Halloween and Prize winning chili!

BOO!
Our Halloween festivities were tons of fun this year.
We started things off the morning of the 30th by getting Samantha all dolled up for her school party. I'd braided her hair in seven little braids the night before and so it was good and "crinkly" (as she puts it) the next morning for her Ariel costume. We'd borrowed it from her cousin Maryann at 9:30 the night before. (Loooooong search for a costume with 3 of the 4 kids in tow. So not fun. I gotta get more organized!) Samantha was darling and had fun, fun, fun, at school. They had a parade, a party, lots of Halloween activities and even read by flashlight!


That night we went to our ward party at church. It was a chili cook-off and pumpkin decorating contest. We went to the chili cook-off last year and thought to ourselves that if the ward did it again we'd have to remember to make our Creamy White Chili recipe. So we did! Ross whipped up a batch and I decorated the pumpkin with some permanent markers and a clown wig I bought the night before.

As always, the kids had fun running around. There was a family that came in some darling costumes, including this little boy, Spencer, who was dressed up as a Jedi. Logan "battled" with him the whole night! This picture is a little blurry, but it's funny to me because the fact that he didn't actually have a light saber was not a problem! Imaginations are the best!

Our pumpkin won the "Most Colorful" prize. We were the only ones that didn't carve ours, but that was fine with me!

We enjoyed lots of yummy chili that everyone else had made and even a bowl or two of ours just because we enjoy it. We sat and listened as the sister in charge gave out prizes for the chili like "So mild you could serve it in a rest home", "Most likely to put hair on your chest", "5 alarm chili", and so on. She got to the "Best of Show" prize and much to our surprise, WE WON! We thought maybe it would win in one of the other random categories, but it won the overall award. We got a kick out of it and so did the kids. Our prize was a bowl full of beans glued onto a pedestal and spray painted silver. We also got an official certificate (printed off someone's computer only hours before). ;o)

Here we are posing with our prizes! (Sigh. This was the worst picture and angle of me, but the only one where everyone was facing forward.)

The next day on Halloween we lounged around the house. Not really. Rebecca and Logan had both thrown up during the night, so we were watching them carefully all day. Luke had been really sick like that a couple of days earlier, so we were worried Logan wouldn't be up to trick or treat. Thankfully he was just fine to the point of bouncing off the walls!
The kids played all day and then that afternoon I got busy working on carving our pumpkin. At 5:00 we set off for the Trunk or Treat at the church. (Oh, how we love the ease of the Trunk or Treat!)

Bumblebee and Optimus Prime were there!

But really it was just those cute boys, Logan and his cousin Isaac.

Here's the darling Princess Liana (AKA Olivia) and Thomas the Train (AKA Luke)!

Samantha and Maryann as a BYU cheerleader and Ariel the Mermaid

This was a fun picture to take. We had to take about seven to get one where all 3 one year olds were smiling, but it was worth it. Aren't they adorable? Rebecca is Boo from Monsters, Inc. Brady is Luigi from Super Mario Brothers. Hyrum is a Puppy Dog.
My other nephews (Brady's older brothers) were there too as a football player, ninja and Mario, but they are almost 12, 8, and 6, so they were running around getting candy and were harder to pin down for a picture.
We decided to go to the Helena mall after the Trunk or Treat was over. Uh, lame. That's only word for it. It was only 5:30 and the two stores that actually seemed to be giving candy were already out of it.

I had no idea what to do for Rebecca's costume until the LAST minute. I suddenly remembered that I could easily do "Boo". We already had jammies and Sully and Rebecca certainly looks just as much at 18 months like Boo as Samantha did at 16 months. See?

Boo -- 2009

Boo -- 2003


Grandma and Grandpa Lay briefly stopped by with a baggies of Halloween treats for the kids and brought lots of hugs and kisses with them too.

Here's my creation on our doorstep that night. Yes, I carved the pumpkin this year! I was going to flip the pumpkin around to the side opposite our drawn-on clown face and then decided that I'd just carve the face out instead. I even figured out how to keep the general look of the mouth. Yes, I was very pleased with myself!

Cute, huh?

At about 9:00 that night, all the kids were in bed, the house was quiet and we were enjoying it. The doorbell rang. It was, of course, teenagers. Ross gave them his best gruff adult voice and said, "Really, you guys? It's nine o'clock. Really?" But then he turned to get the bowl of candy, saw that we still had a ton left and ended up giving each kid 3 or 4 pieces each, to which one kid replied, "I thought so." :o)

It was a fun little holiday this year. Look forward next year to a darling Little Red Riding Hood because I got an adorable costume for Rebecca at the clearance sales!

