It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!

Yes!! The most wonderful time of the year is here!! The time when those thoughtful, industrious people at the M&M/Mars Company produce, package, and deliver these lovely little delicacies to Target and not only do I get to purchase them (with a cheery smile on my face)--I get to eat them!! It was last year (I think) when I picked up a package and was expecting the same tasty minty version of the regular plain M&M's as the bag was opened on the drive home fromthe store. Not only were they bigger, cuter, and tastier than before, they were/are all the way around fantastic!! And now they are back on store shelves!! Hooray for me/ I'll have to get "more running" on my list...
**Disclaimer--if you are not a fan on mint, perhaps you may like the M&M's with almonds (yum) or with peanut butter (also yum), and you can never go wrong with the classic peanut and plain. If you are not a chocolate person, you may be able to get Kari to share some Nibs with you...

So here's the lemon part--Cael, Zander, and I were up at the school media center (uh, library) to see Miss Kylie receive a "Principal's Pride" award for her fantastic report on bats (did you know that a bat could die from being startled out of a deep sleep? I probably should do more of a thorough fact-check before I start tossing out nuggets like that one...). It was getting a little lengthy and Kylie was toward the back of the recipient group. I was attempting to entertain the 3-year-olds with fabulous literature and "Cars"-shaped Teddy Grahams when poor little Zander got a little sick and tossed his cookies, literally. We did see Kylie receive her award and notified the lucky maintainance man, Sean. We got home, had another round of cookie tossing, freshened up with a bath and jammies. Cael was thrilled to get to wear "empathy pajamas" and eat popsicles--best day of his life!! Even better, it turns out that our bar stools work great as a choo-choo train, that's the lemonade...

Good times getting together with ou Madsen cousins this weekend!! Lots of hugs and 2 questions--1.) Could it be that Cael is in pajamas again? and 2.) Could we get more things magneted to our fridge??

November Nuggets...

Translation: game is going very well (we like these kind of games)...












Loved the beautiful fall day with the crunchy crunchy leaves (not to be confused with regular crunchy)...











Love the supportive sisters-- especially those sporting smiles and striped earrings...












So thankful for siblings with special linguistic skills-Cael was asking for a show about a chocolate chip, and while it sounded tasty, I had no idea what he was talking about. Super sister Morgan came to the rescue with her translation--"Alvin and the Chipmunks meet Frankenstein!" She was right on the money-how did the mother not come up with that one??






No, this is not a refugee tent village in a faraway foreign land, it is our brand-new Chick-Fil-A with the first 100 customers (over age 18) getting ready to stay the night with their official wrist bands on so they can be there for the roll call every hour until 6 am when they each get to receive a little box that holds 52 free combo meal gift cards-wow!! The Goff's actually opted to stay home snug in our warm beds, but we did come to visit and bring a heater to our good friends, The Howard's and Debbie V., who arrived at 11:30 am and then spent an awesome afternoon, night, and early morning (they know how to commit) in the snow and now can enjoy chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, and fountain drinks throughout the year. They completely earned their bounty on the coldest night of the season...Way to be, guys-can I get a what-what??

Simple Joys (fall edition)

So this first one is the farthest thing from a "joy"- I was chatting with a friend at church yesterday outside of the nursery, as Mr. Cael had no interest in attending and playing with his peers, whatever...Cael basically stayed in my pocket, but then ventured right across the hall to the bathrooms where he got his fingers caught in the hinge side of the bathroom door-OUCCCHHHHH!! His poor little fingers looked "not good," but fortunately with some cold running water and serious TLC and the good fortune (??) of being squished between his knuckles instead of on his knuckles (eeww), he is on the mend and is going to make a full recovery! Amazingly, or not amazingly, his biggest concern after the initial painful shock of squishy and tears, was to peel the loose skin off of the back of his dented fingers. He had to do that immediately so that he could continue to live on this planet (maybe just a little OCD??)...

This is the good stuff here-3 year old humor is the best!! These 2 could not have been more pleased with themselves and their clever use of Mr. PotatoHead props (fyi- we've got Darth Tater and Donald Duck going on here)!! It's pure comedic gold...








