Pre Halloween Fun

On October 22 Brooke's sitter H. had her annual Halloween party for all of her kids. H. always does a really good job with it. Unfortunately it was right during Brooke's nap time so Brooke was pretty grumpy after about an hour. It also meant that during the kids singing time (they had learned 3 Halloween songs) Brooke DID NOT want to sing and she DID NOT want me to leave her onstage by herself. Blake got some great video of me trying to coax Brooke to sing and Brooke being a grumpy gus. Oh the memories!

At least Brooke looked cute in her cupcake costume. I had the idea of B. being a cupcake for Halloween when I saw one in the Pottery Barn fall catalogue. Sorry PB but I was not going to pay $65 for a costume. I was thinking it would be easy to make one (and by me, I mean my MIL and her sewing skills, not mine) then I found this costume on a super sale at Old Navy and my problem was solved.

Any who--back to the party--H. had some fun games for the kids, like donut on a string...And a fishing pond where Brooke got a prize..As you can see the weather two weeks ago was quite warm. I'm sure all the kids were sweating to death inside their fleece costumes.Skip ahead to this past Saturday (October 29) and Brooke and I went to the Pumpkin Festival. Brooke made a pumpkin lantern at H.'s house and it was set up on display at the festival. There was also a kid's hay maze. Brooke loved it. I attempted to do the pumpkin festival by myself which pretty much gave me an anxiety attack. There were TONS of people and Brooke did not want to stay in her stroller and I was paranoid about her getting lost/kidnapped. We zipped through the pumpkin exhibits, hit the hay maze and went home!

On the other hand, we are super excited for trick-or-treating tonight! Brooke is going to have the time of her life!

Part Two of the Pumpkin Party

One of the things I have been wanting to do with Brooke for a while was go to the aquarium. We finally set some time aside to drive out there last Thursday over my Fall Break from school. We had such a great time! The aquarium was the perfect size, I thought, for little kids and had everything we'd want to see. I definitely plan on going back again. Brooke's favorite part was definitely seeing the jellyfish (she kept trying to escape from me to go back and look at them--she probably would have stood there all day watching them if I'd let her) and also watching the stingrays. At the gift shop, I got Brooke these sunglasses because she is always complaining how the sun is in her face. Plus, she is always trying to steal my sunglasses.

After the aquarium, we went to the park and had a picnic. Later, we headed down to my mom's house to spend the night. My mom watched Brooke for me and I was able to go out to eat with one of my good friends. No kids. No husbands. Just a lot of girl talk and catching up. It was so nice!

The rest of fall break was spent having a real pumpkin party:
We made sugar cookies. Which was actually really fun. Brooke knew just what to do! She was very independent about it and didn't want my help.We also painted some pumpkins. We'll carve the big one this weekend, but Brooke was super excited to use her paints and glitter.

Pumkin Party Part 1

When I got our Halloween decorations out at the beginning of the month, there was also Brooke's plastic pumpkin she uses to go trick or treating. I was explaing to her about Halloween and that later we would go to a pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin. I think that was too much for her little brain to handle. Brooke coverted "pumpkin patch" to "pumpkin party" and she started carrying around her plastic pumpkin and calling that her pumpkin party. So a pumpkin party is not an event, it's a thing. When we go somewhere she says, "oh, I need to get my pumpkin party" and she'll run to get her plastic pumpkin which she has stuffed full of random objects like a dirty shirt, her sippy, some toys, scraps of paper etc...I"ll have you know those pumpkins on the left are some that I made in young women's when I was 12! Yep, pretty proud of my craftiness.

Earlier this month, Blake shot his first bull elk. We was pretty excitied. It's not much for horns, but it's meat in the freezer.Do you think Brooke has any idea that she is sitting next to a dead animal? She's not her father's daughter for nothing!On October 15 it was the annual Oktoberfest. Steph and her family came out to visit, plus Blake's cousin & family, and the neighbors came out to celebrate with us. Jane, Brooke, Amelia, Josh, Kennedy, Kassidy, Kaitlyn (triplets!!), Alexia and Ben in front

We took a hayride to chocolate rock. The kids had fun stopping along the way to get clues for for the treasure hunt.After the kids found the treasure, I was the mean mom who had to inspect Brooke's treat to make sure it was okay. I love how brooke is looking up so expectantly at me.The kids found a lizard and Brooke was beyond excited to touch it. (Please ignore her chocolate mouth)And this is the "Hey Courtney! Let's get a profile shot!" And these pictures of B. kill me! We went on a trip over the fall break this past week (that will be the pumpkin party part 2 post) and I got some snowboots for Brooke (you know, for like the 5 times she'll go outside this winter). Brooke LOVES them. She wanted to wear them right away...and her snow hat...and bring her halloween bucket...and keep wearing her puppy back-pack (or pack-pack is how B. says it) She was very proud of herself. We had to get her picture taken next to our small fruit tree. Hopefully someday it will be huge and we'll say "Do you remember when our trees were that small?!"

More Nerd Stuff

Since I still need to get pictures from my MIL's camera to document our October-Fest we had last weekend, I will do a book report of sorts. I thought I would do a follow up on this list I blogged about last May.

I am happy to report I read all of the books (and then some) on my YA "To Read" list. I guess that is what happens when you are feeling nausous all summer :) So here are my thoughts

Books I LOVED:
Immortal Instruments Series: The best way to explain these books is it's a cross between the magic and battle between good and evil of Harry Potter and the romance of Twilight. FYI for younger readers: There are some pretty intense make-out sessions.

The Clockwork Angel: This is a prequel to the series above. I actually ended up liking this book more than the other series. Only because I LOVED the setting (turn of the century England) and thought the romance part was more sweet and slow to come.

