Ward Halloween Party

 Here are the pictures of our Ward Halloween Party, aka Fall Festival aka Trunk or Treat. This was the first year in a long time that I didn't dress up.  I just had no desire to dress up this year.

A nobody, a shark, a grump, a rainbow unicorn, and a handsome pirate

My pretty Elisa in her awesome Rainbow Unicorn costume!

A better view of her costume.

A silly (and slightly scary) picture of Ian eating what else, but mac n cheese.  He didn't wear his costume until trunk or treating time.  He was Thomas the Train, and a super cute one at that! We had the typical chili and cornbread, but the mac n cheese was a plus.

This shark won a HotWheels car! It sure made his evening!

Yep, that's my Gabie in there!

This goofball about to inhale the frosting, and only the frosting, off of his cupcake that he won from the cupcake walk.

The costume parade.  I thought there would be a costume contest, but there wasn't.  Elisa should have won that easily! Except with our ward being the way it is, it would be a popularity contest instead, so I guess its probably best that we didn't have a costume contest after all.

Elisa and her cute friend, Hazel

Trunk or treating time! Erik passed out the candy while I took boo-boo and Elisa around the parking lot to collect candy.

All in all we had a pretty good time at the ward Halloween party!

Dermatologist/Cyst Removal

 I had my fist-ever dermatologist appointment.  I went in to see about a hideous, annoying cyst that was on the back of my neck, just below my hairline.  It basically was a big zit trapped under my skin, growing bigger by the month.  If I had the option of cutting it out myself, I would have long ago.  However, since it was so huge and I can't see the back of my neck, I wasn't going to take any risk of infection or bleeding out, so I left it up to the professionals at Arrowhead/Epiphany dermatology to deal with.

I waited forever and a year to finally be seen (they had just switched to a new computer system and everything took FOREVER).  I almost left, but they called me back at last.  I told the Dr. that the cyst was the main reason for my visit, but I also mentioned the ugly, raised mole popping out of the side of my head. He said he could take care of that right then and there.  I said okay.  3 minutes later, it was off! All he did was inject some numbing medication and scrape it off with a razor.  Could I have done that myself at home?  Maybe.  It would have saved us $200. Then again, I do not feel comfortable taking a razor to my face, nor am I experienced in doing so.
I came back a week or two later to have the cyst removed.  I was looking forward to the appointment, which is saying a lot because I hate appointments.  All of them.  The procedure took about an hour. It was pretty straight forward: numb, cut, stitch.  I saw the cyst after they took it out and it was pretty nasty. An alien glob floating in pink liquid.
The next few weeks was the healing period. The wound did not really hurt, thankfully, but it was slightly itchy for the next few weeks or so. The first few days were the most uncomfortable, but after about 5 days, it was much, much better.  I came back after two weeks and the stitches were taken out.  I could have saved myself a visit and had Erik take them out, but I wanted to make sure all was looking well with the healing wound (now a scar):  

 

My cool band-aid, just after my first appointment (first or second week of October)

 Oct. 15-the date of the procedure.  I don't have a good shot of the cyst's lump, but believe me it was there and it was BIG.

Healing.  It looked pretty gnarly there for a couple of days.

Nicely healed and ready for the stitches to be removed 

Now (2 months later).  Just a small scar!

Random October Happenings, Part III

More random stuff that happened in October:

Handsome Erik.  He has a gorgeous wife, no?

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Oct. 16

I took this picture of sleeping Elisa because she is so pretty, especially when she sleeps!

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My food

Erik and his food

Oct. 17

Erik and I went to Butter's again for breakfast. We've decided that this is our favorite breakfast place! Everything is delicious there, especially the pancakes. I ordered the salmon and cream cheese omelet.  I really liked it, except they went a little crazy with the onions. I loved my pancake and Erik's tasted just like a cinnamon roll. I'm looking forward to going there again soon!

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We had parent/teacher conferences from the 16-18 of October.  Elisa is doing well, Gabe is not doing his class work, and Ian is doing well.  I don't have pictures of Gabe and Elisa, but I did snap a picture of Ian and his preschool teacher.

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October 18 (same day as Ian's preschool conference) we took the kids out to Yogurtini just for fun.  They loved it!

Same day...I took Ian and Gabe to Wendy's for their $2 kids meals while Elisa was in gymnastics.  They loved the "disguise" kit that came in the kid's meals.  Ian actually ate all of his food!

MacDonald Ranch Pumpkin Patch

Oct. 19, 2018

Last year we missed out on our annual visit to a local pumpkin patch, so this year we made sure to plan our trip early. This time we visited MacDonald Ranch in North Scottsdale. Normally the ranch offers horseback riding, but around Halloween they host a pumpkin patch and other related activities. Most of the games had a western theme: lassoing, panning for gold, milking "cows," tossing horseshoes, riding ponies, riding horse-drawn carriages, and petting farm animals. The kids also played ring toss, field hockey, rubber-duck race, pedal cars, and wandered through a maze of hay bales. 

