First Off I would like to thank Teriann and Whitney for voting for my pumpkin you both just won a life time of support from me. For those of you who did not vote for my pumpkin that is ok and you're all forgiven. I had my pumpkin carved and out on the porch before Anne even had the little stitch carved. It took her Three hours just to come up with little thing. I could have carved a whole city in three hours... Just thought everyone should know......
Until next time
JACE VERNON
aka Blog Stalker
...and the results are in. Before we congratulate the winner of this years Pumpkin Carving Contest I would like to show you how our Family Home Evening went. Jace was sweet and got the pumpkins even though he wanted nothing to do with pumpkin carving. So, I guess to get himself enthused he decided to make it a contest. Jace vs. Anne. Here we begin...
The kids didn't know what to make of the pumpkins. They love getting into things and getting messy so I thought they would totally love to pull all the guts out. I was wrong.
Neither of them wanted anything to do with the pumpkins. They thought it was gross. Although Xander did eat some seeds that fell on the cement. Yum.
Here we are...We'd already gotten our patterns on and we're carving away. 
I would just like to thank everyone who took the time to participate in our family contest. And to all of you who voted for mine...the winning pumpkin...way to go!
P.S. Jace got on the blog today to check on the results and he was totally stunned. He started coming up with a lot of excuses as to why I won and he didn't. (His template wasn't as good as mine...He didn't as much time on his...etc.) But he's just being bitter. :) I totally wasted him. Yay.
O - and Andrea...Jace said you could've totally redeemed yourself from the turtle incident if you would've voted for him. O well... :)
And we need your votes!
Jace and I decided we were going to make our pumpkin carving a contest. So, we both found templates online that we wanted to carve and now we're leaving it up to you to vote on the best one.
Last week Aunt "Mayme" came to town. She stayed with Ry and Nat, but when they had school and work she came to hang out with me and the kids. She came bearing gifts that my great-grandma won on her trip to Lagoon this past summer. 
I gotta say the bear and puppy were a hit and Aliyah is still sleeping with them both. Xander doesn't really get a say in it.
We played at the park with the kids and Amy just played and ran around with them a lot. The kids love you "Mayme" and we are all so glad you could take some time off work and come visit.
Aliyah said bye to you for at least 45 min. :)
Can't wait to see you again on the "Bickey boat!"
One of the things I really love about living here is the weather in the fall/winter/spring. Summer used to be my favorite season...when I lived up north...because it was warm and sunny and perfect. It would get hot, but nothing like down here. Now that I've lived here for 4 years, I would definitely have to say fall and spring are my favorite. The temperature is perfect.
However, I'm going to be a stickler about fall. I do not like how early it gets dark and how late it is in the morning before the sun finally decides to shine. This morning I didn't want to get out of bed because I was sure it was 4 or 5...nope...it was 7. And last night when I was so tired and I was certain it had to be at least 11, it was only 9:15. :( I just feel more tired and lazy in the fall/winter. And next week when we change the clock back it going to be even worse. Sigh...O well. I guess I'll just grin and bear it until spring finally comes. :D
Aliyah was so good this morning. While I was busy vacuuming and cleaning and all that fun stuff she put in a DVD to watch in her room and sat there. She hardly came out. I mean there wasn't even a "Mamma, help..." or anything. I thought, "this is awesome. She's been involved with this for a good 30 minutes, I'm getting in the shower." Usually when I get in the shower and she's still awake she'll come for a visit. But this time she stayed in her room, which I was grateful for. (I mean, who really likes an interrupted shower?)
I got out, got all dressed, and I decided I hadn't heard from Aliyah in a while. That either meant she was asleep, or she was into something she shouldn't be. I thought it was the latter for sure. So I went in to check on her and I found her fast asleep in her little chair. She looked so cute I had to take a pic. :)
I thought I'd update super quick since this is more of a journal for me.
We took the kids to Staheli Farm on Monday for Family night. We met up with the Fenton's. It's always fun to go out with friends. Especially when they have a kid the same age as one of your kids. Aliyah is obsessed with Kate and Avery and asks to see them all the time, so it was good we went with them. :) The kids had a lot of fun (pics to follow). I think their favorite was the slide with the corn at the bottom. O, neither of them liked the slide. They loved playing in the corn at the bottom of it. Xander kept grabbing handfuls and covering himself and Aliyah enjoyed throwing it everywhere. I just watched them cringing in digust at all the dirt. Eew.
The animals were also a big hit. Both the kids pet the cow, they thought that was pretty cool. Xander kept trying to stick his finger in the chicken coop and was successful once. The chickens were all too eager to check it out too. But he didn't even care.
We also did the corn maze. Not too difficult. The boys followed the map to a T and we were in and out in probably 20 minutes. It would've been shorter if the kids didn't hold us up. But I'll tell you, they were on a mission.
We had a lot of fun and ended the night at Arctic Circle for some ice cream. Yumm!
It has been such a struggle to get Aliyah into the tub lately. So we've resorted to bribes.
I was tagged by Jealin! Yay. I love tags...I don't know why, but I do. :)
Here it is: All you have to do is go to your 6th picture album folder, pick the 6th picture and post it. Then tag 4 friends. 
