October Blur...

This picture is how I felt pretty much the entire October. We had general conference, fall break, Arizona State Fair, Temple Open House, Halloween and a lot more! Here is pretty much our month.

Fall Break & State Fair Adventures

So last week was Fall Break. We did not do much around here. We did go to the library. The new Percy Jackson book came out last Tuesday. We were first to get the book. I am happy to report that Jonathan, Taylor and myself have finished reading it already. We also returned EVERY BOOK that we had previously checked out. I can't remember the last time that happened. Rebecca did not want to return her book. However, we let her check out a new one and she was ok with that.

On our way home from the library, we noticed a huge fire. It was about 5 miles from our home. Within an hour, we could smell the smoke from the fire. The smoke really effected me and put me in bed for a day. 

Rebecca at the library

Conference/State Fair Weekend

This past week was literally a blur. (Yes boys I mean LITERALLY! See Captain Literal clip for more information.) Early Thursday morning, I dropped John & Jonathan off at the airport. They had a 6:30am flight. John promised to blog about their weekend.

I came home and got back in bed hoping to get an hour or so of sleep before I needed to get the boys up and ready for school. Ten minutes later, Rebecca started crying and I was up at that point. I was exhausted most of the weekend.

Friday, the boys got out of school early since it was the last day of the quarter and fall break was starting. We went to Costco and then Taylor & Thomas went next door to watch Harry Potter with our neighbors. They had a great night.

Primary Program & Fall Break!

Well...I am getting around to posting videos and pictures from the Primary Program that was last week.  Here is Jonathan playing his violin part to "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus."  He did a great job.  I did not have time to get his talk.  I will still have to do that one.

State Fair 2011

This year the State Fair's $1 admission lasted until 5pm (instead of 6pm). We decided to have John work as long as we could, so we picked him up around 3:45. Before that the boys were hard pressed to find something to do.  Jonathan cleaned the family room and vacuumed.

Thomas "exercised" with his headband :-)

Taylor filled out his book report so he could get 3 free rides.  He also did Rebecca's.  Jonathan did Thomas'.

We got to the fair, found the $5 parking lot and walked to the fair.  It was SO crowded!  Not only that but there were quite a few people that already looked like they had downed a few beers already.  As John said, I was a little stressed getting into the fair.

We went to the crafts area first and found Taylor's blanket that he made for Rebecca - 3rd place!

Jonathan's pinewood derby car also got a 3rd place.  (It is the one with the yellow triangle on the back row.)

Taylor got 1st place on his birdhouse! (He made this in cub scouts too.)

Taylor got an Honorable Mention on his Star Wars Origami.  (Red & Blue colored ship.)

Jonathan got a 1st place on his dough art! (In the back corner.)

Jonathan got a 1st place on his God's Eye Ornament.  (It is laying down right behind the red ribbon.)  We made this with chopsticks instead of Popsicle sticks.  It turned out REALLY well.

Jonathan's piano cake got an Honorable Mention.

Taylor's popcorn cupcakes came in 1st.  (There were A LOT of cupcakes entered this year.) And behind that is his Cub Scout molded chocolate - Honorable Mention.

Jonathan got a 3rd place on Fudge w/nuts.

Taylor got a 2nd on chocolate fudge.

Taylor got 1st on Cooked Fudge.

Jonathan got 2nd on Fudge w/Marshmallows.

Taylor got 1st on Fudge - other.

Jonathan got 1st on lemon bars (bottom corner)

Jonathan got an Honorable Mention on cookies made with candy.

After seeing the entries we decided to go on the rides.  Each boy got 3 rides and then Rebecca had an extra 3 we could disperse. All Thomas wanted to do was go on a ride.  We ran into Grandma & Grandpa Black as we were leaving and Thomas was NOT happy we had to wait longer.  After talking to them we headed to the fairway.  Taylor and Jonathan wanted to ride the "Superman" ride, so I took Thomas to see what other rides there were.  He said no to every ride.  He finally told me he wanted to go on the big slide.  So he climbed the stairs by himself and clung to the top before gravity took over and he came down half sitting, half laying down.  He got off and said, "THAT WAS A LITTLE SCARY MOM!!!!"  John had the camera, so he got some shots of the boys on their ride before we met up:

We then walked around seeing if there was another ride Thomas wanted to go on.  He never did find a ride that he wanted to go on.  Jonathan & Taylor decided to ride the big Ferris wheel.  John gave them the camera to take some pictures.  Here are a few:

Jonathan took a picture of me with Rebecca.  See the brown shirt?  That is me holding a pink bundle of joy!

Poor Rebecca did not know what to think.  She would almost be asleep and we would walk by a ride with loud music and it would startle her.  Kind of like this:

She is also teething, so she sucked on her fingers quite a bit and we held her a lot.

For Jonathan & Taylor's last ride, they decided to ride the swings.  They had a great time!

While they were getting on the ride, Thomas (who still had not seen one ride he wanted to go on) said, "Can I get a lemonade?"  Since it was the first time all night we saw any glimmer of our Thomas, John said, "Thomas, would you rather have a lemonade OR your last two rides?"  Thomas said, "I would like a lemonade please." So John took him over to the lemonade stand and asked, "Do you want a small one just for you or a big one to share with your brothers?"  He said, "Small one for me!"  As you can see, it put a smile on his face:

His brother were also thrilled to learn they got another ride.  So what did they pick?

The huge slide!

For the last 3 rides, they went with their Dad on the "Crazy Coaster!"  It was their favorite ride.

Rebecca was patient, and Thomas drank his lemonade while we waited for them.

