Cambria, Braxton and Gunner spend the weekend....

Last weekend Leslie took Paul to the U of U game for his birthday and I watched the kiddos for them.  It also was the day of our first real snow storm.

When the kids come over there are certain items that Grandmas MUST have stocked in the house.  They are macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, noodles (Ramen), cheese puffs and CHOCOLATE MILK.  This last item is non-negotiable. 

So I was fixing mac and cheese and hot dogs for lunch and when I opened the fridge Gunner saw the chocolate milk in the door.  He ran up to me and hugged my legs and said, "I love you !", and then grabbed a bottle of milk.  If  that is what I get for having chocolate milk in my fridge then it is well worth it.

The snow recked my original plan to have the kids help me finish raking up all the leaves but we managed to fill our time doing other fun stuff.

They brought Gunners turtle tent.

Then Cambria and I decided to make some chocolate chocolate chip cookies. The recipe I used was so easy.  You take a chocolate cake mix, a can of pumpkin and a bag of chocolate chips mix it all together and it makes 3 dozen of the best cookies.  You don't even taste the pumpkin and they are moist and cakey.

  Cambria ended up doing most of it. 

Here she is with the finished product.... 

While we were upstairs baking the boys were downstairs playing the Wii..

Look at the concentration on Gunner's face in these pictures.. 

Here's Braxton and Cambria waiting for their turn on the Wii (Braxton is eating an apple) 

Here they are playing "The Michael Jackson Experience". 

You can tell who was being Michael Jackson by who has the glove on... 

Cambria and Braxton dancing to "Dirty Diana" 

This is how Gunner amused himself while they were dancing... 

While the other two were playing Gunner invited me into his tent.... 

We decided to brave the snow and go to Pizza Plus for dinner.  They have the best cheesy bread sticks ever, and their pizza is pretty darn good too.

When we got home the kids decided that they wanted to have a Christmas movie marathon.  So they pulled out all my Christmas movies and put them in the order that they wanted to watch them.  While we watched the movies we had hot chocolate, their favorite is the candy cane cocoa.  They all fell asleep during the third movie.

The next morning Gunner was the first one up.  I asked him what he wanted for breakfast and out of all the choices I gave him this is what he chose.

Candy cane cocoa and leftover pizza... Side note..he did decide to have cereal for lunch.

When Cambria and Braxton finally woke up they decided that Gunner had made the best choice for breakfast and had the same.  I can't say that I blame them I have always loved leftover pizza for breakfast.

After they got dressed we continued the Christmas movie marathon and then they had ramen for lunch (except Gunner).  While they were eating they decided that since it was Paul's birthday that they needed to make him birthday cards. 

After the cards were done, Cambria and the boys made up a birthday skit to surprise Paul with.  They had fun and he loved it.

Halloween weekend........

Halloween weekend was so much fun.  It started with Saturday morning.  It was Gunner and Braxton's first wrestling matches.  So I of course had to go out to support my boys.  I wish I would have gotten some pictures but at that time the batteries in my camera decided to die. 

This was Gunner's very first wrestling match and it was quite surprising.  Gunner is a rough and tumble kind of kid and he is never afraid and is always attacking and wrestling his big brother and friends.   But today I saw a very timid, nervous little boy.  He didn't win his match but he lost by only a few points, he never got pinned.  Towards the end of his match you could tell he was becoming his old self and getting a little mad about not winning.  His face became all serious and he started throwing the other kid around. 

Braxton lost his first match too, and the same as Gunner never got pinned and lost by only a couple of points.  He fought the good fight though.  It's amazing to see how much better and more confident these kids get with every passing year. 

After the wrestling matches we hopped in the car and headed to Hogle Zoo.

Here is Braxton (the ghoul) and Spiderman (Gunner)...

Cambria, Sadie, and Braxton.. 

Here is Miss Cambria (zombie dancer) and her friend Sadie (zombie prom queen). They did their own makeup and looked quite good. 

We met up with Angel and Jax and Trevon.  Here are all the kids while we

 were waiting for Angel to park her car. 

