Halloween 2021

     Believe it or not, this was a pretty low-key year for the Meekers.  We only doll-dropped one person--Elder Miller.  He is one of our favorite missionaries to serve at the Branch with us.  He's 6'9" and HATES Halloween so we just couldn't let that be!  There's NO disrespecting our favorite holiday after feeding you every Sunday for 6 months!  He was transferred to Casa Grande before Halloween hit so we made plans with his companion (Elder Hinckley who was also a Branch missionary AND the great-great grandson of the Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley so we figured we were okay with him on our side despite probably breaking a few mission rules 😂) through FB messenger.  So we drove down to Casa Grande on a Friday night at 9:15 pm to carry this out.  Well, we didn't quite get the reaction that we were hoping--not really possible to get a rise out of Miller--but it was just great to see two our of favorite missionaries again.  LOVE these boys like my own:

Here is our home Halloween set-up for 2021:

    We were also asked to create a haunted room for a Haunted Maze that several of the wards in our Stake participate in each year.  IT WAS SOO MUCH FUN!!!  I hope they ask again next year.  Check out our "Meeker Doll Room."  We found a creepy white night gown for Tatum to wear as she sat inside our room rocking in a rocking chair holding a doll.  She would ask creepy questions to all the kids that came through--Carlie sat outside the tent feeding her creepy lines and Max sat nearby to hit the tarp as people walked past for an extra scare.

We tested out the creepiness of our bride
in Max's room a few days before:)

Daytime Set up

Ethan found a great girl that went with him to TWO haunted attractions in ID.  I love this girl I've never even met:). Bless her.

    Carlie flew in this weekend to see the Mesa Temple AND to see her Best Friend (Kayleah) in "Mary Poppins" at Hale Theatre--which was FANTASTIC!

    And the main event:  The Mesa Temple Open House!!!  It was so great to walk through this magnificent building again after so many years.  

    We of course set out on our front porch on Halloween night eating pizza with our neighbors, the Thurmans--one of my most favorite traditions.  So like I said, it was a fun/jammed-pack season but pretty low-key for us.  Guess we're just getting too old...

Foster Pups--My Disney litters:)

    After a much needed break over the summer, I was ready to jump back into my most favorite side-hobby of PUPPY RESCUE!!!  And man!  It's raining puppies this fall!  So far I've taken 12 pups this past month--with 3 more active litters I'm working on getting.  So hopefully MORE puppies will come my way soon.   

Aladdin Pups:

Peter Pan Clan:  I love this next little photo sequence--Cool Auntie Lola patiently waiting for her new pups to come out!  INSTANT BEST FRIENDS!!!

LOVE bath time pics

Carlie & Cubby

Me & Cubby--kinda my fav

Me & Captain Hook--I'm a sucker for the fluff!

Max's Homecoming--Jr. Year

    Just super proud of my boy putting himself out there and asking girls to High School dances.  But being the mom of the boy, I'm not really allowed to follow along and take my own pics.  So these are all I get!  But I know I would have done a WAY better job than "the friend who is kinda in photography" who took their actual pictures😏.   But it's all good.  They had a great time and I sure enjoyed getting all the details the next morning.  Max and Ricky are just a party.

JP & Max asking sisters

Max & Ricky--the true Bromance

Diana's Quince

    Tatum was invited to one of her softball teammate's Quince.  It was seriously the MOST FANCY party I have ever attended!  HOLY MOLY!!!  Everything was so beautiful and her dress was incredible--she was knocking over chairs all night as she was trying to greet her guests.  But it was such a fun night and I'm so glad we went.  We hung out with our awesome head Coach Vega and his wife as they explained everything that was happening that night--everything was in Spanish so we were a little lost.😂. Amazing food and live music.  We stayed until about 8:30 pm but the party/dancing was scheduled to go until 2 am!!!  Us poor white folk can't dance that late:)

Coach Vega and the girls

Mom & Tatum Trip to NM

    Well it seemed that everyone had grand plans for fall break--even Max got to take off on his school trip to NYC.  No such plans for Tatum & I.  We decided to head over to my dad's house for a couple days to help him do some deep-cleaning/de-cluttering.  NOT a job for the faint at heart.

    

    First room on the list--the laundry room.  This is 40 years of lint and dust and also some crazy sponge paint job that I did way back in the 90s when that was a cool thing to do.  

Before pics:

After pics:

    Next up was the kitchen.  Tatum, the brave soul, tackled the freezer and fridge all by herself.  Quite the adventure.  First of all, the freezer looked like a murder scene--it was just vegetable/beet juice that my mom used to drink all over the bottom of the freezer:

    We also threw away a TON of food--pictured is "breakfast patties" that had expired in 2006--before Tatum was even born😝😂

    The kitchen about did us in.  We removed at LEAST 1,000 pounds of garbage, old food, tupperware containers with no lids, other questionable things.  We also took quite the load of pressure cookers and LOTS of canning jars over to the local Goodwill.  We wanted to tackle the pantry as well, but it's got to be baby steps with my dad.  (And I totally forgot to take after pics of the kitchen).

    

    While we were there, we did get over to Mexico to get some prescription meds and eat at "The Pink Store."  We also got to help get the donkeys back in after escaping the front yard--it took my dad and I plus 3 sheriffs deputies to get them back in...😅. ALWAYS an adventure to be had in Deming.  We'll head back at Christmas to tackle my mom's obsessive/compulsive food storage pantry/apartment.

Naughty Donkeys!!!

And I usually love ALL puppies, but this new one of my dads....well, she's a bit too much for me--good thing my dad likes her😂

These just make me smile...

 It's a trendy thing to re-make old photos--and I LOVE this trend.  I LOVE that my kids still love each other to do silly things like this:

Tatum is 14!

     How is my baby 14 and in High School???  This girl just continues to make us proud every single day.  She works harder than any of my other kids on her grades at school and it shows in her grades--pretty much straight A+s and she is also currently tied for the #1 spot in her Freshman class.  And she's a star on the softball field both in her school and her Chandler Rec team.  Cannot wait to see what this girl does in life but for now, I LOVE having her home with me.

    This year, Tatum wanted Olive Garden for her birthday dinner.  Then we had a quiet birthday dinner/cake at home on Sunday with our Missionaries.  (We will hopefully be taking a Disneyland trip in January celebrating both Tatum & Max's birthdays--as long as Chris still has a job at this end of this year:)