We left the fair around 7:15 and we were hungry.  We ended up stopping at Denny's for dinner.  We knew that at least I could get something I could eat.  Thomas ordered a baseball pancake.  See how big this is?

He ate the WHOLE THING!

Taylor ate his entire pizza plus half of my fries.  Jonathan had 2 chicken tacos, chips and the other half of my fries.  I would say those boys were hungry!  We went home and were ready for bed.  At least mom and dad were ready for bed...
It was another great year, and we are proud of Jonathan & Taylor!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (for John!)

John loves the State Fair around our home for one reason - FUDGE!  Every year we make 4-5 different kinds of fudge for the fair and since we only submit 7 pieces that means that the rest goes to family and friends.  I have learned over the years and now we will split the recipe into loaf pans so we don't have fudge until Christmas.

We turned in the boys entries yesterday for food and are waiting for Friday afternoon to come.  Here is what we submitted. I had everything labeled and I was ready this year.  After last year's nightmare I was not taking any chances!

We have Chocolate Fudge, Cooked Fudge, Fudge w/nuts, coconut & marshmallows, cookies w/candy, citrus bars, Fudge w/nuts, Fudge w/marshmallows, a molded chocolate, cupcakes and a piano cake!  Taylor made this molded chocolate.  I learned that if you add food coloring to chocolate that you need to add vegetable oil to it or it does not work!

 Taylor made these really cute popcorn cupcakes!  They really looked like popcorn.  I found the idea here, and then printed off the cupcake holder here.  You can buy the template with popcorn already written on it for $3, but I figured for free I would do the decorations myself!

Jonathan made this piano cake.  My cousin made one for her piano recital.  The black keys are Kit Kat bars turned upside down.  We used chocolate to make our lines and did a chocolate chip border.

 Here the boys are right before we loaded up.  Mom had to get one more picture to document everything!

Poor Thomas is now asking when he can turn stuff in.  Two years is a long time to wait when you are 4!

Skabelund Fair Judging

What do you do when you have 10 different goodies in your fridge?  You share...and share we did!  Last night we had the judging competition for Jonathan and Taylor's entries from the state fair.  We appreciate Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kathryn opening their home so we could have it there.  We got everything set up, and it looked great!

Next to each plate was a voting slip of paper and cup to put them in.  They were rated on a 1-5 scale.  Two of the items were "show" pieces.  Jonathan's cake:

He did a flask with grandma's help.  I learned that cotton candy does not stay good like this for longer than 1 hour.  I would not recommend submitting anything to the fair that had cotton candy.  We also had Taylor's cupcakes for show.

Our judges arrived and tasted everything at the table:

They submitted their votes and the votes were tallied.  Everyone had their favorite, but the overall winners were Jonathan & Taylor.  I let them pick their own ribbon.  Jonathan's says "Grand Champion" and Taylor picked 1st Place:

It was a great night that I am sure the boys will remember!

AZ State Fair 2010

Another tradition in the Skabelund Family!  This year John had to work in the morning, and got off around 2.  We met him at work and went to the fair.  There is a parking lot across the street that has $5 parking (everywhere else is $10.)  The boys were impressed mom saved $5 on parking!  On opening day, admission is only $1 before 6pm, so it was $4 to get in (Thomas is still free.)  The first thing the boys wanted to do was get their rides in!  (You know...since they did not have any food entries this year.)  There was no line with guest services - score!  We were able to get our ride passes and we went to look at what rides they had.  Jonathan is already planning for next year.  He wants to go on a day where he can get an unlimited ride pass.  We told him that was not going to happen since it would cost more to get into the fair.

Thomas picked the first ride.  He wanted to go on a bee that goes up and down like Dumbo at Disneyland.  They let John ride with him.  Thomas had a BLAST!

Jonathan and Taylor chose to ride the more adult "Superman" ride.  In years past Taylor has done this ride each year, but this one goes really high.  Jonathan had his eyes closed most of the ride, Taylor was in heaven!

After that ride, Thomas decided he wanted to go on the slide.  John went with him to see if he could ride down with him.  They told him it would cost John a ticket as well, so he sent Thomas up by himself.  John said it felt like he was sending his 3 year old on a mission!

See him in the yellow shirt climbing the stairs!  Then Thomas came down (about 10 second in).  He is on the far right pink lane, and came down on his back:

Taylor decided he wanted to go down the slide, but the BIG one!  He climbed the stairs and came down the green lane:

One of the Elective Requirements for Bear is to visit farm animals.  We went in to see the livestock.  I have never seen so many bunny rabbits in my life!  Thomas thought this one was really cute:

We also saw some baby pigs:

and some REALLY big cattle:

From there the boys decided they wanted to see what they had won.  We went into the entries area only to discover that they were in a different building (the green one.)  So we came out and Jonathan decided he wanted to go on the swings:

We walked to the green building and looked for the boys entries.  We found Taylor's first.  He got a 2nd place for dough art:

Jonathan got a 1st place for his origami.  (Orange dog)

Thomas loved the Lego display:

We stopped in the Toddler area for a quick break to let the boys run around.  John took some video of some of the events there:

After this we were ready to go home!  We ended the night with the 4 boys riding the sky tram on the way back.  It is a tradition that Thomas joined this year!

It was a madhouse trying to get out of there at 5:30 at night.  Everyone was getting off of work and heading to the fair!  We got home and Thomas was not doing well.  He fell asleep on the way home and he was really acting sick.  John and I cancelled our date and we watched "How to Train Your Dragon."  It was a great day!