Here they are again, Braxton the ghoul, Captain Jax Sparrow, Ninja Trevon, Spiderman Gunner, Zombie prom queen Sadie and Zombie dancer Cambria..... 

The zoo was a lot of fun.  After the first candy stop Gunner took off his mask and began eating the candy as soon as it hit his bucket.  Instead of Trick or Treating he was Trick and Eating.  Leslie finally had to take his bucket so he would quit eating all his candy.  We saw some great costumes and I got to see my favorite animal- the tigers. They were outside and one was just roaming around but the other was taking a nap in the sun.  They are such beautiful animals.

After the zoo we went to Village Inn for lunch.

Trevon and Braxton waiting to eat...(aren't they the cutest?!) 

 Spiderman getting a kiss from his Mommy....

Sadie and Angel... 

Cambria and Jax...

When we got back to Leslie's the kids decided that they wanted to carve their pumpkins.

Braxton and Cambria waiting for Leslie to get their pumpkins open.... 

Time to take out the pumpkin guts! Love Cambria's face.... 

Sadie was helping Gunner with his pumpkin.... 

These where big pumpkins with lots of stuff inside,

I don't know if standing on the chair gave Cambria an advantage in cleaning out her pumpkin or not. 

While the kids carved I went through the pumpkin guts and gathered up all the seeds for roasting.  We had enough seed to cover two large cookie sheets.  Leslie found some pumpkin seed recipes on the Internet and she tried two of them   They turned out really yummy.  I took a baggie of each kind home with me.

Here are the kids with their finished Jack-O-Lanterns.... 

After that we took Sadie to her grandma's and stopped at the store to find candles for the Jack-O-Lanterns.  Then I helped Leslie get her goodie bags done for all her nieces and nephews and a few of her favorite kids.

She made smore's in a bag....she took a graham cracker and a fun size Hershey bar and a Halloween peep (she had ghosts and pumpkins) and put them in a bag.  It is a very cute idea and you could do it for any holiday since they are making peeps for more than just Easter.

Sunday afternoon I went to Layton and took Jamie and the boy's to lunch.  They picked Jimmy John's.

I had never tried this place but it was very good. They serve sandwiches and these great giant pickles, YUM!

Me and Jax... 

Trevon and Jamie.... 

After we ate we went shopping for the boy's coats.  I even bought me a few things.  Then I just hung out at Jamie's for a while watching Jax kill zombies and enjoying their company. 

Here is Trevon wearing the hat I bought him....he is just too cute! 

Joe and Jessica get married.....

So on October 23, 2011 my baby brother Joe married his soul mate Jessica. It was a great day.  Here is a photo run down of the event...(I forgot my camera so I borrowed pictures from my family, Thanks guys)

The day before they had a rehearsal and Angel caught this picture of Joe having a beer with my parents.  I so love this and Joe looks just like my dad....minus the tattoos and piercings ;)

Here is Joe on his big day, he cleans up rather nicely doesn't he? 

Here we are the oldest and the youngest of the siblings... 

My other brother Charles and I..my bothers are so handsome! 

And speaking of handsome, check out my grandson Jax! 

Here is Joe and my mom... 

The cake...topped with a Zombie bride dragging the groom. 

They had cupcakes topped with coconut and hazelnut,

with your choice of brain, skull or knife...

Here are the cutest and craziest kids ever passing time until the wedding starts.

Cambria, Gunner, Braxton and Trevon 

Angel took this of  us all waiting for it to begin.. 

Mom and Joe coming down the aisle with Dad right behind them.. 

Mom and Joe.. 

Father and Son....

The beautiful bride.. 

Joe giving his vows... 

Jessica's vows... 

Sealed with a kiss! 

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Williams!

I have never seen my brother look so happy, and yes, I cried.... 

Their new daughter-in-law... 

Look at the smile on my brother's face!

The cake was cut with a machete (what else?!) 

