

Halloween party, which was great because he did not want to be a pirate,

he wanted to be Michael Phelps, ever since the Olympics he has been obsessed

with him, which is very ironic

because Davin is terrified of the water! But I told him it would be way

to cold to go trick-or-treating in a Speedo!!

Here are some scary looking pirates!
Grandma Shirley

no other than Sarah Palin



The Grandmas!!!