Happy Halloween-

from Super Mario Land

and Forrest and Jenny

One of THOSE Weeks

Coming off an extreme weekend of every emotion into a week filled to the brim has made me a wee bit ornery. I was hoping to get to posting about the amazing Vegas Ragnar, but that will most likely be coming later. Instead you get to join in a pity party with me. You know the weeks when you just can't seem to get on top of anything? Throw in a couple extra things like, Halloween and a new job and it gets that much more hectic. Here are a few things that have been happening this week:

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  Preschool field trip to the museum. I don't have any pics because I rented a locker for a quarter and as soon as I locked the door I realized my camera was still sitting in my purse. And I didn't have another quarter, so there it stayed.


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  Book Club. I just got the book on Monday and the party was Wednesday. Needless to say I didn't finish it. And upon arriving to Book Club (45 mins late) I found out I was supposed to be the one leading the discussion. Luckily my group is awesome and Amber took right over.


• 
  
  I had mutual at my house where we made mini donuts and watched Thriller. I love my Mia maids.


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  I made more donuts the next day for Aiden and Andrew's class party. I don't care if I see another mini donut for a long time.


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  I was in charge of a craft for Oakley's party and drove around to several different stores(even the same store twice) to find something to do, finally settling on a mediocre craft. Luckily Kindergartners don't care.


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  Waiting for the most important part of my costume to come in the mail only to find out this morning that they "can't find the package" anywhere.


• 
  
  Having to schedule a drug test and find babysitters because they won't let you take kids with you.


• 
  
  And finally, the worst one, we are speaking in Sacrament on Sunday. And when I say we, I mean all seven of us. It should be a grand meeting. Anyone is welcome to come, you might get a few laughs.

And all you moms know what it is like to do everything while taking care of kids, so while I was making my second batch of over 100 mini donuts:

Paige, Morgan, and Oliver decided to empty out their entire wardrobe into the living room.

Let's just say it was the icing on the cake....or should I say donut.

The Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch (aka Kim and Luke's) and picked out our Halloween pumpkins. You see, they plant pumpkins every year and had enough for each one of The Hoard. I, for one, was very excited to be saving ourselves $20.Oliver was freaking out because I took him out of the picture and the kids think it is funny when anyone other than themselves is crying/getting in trouble, hence the reason for the huge smiles on my kid's faces.

I'm One of THOSE Moms

Before I had litters of children I always wondered how a mom could take her kids out in public looking like orphans. Well, now I am one of those moms. I usually just 'forget' to do Paige and Morgan's hair. More times than not they look like this when we run errands.

They have even started referring to themselves as orphans. It's sad really.

Argh

We went to the Capson's on Saturday for a Pirate Party. Trent always says he isn't going to dress up, but then pulls something together at the last minute. This time he raided my closet for some Mr. Smee clothes.

It is sad when your husband looks better in your clothes than you do...

The Capson's house was totally decked out in Halloween and Pirate garb. They even had everyone pose with the hung pirate at the door.



And here are all the wenches that came.

And while we were partying it up, Kim was nice enough to take care of The Hoard. She even managed to make some sweet Halloween cookies with them.

Thanks Capson's for a fun night out. They even got Trent to play some games....which is worth documenting alone.

Mini Mandonelle

The girls got to do Mini Mandonelles this year. They were pretty excited. I asked them to pose and this is what I got.

Maren is one of my miamaids and the reason for all this fun.
The girls performed at the football game. Brooke and I chatted it up during the first half.

Oakley did great. Paige and Morgan, on the other hand, did not. They were running around and away from the real Mandonelles. Lets just say Trent and I were not happy. However, watching the video all three of them are as cute as can be.

Toothless

Oakley has had a front tooth that has been bothering her for a while. It got to the point where she wouldn't eat much because it hurt. And if you took a gander at her tooth it looked like the whole inside had popped out. No wonder it hurt. So, she begged to go to the dentist and so, to the dentist she went.

She was pretty happy until the needle came out, but she was brave and only cried a little bit. And who can blame her? Those needles hurt.
And once the tooth was yanked out we went to Family Dollar and picked out a prize. Of course she chose coloring stuff. And don't you love her numb lip smile?

And a shot of her gap. Trent really wanted to try and fix the tooth seeing how Oakley probably won't get her adult teeth until she is twelve, but since she is not on our insurance (dumb story), I opted for the cheaper route. And since Oakley is our Brad Pitt, she can make any look rock for at least a few years. ;)

She really has loved the fact that she has lost a tooth. She tells everyone she sees. And another bonus-the tooth fairy. She couldn't wait to put her tooth under her pillow and go to sleep.

She is one happy, toothless girl.

Making Ourselves at Home

We go to the movie store so often that the kids think it is their second home and they treat it as such...

All they need is the popcorn.

New York Visitors

We were able to hang out with some New Yorkers on Friday. My kids were so excited to see their cousins from far, far away. And I was so excited to meet the newest addition to the Veigels, Jude.

My kids, especially the girls, love babies and Jude was no exception.
And my girls couldn't get enough of playing with James and Jack. You can barely see Jack's head poking out from behind Paige and Morgan. And James was so nice to let my girls climb ALL over him.

Thanks for the fun time boys!

These Are My Friends

No, not my thunder thighs, but my running shoes. They have been stuck in my closet collecting dust since the middle of August. I got them out last week and ran down in St. George. It felt so good and so bad at the same time. It was so good to get out again seeing how there is nothing like running. But it felt so bad to see how much I have lost in a month and a half. I only have 2 weeks to get back in shape for the Vegas Ragnar. I really hope I don't die down there in the desert.

And I promise I will come back to blogging soon. I have been home for all of ten minutes this past week and I am hoping things will calm down soon. So, all of you that are still faithful bloggers, just know I am reading and will get back to my commenting soon.

