Our Halloween this Year!

This year we had lots of fun for Halloween. We made caramel apples, went to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins and carved lots of pumpkins to decorate our driveway and porch. Emma was Ariel from the Little Mermaid and Leora was a Bumblebee. I made Emma's costume and Leora used one of Emma's past halloween costumes. We tried to spray Emma's hair orange, but the color just didn't show up very well on her dark hair. Next time we know she'll need a wig.
Eddie and I took the girls around to about 12 houses and decided we had walked enough. Houses aren't right next to each other on the island and lots of people weren't participating. :( We learned that not very many kids trick or treat on the island because of that. We probably only got 10 trick or treaters all night long. I was a little disappointed since Halloween is possibly my favorite holiday. We just have a lot of candy left over. Emma and her neighbor friends helped me decorate our front porch with spiders and cobwebs. We put jack-o-lanterns along our driveway to make sure people knew they were welcome. I didn't want the thought of barking dogs to scare away trick or treaters. Surprisingly the dogs behaved very well. They just hung out in our bedroom most of the night. They didn't bark at the doorbell a single time. It was miraculous!

I Guess She Wanted a Mullet!

Our little Leora decided yesterday morning, while I was doing the dishes downstairs dealing with a plugged dishwasher, to cut her own hair. I admit that she had ample time to do this since I was very focused on unplugging the dishwasher. I have caught her cutting her hair before, but it has only been minor cuts and she mostly would trim her hair. However, this morning she went to town on it. These pictures don't even really show the extent of the damage she accomplished.

She cut out so many huge chunks of hair, and left quite a few bald spots. The sink was full of hair. She pretty much had cut herself a mullet! Cut off most the hair on the top and sides of her head. Now my initial reaction was just shock. She already had so little hair, and we have been waiting 3 years for that to grow. I was so surprised that she cut so much off also because she loved having the long hair, or so she said. My next reaction was to laugh, but that was short lived since I figured I should get mad at her. After telling her how naughty it was to cut her hair I called Eddie to tell him. I kept laughing about it while I told him what she had done while Leora sat in my lap crying. I couldn't decide what to do with her hair since she butchered it so badly. Eddie told me to shave her head! I could only hear Colleen Abbott's voice in my head telling me not to do that. Her mother shaved her head at age 3 believing it would help her hair grow back in thicker, and she told me once that I should never do that to my children.

I decided the only other option was to cut her hair real short and hope it grows back in in those bald spots soon. It will probably take a few months with how fast Leora's hair grows. When I told Leora that we needed to cut off the rest of her hair because of what she had done she freaked out. I put her on the bathroom counter kicking and screaming. Each time she would start to calm down while I was cutting her hair she would look in the mirror and see me cutting the hair and start crying again. Hopefully she was traumatized enough by the event that she won't do it again.

Funny that I took her out to a couple of stores yesterday and to Emma's soccer practice and no one said anything about her hair. No one laughed or said anything! I concluded that maybe they thought she could be a cancer patient or had some disease and was loosing her hair.

After the inital shock, I have to say that the haircut is growing on me and she doesn't care anymore that it has been cut. Eddie's new nickname for her is "Butch", she gets mad at him everytime he calls her that. With any luck it will help her hair grow in faster from having the drastic haircut.

Karaoke Songs

Well, ever since Eddie's birthday we play SingStar on the PS3 atleast once a week. Emma more often! But I've discovered that it is fun to Karaoke. So I have put together a playlist of my favorite songs to sing. My all time favorites are "Total Eclipse of the Heart -Bonnie Tyler" by myself, "Time after Time -Cindy Lauper" with Emma, and "It's Tricky - RunDMC" with Eddie. The playlist is here on my blog, and if you are reading this from my actual blog then you are probably already listening to it! Enjoy it for what it's worth. =) Be warned there are some country songs!!!!