Logan Dennis, 5 and counting

In his primary class Logan is literally a head (and sometimes shoulders) shorter than the girls in his class who were born at the beginning of the year. For whatever reason, he's just our little shorty right now. We're pretty sure he won't always be that way, but just because he's not very tall now doesn't mean that there's not a whole lot of energy, personality, vocabulary, and cuteness packed into him!
Logan turned 5 a few weeks ago and we had a very fun day celebrating him. We got up and gave him his new Star Wars t-shirt so he could wear it to his party. He was so excited that it was hard to tell him he couldn't put it on until after I'd given him a bath!
Grandma and Grandpa Lay picked up Logan and Luke and took them to McDonald's for lunch. They played and played on the playground there and Logan got a new Transformer and some matching cards from them. Here's Logan holding up "Sideswipe" in front of Grandpa Lay's face. Good thing we can tell it's Grandpa by the reflection in the mirror. :o)

I kept cleaning and cooking while the boys were gone and then as soon as Samantha got home from school we waited for the guests to arrive for Logan's party! Living close to cousins is like a party all the time, but it also makes for good party guests. Caleb, Jacob, Maryann, Isaac, Olivia, and Hyrum came to have a blast at Logan's Stars Wars party.

Here's our awesome little dude making a very cool Star Wars pose. Notice the sneer curling on his lips. He must have The Force.

The kids played a game in two teams where they had to stick stickers on planets and spaceships worth different point amounts. It was the boys (The Empire) against the girls and Luke (The Rebellion).

And here's the winning Empire team!

On to the presents! Logan obviously enjoyed this part a lot.

He loves the new Thomas the Train puzzle which Luke insisted for days afterward was his.

This is a great plush Mater that came with a soft brown blanket on the inside. Logan loves it and even started insisting that the Winnie-the-Pooh blanket he's loved since he was tiny was "old" and he only wanted the Mater blanket now. My little boy is growing up! Sniff.

Love this grin. We found a Bumblebee Transformer costume for cheap and Logan was thrilled to get to use it for Halloween.

The party guests minus Rebecca and Hyrum, and also Luke who had been in this shot until about 3 seconds before I took the picture. He wouldn't hold still. Sigh...

I racked my brain the night before the party trying to come up with how to do a Star Wars cake. I searched for pictures of R2D2 cakes online, made a weak attempt at drawing him, checked blogs of people I know who have done Star Wars parties and I couldn't come up with anything.
The next morning Logan said he wanted R2D2 and "that gold guy" on his cake. I started wishing I had an applique like I did for Samantha's cake. Finally, it dawned on me that I could just print a picture off the net. Success! I even found a bag of candy stars in my cupboard left over from our gingerbread house last Christmas. I picked out the white, yellow and blue ones and because I was of course running late during the party again, my mom and sister-in-law Celeste helped me throw the cake together. It looked FABULOUS and Logan was very happy with it. Why do we mothers freak out about things like this? I could have killed myself off trying to make something extra cute to impress everyone but the one who mattered most: the Birthday Boy!!!

See how happy he is? (Not to mention adorable?)

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM and cake!

We took the whole family to Applebee's for dinner that night. We were put in a booth, so there was no room for a high chair because the aisle was so narrow. We put Rebecca in a booster seat and she wiggled and wriggled and managed to dump her entire bowl of macaroni on the floor. Next time I will wait until a table is available!!! Aside from that little mishap, Logan loved the waiters coming to sing to him and getting his very own special dessert. (Notice Rebecca's funny face in the background and the fact that she's NOT in her booster seat.)

I realized that I hadn't gotten a picture of Logan in front of the game he was so excited about, so when we got home and he'd already put on his pajamas I made him put his shirt back on and pose in front of it. Yes, there's a glare and no, I'm not a good photographer. Someday I'll upgrade my camera, but since the subject matter is so darling I'm good for now.

My brothers used to get me to make this face every time my parents would try to take a photo of me. Logan does it well!

This is just us playing around that night. It's a horrible shot looking straight up my nose, but I love the fun, crazy, giggly feel the picture has.

We gave Logan a few more gifts before he went to bed. He'd been asking for a toy called "Tractor Tippin'" from the Cars movie. He asked everyone he saw that day if they present they got him was "Tractor Tippin' Fun" and so we had to get him on video when he opened it. He loves to talk and you'll notice I have a hard time getting him to stop. Again the lighting is poor, but it was still worth taking because he was so funny on camera.

He crawled into bed that night and said, "That was a REALLY great day!!!" and Ross and I were once again grateful to have been blessed with our funny little talkative short guy. Emergency c-sections can be worth the end result.