March 5, 2008
The kids playing with a balloon. Xander looks so little. :)
Now I tag: Suz, Teresa, Cara, & Courtney
My daddy is in the Music Masters program at the U. He is taking his very last class this semester and has called on me and my "creative skills" to make a poster for his concert. So, I decided to post it here because this way he'll be able to blow it up and read the words and whatever before I send it.
So, I just want to say Good Luck with your music you are still writing...hope your concert goes well!
Love you Faja!!!
Thursday day Jace heard something squealing in one of those sticky animal traps that was in our garage. A baby mouse had migrated clear to the opposite side of the garage and gotten itself stuck in it...what is what is supposed to happen. Jace's little heart broke and so he brought it inside and tried to get it out. In the process I think he drowned the little thing in the water and soap he was using. And then I heard my blowdryer. Yep, he was drying the thing off! I asked him if he was seriously using my blowdryer and he said he was trying to revive him by heating him up. O my husband is hilarious. So, there went one baby mouse.
Thursday night Jace said he thought the Momma Mouse (MM) was moving the babies because he couldn't find some of them. (O yeah, there weren't just 3...there were 5...at least!) Well, that was comforting and not comforting at the same time. Comforting because she was moving them, and not because who knows where she's moving them to.
Yesterday afternoon I was going to run errands and before I left I went over to the corner in the garage to see if there were any still there and I found a dead one. It was kind of sad, but at the same time I was thinking "good, another one down." (Is that mean?)
Jace came home a bit later and got to cleaning the garage to see if he could find any more and to clean up the poop and nest. He found 2 more that maybe the MM just abandoned...we think. They were so weak and Jace even tried to feed them cheese, milk, and pancakes. (I know...) Well, he ended up having to just kill them because they were dying anyway.
So, to recap...at least 3 babies are dead. We still can't find MM anywhere. Hopefully she took her other babies far far away from here.
I feel like every other post I'm writing about some type of creature we've found in our house. Luckily, this one is in the garage. That only gives minor comfort though.
I'm pretty sure that ever since we moved in (a little over a year ago) we've seen mouse poop everywhere! By our front door and in the garage mostly. Well, for the past couple weeks...maybe months, Jace has been saying he sees a mouse running across our garage floor when we open the garage from coming home at night. I've never seen it, thankfully.
This morning I pulled in the garage after working out and there by the stroller is a baby mouse that seriously looked like it was dying. It kept flipping on it's back. So I ran in the house and grabbed Jace and he came out and picked it up!!! I about died. I think all rodents or creatures or anything like that are extremely disgusting and full of diseases. Jace saw my reaction and said, "The baby ones don't have diseases." I DON"T CARE! That's still gross. Not only did we have a momma mouse running around in our garage...now she's having babies!!!
Jace wanted to keep the baby mouse because he thought it was cute. It's eyes weren't even open yet that's how new it was. I told him he couldn't keep it and he had to get rid of it FAR away from our house. He wouldn't do it because it would die. (Wah.) So he spent the next 10 minutes out in our garage shuffling boxes around to find it's mom. Well, in the process we found the nest and 2 more babies. I'm so mad and grossed out! And I have a husband who might as well be an animal rights activist. I don't necessarily want him to kill them, but get them out of our garage...PLEASE!
As of now he "boxed them in" so they won't get away until he can deal with them tonight. But I don't think he noticed that a little farther down there is nothing blocking them from getting out and hiding somewhere else. And we definitely don't want that because I think these are "smart mice" we're dealing with because they have alluded traps for a good 4 months.
Wish me luck on convincing Jace they gotta go.
This weekend I decided to go darker with my hair. I'm going to put some blonde in it in a couple weeks. I decided to let it rest for a while just being brown. I didn't want it fried. So, for right now I'm a brunette. It's a little dark...it's darker than my real hair color. Jace really doesn't like it; he likes the blondes. But, for now this will have to work.
So, without further ado....My new hair:
Once again we packed the kids up and headed to the cold land of Northern Utah. This time we had the newly weds with us to help keep the kids entertained. (Thanks Jalee and Kyle...I know they were a bit annoying, but we really appreciated the help.)
We left on Thursday to see Jaxon play his JV football game against South Summit. They totally won and Jaxon played awesome.
Friday was the Homecoming game for Varsity...which meant a parade. Those Coalvillers really know how to have a parade. :) We ate a spaghetti dinner at the school after.
Jaxon and Xander
Kyle and Jalee enjoying the food
The happy Vernon family...don't mind the hair. I just got it done that day and it's definitely different.
(I was a bit of a picture slacker this trip and this is all I took.)
We ended up watching the game on TV at Jace's friends. It was an excellent idea considering it was FREEZING cold outside and there was no way the kids were going to sit through that. The Braves won their homecoming game! Yay team.
Saturday we headed to my parents after the morning session of conference. The kids had fun with all the toys and grandma and grandpa. And later that night watched Iron Man. (Such a good show.)
We came home Sunday after morning conference. Once again Jalee and Kyle took on the kids. Xander was just so sick of sitting in his seat that he was WAY too fussy. I had to go in the back and sit by him. Turns out he peed out his diaper and it was all the way through his pants and shirt and his whole carseat was soaked. I'd be mad too.
Well, that's a brief synopsis of the weekend. Hope everyone enjoyed conference. :)