Until next time.

St. George Marathon

We just got back from St. George, where Trent ran yet another marathon. You know the one that he went to the extreme to get into. We headed down South Thursday night and stopped at a Burger King. It seemed that China had exploded in this small BK in a random city. We were surrounded by Asians. Seriously.

Once we got to St. George we did the typical swimming, eating, relaxing, shopping stuff. I was not very good at taking pictures at all, which I always regret after the fact, but I do enjoy not worrying about pictures during the fact.

Now on to the race.

The kids couldn't wait to see Trent come down the chute. And Trent did a fabulous job as always, He finished with a PR of 2:42:02 came in 27th overall.

See what I mean about no pics? I don't even have one of Trent crossing the finish line. Granted I was videoing it, but with our camera we can video and take pictures simultaneously, I just didn't think about it. So here is a quick family shot we took on the way home from the race.

That night while the boys were at priesthood, we tried to fit as many people as we could in our car and headed over to play at the park, while I devoured In & Out.
We stopped off at Grandma Veigel's on the way out of town.

And Trent got to "watch" football on the drive home. Its amazing that his phone fit perfectly there don't you think?

Once again it was another fun mini vacation. Can't wait until the next one.

Favorite Pastime

If you come to our house you might find at least one of The Hoard coloring. They have all decided that it is their favorite thing to do. More often than not our counter looks like this.

And our table looks like this.

And the girls love to tape up all their pictures in their rooms.

Brooke said their rooms look like The Friends episode when Monica tried to find out what the switch turned on and off and covered all the holes with drawings.

And they love to color pictures just for us. We usually have a few pictures placed on our nightstand every day.

Who knows, maybe we have a few artists in the making.

Thorup Reunion

We had a reunion on Saturday for Trent's Grandma's family. It was a good time. My kids absolutely love Dodee and Papa and were pretty excited when we told them we were going to see them.

I don't know if we have ever had all of us in one pic before. Once again, it is very difficult to get my kids to look and smile at the camera at the same time.

We played a game that resulted in a lot of unused yarn. The kids loved the aftermath.

Thanks Dodee and Papa (and everyone else that helped) it was a fun night!

The Only Child

I only had one child today for 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was magical. Really. After we dropped the girls off at preschool, we went on a short, but steep walk per Oakley's request. After we sweat it out for a minute Oakley did this:

So I couldeat breakfast in peace and watch a few minutes of The Today Show. And I promise I didn't pose my breakfast and condiments, I just don't put anything away until I am done eating. You never know if you'll need a little more splenda to make Cream of Wheat edible.

And while I was trying to eat a semi healthy breakfast Oakley snuck in from playing and consumed some treats from Oliver's BDay party.

I also got to do paperwork and a telephone interview without being interrupted. So, so nice only being in charge of one child and when that child is easy Oakley it is even that much nicer.
***

I went to get my photos from my quiet morning and it appeared that Paige and Morgan had a little fun with my camera during their alone time with Mom.

Morgan's eyes look kinda creepy.

Kind of a little Brad Pitty from 12 Monkeys.

I have a feeling I am going to love Fridays.

Addendum

I got some pics from Jamie from our girls trip. And since they were some of the highlights of my trip I thought I would add them in.

First, my photogenic classes. As you can see I couldn't quite get it.

Next, our dinner at Chilis, where I tried to eat healthy. I did steal a few of Candice's fries and had some chips and salsa. But compared to what I used to eat, that was pretty dang good.

And last, but not least, meeting cute little Miles. We even flashed some gang signs back and forth.

Sorry about the repeat post, but I wanted these in my blog book of life. Maybe tomoroow I will have some new material.

Lazy in St. Geezy

I just got back from a very extended weekend in St. George with just (some of) the Jensen girls (plus the cutest little Miles). We went down Wednesday afternoon and had a wonderful, relaxing, lazy, good time.

We had a million and one magazines to go through in 5 days.

We spent a little bit of time soaking up the sun AND shade by the pool.

We went to a very little market at Tuachan, where I was able to restock my Scentsy stash.


We ate a lot of delicious food. In one night we visited Cafe Rio.

Jimmy John's

In & Out

And Twenty Five Main

Lets just say we tried to please everyone and I think we succeeded.

Other highlights of the trip

*Trying to stay on my new diet while vacationing. I must admit I did pretty dang good. In fact I got broccoli instead of fries at Chilis and DID NOT eat some of Jenny's molten lava cake.

* Some pretty fierce games of Words With Friends where I had my highest word of 99 points. And I got Jill hooked which made it that much for fun sitting right next to her and playing.

*Getting to see baby Miles for the first time. He is so little and so perfect.

*Shopping, shopping, and more shopping. I had the best of luck with every store. Which isn't the best of luck for my savings....my tummy tuck is now further down the road.

*Photogenic classes. I had no idea how much went into being photogenic. I fear I am a lost cause though. I wasn't able to make my collar bone stick out, suck my neck in, look down, smile, and still look normal. Let's just say my sister-in-laws have skills. And wouldn't you agree they are all very photogenic?

*Getting to enjoy my Kozy Shack Tapioca, because I was on vacation. And being made fun of for having that as my treat.

*Watching the Utah game knowing Trent was loving every minute of it back home.

*Lots of pregnancy/fertility/adoption discussions. It took me back to my infertile psychotic days.

*Candice giving every one a wax (just eyebrows and staches) and me buying all the stuff so I can do it at home. We will actually see if I can do that to myself.

*Cuddling with Jill at night. Not really, but we did share a bed and had a great late night conversation and multiple games of Words.

*And getting to see my Grandma. She is awesome.It was a great weekend.