Fall Softball 2017--Candy Crushers!

Another softball season in the books!  And it was a GREAT one!  One of our most favorite coaches decided to come back this season to coaching and we were THRILLED!  Scott V. is so passionate about this sport and he puts so much energy and effort into it--which makes a HUGE difference.  We've had other coaches in the past just there to get through the season.

Chris was a coach as well this season.  Tatum likes having him there so it works out really well--the boys never liked him coaching their teams:)

Scott was gone the day of team pictures and so I had his wife send over a picture of him which Chris then blew up and cut out to put on a stick to make sure his face was seen in the pics:)  We sure had a good laugh over it all--the best part was that Chris posed with Scott's daughter for the Coach/daughter pic.  So it was Scott's huge head on my husband's body with Chloe at his side!  

Tatum caught again this season.  She is absolutely FEARLESS at these pitches coming at her--her best friend, Chloe V., has become quite the pitcher.  Her pitches come crazy fast at you for a 10 year old girl--she chipped her dad's tibia bone with a pitch.  But Tatum had no problem catching for her.  Chloe prefers Tatum behind the plate too--it's somewhat of a comfort to her and she just pitches better when Tatum is there.

The girls had a great season and came in 4th out of 14 teams so we were thrilled with that outcome.  Can't wait to jump back in next spring!!!

Scott's BIG head!!!

Dang she's CUTE!!!

The Unstoppable Duo!

Max's Monologue

All the parents were invited to watch their child perform a monologue that they had prepared and worked on in their drama class.  I had NO idea what I was in for.  Max was the very first one up and he was definitely the LOUDEST.

He is performing a highly-edited version of a monologue of Josh Gad in the movie "Pixels."  This is actually my most favorite part of that movie so it's probably my fault that he chose to do this one.  Thank goodness his teacher helped him with the editing.



Way to go Max.  Super proud of your ability to entertain a crowd.  You've definitely got a gift.

Halloween 2017!!!

Halloween always stretches out to at least 3 different events around here it seems.  It's the BEST day of the year as far as we're concerned.

We had to get really creative with Max's costume as he wanted to be the new "Pennywise."  So I hit up Pintrest for a few ideas and BAM!  Another awesome costume was created!  Max is usually the only complicated one every year.  The other 3 pull something together pretty much on their own.

WARD PARTY:
Max filmed the entire day before our ward Halloween party.  We picked him up from the film shoot and headed straight for the party.  Carlie and I did his make-up in about 5 minutes outside our car:)  Turned out great.  He was definitely the hit of the party.  He had the best time running around scaring everyone--even the adults:)  He had a crowd of kids that followed him around ALL night!  CRAZY KID!

Tatum invited her very best friend, Karisma, to the party.  It's always a party when these two are together.  Tatum is a dead movie star and Karisma was a Monster Softball player.  Tatum and her little group of 5th grade friends left the party a little early to go to Ellie's house nearby to just hang out "away from little kids" and exchange candy.  Funny how 5th graders feel bothered by "little kids:)"

I somehow missed my Ethan and his friends at the ward party.  Ethan seriously rode his bike over to the Goodwill store down the street on this very same day (in the morning).  His met up with his good friend, Courdrey, there and they each picked out their Halloween costumes in about 10 minutes.  Ethan spent a total of $6 for his cool biker jacket and hat.  Such an easy, simple kid--LOVE him:)

PUMPKIN-CARVING WITH THE PARKS:

I think we decided this was our 6th year doing this.  The kids look forward to it every year and the carvers (Chris & Kevin) just keep getting better and better!

HALLOWEEN AT HERITAGE:

Heritage Academy allows the students to dress up for Halloween.  So here are my 3 kiddos--Ethan as a biker guy (I LOVE how the hat sits on his ears:), Max as Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" (because the Pennywise collar is way too itchy to wear all day).  And Carlie as "Agnes"--one of the 3 sisters in the Despicable Me movies (she had 2 other friends at school that dressed up as the other 2 sisters).

Kalissa, Carlie, & Kayleah
as Margo, Agnes, & Edith

HALLOWEEN NIGHT:

We had our neighbors (the Thurmans) come over to our driveway.  We set up all our pumpkins and eat dinner together as the Trick-or-Treaters come by.  This is the best part of Halloween for me--spending time with our neighbors that we don't see everyday.  Ethan and Max had a great time going out with Brandon and Tyler.  Overall, just a GREAT night.  We LOVED it!

Max, Tyler, Ethan, Brandon, & Tatum

Here's Max doing the Pennywise dance:)

Another great Halloween in the books!

Max's 1st Short Film!

Max was contacted by an ASU film student to star in his upcoming short film called "Under-Bed."  It is a movie about a 12 year old boy who is bullied at school and befriends the monster under his bed for comfort.

His character name was "Toby" and he spent about 16 hours over 3 days shooting it.  The movie was mainly just him--the monster will be computer generated--and 3 bullies.  And I can't wait to see it!!!

On the last day of the shoot, they had an actor not show up.  He was supposed to be one of the bullies.  The shoot was less than a mile from my home so I quickly called my other son, Ethan, to see if he would be willing to jump in as a bully last minute.  Ethan is such a great guy and agreed.  All he had to do was sneer at Max and make mean faces at him:)  He did great!

He had his own dressing room!!!

The make-up artist created this!

Aww!  Poor Toby:)

This guy thought I was CRAZY!!!
I just had to get a picture of everything going on!!!

Max now gets his very own IMDb page because he had talking lines in a filmed-movie!  Max had such a great time doing what he absolutely loves.  It was an amazing opportunity for him and I'm sure many more will be coming his way soon. 

Almost forgot about this!

Can't believe I almost forgot to post this gem.  My girls sand in sacrament meeting in September and knocked it out of the park:

13th Floor!!!

We've talked about going to one of these haunted houses in Phoenix for years!  We decided that THIS was our year!  Carlie is off enjoying her school History Tour back east and Ethan is having a blast on his Science Tour in northern CA so we decided we deserved a little fun here:)

We bought our tickets at Costco.  I was laughing because Max was actually nervous and taking deep breathes in the check out line!  There's just something about committing and buying the tickets that made him nervous:)  Tatum was totally on-board the entire time!

We read some of the FAQs online and we laughed at this one:
*Don't wear flip-flops or high heels as these tend to fill up our lost and found.

And:
*This attraction is not recommended for children under 12.

So we wore our best running shoes and headed out on a Wednesday night with our 12 and 10 year old!

SOOO MUCH FUN!!!  Even just standing in line!  They had actors in costume walking around messing with people.  And if you had young kids with you...you seemed to be targeted even more!  Here's poor Tatum just trying to mind her own business in line:)

They were also willing to take pictures with your family as well. 

Fun little contraptions set up for fun picture too:

It took us a solid hour to make it through the two houses!  A solid hour of constant terror!  Seriously never knowing if someone was right behind you!!!  Oh my goodness I have never been more freaked out in my life and I have also never laughed so hard in my life.  I passed off Tatum to Chris because she seemed to really attract the actors but having Max at my side only helped when I could use him as my human shield.  Tatum's scream is THE BEST!!!  Holy cow!  We had so much fun and screamed so much that once we got out, we needed some ice cream to cool down our poor throats.  Totally worth the drive, totally worth the money.  I could definitely be talked in to doing this again:)

Foster Babies--Oct. 2017

It had been months since we had any puppies so I was OVERJOYED to go and pick up these cute little chihuahua pups!!!  We got to love on these pups for 3 weeks!  

Gilderoy (Lockhart--the pretty boy:)--male

Ollivander--male

Lavender--female

Pumpkin--female

Gilderoy had the prettiest yet funniest eyes!  I swear he always looked surprised or guilty whenever I tried to get a good pic of him:

Cute little Lavender

We were super sad to take them back but we know they are off to good homes now.  Hopefully we'll get some more pups soon!!!  Puppy withdrawal is a REAL thing for me!