Three years of Luke Blaine

What a fun ride we've had so far! We celebrated Luke's 3rd birthday last week. It's fun to get kids to this age because they are so much more aware of what their birthday is. I got him talking about his day coming up and how old he'd be and much cuteness occurred in his answers. :o)

Our Helena cousins and Grandma and Grandpa Lay came for the party. It's been nice weather (up until today!) so all the cousins ran straight for the back yard when they arrived. It's so nice to have a yard! Two years in this house and I'm still thankful.



Rebecca was putting on the cute that night so she made it into a couple of pictures!

Luke got a rug from G & G Lay that has a picture of Radiator Springs from the CARS movie on it. He and Logan have been having a ton of fun running their cars around it!

This present was a big case full of play tools and a hard hat. I love that you can't even see Luke in the picture! Just his little foot.

We took the kids to the Dollar Store to get little gifts for Luke. Logan gave him this 25 piece Mickey Mouse puzzle. Luke LOVES it! He has been playing with it constantly since his birthday. He loves to "scwamble" it up and do it over and over again! (And isn't this a great pic of the top of my head!)

I found this idea online for his "cake". The one online was a little more elaborate and had colored frosting, but I love how my version turned out. (Samantha thought that the chocolate frosting meant these were coal cars!) I used Sour Patch Kids for the "people" and was thrilled to find the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" toothpick candles for added decoration. It helped to already have a Thomas Train that was just the right size for the graham cracker cars.

Here's Rebecca stealing the shot with all her adorableness again.

My friend Kim posted pictures of her kids through the years which I thought was so adorable. So because I'm only creative enough sometimes to imitate others, here's my darling boy's life so far:

Newborn (My "little" 9 lbs 7 ozs baby!)

One year old

Two years old

Three years old with all his birthday loot!

Sunday in the sunshine

Aaaahhh...
The weather here in Helena has been so nice the past few weeks and my kids looked so adorable yesterday that I decided I needed to get out the camera and take some pictures to capture these precious moments. (I know. Cheese for ya. Right there.)
The previous owners of the house did a lot of landscaping in the backyard and while we don't really love some parts of it, it does make a nice backdrop for pictures. (Plus the kids love to hide in all the trees and bushes.)
So here's some of my favorite shots from our pleasant Sunday afternoon:


Our beautiful Rebecca

I've loved this dress since it was Samantha's. Rebecca seems to be dancing for the camera in this one!

Someday I'll get a more natural smile from this pretty girl. It comes out every once in a while, but I think with all the sun and her awareness of the camera yesterday this is as good as she could give me. Funny little face!

Samantha took this one.

Love the expression on Logan's face here. I'm also glad that Samantha's hair fell between her legs in just the right spot...

More kisses

Rebecca was a very tired girl by the time I took this one. I'm glad Luke was able to follow my direction to kiss her cheek though!

Luke Blaine in the sunshine

Logan loves to talk and I'm sure that he was talking to me when I took this. :o)

Sweet Logan

Photography by Logan

I begged Ross to tighten his tie up and come outside for a picture. He wasn't thrilled, but he did it and I'm glad. Happy wife, happy life, right? ;o)

Swimming in the Summertime!

Swimming lessons are a great part of childhood. The warm sun and cool pool, the fun teachers and classmates, and finding a love for the water make summertime the best.

I knew I wanted to get Logan and Samantha started in swimming lessons this year for a few reasons. One, it's a good skill for the kids to have just for safety reasons alone and it also makes the water more fun to play in. And two, I knew I needed to do some kind of structured activity with them this summer just to get us out of the house! I am admittedly a homebody, but don't want my kids memories of summertime to be watching movies all day with the fans blowing. Not so much fun for them...

We started lessons on July 6th and finally ended 6 long weeks later on August 14th. (I say long weeks, but truly, summer has flown by in so many other ways -- as usual!) The first session was the roughest for me because I could only get Samantha into one time slot and Logan into another. So we were there from 11:15 AM to 12:20 PM. Thankfully the next two sessions they had classes at the same time!

Rebecca and Luke came with us every day and I transported them around in the double stroller we've been borrowing from my sister-in-law Kathy. What a blessing that was! Luke and Rebecca didn't really like staying in it the entire time (especially the first session) so I let them out often enough. I had to make sure I had a fully stocked diaper bag and lots of snacks (despite the no outside food rule the pool has) to keep them entertained.

Of course, on more than one occasion, my rambunctious not-quite-three-year-old would make a break for it if I took him out of the stroller and looked away from him for more than two seconds. It's not always fun to look like the idiot mother scrambling after her child, but oh well. Rebecca escaped once or twice too. I do my best with them, I swear.