The Study Series: There are three of these books--Poison Study, Magic Study, Fire Study I loved that the main character is strong-willed and not some damsal in distress. I loved that there is romance, but it doesn't overpower the book--the protagonist still has her own story beyond her boyfriend.

Juliet: It's been a while since I've read this, but I know I really liked it. It's a cross between a National Treasure and The DaVinci Code type story. Plus it had a main character who was over 20 and the story wasn't obscene in any way. Shocker!

Books that were OKAY:
The Beautiful Creatures series. Right now there are two books and the third one was just released. I can't really pinpoint what I don't like about them. They were good, but I found myself getting bored and skimming some parts. Plus the character of Lena drives me crazy. And you can tell the main character, Ethan, is a boy written by female authors. He is way too sensitive and intense for a high school boy. I still plan on reading the third one.

Incarceron: I just finished this one yesterday. It was good, but weird. It might have been a little too "out there" in the fantasy genre for my taste. I also think the author had a lot going on in the story so it made it a little confusing. Of course this book is just book number one in a series, so I will probably read the rest.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth series. Good, but the first two books were bascially the same story. The last book was by far the best. And even though they aren't obscene, I hesitate putting them in my classroom because the romance is kind of intense for a middle school audience, I think.

The Wolves of Mercy Fall series (Shiver, Linger, Forever). This was a story based on mostly emotions and thoughts of characters. There was very little actual action in these books. Also, by book #3 I was way more interested in the side characters stories because I was so bored with the two main characters.

The Maze Runner Series. The third book was just released and yes I will read it. I wasn't totally into the first two, but they were good. I a good boy book, I think. Lots of action and very little romance. Maybe that is why it's only "okay" for me. HAHA!

Books that were 'MEH:
The Beyonders. Sorry Brandon Mull but I could not get into this book. It was good but mostly I am bugged that this is going to be a trilogy! This story totally could have been told in one book. Plus the ending was terrible. The whole story builds up to this one moment and it's a huge letdown. But this story is really popular with a lot of my students.

Why are almost all YA books part of some kind of series? Now my "to read" is 10 times longer than it was in May. Also, I have done very little reading in the "adult" book category. Any suggestions? I get tired of YA storylines after a while :)

Nerd Alert!

Last week was crazy! We had parent/teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday nights until 7 pm. Friday the entire English department went to a conference in SLC and at the last minute the weather decided it would start to snow, throwing all 5 of us female teachers in a tizzy (while the lonely male English teacher sat back and laughed and shook his head) and we decided we didn't want to chance driving out if it was going to snow all night and made the decision to drive out Thursday night after parent/teacher conferences. Luckily one of the teachers has the hook-up at the Marriot there. We didn't even leave town until almost 8pm that night because everyone had to go home after conferences and pack and arrange things for our families. Thankfully, I had already arranged for Brooke to spend the night at Honey's house or I would have been in BIG trouble.

Oh, but the conference was worth it! There were tons of vendors for teachers like Scholastic and Usborne Books and others who were giving away free products. I even won a free book and bought several others. We went to 3 breakout sessions and got to listen to 3 amazing keynote speakers. One was Neal Shustermen who is a fabulous YA author. He's written some great stories like: And(this one is a trillogy and the first book is going to be made into a movie.) I even got some of his book signed and this time I wasn't so selfish about my book signing. I got extra copies signed to give away in a raffle for my students and I also got a book signed for a certain nephew who lives in Alaska (Merry Christmas!). Neal Shusterman has also written a hilarious YA books called The Shwa was Here.

We also heard from Ally Condie. She talked a lot about her new book coming out Nov. 1

Some interesting things she said:

• if you are interested in writing yourself, if you write 219 words per day, at the end of a year, you would have a book that is almost 80,000 words long. Pretty cool!


• The rights to Matched (her first book in this trillogy) have been sold to Disney to make into a movie


• The scenery for Crossed is based on the scenery from Southern UT which is where she is from.


• Her brother Nick, appears in the book as a character named Vic and she said he turned out to be more of an important character than he had any right to be.


• The colors for the cover (Green, Blue, and the third one will be Red) are based on the colors of the pills the characters take in the book.

And because I am the biggest nerd ever, my favorite keynote speaker came from a guy named Jeff Anderson who spoke on editing. He had all of us laughing our heads off by telling nerdy English jokes. He talked about a book called The Shallows which explores the question: Is the internet making us stupid? He claims that by browsing through information we are teaching a generation not to pay attention to details and that explains why there are more traffic accidents and why students can't retain information. Very interesting. Basically, he summed it up with this picture:Jeff Anderson also talked about how Daily Oral Language (DOLs) where you have students come in and correct sentences written on the board that have errors in them (I'm sure you did this in school. I know I did and I know I have my students do this too) has no research to support that it actually improves student writing. As a teacher, I know this to be true. Anyway, his presentation was very inspiring thought provoking.

As a nerd, I was very satisfied.

A Glimpse of Fall

Last weekend Blake, Brooke, and I were able to head up on the mountain for some family time and some camping. It was fun to get away from home and enjoy the beautiful autumn scenery. And what a difference last weekend was compared to our rainy/snowy weekend we are having right now! Blake's parents came up and spent some time with us and it was great to have them along (Thanks to Honey, we actually have pictures to document the trip!). We listened to conference, went on a drive, ate tinfoil dinners cooked in the fire, chased Brooke around our campsite while she looked for sticks, tried to creep up on birds, and went for a four-wheeler ride.

Hope we get to see more of autumn and not just jump right into winter. Right now all my late blooming flowers and tomatoes that have still been producing like crazy are covered in snow!