Lassoing some "sheep"

Cuties at the petting area

Panning for "gold" aka little gold spray-painted rocks.  The kids really enjoyed it, and they had the choice to either keep their gold, or trade it in for a sucker.

Showing off those muscles! 

The kids loved riding the pedal cars!

The kids had a great time playing at the rubber ducky race.  Gabe dropped his gold near or in this attraction, and I can't remember if we found it or not.  I think we did. 

After playing around for a while, we hitched a hayride on one of the horse-drawn carriages to get to the pumpkin patch. The horses were pretty stinky, even though we sat at the back of the carriage. The kids had fun sorting through the pumpkins, looking for just the right one. Unfortunately, they were expensive. Pumpkins ranged from $4-$16 depending on their size. Gabe got a pumpkin that was slightly bigger than Ian and Elisa, so his cost $6. We spent $14 total on 3 pie-sized pumpkins. Yikes! We paid less than that for our 2 large carving pumpkins from the store.

Mommy and her girly!

Yep, still in the desert!

Cuties modeling in the pumpkin patch

"Milking" a "cow".  I'm sure if it were a real cow, the kids would want nothing to do with it!

 I took Elisa to ride the horses, and luckily it was only $3.  It was a really short ride, but Elisa had a good time! 

Elisa riding her horse.

My sillies in face-cutouts. They always insist on poking their cute little heads through whenever they see these things.  I'm sure "these things" have a name, but I'm not sure of it at the moment.

Just before leaving, Erik and I tried a Blazin' Burger from the food truck. It comes with deep-fried jalapenos on top, but Erik was able to substitute onion rings for a much milder burger. It was good although a little pricey.

Random October Happenings, Part II (Grandparent's Visit)

More fun things we did in we did in October:

Not so much fun: I got this lotion from Cracker Barrel a few months before and it smelled soooo good, just like fall.  I would put some on my arms just before bed and my arms would feel slightly itchy but I was tired and didn't think much of it.  A few weeks later I rubbed this lotion into my arms during the day, and they started to itch slightly.  I looked in the mirror and saw that my arm was red where I put the lotion on.  I'm not allergic to anything that I know of; but there is something in this lotion that my body didn't like.

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Oct. 10

Elisa got a new shirt! It's a little big on her right now, but that's good because she has all winter to grow into it. This blouse took me absolutely forever to finish!

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Oct. 11

Ian had his little friend Declan over to play while us mommies worked on a sewing project.  We found them both in Gabe's room, "reading" his books.  So cute!

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the-steak-and-blue-p

Also October 11:

Same day--Elisa freaking out because she temporarily misplaced her squeezamal and wanted me to help her find it immediately.  This behavior, unfortunately, is an almost daily occurrence.  She apparently has not outgrown the toddler stage yet!

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October 12-14:

Grandma and Grandpa came down for Grandparent's night.  I don't have any pictures of the actual event (because I wasn't there, obviously) but I'm sure it was fun! The kids came home with some books they picked out at the book fair. We tried a new pizza place for dinner, called Fired Pie (even though there's not actual pie on the menu).  Erik ordered the Steak and Blue for me and him, a sausage/pepperoni/pineapple for the kids, and mac cheese for Ian, of course.  I enjoyed the pizza, I'm not sure what every body else thought.

The Steak and Blue pizza

The kid's pizza

I made a pumpkin pie that nobody ate.  Why am I not surprised?!

The next morning it was pouring rain.  There was a RS Super Saturday that morning.  I had signed up to make a banner.  I took Elisa and Grandma Marsha with.  Elisa had fun making cards, and she especially enjoyed making yarn pom-poms.  She also gorged herself on m&m's and cookies.  I came home with two cute decorative banners (one for fall and one for Christmas), 3 or 4 tea towels that I slapped some designs on using heat & vinyl, lots of pom-poms, and a jar of bumble-berry jam: 

Elisa making cards with a sister Missionary

For dinner that night, we went to a Mexican restaurant called Popo's, and nobody liked it.  The food wasn't horrible, it was just mediocre.  I ordered a combination plate and it was the same exact things, just arranged differently.  The sauce was spicy and the beans were gloopy.  Really, there was nothing that any of us got that was any good, and we all ordered different things.  That is the one and only time we will ever eat at Popo's:

Ian singing his silly ABC songs in the car on the way to the restaurant

My platter of Mexican slop.

We got some rain, and with the rain some rainbows!  The kids played on the trampoline a lot with Grandpa and had a good ol' time!  I got some pretty neat pictures: