This is one of my all time favorite Halloween pictures. For Halloween 2006 Justin, with the help of my brothers, dressed up like this crazy disco dude. I couldn't help but laugh every time I looked at him. Another reason why I love Halloween! 
This is Frankenstein, very Handsome. I think I made him 3 yrs ago.
This is one of my witches that is so much cuter in person. You can't see the details very well in this picture but she is funny. She is one of my first witches maybe 10 or so yrs old.
Another Frankenstein, he is very silly. I think he is about 5 yrs old, I cant remember I really should date things as I make them.
This is my spooky chandelier that is over my dining room table.
This is my front room window, I should of lit the candles they look cool when they are lit.
Paige likes to keep things even. She has always wanted one of, whatever we were handing her at the time, for each hand. Well, she has taken it to a new level and has started doubling up other things.
If I can hold two suckers then why cant I eat two suckers? She ended up a very sticky mess!
Can you say Binky Problem? For some reason I have never even thought about taking away Paige's binky until lately. She is our baby and has seemed so little, I have not really thought about how old she really is and that I should of taken it away a while ago. My last two kids did not like binkys so I never had to face that battle. I have a feeling its going to be a big one with Princess Pest of the Earth Paige. Wish me luck!Last Friday I was invited to go to Witches Night Out with Melanie and Katie. Talk about right up my ally, Halloween theme, costumes, shopping, hanging with adults, Halloween Decor everywhere, it was so much fun! I took a bunch of pictures but decided that as much as I want to I cannot post them all so I chose my favorites.
This was our favorite witch, it made me laugh about some things that I have not thought funny for years.
This Witch Katie, Baby Witch Zayla, Witch Melanie, and Witch Natalie. We all are awesome witches!
This is me in my costume. When Witch Mel invited me I looked all over for a costume and was left wondering why people think witches needed to be slutty. I could not find one costume that did not have slut written all over it so I ended up making my own and this is what I came up with. I wanted to look sort of like a Hocus Pocus witch with the craziness of Bellatrix from Harry Potter. I liked how it turned out it was very heavy but that was good because it kept me pretty warm. My eyes look scary in that picture.Happy Birthday Melanie! Today is my sweet cousins birthday, so as she did for me I decided to declare my love for her in a post. First I have to say that while looking through my pictures I was very sad to notice that I had very few pictures of her. I have tons of pictures of events that I know we were both at, or pictures where I knew she was standing behind the camera like at my kids baptisms for example. I have tons of pictures of her while we were kids and from before I went digital but no scanner, so Mel you lucked out on some of what could be very embarrassing shots and know that from now on I am going to make sure that we get more pictures together! 
I am so so so so (that's 4 so's) lucky to have Melanie in my life. She is truly one of the greatest people I have ever known and I feel honored to be able to call her my friend. I think of the saying "Family by chance, friends by choice" and have to give a shout out to my mother and my aunt Susie for getting pregnant within a year of each other, both having girls, therefore giving us the chance to be not only family but great friends as well, so thanks! Anyways, Mel and I have been pals for as long as I can remember. Even after she moved when we were kids, and further away, for a while as adults, whenever we got back together it was buddies as usual like we've never spent a day apart. I cherish my friendship with Melanie so much. She has been someone to look up to and someone with qualities that I admire and will work a life time to achieve. I don't know if she realizes but Melanie just being Melanie, was the greatest example of faith and goodness and one of the main reasons I even started thinking about going to the Temple. She was there for me to answer all my questions but never pushed. Obviously Temple blessings cant be topped and I will always have Melanie to thank for leading me in that direction. Not only is she a woman with such great faith and goodness to be admired she is such a great friend and so much stinkin' fun! I have the best time when we are together, we have so much in common which gives us so many options of things to go do together. No matter what we do it is always a blast. For a while now we have been scrap booking together ,the picture above is from when we were at a scrap-away in Park City and stopped at the outlets to shop (cute cousin/friend Katie and Little baby Zayla also pictured).
