The day before the day before All Hallow's Eve ...

Gracie looked bac-a-licious in her costume for school on Thursday, when they had all their Halloween festivities because school is out Friday. She was determined to go as bacon, so we got creative and made her costume out of foam sheets that we (read: Stacey) colored. Then I gave her makeup that matched the bacony goodness. She was pretty pleased with it!


Kate, inexplicably, wanted to be a banshee. Where she heard of banshees we have not yet determined, but her she is in all her ghoulish splendor, though I don't know that traditional banshees are this cheerful.


I went as Abby from "NCIS." It was really fun putting on that persona for the day! There's no pic of Greg because he went as ... Greg. He claims he goes every year as a disgruntled middle manager, but I think that doesn't count.


Emma waits for the Halloween parade to go by. She went as a zombie and we had a great time shredding old clothes, painting them with "mud" of unsweetened cocoa and water and getting them (and her) all bloodied up. It's been fun the past couple of years doing her costumes as she's moved past wanting to be cute or beautiful every year and into stuff that's more imaginative.


The zombie shuffles through the parade as parents look on in the school gym.


Gracie's classmates flat-out didn't believe her when she said she was coming as bacon. But they do now!


Em and her friend, Kai, at their class Halloween party. Kai didn't start the day with that surgical glove on his head — we gave them out as part of the "CSI" theme of their party, which also featured fingerprint identification, "body-part" (read: peeled grapes and cold spaghetti) palpation, dissecting bloody eyeballs (that tasted like chocolate cupcakes) and processing evidence (caramel apples) to be bagged and tagged in real biohazard bags. Yes, it's all about the grossness in sixth grade — and about the cool playlist I made to run during the party!

'Cause this is THRILL-AH, Thriller night!

The whole sixth grade at Em's school learned the dance from "Thriller" this past month, which heavily influenced her decision to go to school as a zombie that day — following the Halloween parade, they performed it in the gym. Here she is in her "dead moldering corpse" pose as the song started.


As parents and a few classes watch, the corpses rise from the dead and prepare to get down and boogie.


The corpses party like it's 1899 (sorry to mix '80s music references) ...


Anyone who's seen the video will remember THIS sequence, though I don't remember pink satin Super Girl being part of it ... or a clown.


The best part of this dance was how much fun they all seemed to be having. Em, shockingly to all of you who know her, really got into it and vows to teach the whole family.

So let me hold you tight and share a chiller, killer, thriller here tonight!

Em and Max are wack-a-doos; 'nuff said

... in a jester hat from the dress-up drawer ...

... and acting bizarro in her new skull-patterned footed PJs. Do they glow in the dark? Oh, my, yes. Did we get them from the boy's department because apparently marketers don't think girls like anything but Hannah Montana and High School Musical in their nightwear? Oh, mas oui, she said somewhat disgustedly.

A belated surprise for Junie

We finally got around to giving Kate her "friend" birthday party, only three months AFTER her actual birthday! To make it more special for her, we did it as a surprise "Pink Piggy Princess" party. She was really excited.


We didn't invite a ton of kids, just Kate's four best friends, three of whom are in the photo above: Angie, Rachel, (then Kate) and Izzy — and, of course, Max had to be there, too!


Each person made her own pink princess crown, personalized with glitter and Sharpies and stick-on jewels (Max personalized a green visor, otherwise I would have been strangled by his father).


Then we played, "Pin the Pink Pearls on Miss Piggy" (aiming for her ears; she was already pretty well accessorized otherwise).


Then we took some time and did a service project making puppets to go with story books for kids at the Primary Children's Hospital.


Kate and her friend, Mary, working on the service project.


And, to eat, of course we had pink fizzy punch and SOUP, Kate's favorite food.


Blowing out the candles ...


... and sitting on the pink princess throne to open presents!


Finally, we did a game where the girls took 1 minute to make a princess outfit out of various scarves, fake jewels, a crown and a pink plastic tablecloth. Their results were very cute!


We love you, Katie June! You are our pink piggy princess forever!

Back at home, and back to school

Our girls were so excited to start a new year of school. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that this is their last year all together in one school. Em, our big sixth grader, moves on to (gulp!) junior high next year (Grace is in third grade and Kate in second), and everything gets much more complicated! But for now, at the start of this year, don't they look beautiful?



Max loves these floor panels; we keep them in his room and he and his friends (and sisters, like Grace above) use them to make buildings.


Max made himself a "couch" (his word) with some of his other blocks. It doesn't look too comfortable to me, but he liked it!


This is a horrifying spider we discovered above our back door. I still get heebee jeebies thinking of walking under it without realizing for days or weeks. I put that rotini noodle in with it for scale. Maybe it's not big for other places, but it was one of the biggest spiders I've seen in Utah. YUCK!