I also brought chaos upon myself a few days. One day during the first session we got out of the house without the diaper bag! I freaked out and then remembered that the Lord had blessed me enough to make sure that my bishop and his wife just happened to be there with their son for his lessons. I asked them to watch Logan while I dashed home and to make the transition from Samantha's lesson to Logan's. They did and I was beyond grateful!

Another day Logan left the house without his towel, so after I got the kids safely to their teachers, Luke, Rebecca, and I zipped to Kmart for a lovely new striped beach towel. It is so huge that little Logan is swallowed up by it. It will be great for the beach when we get back to California someday though, so I'll forgive him for forgetting. :o)

Grandma and Grandpa Wilkins came and visited us here in Montana during the kids' third session of lessons. Grandma came with us three times and Grandpa got to come once, too. It was fun to share this with them and I appreciated the help!!!

When next summer comes I'm sure I'll try to get them going in lessons again. Luke will be old enough next year and that will help! For now though, I'm glad we did it, but so glad it's over.

Samantha loving the water

The kids often played a game called "Mr. Shark! Mr. Shark! What time is it?" Mr. Shark says a number like "3 o'clock". Then everyone circles their arms forward into the water and steps forward 3 times. Pretty basic, but fun for the kids. Here's Samantha's turn.

My darling water boy

Logan was a fish and loved his lessons!

Luke at the pool on a day Ross got to come with me so I was actually able to take all these pictures!

Rebecca was a sweetheart at the pool most of the time. The time I wasn't paying attention she was trying to back into the pool like she'd go backwards down the stairs. Whoops!

Logan going down.....

down........

down the slide!

Whee! Let's do that again!





This little video isn't the best quality, but amusing to me. It's hard to tell, but the teacher was being "Mr. Shark" and Samantha and the little boy in her class kept wanting to run away from Mr. Shark instead of doing "shark arms" toward their teacher before she finally said, "Lunch time!" and they are supposed to run away. Oh well. When you're seven and you've got the giggles, sometimes you've gotta just go with it!

Celebrating Samantha!

It's hard to believe that it has been this long since I became a mommy, but on June 22nd Samantha turned seven! It was a great day and she had so much fun.

She and I went to a party store here in town and we found some fun Disney Little Mermaid decorations and games to set the party theme. Here she is posing after her turn in the"Stick the flower crown on Ariel's head" game.

Her cousin Esther just happened to be visiting from Utah and we were so excited she got to come to the party! Especially because her cousin Maryann, who lives here, was in Utah visiting her Grandma. (We missed you, Maryann!) Here are her party guests (left to right): Esther, cousin Caleb, Carlin from school, Samantha the birthday girl, cousin Jacob (making an AWESOME face), Tyler from school, and her brothers Logan and Luke.

We have really tried to help her look at the camera when we take her picture. I was very happy she did so well with that on her big day! (Also, notice her cutie cousin Stevie Denny in this picture!)

This is the shot I got of the decorations in our living room. Note the "seaweed" and ocean life. We were going for "Under the Sea" and I think it turned out well! I was especially proud of the sea horses I drew! ;o)

This is Samantha's fun cake. I am so unorganized that it was decorated just moments before the kids ate it! My mom whipped the blue color into the white frosting and we put the fabric applique of Ariel gently on top. Then we used brown sugar for "sand" (great idea I found online) and put the jewels, starfish, and seashells that I made out of clay I baked around the cake for decoration. I really love that it turned out so cute for how easy it was to throw together!

See how happy she is?

This is another idea I got from the internet, but it didn't turn out quite like I meant it to. I forgot to put the fish into the jell-o before it set up too much, so they just got put on top. Unfortunately when Samantha held the bowl up for pictures all the fish slid off. It didn't matter to the kids though! They loved it!

Ross had two softball games that night so we all went to Dairy Queen before he left and celebrated Samantha as a family. I love her funny face!

We drove out to Grandma and Grandpa Lay's house next to spend a little more time with our visiting family. We had a great Family Home Evening with them. (Thanks again, Celina! I keep using the "I LOVE TO OBEY!" phrase on my kids!) Samantha opened the rest of her presents because I forgot earlier in the day to give her the stuff from Mommy and Daddy. Some of the things she got were an Ariel doll for the bath and some princess paper dolls which I was so excited about because I really loved paper dolls when I was little.

