Since I've Been Gone

I hope you all now have Kelly Clarkson's song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Muahaha. But seriously, at least it is better than her new song Mr. Know It All. I loathe that song. LOATHE.

I took my kids to the State Fair. They had a grand ol' time seeing the animals and playing at the farm exhibit.

But lets face it. The sole purpose for this trip was so Jenny & I could hang out and eat some fair food. I think bacon makes everything better. But twinkies? That are fried? That is just wrong!

But for some reason, I didn't think deep fried oreos sounded gross? Hmmmm. I just wanted to do my part to be American. Mmkay. The verdict? Meh. I think the batter was too thick and it through the ratio off. I wanted more chocolate flavor.

Anna started dance class back in September & was put in a class with the 3 & 4 years olds. Granted, she is 4...but still. She has always gone to church, school and played with older kids and I thought she might do better in the kindergarten class. I wanted to channel my inner 'Dance Mom' and demand I get my way (kidding) but after the first week, they actually moved her up anyway. Tear. So proud. She is loving it, but the way. Like that needed to be clarified.

I started to run 3x a week and even got up to running 10 miles on Saturdays (Yippee!). I had to take a picture of my 5k time to send to my brother in law to show him I was getting closer to a 20 minute 5k. (Go ahead and sing Your So Vain right now. Judge me) And then remind yourself that karma sucks because I have now injured my other leg/ankle and have had to limit my running...again.

which really puts a damper on my ability to eat things like this without so much guilt.

My friend and I are in charge of the book club in our ward & we read The Help. I was in charge of the desserts and wanted to make a caramel cake like Minnie's. Let's just say it was an epic fail. So last minute I made these caramel cupcakes. Also, note to self: take the picture AFTER you are finished decorating them & they are sitting pretty on the cake stand, instead of your cookie sheet.

Evan always likes to help clean up the mess :) I love the way he says 'dee-wish-us!' Anna; however, takes one lick and says, 'That is SO good. But I think I am done now. Can I have some celery.' Whose kids is she, anyway?!

Anna requested to be Sleeping Beauty/Aurora/Briar Rose (man, that chick has a lot of names) for Halloween and thanks to Jenny, I happily obliged.

One morning Evan woke up & after crawling into our bed, as he usually does, he said (very matter of factly) 'Halloween soon. Wanna be a fider'. I asked, 'you want to be a fighter?' And he yells, 'No! A FIDER! Scare ev-we body!' So a spider it was!

I have to tell this story, because I love it. Before we had found Evan's costume, we were at Target and I thought I would go check to see if they had any spider costumes (there are slim pickins of cute spider costumes. The only one I liked was from Pottery Barn and was sold out and selling on Ebay for $75. SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS!) They only had Spider Man costumes. Anna tried to convince him to settle but Evan was adamant that he be a spider. Well we approach the checkout counter and this follows:

Cashier: Hello. Did you find everything okay?

Me: Yes

Evan: NO! No Fider costumes. Neva gonna find it! Neva eva! Wanna be a fida. Scare Ev-we-body. So sad!'

What?! I laughed forever about that. Thanks to Carlee and her neighbor we were able to use the fabulous costume above.

I gave Annabelle my old American Girl doll, Samantha, and one day she came and showed me this card she had made for Samantha for her Christmas present. Earlier that morning we had read the Fancy Nancy Christmas book and Nancy had made a card for her doll. Love her.

Old Navy had a stuff and save sale where card holders got 40% off. I usually avoid sales like this (how I LOVE internet shopping) because I hate crowds. But I thought since this was just for card holders, it would be less crazy. WRONG! I am half way through the line here and I am at the very back of the store. It wrapped around the place! I was in line for 1 hour and 15 minutes! Come to find out, my friend Carlee went to the same sale by her house and was in line for less than a minute. I friggin hate Utah County sometimes.

You may think, well why didn't you leave? Because I had clothes in my hand that were on clearance, so I got 40% off the sale price, then an additional 40% off that. I got button up shirts for my dad and Ross for $2.08. We won't talk about what I allowed my children to do while I waited in line....

Speaking of buying things. Anna has taken it upon herself to take pictures of things she wants with my the camera on my phone. At the end of the day I will find random pictures, like the one above, on my phone and she will tell me to put it on her Christmas list. Apparently Santa texts now?