Max and Daddy take an all-American rest in our bedroom. He's such a great little snuggler (I'm talking about Max here, though Greg is good for a cuddle now and again, as well!).

When the Youngs and Johnsons gather ...

The lodge pic above is, pathetically enough, one of the only non-talent show pictures we took of the Young-Johnson reunion! We stayed at Hidden Springs Ranch, a fabulous lodge with tons of activities. There was swimming, canoeing, a rec center with a climbing wall and basketball, lots of pickup football games and lots of other activities and fun. We loved being together and spending time getting re-acquainted.


Not possessing many of the type of talents you can exhibit (for example, it's not like we could edit copy in front of people), Greg and I exploited our children for the talent show, where Emma reenacted the "Vote for Pedro" dance from "Napoleon Dynamite" with a little help from Greg, me, Grace and Kate (very little in the case of Grace and Kate, who stood around self-consciously as E danced). She did a totally SWEET dance and a great Napoleon imitation!



Then came Cass and Jason providing backup dancing and DRAMA for Zach's karaoke rendition of "Beat It." Super awesome!




Then came the Thomases doing their version (with great homemade puppets) of "The Mysterious Ticking Sound" by the Potter Puppet Pals. Greg and Ba provided curtain duties.



I'm not going to dwell on the next day, because that's when we said goodbye after seeing each other so much during the past several months. We had the consolation of Cass and Jason for one more night, but still: it was NOT fun. But it does make me look forward even more to the next time we're together!

A houseful (of fun, not just people!)

The Texas cavalry arrived! We were all excited to welcome Grammy, Ba, Z and the Thomas family. I love the Emma and DeDee "two-headed cousin" pic above, but that's just one of the interesting sights during our visit!


As part of our long tradition of exploiting our family members' skills and abilities for our own purposes (especially when we possess none of those skills), we spent part of one day keeping the kids away so that Ba, Uncle John Cluff, Grandpa Orson Johnson and Uncle Brad could break up the cracked portion of our driveway, clear it out and put in a new section. They had to dig out this huge, nasty root before they could do anything else. They did a great job; I'm still not quite used to the nice, smooth passage into my driveway rather than that big, jarring bump, and my neighbors are pretty complimentary about it, too. You may ask yourself, "Wait: where was Greg when all of this was going on?" Well, he had to go to work, having spent nearly all of his days off on this long, trippy summer, so he was sitting at his desk making lists on his computer during the driveway project. He's not sure if he should feel like a big wimp or like a genius.



To give Brad a chance to see some of the Utah sights, we spent a day driving up to Bear Lake (that's the scenic view, above, and it's pretty stunning, especially in person) to visit Minnetonka Cave. I'd never heard of it before, but it was a really interesting visit — especially towing nine kids along with us!


Aunt Jen with most of the girl contingent checking out the Bear Lake overlook.


Jen and Brad enjoying the Utah wilderness.


One of the cave formations in Minnetonka Cave. Gracie's favorite was all the "cave bacon," formations that, when a light was shone through them, looked amazingly like real bacon — except that some of them were 10 feet long. A dream come true for our bacon lover!


The kiddies and me at the turnaround point in the cave.


This is the rock formation that looks like a fairy-tale castle; obviously it was a favorite with the kids.


The walkway to the cave is built off the side of a very sheer mountain face and is not a comfortable traverse for anyone with a fear of heights. The kids all did fine, though, and Max had a tantrum and practically rolled off the side. Jebby rescued him, though, so all was well!


The walkway was just to picturesque not to spend a few minutes doing a little photo shoot there, like the one above of Jeb and the little girls ...


... this one of Jen and Brad ...


... and these two of all the Johnson grandkids.



Another major attraction at Minnetonka Cave was the old-style water fountain, at which Bella got totally soaked and all the kids had a good time with some super-cold, refreshing water.


DeDee learned how to make a fire pit at camp this past summer, and she made us a great one in our back yard so that the kids could roast marshmallows during their campout in the tent. We filled this one in, but I'd love to have her make one we could keep next time she's here.


We kind of did things backward on this cookout: we had the s'mores first and THEN decided to bring out some hot dogs to roast. Oh, well — everything got eaten, and everybody had a good time!




In the three pics below, I took the girls (minus Bella) to So Cupcake, a great bakery up in Holladay, for some awesome cupcakes. I'm not going to call them gourmet, because they're way more fun than that. But they're super delicious: before I could get to DeDee and Emma to take a pic of them enjoying their treats, Deeds had finished hers. That's why she's licking the wrapper in the last pic!