Pickle Juice

How in the world is it already the middle of month 11! One good thing about this time of year are the colors. Ryan took the kids to the park one day and had a little photo shoot. Makay loved being in front of the camera.

I love how many trees there are around here and if there are a lot of trees, there are a lot of leaves.

You can really work up a sweat by trying to see how many leaves you can get into the air at the same time. Creed would live in a leaf pile if we would let him.

I picked up some fancy dresses at the local Goodwill for $3 each. Originally they were for dress up but they fit so well and were in such good condition that they are now our fancy church clothes.

Some parents have to struggle with their kids every day to get them to sit at the table and eat. We have never had that problem. Our main food struggle is usually trying to get them to stop. They aren't picky eaters either (of which I am so not complaining about!). Sometimes, to encourage them to stop eating we will give them the option of something disgusting or being done. This tactic usually works. . . but sometimes it backfires. This is Easton, Creed and Makay (not pictured) drinking pickle juice. Yes, I said pickle juice. Go figure.

My kids do occasionally eat normal food too; like Halloween candy. Some days I will let them pick something out of their bag for a snack. They are pretty clever and go for either a sucker or gum. Creed thought he would be a nice brother and share his sucker with Beckham. The only problem was when Beckham got a taste, he was not about to let that thing out of his mouth. Creed pulled and pulled and Beckham cried and cried (while never opening his mouth wide enough to get the sucker out) until Creed gave in and asked if he could pick out another piece of candy.

We have a little sun room off the back of our kitchen (during winters it's known as the "ice box"). Ryan and I noticed that what were once small cracks in the ceiling were now big cracks in the ceiling. We called our land lords' maintenance man Dominic to come take a look. He said he was going to have to rip the whole thing down and replace it (just the ceiling). It took a whole evening for me to clear the room out of the four food stacked shelves and mounds of junk I had in there. It took Dominic two days of cursing under his breath and breathing in toxic dust to get our room liveable again.

It looks great and it gave me a chance to organize my junk! Yeehaw! Plus, for a short time we had a room that was just for balls. Isn't that every kids dream?

Over and out.

Lampoon Temple Vacation

Lets start off with how great it was to attend the temple this weekend. Berni and the kids picked me up from school on Thursday and we were off to D.C. area to start the Button Family Quarterly Temple Vacation (BFQTV). The kids were pretty excited about all the cool perks of a hotel from our previous trips. Sorry kids, those perks don't come with this hotel. But ya know what, they still had fun. They still had fun without the swimming, the delicious free continental breakfast, and they only complained alittle when the pizza was 2 hours late. Nothing dampened their spirits. The nights were filled with the excitement of getting to do things that you don't normally get to do at home. Jumping on the bed, eating lots of junk food, getting thrown on the bed by dad, getting a head laceration (little bit of an exageration) when dad is having to much fun and throws you on the bed at the wrong angle and you skim across and hit the nightstand, watching lots of cartoons, playing old maid and go fish with mom, going to the park with dad while mom is in a session, going to the visitors center and playing with all the cool touch screen displays, having one giant slumber party every night with the whole fam, and going to the visitors center again, this time for two and a half hours because dad locked the keys in the car just as mom got out from another session and then having fun at FuddRuckers and Coldstone as dads way of saying, I'm sorry for the key thing. Yes you can't rain on this parade. Although, mom and dad were feeling a little damp when they got the $200 dollar charge for the "key thing", the $12 dollar a night hotel parking fee and the charges for local phone calls from the hotel phone. Why didn't we use the cell? What can you do?...besides being a little more aware when booking our next hotel, and maybe complaining about something at the front desk, just out of spite, like the bug infestation in our hotel room...okay so they were ladybugs, but still, a little weird. I think we counted around 14 and how could we complain about this alternate form of entertainment that our children so enjoyed sharing their hotel room with. Despite the sarcasm, the vacation was very nice and most of all the temple was wonderful! We'll pay a key lock out charge of any price, any day, if that's the price of going to the temple...but we'd rather not

Trick or Treat!

Is anyone else's family still on a sugar high because we sure are! We had class party's at school for Parker, Easton and Creed,our ward Halloween party on Friday night, a Halloween birthday party on Saturday for Eastons' friend and then Trick or Treating on Saturday night, woohoo! I'm not sure how much makeup we went through but I'm pretty sure it talked Parker out of ever wanting to become a model.

Here are our little monsters. . .

Beckham had a vampire costume on but the smudges around his eyes were hard enough so we kept it simple with him. Parker wasn't so simple, but we sure had fun! This was Saturday nights version of a butterfly fairy.

This was Friday nights version. They would have been the same both nights but I ran out of the red pencil makeup. We had fun experimenting though.

Creed is just too good at being a vampire! This year he really got into it too. He liked to go up to people with his mouth open ready to bite, it was pretty scary.

Easton, the peacemaker, wanted to bring world peace. Who better for the job than Batman!?! Masks aren't allowed at church parties so we painted this on. We should have taken a picture at the end of the night to compare, it was pretty funny where that black makeup got to. It is so much fun finding the perfect costume for your child. It's like finding someone the perfect gift for their birthday, something that you know they will love. When I saw this costume I knew it was for Makay.

She was the perfect little devil "princess" (she added the princess on herself), so mischievous and beautiful that you can't get mad at her schemes. We tried for a group shot but with Beckham so mobile it doesn't really work any more. Maybe in 10 years they will all hold still and look at the same time.

The boys received pumpkins from school events this year but Creed was the only one who wanted to operate. He ended up being quite the surgeon.