It was a beautiful fall day and everything went without a hitch.  They served chicken salad croissants, with fruit and carrots and celery and of course the cupcakes.  The yard and everything was decorated with a Halloween/Zombie theme including fresh graves with bones sticking out.   Everyone received a little goody bag for coming.  In it was a skull sucker, an eyeball ring, an eyeball bottle of bubbles, Halloween stickers, and some candy.

The people watching was awesome (I'm sure Joe and Jessica's friend thought the same thing of us).  The best was when The Joker walked in.... 

Gunner is a HUGE Batman fan so on the way home I was asking him about the Joker and why didn't Batman come.  His reply was: "Dramma, that wasn't the real Joker."  I asked him how did he know that.  He replied: "The Joker doesn't wear shoes like that and the Joker doesn't wear glasses."  Of all the things his shoes were the LAST thing that I even thought of looking at, but that's Gunner for you.

The Ogden River Project......

Ogden has taken on the task of rejuvenating the Ogden River area.  They are cleaning up and landscaping along the banks, putting in trails and parks all along the river.  It is going to be really nice when they are done. 

Last Friday was a volunteer day on the River.  Everyone came out to help weed, and plant and do their part to help the project along.  Since our store has a section of the river right out our back door we joined in.

The day was cold and rainy but that didn't stop us from working and having fun in the process.  We just bundled up and headed out.

Our first task was to pull weeds.  Jeanell and I were wondering how we could get the volunteers to come to our houses, because we have lost of weeds to pull too.  The rain made this job pretty easy.  The down side, the creepy crawlies that we happen upon while pulling said weeds.  There was one spider that Jeremy found that's body was as big around as a quarter.  I quickly moved from that area and found a different place to pull weeds.

We were shown what plants we were NOT suppose to pull.  One of them was mint and Josh our store manager said that if we weren't sure whether or not to pull it that we should bend over and smell it.  If it smelled like mint, leave it.  If it spelled like dog s--t, pull it.  That's why he is the boss......

After we got all the weeds pulled along our section we got to plant some trees and bushes that they had so kindly placed  in the spots they were meant to be planted.  Now one thing you should know about the soil in northern Utah is that it is very rocky.  We are not talking about little rocks but big rocks and you tend to hit one each time you push the shovel into the ground.  So digging holes is very labor intensive. 

I was working with Dave and he had dug quite a few holes so I told him to let me dig a few.  Well he was more than happy to give me the shovel (which I found out was broken, it was a wonder he could dig any holes with it).  While I was fighting with yet another rock, Dave thought it would be funny to start throwing rocks back into the hole I was trying to dig.  Dave was the only one who thought that was funny......

After all the projects for our area were complete we all headed back to the store.  Our shoes were so caked with mud and we were trying to scrape it off any way we could.  We ended up washing them in the maintenance sink. 

Then our store was providing sandwiches, chips and drinks for all the volunteers.  So we drove up to where that was happening to have some lunch.  They had all kinds of booths about the river and the things you could do on it.  They even had kayaks and were letting people go down the river in them.

Here is a picture of our little volunteer group..

Front: Erin (ICS) Neil (Pets, Paper & Chem) Paul (Asst. mgr) Josh (store mgr)
Back: Val (Frozen/Dairy) Jammie (HBA/Cosmetics) Jeremy (OTC) Regina (Assist. mgr) Me, Dave (bike builder/assembler) Jeanell (personnel) Sarah (ZMS)

When it is all done the Ogden River will be a beautiful place to be.  It will be fun to watch it evolve.

So here it is....October....I really need to be a better blogger.

I have a new way to waste time website that Leslie introduced me too.  It is called Pinterest.

It is just  a website that you can browse and it has recipes, quotes, decorating ideas, craft ideas, and it just goes on and on.  Then you can create boards to "repin" your favorites to so you can access them easily. You can even follow what your friends are "repinning" and they can follow your "repins".  It is amazing as to how much time I can waste spend on this website.

So here is a sample of what I found on Pinterest and for lack of anything better to blog about, I'll just share this.....


And there you have it....food for thought.