This is Melanie with Paige when she came to see me at the hospital. Another great thing about Melanie is that she is so great with kids. All my kids just absolutely love her (and gorgeous). We went on vacation with them years ago and we all had so much fun. Ever since then my kids have wanted to go somewhere with them again (which we need to do) but are always so excited to do anything when they know that Melanie will be there and mad when they are not invited. Everyone that knows Melanie knows what a great person she is, and I have already wrote a ton and realize that I can go on forever writing about what I like about about her, so I am going so stop now and sum it up with a list (I know, shocker), a list of the things that Mel has been for me.
OK my list to sum things up was very long, just think if I would of wrote about all of them how long it would of been. I love you Melanie, you are a truly genuine and special person. I hope you have a awesome Birthday, you deserve it and so much more!
Every time my cute Drew would go outside this past summer he would bring me in a flower and say "I got something for you momma" He was always so excited to give it to me and I have to admit that even though they were always weeds or one of the millions of sunflowers that grow up here, I loved it. So this past weekend when Justin was getting ready to go hunting him and Drew picked me up a cute potted Halloween plant at the grocery store. Everyday since Drew has brought me the flowers at least 5 times each day saying "I got something for you momma" Of course I was excited to receive them every single time, I would take them from him and try to find a higher place to put them. Well this morning he found them again, and instead of bringing the entire plant like hes done for the past 3 days he decided to pick me off some. He pretty much picked the entire plant an brought it to me like a bouquet. He was so proud and so excited and even though he ruined my cute plant I could not get mad at him. What a sweet boy!
My Paige is one of those kids that has to have a nap or everyone suffers. This picture was taken a few weeks ago but it reminded me of how ornery she has been the last few days. Most of us in my house have been sick this past week, its pretty much a crappy head cold but with the added benefits of body aches, cold chills, and a slight fever. So the Henderson house has not been a happy one. Paige and Drew have both been sick, so the whining and crying has doubled. I have been sick so that makes it ten times worse to deal with when all you want to do it sit and not be disturbed. Anyways I was looking at my pictures and saw this one, it was a crazy day when Paige missed her nap and was so mad. Shes a feisty little thing but when shes missed her nap its Princess Pest of the World! When you are a parent you weigh your options in a time like this, option 1 is you put them to bed early hoping that they don't wake up at 9 or 10 well rested and not go back to bed until 1 a.m. or wake up at 4 in the morning ready for the day. Option 2 is you deal with the fury of a toddler with no sleep for as along as you can stand and try to keep them up until closer to their bedtime so the next day will hopefully be business as usual and you will definitely make sure they don't miss their nap. I chose to keep her up, 1 major reason was that she needed dinner the other was that she shares a room with her brother and if shes up at 1 or 4 then so is he. Well she stayed up half way through her spaghetti, managing to get some on her face before she fell asleep. Of course I had to take a picture, I only wish I had a before shot to show you how mad she had been. So the past week, by the end of every day I have been so so so ready (that's 3 so's) to have all my kids in bed so I can just sit, not change diapers, not get milk, not listen to tattling, crying, whining, fighting, or anything of that sort. Then I look through pictures and see how sweet they really are and I tell Justin stories of what happened during the day when I was so mad and now cant get through the story because I am laughing so hard. I realize that even with all the chaos and crazy there is no place I would rather be. I have the best kids, and I know Justin will remind me of this post when I am printing out KIDS FOR SALE signs on another crazy day that is sure to come. Right now I just feel blessed, I worked while Haylie and Morgan were little and feel like I missed a lot and I am so glad that I can be home now with my babies everyday and be the one to hear their first words, and to see them walk, and to get them milk and hold them when they are sick. I love being here when the girls get home being able to hear about their day. So even during days when my kids are turds I need to cherish those moments, as well as the cute sleeping pig tails in the high chair moments and remember how grateful I am for every moment I have with my family. I know I am a sap, but there has been so much going on in the world and so much on my mind its good to stop and remember what is really important, or the most important and that is of course, Family.
I love Scrap Mania! I went with my cousion Melanie on Saturday and it was scraptastic, I had so much fun! Which is standard procedure, we always have fun. If you are a scrapbooker I highly recommend it. You basically bring what you want to scrapbook, whatever supplies you think you will need and you come and scrapbook without distractions. They have dinner, treats, drawings, and all the Diet Coke you can drink from 5-11p.m. If you forget something you have the entire store at your fingertips. I have spent the last year doing alot of scrapbooking (mainly at manias) trying to get caught up. The problem was that for every child I had, I was that much more behind so catching up has been quite a task, a fun task, but I wanted to be caught up so I could remember more details about what I was scraping. Well I am now officially with all four kids less than a year behind, which is excellent because when I got back into scrap booking about a year or so ago I was in 2003. Scrap booking is one of my favorite things to do. Some days I am really inspired and making great pages, and other days I am not in the zone and I don't like my pages as much but I keep them anyways. This past Saturday I did only 12 pages but the last time I went I did around 25, so it varies, but no matter what Mania is fun. I am already excited for the next one, that I hope is sooner than later. So a quick thanks to Mel for always being so much fun that I forget how sick I am feeling, and a we missed you Katie I hope you can come next time (now that I think about it mania is where I have gotten to know, and become better friends with Katie, so right there Mania Rocks!) and thanks for stopping to say Hi. To Millissa you need to scrapbook, or pretend like you do just so you can come hang out. So to all my sraperiffic pals, I love you and thanks for the good times I am sure we will have many more.
My cat Mim has no front claws but is the best mice and bird catcher around (i know, i am posting about my cat, whatever). He has spent his last 6 or so summers bringing his prey to the back porch of whatever house we have been in and showing us his catch. I will never forget the time when my family and I were sitting at my kitchen table and my brother was sitting by the door and he let my cat out. No joke, less than a minute later he was peeking through the door with the biggest bird in his jaws. He was obviously proud, and since my entire family was there he must of felt the need to show off. Anyways, Tavis had his camera and took a quick picture for me. After the picture we were not really sure what to do because Mim just sat there with the bird still in his jaws waiting for some kind of a response. We decided to open the door (writing this now I have no idea why we did that, so many things could of gone differently) Mim dropped the bird, came in the house, and walked right past us like non of us were there. I have never minded that my cat did these things because I figured a dead mouse outside is a mouse that would not be inside my house alive. Not long after we moved here Mim was somethings prey and was injured right in the middle of prime mice catching season. He is now recovered but has been a little scared to go outside since his incident. I have noticed that he will make some brave attempts to go out but is never gone for long. Now to my Horrible Surprise, this morning when Haylie was getting ready for school she noticed a dead mouse in Morgans room with Mim hanging around it. I have no doubt that it was Mims kill, but the question is, was it in the house when he killed it or was he showing us his kill and brought it in from the small amount of time he has spent outside. From the bird story we know it does not take him a lot of time to stalk, pounce, and kill, but was that the case this time? Someone with a glass half full would say "at least the mouse is not alive in your house." I would agree with that optimistic person but I do find myself a little nervous today. There are lots of animals up here and its getting cold, I just hope that mice are not finding a way into my house to keep warm. I do have Mim, and I have confidence in his abilities but dead mice, better than alive mice, are still not my idea of fun. I have to stop and give a shout out to my cat, so when he reads this he will know we appreciate him and his skills (it's official, I am crazy). I know this has probably been extremely interesting to all my loyal readers and if you did read this post to the end I do apologize for the length. I am going to get back to my life and hope for no more surprises, dead or alive. I would prefer to not post again about mice, and if I don't you will all know that the matter has been resolved. Lets just hope for that, and now I am going to give my other hunter a treat.
Mel Tagged me, and I actually love these things because I always learn something new about my friends. Here it goes.
