Halloween Tradition - Pumpkin Carving and Donuts!

 From Left to Right: Tayci, Elder Svedin, Andrea Cooper, Garet Cooper, Elder ?, Abby, Luke, Levi and Daniel.

 We had a wonderful time carving pumpkins with some friends and the missionaries. Our kids such a good job. We carried on the traditions that my mom started of making donuts and spiced cider. They were yummy.

The finished product of our pumpkin carving. Aren't they awesome. Luke made his scary and Tayci did a spider. Abby's is a girl. She put eyelashes and hair on hers. I enjoyed watching them all be so artistic. Now I no why my mom always made donuts. It's because she didn't have to carve anything. I love it. And man are they delicious. This was our first day of Fall weather. It was actually chilly today. It was nice.

FRG Murder Mystery Night!

 This was our Family Readiness Group (FRG) Murder Mystery Party. Our house became the Deadwood Saloon. We had so much fun. It was a western theme and we had to do certain objectives that went along with our characters before the murder and then there was a whole other set of objectives after the murder. Everything you said and did coincided with things other people said and did and gave you clues to who the murder was. Then at the end, everyone guesses who it is. I was the saloon owners wife and Daniel was the saloon owner. 3 out of the 18 people guessed right. There was a Best Dressed award, a Best Actor award and the Person with the most money award. So many people got into their characters. They dressed the part and we had so many decorations to make our house look like a saloon. It was great to get to know everyone in Daniel's flight class. They are great group of people and we had so much fun. I helped our FRG leader plan this and she has become a great friend.

A"WARD" WINNING CHILI!

So I made this chili for our ward chili cook off and came in 2nd place. Funny thing is I had made it once before and kind of followed the recipe. Daniel and one of his classmates kept raving about it and when we found out we were doing a chili cook off, Daniel told me I should make that chili. I didn't think it was anything amazing, but my Man knows food. So I duplicated it as much as possible. Acted like my dad and threw a little of this and a little of that in and WHALA! 2nd Place Winner. I never win at anything in my life so this is a monumental occasion. I would like to say that I won a new car but this was not so. It was only a bag of reeses peanut butter cups. Hey I can live with that. When we get home to Utah I will have to make the famous "Jill's a"ward" winning chili."

Awesome!

Isn't this an amazing Picture?! And the Apaches aren't bad either! There is something to be said about a man in uniform walking away from a line of Apache helcopters! WOW! He's amazing!

A Pumpkin Pickin We Go!

Fall is in the air! We had so much fun going and picking out our pumpkins. But man are they pricey! No wonder we always grew our own. Levi was in heaven thinking they were all balls. Thank heavens we didn't have to pay for everyone he dropped. Luke was such a huge help to his little brother. They picked out 50 or so but alas settled on 1. Tayci of course picked the biggest one possible. They are all so excited to carry on my mom's tradition of donuts and spiced cider for our pumpkin carving day.