Ross and I love this beautiful girl so much. It has been such an amazing journey with her. There have been lots of twists and turns and we continue to learn things about her that make us love her even more. She has had her share of struggles in her short life and we're always so thrilled to see her progress and strive to do new things that some people take for granted in their children. Her imagination is the best and I love to see her dream. I love that she loves the gospel already and how she gets excited when she feels that special spirit.
I'm also glad she feels love for her family. One of my favorite moments with her that has actually been repeated is when I sing her a song at bedtime called "Angel on my Shoulder" that my daddy used to sing to me. The very end of it says, "I'm gonna cross my fingers that I'll find a guy to love me true and I'm gonna love him too." Samantha stopped me one night after I said "find a guy to love me true" and she said, "Daddy?" It makes me smile every time she says that.
Happy Birthday to my beautiful girl Samantha!

Helena History

We've had some fun adventures here in our town of Helena, Montana. I grew up here and have an obvious love for it, but it is really fun to share it with my California Boy husband and my children.

We started in the month of May by going to the Vigilante Parade. It's a high school parade here in town that was started in 1924 to keep students from other "traditions" like a senior-junior fight and other pranks. It's mostly historical floats about area history. There's also classic cars, the high school bands, and riders on horses dressed up like cowboys and Native Americans (which some actually are, of course) among other things. It's fun to see what the students come up with every year and it's a fun tradition that me and my siblings, and parents, and many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins have all participated in.

We weren't going to go, but suddenly made a last minute decision to and we caught the tail end of the parade. It was still worth it. The kids enjoyed it and it was just the right amount of time to be there for our little family.

The boys in their coonskin caps and Samantha in her cowgirl hat and braids.

Watching the floats go by

A float about the Wickes Mine which is not too far from my parents' house now

Daddy and Luke with the Civic Center tower in the background. (The building used to be a Shrine temple and used to have two towers before a 1935 earthquake.)

Our four cute kiddoes

Mommy and Rebecca


On the 30th of May we went to a History Fair on the walking mall in historic downtown Helena. There were lots of booths set up with demonstrations like panning for gold and blacksmithing. Many people were dressed up in old fashioned clothing and there were tons of things to look at and feel and try out. The kids had fun and we got some cute pictures.

Sitting on the trolley

"Mr. and Mrs. Dunphy" They said they'd just come over from the local cemetery and were telling the crowd all about their lives before and during their time in Helena. The building behind them is named after Mr. Dunphy. That's about all I heard...

Logan and Samantha next to a Civil War cannon. The men in the background were dressed Civil War uniforms too.

I just had to snap a picture of one of my favorite places in the world. The Parrot Confectionery has been around since 1922 and in this location since the 30's. It was the 1950's local teen place to be. The look of it inside never seems to change. They have really fabulous hand-dipped chocolates and a homemade chili that is so yummy. It's a place I always planned to bring the man I was going to marry to. Thankfully Ross loves it too! My dream would be to do more research on this place and put it in a book or something.

(Side note: My mom and aunt worked as teenagers in Rogene's, a fancy dress shop next to the Parrot, and said the town madame "Big Dorothy" used to come in with her girls and a huge roll of cash. Interesting, but sad to think where that money came from!)


My sweet girl being the angel she always is.

The kids wanted to meet every dog they saw, but this dog, named Lad, was part of a booth and the lady was very nice to let my children pet him.

Not sure what to call this other than the "Prospector's Fountain". Its made out of metal and has been around for as long as I can remember (but that probably means only since the 70's). I used to play on it when we waited for my mom to pick us up from watching summer movies at the nearby theater. I wasn't that giving to my kids. I made them stay away from the little pool that the water flows into. Great fountain though.


On the 9th of June we went to Smith School and watched Samantha in her end-of-school talent show. We didn't feel like going back home when it was over so I called Ross to find out where he was. He and my brother Ryan were up on the hill behind Raleigh Street here in Helena working on a survey, so we decided to go and visit! It was lots of fun to climb up above the town even though I was in a pair of chunky-heeled sandals. I had my camera with me because of the talent show and Ry was so excited because he'd been enjoying the view and wishing for pictures. Lucky! (Another historical side note for those that don't know: :o) Legendary actor Gary Cooper lived on Raleigh Street for part of his childhood!)

Ross hard at work at the total station sighting in Ryan at the rod. And Rebecca being good even when she's sitting in the weeds.

Cocking her head and looking cute!

The Sleeping Giant Mountain north of Helena. I LOVE THAT MOUNTAIN!

Sunlight hitting the Helena Cathedral just right

Here's the hill we climbed. Ryan has Luke on his shoulders and Logan next to him. Ross is the little short thing on top of the hill. This is actually looking up from State Street.

My little "Rodmen" Luke and Logan


Here's a silly little video I took from the top of the hill