Favorite T.V. Shows
Least Favorite T.V. Shows
Favorite Restaurants
Least Favorite Restaurants
Things That Happened Yesterday
Things I'm Looking Forward To
Things I am Not looking Forward to
Things I love about Fall
Things I Hate about Fall
Things On My Wish List
Things I Don't Wish For
People I'm tagging
OK, I have told you all about my controlled obsession with Halloween stuff, so I thought I would show you some of it. My house is so fun right now and everywhere I go there is something fun to see. And I am not kidding I will go to where my decorations are , stop, aw www, and smile. I know, "get a life Natalie" but I, being the thoughtful girl that I am decided that I wanted to make you all smile as well. And I know that everyone one knows my issues with Halloween stuff, but I want everyone to know that a lot of people have contributed to my collection, Thank You, by the way. Just remember when you make fun of me, I had some much appreciated help.
These three are the newest to my collection. My family bought them for me for my birthday this year. I love Disney but when you put Disney and Halloween together, it rules! Thank you Family (especially the girls who remembered how much I likes these, and remembered to tell their dad when they were birthday shopping)
Thank You, Melanie! these three are so silly! Melanie bought them for me and if I remember right she was a little nervous giving them to me because she was not sure if I would like them. No need to fear, I love them! I know they look cute in the picture but up close all the little details make them ten times cuter. Any time you want these three to make you smile come on over.
Ok, I don't even know where to begin with this. I have loved PEANUTS stuff for as long as I can remember. Especially It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! So when I opened this from my dear sweet friend Millissa, I had to seriously hold back the tears so she would not know how big a freak I really am (actually, she knows) This was the coolest present, a total surprise, talk about someone giving the perfect present. So thank you Millissa I love it, and just know that you make me smile a lot!
This is a random collection of some of my other fun stuff, I made the house in the back and the rest were given to me, except the bigger Mickey pumpkin, I bought that on my first trip to Disneyland. I hope these cute, fun, silly, awesome, things will put a smile on your face too. Again, Happy Halloween, enjoy the season!Drew got to go to the Big Red Barn for his first preschool field trip. I went as a mom helper and was so glad I did because I got some great shots. When we first got there Drew took off, ran into a fence and got a bloody nose. He was traumatized for a minute but recovered quickly and had a blast. He was in his happy place, first being pulled by a tractor, then having so much space to run, he was all smiles.
I love that smile it is so so sweet!
Say cheese, Drew always puts his hands up like hes taking a picture too.
Then he found it, the perfect pumpkin. We (meaning Yolanda and I, because Emery and Drew are in the same Preschool) had so much fun at the Red Barn with the little ones that the next day we decided to take the rest of the kids to get pumpkins as well. So a group of us went and found out that they were usually not open that day but we had such a big group that they decided that they'd take us out to the pumpkin patch anyways.
Drew already new the drill so he was playing it cool.
Haylie and Paige found their pumpkins, and don't let this picture fool you it was probably the only time that Paige wasn't throwing a fit (she missed her nap)
Morgan found her perfect pumpkin but went clear to the end of the patch to get it. She got tired carying it back so after taking her picture I helped her out. Its an awesome pumpkin well worth the effort. It was a good time, a very nice day, by the time we were done I was pooped but I would do it all over again, I love Halloween activities!! Have you seen the movie The Fog? I have not, thank goodness or this might freak me out a little bit. This is the view out my back window which is a little weird because usually I can see for miles. Morgan wondered what was going on and we told her that we were in the clouds. She went outside and ran for a minute because she wanted to know what it was like to be in the clouds. I thought it was funny. I love fall rainy weather even though I know that snow is soon on its way I will just have to enjoy this while it lasts.
After a while the fog cleared and I got my view back. I dont think my picture really captures the brightness of the sky but it was beautiful!!
This is the few from the front of my house looking at the mountain, I thought the contrast of the fall colors and the white were awesome (my cute husband was the one who said got look out front its beautiful, so thanks Hunny) It really is beautiful, and you want proof that winter is on its way, check out the snow. I love fall rainy weather, I hate snow. Happy Fall!
