Sunday, October 28, 2007

Trunk or Treat

Last night was our ward's trunk or treat. The kids all looked really cute. Allison was Hannah Montana, Emma was Hermione from Harry Potter, Ava was a witch and Jerrod was Criss Angel. One of the families in our ward had a grandpa who brought up his catepillar ride for the kids. He pulled them along with his 4-wheeler. They had a lot of fun. By the way my husband ROCKS!! We could not find a tie for Emma's costume so I went and bought marroon and gold fabric and came home thinking I would try to make one. Well, Derek sat down with me and figured out how to do it and it turned out awesome. He did so good. I would have never figured it out without him. Love you babe!






Carving Pumpkins

Friday, the kids had the day off from school so I thought that would be a perfect time to carve pumpkins. The turned out good. Allison designed and did hers all by herself. I carved Jerrod's, Emma's and Ava's. But they picked out the designs and transfered them onto the pumpkins. Here are our masterpieces. I posted a short video below also.






Friday, October 26, 2007

Harvest Festival

The kids had their Harvest Festival at school last night. It was a lot of fun. They had a great DJ playing lots of kids songs and Halloween songs and they had lots of games and food. They had a game where you had to use a straw to try and blow a goldfish from one end of a rain gutter to the other. The winner won a goldfish. We are now the proud owners of 4 goldfish. We'll see how long they live!




Thursday, October 25, 2007

Mind Freak!!!!!!!

We had a really cool experience tonight. Ever since Jerrod talked to his friend Ethan in Reno and found out Ethan was going to be Criss Angel for Halloween, Jerrod has wanted to be him too. So, I decided I would go get him a Criss Angel t-shirt from the official store at the Luxor. When we got there the clerk said that they were filming a Mind Freak episode in front of the Luxor. We decided that even though we probably missed it, we would try to go get a glimpse of Criss. We didn't get to see any illusions but he came up and shook Allison's hand and then they took video of the crowd saying Mind Freak and cheering. Supposedly they are going to be putting it on an episode. We'll have to watch for it because Jerrod and Allison were right in front. After that he headed back into the Luxor and we went a different way to go through the main entrance to get to our car. We just happened to get to the front door of the Luxor at the same time so we hurried up to him and told him that Jerrod was going to be him for Halloween and asked if we could get a picture. He agreed. Jerrod says this was the best night of his life!!! For those of you who have no idea who he is, he is an illusionist who has a show on A&E and NBC.



This is Criss Angel's Brother


Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I Got Rear Ended

My friend Kylie and I were on our way back home from shopping today and we were rear ended while driving on the freeway. Luckily, everyone was ok. I had slowed down because the car in front of me had slammed on his brakes and the guy behind me wasn't paying attention. So here is what my van looks like now. It could have been so much worse. He got ticketed for following too closely. The bumper is cracked but his old Town Car looked worse!


Monday, October 22, 2007

White Coat Ceremony

We had a fun weekend. Friday, Derek had his first flag football game. His classmates started a league and he was a first round draft pick. He was pretty excited. After the game we had dinner with a couple from our ward, the McDonalds. Saturday, Grandma and Papa Crouch came into town and we went shopping and to Red Robin for dinner. We love that place. Sunday was Derek's white coat ceremony. That is where they get their student doctor coats and take their oath. Thanks Grandma and Papa for a fun weekend and for being here for Derek's special day. Here are some pictures. The ceremony was in the Bally's grand ballroom. The lighting was pretty bad so they didn't turn out great.





Derek and Jake Woods






Monday, October 15, 2007

Warning!! You might die of laughter

Derek has been growing out a beard for the last couple of weeks and with his White Coat Ceremony coming up this weekend we figured it was time for a hair cut and shave. He decided to leave a little facial hair as a joke to go to school today. This is what he came down looking like


Sunday, October 14, 2007

Pinewood Derby Part Two

Jerrod had his pinewood derby last night. He already had one this year in Arizona so we used this opportunity to try and learn from our past mistakes. Jerrod designed the car himself and it did pretty good. This was not your typical pinewood derby race. They had the track hooked up to a laptop with a computer program that figured out the brackets so that each car got to race in each lane once and then at the end it averaged out all of their times to determine the winner. They had each ward race individually and then the top three cars from each ward would race in the finals that night. Jerrod's car got 3rd place in our ward's competition so we got to go to the finals. He beat out a couple of cars at the finals but finished near the end. A few dads were all smiles when their kids lost since they had tickets to the UNLV - BYU game which was pretty funny.


The "Black Widow"


Our Competition

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

It's Been A While

Wow, we haven't posted in a while so I better catch everyone up. This past week has been busy. All four kids had dentist appointments, and all of them were cavity free. YES!! Even little Ava went this morning. She wasn't too happy about it but they just took a quick peek and then put some vitamins on them. She cried until the dentist offered her a balloon and a bracelet and then she was happy. It is such a nice dental office. Big difference from the one in Reno where it was a semi converted into an office. The kids keep saying that they can't wait to go back in 6 months.

Jerrod won his primary election for his class at school for student body vice president. Now he has to campaign to the whole school. We made handouts with dum dum suckers that said "Don't be a dum dum. Vote for Jerrod" That seemed to go over well in his class so I think we'll spend tomorrow evening making lots more so that he can pass them out to as many kids as he can. Jerrod has also been busy working on yet another pinewood derby car. The race is on Saturday and since he already had the pinewood derby in Arizona we are hoping to learn from our mistakes and do good. Although, when I heard there were tickets available for a Gladys Knight fireside in North Las Vegas that same night, thoughts of sabotage came to my mind.

Derek is finally done with all of his long weekends for now. Darn it, he has to go to school all five days this week. We are missing him. He joined an intramural basketball team at school so he has been having fun doing that. He also got his stethoscope this week which is pretty cool.

Allison got an award for citizenship from her teacher which earned her a lunch with the principal. He bbq'd burgers and hot dogs for the kids in the courtyard. She was very excited about it. She can be so nice when she wants to be!!

There are no new pictures to share so I'll have to take some this weekend. Hope everyone is doing well!