The Henry Family Circus

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Autumn in Utah

After the last session on Sunday, we decided to go up to Woodland Hills to see the colors. Woodland Hills is one of my favorite places, especially in the fall. I would love to live there, but for a few concerns. It did not disappoint. The colors were beautiful, as was the weather. Here's a few pictures to give you a taste of the autumn splendor.

We found this fun pathway to walk around one of the parks. It was littered with leaves, which I crunched through to my heart's content. I expect to one day be 90 years old, crunching through leaves with my walker or wheelchair, giggling like a school girl. It's one of my simple pleasures in life:)

Wheeee!

So lucky to have a great big sister like Savannah to look up to.

Now, on to the park!

As twilight approached, I discovered how to take those awesome silhouette pictures I've seen on blogs like mymixofsix that I think are so awesome.

Waverly

Can you guess who this goofball is? That's my Brighton, who just learned to do the peace sign and now thinks he's cool like his sisters.

My 5 monkies. (See that sucker Keaton is eating? Yeah, he totally stole that from a birthday party at the park, while the hosts were at the playground. We did confess and they ok'd him keeping it though).

Irelynd

Savannah

Scott agreed to do this "cheesy" photo with Brighton. The pose was their idea, however. See, he does love me:)

Me and my honey:) This photo cost us $400, because as I stepped off this boulder we were standing on, I stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle. I heard a pop and it swelled up enormously in the matter of a few seconds. I just knew it was broken. I don't cry too easily, but I totally cried! Scott helped me to the car and we spent a couple hours in Payson's ER while it was x-rayed. Not broken; just badly sprained, possibly a torn ligament. I spent the next day on crutches, and limped around for a week after that in my ankle brace. It's been 4 weeks since, and it's almost better. Still swollen and not perfect, but almost gone. What a stupid ending to a perfect day.

Sunday walk

After Conference, we needed to get some wiggles out, so I took the kids for a walk along the bike path. I love this path, as it borders the river on one side and farms and pastures on the other. It's so peaceful and fills me with such joy. It fills a space in me that nothing else can; especially in the fall when the leaves cover the path, and the smell in the air is so delicious. This time we didn't make it very far before we found a friend. We had to feed this friend, of course.

He liked grass, and weeds...and Keaton's fingers.

I am filled with gratitude for the beauty of the world we like in, and its many wonders and delights. Heavenly Father does truly love us.

Friday, November 4, 2011

General Conference 2011

We LOVE conference in our house. Ok, well at least Savannah and I do. Hopefully after this year, I converted a few more. We had a RS meeting to share ideas of keeping kids occupied during the sessions, and I got some GREAT ideas, in addition to what I picked up on Pinterest. Love Pinterest. But that's another story. I had a great breakfast planned for Saturday morning, to kick off the 2-day event. Alas, all we got to eat of it was these fruit shish-ka-bobs. Funny story: I found a copy-cat Cinnabon recipe (on Pinterest, of course!), and was so excited to try it. Made them, put them in the oven, and then BAM! Scott checked on them in the oven, and all I remember seeing is dough hanging everywhere. It was such a cinnamon roll carnage that I couldn't process what had happened. The glass casserole dish it was in exploded, sending glass all through both pans of rolls I had made. Luckily, we had a very small pan left still to cook, so we were able to all get a small taste of them, and they were GOOD! Savannah was almost devastated (she loves Conference Cinnamon rolls), but I told her it'd be a conference we'd never forget, and that was worth the loss of the cinnamon rolls. We just enjoyed them all the more the next morning.

I made conference packets for everyone to do and color. These were a flop though, but I loved the bright colors.

We made our usual Conference Tent, and talked about King Benjamin. Brighton put it together for us this year, a fact he was VERY proud of. I had to fix it when he wasn't looking. Shhhhh...

The favorite thing was our conference store, new this year. The kids were told they could earn Conference Bucks during conference by listening quietly, sitting through a session, filling our their packets, etc. Then during the break between sessions, we opened our "store" and they could use their dollars to puchase stuff. We had dollar toys and food. The pop went fast, as well as the toys. I had 3 levels of items: 4, 2, and 1 tickets.

Can you tell which item Savannah went for first?!

Another new idea this year were conference bags. I put a picture of each of the 15 apostles/First Presidency on a bag, and put an activity or a treat in the bag. When that GA spoke, we did/ate that activity/treat. One of the ones that worked well was water colors. I had everybody paint a picture with watercolor paints of something the speaker talked about in their talk. I was pleasantly surprised at what everyone came up with. We painted Pres. Uchdorf's talk, and we had to guess what everybody's picture was after the talk was over. Irelynd painted the earth, and Heavenly Father in the lower right corner, sending his love to Earth. The way she put it was precious. Brighton painted...ok, I'm not sure. I painted an airplane, of course, and Brighton wanted to keep my picture.

Keaton and Waverly were happy with their store choices, too. These mermaids lasted all day, and half the next. That's a long life for a dollar store toy!

We also put stickers on a map for each new temple that was announced. We were shocked about the new Provo temple. That will be so awesome! Everyone wanted to put the sticker on for it.

I got a new hairdo too!

After the first session, Scott built this bigger, more permanent tent that we can reuse every Conference. Off PInterest, too, I might add. Yes, he's addicted too. It was a fun weekend!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

More fun lunch Fridays

I realized it is a really hard thing to make food look appetizing in photos! These are no exception, but for future ideas for me, here they are. I call this one Little Pig

This was inspired by Spookley the Square Pumpkin, that my kids had watched right before lunch.

Can you tell where this inspiration came from? We counted the number of food in our muffin tins and tried to eat what the caterpillar did.

Not sure why this one is turned, but I copied this from Meet the Dubiens. She is so creative! My kids ask every day for fun lunch Friday, and want to know why I am not having a fun lunch. My idea of a fun lunch is way different than yours, Brighton!

Dinosaurs

Lest we forget this work of art, here it is: Irelynd's salt clay masterpiece. We have a stegosaurus in aqua blue, a raptor, I believe, in red, a pteranodon flying, and baby dino eggs on the lower right. She was sad and dropped it before she got it home. So you have to use your imagination to see how fantastic it was. She even colored white clouds on the "sky".

Irelynd's 9th birthday party

I broke with tradition this year and took the easy way out. Since we don't have the room we had before, nor the time for elaborate planning, I let the girls choose where they wanted to go for their parties. And I may never go back! It was SO easy. And inexpensive. I am seeing the beauty of what I called "generic parties" in the past. It was wonderful! We may start a new tradition. Anyway, we went to Classic Skating. I was surprised how many girls had never been on skates before. They all had a great time, and no injuries, thank heavens! (One guest did have to try to skate with one broken foot though.)

I learned that Irelynd is a pretty good little skater!

This isn't a great picture, but I thought it was cute to see all 3 little cousins hand in hand, skating together.

After, we went back home for pizza and cookies-&-cream cupcakes, as requested by Irelynd.

Flowers by Clip Couture. Cute as always, Sallie!

Hmmm, the possibilities...

As always, the favorite is still LPS. I just love those big blue eyes she has! Happy Birthday Irelynd!

Irelynd turns 9

We had a family party on Irelynd's 9th birthday. In our family, we do heavy hangover, which Scott still finds weird. Must be a Utah thing. The twins and Brighton, and, ok, if we're being honest, Savannah too, LOVE this tradition. It's funny to me to see who is soft, and who is not.