Recently we had Madisen over for a long overdue sleepover. The girls had a blast and decided in the morning to take a little hike. When they returned this is what they looked like, filthy! They did it on purpose pretending like they were chased by what they called a "baracoon." Apparently they had barely out run it and made it home to safety. I thought it was hilarious and decided. of course, to take their picture. I love these little girls they are both so sweet and amazing. I know that they will both grow up to be spectacular people. When I see them they remind me of me and my cousin Melanie, not only the sweet, amazing, and spectular part, but the friendship that they share. I hope it will last them forever and I hope they realize how lucky they are to have one of your best friends as a cousion. They have a life time of fun ahead of them and I am so blessed to have a front row seat to watch.
For my birthday my mother-in-law got me a Scentsy burner and some pumpkin spice wax to melt in it. It is my new favorite thing, it plugs into the wall and a little light bulb will heat the scented wax that you place in the bowl thing on the burner. When you want to change scents you just pour the wax you are using into the container it came in (it hardens for later use) wipe out the dish and put in a different scent. I have been burning it everyday, most of the day, since Sept 22 and the wax level looks the same as the day I put it in, so I am thinking that they last a long time. So, let me tell you..... My Scentsy Burner makes my entire house smell good! I am not against scented candles, actually I love them and will still use them, but my Scentsy Burner is cool. It has no smoke, no lead wicks, no flames, and if you worry about the film candles leaves on you walls it has none of that either. Then with a lucky twist my sisters soccer team did a fund raiser selling Scentsy products and I was able to purchase some more scents I have not received them yet but I am very anxious. So the point of my post is just to say that I am very happy with my Scentsy Burner and if anyone is in the market I recommend them. By the way I do not sell them, I am not a distributor, I am not affiliated with them in anyway I just really like mine so I thought I would share. If you are intrigued they do have a web site which will lead you to local distributors or I think you can just purchase them from the site. Keep your surroundings smelling good, I know I will.
I love October! I think Halloween is so much fun! I love the decorations, the colors, the spooky stuff, pumpkins, costumes, makeup, trick or treating, nothing makes me smile more than seeing ghosts hanging in peoples trees or mummies lit up on someones porch. I do have a weird obsession with Halloween stuff, but it is under control. I have not had to sell any blood or pawn anything off to support my habit but if you see my house you will know what a freak I really am. The great part is that my kids love it, they were so excited when I started to decorate this year which makes it more fun for me because I know that family is enjoying my stuff as much as I am. Since I am in the zone and so happy that Halloween is coming up soon I decided to post my kids costumes from last year. They are fun and will hopefully get you in the mood for this fun crazy month. For those that do not celebrate Halloween I will not hate you, but recognize that you do need some help! I can be part of your support group and help show you the many reasons why Halloween is so much fun. The first picture is of Paige, she was the cutest witch you've ever seen. I made my kids choose something spooky to be for Halloween last year, this year they can be what they want, its called compromise. You may notice that Paige's picture looks professional compared to the other kids and that's because my sister-in-law Leslie took it. I love that picture so its the one I decided to post.
Move over Edward, Drew has taken first place in the most handsome Vampire contest. Wasn't he adorable?
Beware of the Princess of Darkness! You never know what shes been up to.
A Ghost Maid?, I don't care if shes a ghost or not she hired, I will take all the help I can get!!
On September 17th, thanks to Becca, I canned/bottled for the very first time. I am very proud of it, I feel that I have very few homemaking talents and have always admired those who can bake, cook, bottle, garden, keep their house clean, you know, the usual stuff. So when Becca offered to show me how I jumped at the chance and bottled peaches. I have to admit that it was not as hard as I thought it would be but it does take a lot of time. I know that the next time I do it I will need some assistance but maybe one day I will be a super canner like so many lady's I know. I even have some garden and fruit trees plans brewing, scary, but it could happen. I have 1 acre of ground that needs to be landscaped I might as well make it into something useful and delicious. My friend Yolanda is a domestic diva as well so between her and Becca (and maybe my sister and brother-in-law, Joni and Steve) my options of canning and the things that I can learn are endless. So thank you Becca, you rule!
P.S. I know my picture is hot! but I needed to show proof or some of you might not believe that I actually canned.
I broke down and did it. I have been wanting a new look for sometime now and I am excited about it. I hope you like it!
