Costumes and Candy

We attended our first Halloween event of the year last night. We went to the annual Boo Bash at Bryan's work. Then, instead of grabbing Wendy's to eat on the 45 minute drive home, we stopped and had fancy Italian food from a restaurant that had an impressive gluten free menu. It was a late night, but a really fun one.

I think the costumes turned out quite well this year. Phoebe curated hers and helped with Sophie's. I made Topher's out of unused pizza boxes, duct tape, a dryer vent, and glow sticks. Oh, and an Amazon box for his hat and tissue boxes for his feet. Those came off quickly, I'll need to tinker with my design.

Feeding a Small Army

Before he started his mission, Cooper asked if we could hold an open house so people from church could gather to say goodbye to him. I've never done something like that (Peter's missionary experience has been very different, so we've experienced a lot of firsts with both of them) and felt a little daunted by the request.  But I told him I'd think about it. His buddy Spencer was set to go into the MTC the week before Cooper. Since we would largely be inviting the same people, we decided to combine our efforts and hold a joint open house. She provided the German food (Spencer was called to Berlin) and we brought the Brazilian food. It was an interesting culinary juxtaposition.

I cooked for two days to be ready. I now can successfully make pineapple-upside cupcakes, sequilhos, and Pao de Queijo. I made so many batches of that last one that I memorized the recipe. We also took a veggie tray and a fruit tray. Bryan cooked a big batch of Brazilian steak and cut it into bite-sized pieces. He also made all the food signs in German and Portuguese.

We had nearly 100 people RSVP.

I would guess that about 75 actually came.

I didn't take a single picture of the people because I was on my feet chatting with people for over two hours and didn't even think of it.

But I did  take pictures of all the food before anyone arrived!

Even though they went in a week apart, they still found each other at the MTC and took a picture to send to their moms!

Answering the Call

Tomorrow is the day that Cooper flies to Utah to go into the MTC.

For the last week our great room has been a disaster while he's worked on packing.

This looks like the mess was contained.

But if you look in the background of this one, during our farewell dinner of Cooper's favorite foods, the chaos is a little more obvious.

Cooper is currently finishing the packing. The chaos will be put away. And then he'll be off, learning how to me a missionary.

We're so excited for him.

The Main Event

We celebrated our family birthday in the traditional manner: our hodgepodge dinner. The menu this year:

Bryan: taquitos

Me: gluten-free coconut-sugar sweetened chocolate zucchini bread

Cooper: orange chicken (which we also found a gluten-free version of!)

Phoebe: sushi

Sophie: fettucine alfredo (I used gluten-free noodles!)

Topher: hot dogs

Yes, we had a meal with five main dishes. I guess the zucchini bread was our vegetable.

Bryan chose the birthday tablecloth and Topher put a wedding picture on the table as a centerpiece.

It was a very busy day with lots of end-of-summer/getting-ready-for-school-to-start activities, so the fact that we were able to squeeze in time for dinner as a family was a bit of a miracle.

Cake Masters

We hosted the Youth activity last week. They were planning a bake-off and we have two ovens, which turned out to be pretty important since they split into two teams. We worked hard and got our house company-ready. The evening was loud and fun and chaotic. Two of the leaders brought their kids, one leader had driven his son, plus another young man and his little brother who is Topher's age. That meant instead of going to bed, Topher also got to stay up and play host. It's a good thing I haven't given away the toys our kids have outgrown, because all those kids sure had fun exploring our playroom.

First the teams mixed up their cake mixes (not from scratch, no, we didn't have that kind of time), one gluten-free and one gluten-full. When those went into the ovens, we pulled the already-baked-and-cooled cakes (using the same brand and flavor box mixes the youth had just prepared) out from the panty for them to decorate. We had frosting and sprinkles and one of the leaders brought two secret ingredients that had to be used: raspberries and mint leaves. These are their final creations:

The leaders announced a tie, so Sophie arm wrestled the other team leader and came out victorious. Cooper, who doesn't attend these activities anymore, came and helped since his friend who moved away a few months ago surprised us all by showing up to the activity. Phoebe and Sophie were on the other team. I'll give you a hint about which cake they made: Phoebe really loves Spider-man.

When we bought this house I could envision the Young Women, who I was serving in church at the time, gathering for activities around our kitchen island. I'm glad a version of this was able to come to pass.

Forty-Six Sounds Like a Lot More Than Forty-Five

I had a birthday! 

The day before we took the kids to see Toy Story 5 for an early celebration. The kids enjoyed it, but the messages definitely hit harder for the parents. There were tears. Many tears.

On my actual birthday, Bryan and I were able to go to the temple (a birthday miracle!) and have lunch together. I failed to take a picture of us at the temple, but I did take a picture of some of our lunch.

While we were gone, the kids decorated the house for my birthday. We always do this for the kids, but almost never do it for the parents, so it was a sweet surprise.

I was in charge of singing time this Sunday, so of course I made it birthday-themed since it was the day after my birthday. Cooper, Phoebe, Sophie, and Topher colored and cut the candles while Bryan and I were sitting in our in-person ward council meeting before church on Sunday. And Phoebe drew the cake. I'm so glad they carried out my vision and made the activity possible. That was its own birthday gift.

 And Topher told the whole primary how old I am. I'm fine with it, but the other adults in the room had some worried looks on their faces.

The actual birthday was kind of crazy busy (and included writing some of the talk I posted on Monday), so I opened my presents and enjoyed delicious enchiladas that Bryan made and ate my sweet potato-based gluten-free cake the next day. 

Also, I've been tired all week, so maybe being 46 wears you out?

The Better Butter Battle

Last Saturday we had some friends over while their parents went to the temple. Sophie and her friend Gemma used the time to make this chocolate cake.

And have a butter battle, or course.

Green Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by wearing green, eating good food, and having fun church activities. I spent most of the day in the car shuttling the four younger kids between seminary and school and rehearsals and church. That's what happens when Bryan needs to go to work in person and Peter needs to drive an hour away for Zone Conference. The van became the sole method of transportation.

In between the driving, we had food prep,

a picture to prove that we were both wearing green,

a Leprechaun trap courtesy of Topher

that even had a pot of gold inside,

a delicious and festive dinner that was made even better by the green Jell-o that Topher contributed,

and an exceptionally fun Valiant Activity. According to the leader who planned and carried out the activity, they did "shenanigans." Every child came home with glitter on their face and many sweet treats. This activity saved Topher's St. Patrick's Day fun. Due to a severe wind storm last night, his elementary school was without power and was canceled for today. He had a good day hanging out with me at home, but the only celebrating I did was in the form of a festive dinner. This awesome hour at church made up for not getting to do fun stuff at school.

Cooper walked in while I was writing this post and asked what I was doing. I told him I was writing about St. Patrick's Day and that there weren't any pictures of him since he was showering after track practice when I took the picture of the other kids at dinner. He quickly fixed his hair and posed so that he could be included.