Cut's Island aka Dead Man's Island

It was such a beautiful day yesterday that we took the boat over to Cut's Island, which is a small island that is really close to our home. It is known by the locals as Dead Man's Island. It is part of Kopachuck State Park and can only be reached by boat or swimming to when the tide is low. When the sun is out you can see seal's laying out in the sun to warm up. Last night we saw this baby seal and his friend seagull. The seal kept moving up the sand closer and closer to us when the water would touch him, and this seagull would follow. They were good friends!

The seal didn't seem to care that we were there. Emma got within 10 feet of the seal and it just looked at her. She said it was talking to her, but she couldn't understand the language.


We built a fire to grill burgers and hot dogs for dinner. It's hard to feed children on a beach when they keep playing in the sand. Did you know that sand gets everywhere and on everything!?! Eddie brought his fishing pole to try to catch a fish. He still hasn't caught any around the island! I think this was his 6th attempt. We'll just say that he doesn't have the patience to sit and wait! However, I did get this great picture of him trying.

I've been wanting to get a nice picture of the sunset from Raft Island, where we live, because it is always so beautiful. So we waited until sunset before packing up to head home. I took quite a few pictures, but here are my favorites.

I also got a picture of Raft Island from Cut's. This picture gives you more of an idea of where we live. People ask me all the time if there are any stores or gas stations on the island. There are only about 80 houses there. There isn't room for anything else. On the right is the small bridge and the picture cuts off on the left at the edge of the island.

Saturday Night Live! Sara and Hillary!

Did you see this skit on Saturday Night Live? It is super funny! I love the interaction between the two of them. Hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PxJfaNgDoE

Sorry! The link doesn't work anymore. NBC took the clip off of Youtube for copyright reasons.

Eddie's Birthday

Eddie had his birthday yesterday. He's 31 now! He received lots of texts, emails, and phone calls to wish him happy birthday. He told me he was super surprised at the amount of attention he received for his birthday, especially since he would let us forget it if he could. Of course with me as a wife there is no chance of that! Eddie got off work early so he could attend Emma's soccer practice. Afterwards we drove up to Port Orchard to have dinner at a Chinese Buffet. There aren't very many of them around here, and Seattle was too long of a drive for the evening. When we got home we celebrated with candles and cake. Emma said her Dad needed to have a red and white cake, so I made a Red Velvet cake with whipped cream. Emma wanted him to have a Utah cake!

The girls and I gave Eddie the new PS3 game SingStar. It's a super fun karaoke game that let's you download new songs directly from the game while connected to the internet. Each download includes the original music video which you watch while you sing the song. After you sing you have the option of listening to the audio recording of your performance. We definitely need lots more practice! We didn't realize we sounded so bad!!!!!! You can also purchase an eye camera to go with the game which allows you to watch yourself on the TV while you karaoke, then you can share your performances with other people online. It's suppose to be the last karaoke game you will ever need to buy, since you can download additional songs that you want. Needless to say, we ended up playing the game for about 2 hours last night.

Our Professional Soccer Player!

Emma had her first soccer game today! She loves playing soccer and is learning lots. She mostly plays defense, and gets super excited when she kicks the ball away from someone to keep the ball away from the goal. Most of the game she was too concerned about staying in her position to get real involved, but towards the end she started going after the ball when in came inside her area. Emma says she loves playing soccer, and told our neighbor that she is going to be a professional soccer player.


Unfortunately her team lost their first game, but her coach didn't point it out. Emma announced after the game to us that no one won the game! It was just like practice! Her team is made up of 1st and 2nd grade girls. The team is called the "Voyager Huskies". They practice every Monday after school and have their games every Saturday through November 8th.


I ordered the smallest jersey size for Emma and the jersey goes down past her knees! So she always tucks it into her shorts. She is definitely the smallest girl on the team. The other parents kept commenting to each other at the game "Who is that little girl? Is she in 1st grade?". They were also commenting on how enthusiastic she was during the game. She just kept running, skipping, and jumping in place the entire game, even when she was on the sidelines. Eddie shakes his head every time he sees her skipping across the field. I can't help but smile because I know she is having fun. It's fun to see her enjoy the game so much, since soccer is my favorite sport to play.