Party Time

Cinderella making an appearance as a witch.


All of our guests were able to contribute to the brew, with bat eyes, (blueberries) Frankenstein tongues, (fruit by the foot), vampire teeth, (tips of candy corn) a few other things but the favorite being witch's breath (dried ice, I couldn't have planned it better if tried, I picked the ice up with metal tongs and it made a great screaming hissing sound.)

Payton and Mia Barret .

Allison Chatterton, Emma Ferrin, 6 year old Payton,

Carli Salomon, Elyse 3, and Kenya Contreras

We only do a birthday party with friends every other year and this was a party year for

Ms. Payton. She chose a Halloween theme. We played dress the witch, (a spin off of pin the tail on the donkey, thanks to my cricut machine) made a fabulous witches brew, (thank you Shannon Taylor for that idea it was as great as you said it would be) ate ribs, (string cheese), and worms (hot dogs sliced into 8th's then boiled curly). We Opened presents, wow we have a lot of littlest, Polly's, pet shops, and pretty pony's. Payton is in heaven, these are her very favorite things and she plays with them all the time. Even Cinderella made an appearance dressed for Halloween like a witch. Every one seemed to have fun, and Mark and I were glad it was over.

Shortly after the party Mark was off to a stake priesthood meeting. Later we had our favorite babysitter come, Kayla Stinebaugh and Mark and I attended the adult session of stake conference with Elder R Bruce Merrell of the 70. Following that we went out to a late dinner with our second councilor and his wife. Here is a shout out to our good "buddy"! Today we attended Stake Conference which of course was very nice, two sisters from our ward spoke today and last night one of our sisters spoke, so the Paradise Ridge Ward was well represented.

All and all a great weekend, it's 2:45pm and things are quiet....for now.

Happy Birthday Payton!

Elyse enjoying Payton's birthday present from Brother and Sister Bennett

Payton enjoying one of her presents.

Opening her presents.


Payton's Birthday was the 24th. I can't believe she is 6! I told her that she didn't have to go to bed on Thursday night, in exchange she would still be my 5 year old. But she decided to go to bed and wouldn't you know it she woke up 6. It's amazing I love having a 6 year old. Friday she got up and opened her presents. She took snicker doodle cookies to school to celebrate. Elyse and I picked her up and went to McDonald's for lunch. That night the only thing she wanted to do was have her favorite primary teachers over for dinner, which upon her request was shrimp, rice and zucchini. What a fun dinner. We then went to a new ice cream shop in town instead of cake. Then we came home got into PJ's turned out all of the lights and watched a grand fireworks show out our window and sang happy birthday just for her. It was a perfect evening, (and U of I's homecoming).

This is for you Grandpa May!

Last night the girls were in the kitchen just before bed. Elyse decided that something smelled and blamed it on Payton, she smells things all the time. So I told her it's her upper lip. Hers eyes got real big and she asked "my wips?" I told her it must be, we don't smell anything. She thought about it long and hard. This morning when she got up I asked her "what smells?" She says "oh, oh, that must be my wips!"

Pumpkin Carving FHE

Waiting to get started, Elyse was so excited.
"Oooo pumpkin guts, I need the sanitizer!" Elyse Keeps us laughing

A is for Apple-J is Joy School

Elyse and I spent Friday with our Joy School group at the WSU apple orchards, the kids loved playing in the trees and picking apples. And of course you can't go all the way to WSU and not visit the creamery, so we enjoyed ice cream and cheese for lunch.

First try @ blogging

I have been inspired to give this a try. Thank you Pennington's, Skinners, and to everyone else who have distracted me from another long day. I love reading blogs when I want to catch up on what everyone else is doing and forget that I have million things I could be doing. So I'm going to try this out. No more begging for pictures, and maybe less time consuming than Facebook. So here I go, with nothing to loose.