All the kids loved the final product and it strangely became a community pumpkin after that.

We took a walk on Sunday afternoon to help with the sugar detox. It was chilly but really nice.

Aaaahh, we survived the sugar highs.

button children

we sure love these kids!

Hats, Gloves and Mohawks

Not a whole lot has happened in the past two weeks. Probably the best thing that happened to us was General Conference where we were able to hear the prophet of the Lord speak. It was amazing, we are very inspired to start living better lives!

On a more mundane note, things have been running smoothly. The kids are still loving school and doing very well. Since Makay is the only child home with Beckham any more she thinks she is solely in charge of his learning and development and has taken it upon herself to teach him all kinds of new things including throwing all possible toys down the stairs and how to open the screen door. Thank goodness Beckham isn't the student that our other kids are!

The kids have been enjoying our last days at the park. Fall hit all of the sudden and in full swing so we really won't have much longer for outdoors stuff. This is Easton being a panther and hunting his prey.

My handsome boys got hair cuts again and this time Ryan did them. He loves turning our boys into little neanderthals.

We were able to eliminate our mold problem in the basement that occurred this summer but lost a few possessions along the way. One of the things we lost were our winter hats and gloves. The cooler weather forced us to the store before we thought we would need to. As many of you know, our house is old and drafty so yes, we are already bundling up inside as well as out.

I've finally been able to make it back to my beloved craft room!

I rented some library books about jewelry making and got some awesome ideas. One entire book was about using wire, I love it. These earrings are a spiral cage with beads going down the middle. They were too much fun.

This was my first attempt at a more formal piece. I found the center piece in a boutique at a huge discount so I bought it. It was originally a broach but I wanted to do a necklace with an antique feel with it. I have no idea if it turned out well or not. If you want to leave a comment and HONESTLY tell me what you think of it, it would be much appreciated.

Birthday Surprise!

Parker had a birthday shout hurray! Our oldest offspring turned 7 on the 23 (Wednesday). Unfortunately we couldn't celebrate that day because "dad had to be at stinky school all day long!" The real reason is that Ryan's parents and brother weren't getting here until Wednesday night after the kids were in bed. I told Parker that she would have a birthday surprise on Thursday and she would love it so much that it would be worth the wait.

It would have been a great surprise too except that Parker ran into Grandma Button en route to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Despite the non-surprise she loved her birthday and it was worth waiting an extra day.



Parker wanted a cake that was very girly, "something pretty or pink or sparkly or something." (I have wondered several times how we could possibly be genetically linked) Well, there was no way I was attempting a castle or something sparkly (how could you make a sparkly cake !?!) so I opted for the most girly thing that could be in the shape of a square. . . a purse!



It actually turned out to be a lot of fun! It's strawberry cake on the inside so even the cake part is pink, I know, I really outdid myself. The handle was a bit tricky, it weighed a ton so I had to get some beading wire to help support it. I took this picture right after I stuck it in and by the time we ate the cake, about two hours later, the handle was laying flat.




Grandpa and Grandma Button took Parker out and bought her a new winter coat for her birthday. She had no inhibitions about putting on a fashion show for us. (Once again, is she my child?)

The kids had a hay day with Uncle Nick! They are his biggest fans.




On Friday we went to the zoo, the one day it didn't rain yippee! I think it wore the adults out more than the kids which was opposite of our plan.


Our biggest adventure at the zoo would have to be the sting ray exhibit. While Grandpa and Ryan were helping Makay pet one of the sting rays (which is allowed) Creed decided that he didn't need help. After one huge splash, a dazed Creed and many frightened sting rays, Ryan pulled Creed off of a flattened sting ray and out of the exhibit sopping wet. I'm not so sure they are going to allow the petting any more and I'm really not sure if that one sting ray recovered from all the 30 pounds of Creed that landed on him.



As you can tell we had an eventful weekend with the Buttons. It always comes to an end too quickly though! Dressed in our best the kids got some pictures with Grandpa and Grandma before they had to go.

It's amazing how well this picture turned out considering there's five kids in it!

More hugs for Uncle Nick and they were off. Thanks so much for flying across the country to visit us! We love you!

Holy Heart

Well, our computer isn't letting us upload any pictures so sorry. I know an entry is no good without pictures.

So the biggest thing we did this last week was see Creeds Cardiologist. For all who don't know, Creed doesn't have a hole in his heart. . . he has three. Yeah, not the news we were looking for. He is going to need open heart surgery which is freaking me out. His heart is enlarged on one side due to the blood that is leaking back into it. The Dr. said that they will be able to sew one hole closed and then patch the other two.

Of course it's scary to find out that your child is going to have to go through something like this but it has definitely put things into a different perspective for us. Plus, everything is in the Lords hands anyway so there is no need to fear. We know that it all works out in the end.

With no pictures that's about all for us. We'll try to get the pictures working. Until then, some funny quotes from the kids. . .

*Ryan was helping Creed say the prayer and he prompted him, "we love thee" and Creed said, "you love me."

*pikey-pones are pine cones. We think they mixed porky pines and pine cones together for that one.

*I took Creed out to lunch after his cardiology appointment at his favorite Chinese restaurant. It's a very nice Chinese family that runs it. Creed (being physically incapable of whispering) asked if Chinese people sleep. Why is the mom and the kids Chinese? I tried explaining that they are just like us, they just speak a different language and that Chinese people have Chinese babies just like white people have white babies. A black man was waiting for his order and Creed pointed and said, "he's black." The man looked at us. "yes he is," I said. "Does he have black babies?" My face was very red.