This absolutely makes my fall!! We have been waiting 4 long years for our burning bush to burn....








This is the "did she actually mean to take a picture of that?" shot and she actually did- this is my new ironing board cover that I did this weekend, compliments of cute Nadine at Material Girls Quilts(thanks Nadine!!). I was a winner of a blog comment contest she did and I do love my ironing board! This was a fun and quick little project-I still don't really want to use the iron, though...

October has arrived...

Here are the sights and sounds of early October at the casa de Goff...

We love Conference weekend! Great messages, beautiful music (we totally caught a glimpse of my SIL, Jen's cute mom, Risa, who is in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir), and incredibly, the children of the family didn't seem to mind not sitting nicely in the 2nd row in the cultural hall (our usual spot, with soft chairs, though) for church services. They will so be in Sunday best next week...

My lovely ladies are absolutely delighted with the jazzy dance costumes they have inherited from my cute neighbor-the choreography that these ensembles have inspired would dazzle you (Straight up, Paula Abdul, watch out)...
We finally harvested our pumpkin crop- 2 1/2 measley pumpkins! They are lovely pumpkins indeed, don't get me wrong, but the "daddy," "mommy," and "baby" pumpkins (thank you, Cael, for the clever names there) do not hold a candle to the bumper crop of 14 pumpkins that graced our garden last year! Oh well, we love what we've got and we'll be thankful (and we'll come up with a new strategy for next year's garden, like weeding regularly)...




What did turn out beautiful and abundant are our dahlias!! Paul's cute Grampa Ikie has always had a special way with this beautiful flower, and the green thumb (not to be confused with green jeans) has been passed on to my industrious husband, who is so gracious to share the bounty!! Actually, if you have any extra pumpkins you want to swap for dahlias...

October is here!!

1 Miss Kendell
+
1 Speedy Green Scooter
=
1 Scrapey Face, 1 Scrapey Knee, & lots of good sportsmanship points...
(too bad about the brand-new leggings she was wearing that are now shredded, good thing they were a red hot super clearance bargain buy, and if I knew how to link to a certain post on Kari's blog, I could show you the same injury on Cousin Jack this summer from the same speedy green scooter; we'll try to be done with the scooter injuries...)

Kendell queries, "What kind of parents go to the zoo without their children?" It is a completely valid question, to which the answer is "the kind of lucky duck parents that have only 2 tickets (compliments of the dad's employer) to a swanky business buffet that happens to be held at the zoo." Did you know they did catering at the zoo? I did not, but now I absolutely do- we are truly so wild and crazy...
Paul braved the "smell here" area, but perhaps the supposed "special rhino fragrance" is like a high-pitched whistle that can only be heard by certain animals?? -We weren't privvy to this swell stench, so sad...
There were 3 giraffes out when we got here, but I guess 2 of them didn't want to pose with me. The third one wasn't fast enough to get out of the frame, maybe if I would've been decked out in khaki from head to knee...
And last, but certainly not least, Zander and Mr. Cael love their awesome new trick-or-treat buckets/ hats! The lady at the store said Cael could pick one out as a bonus, but when he just couldn't part with either the mummy or Dracula, the lady said he was fine to take both of them, whew! It is supposed to storm tomorrow, so at least the boys can keep their festive Halloween heads nice and dry...

Just nice...

Cael just loves to demonstrate his gentle, loving nature in the backyard- nice pumpkin...

nice kitty...

nice Zorro...

nice flower...

and who's coming to your house for dinner??

Do you rememba the very first week of Septemba?

So what do you do when Monday is a school holiday? Have a wild and crazy cousin swap/sleepover, of course!! The kiddies absolutely lived it up, all I can say is that a week later we still can't find the downstairs tv remote-tragic...
We've got spirit, yes we do(you know your neighbors are good when they can hook your kids up with orange hair spray)...
Kylie's 5th grade class buddy hooked her up with these sweet specs (day #2 with the school spirit) and how could you not want to be a safe pedestrian or say no to drugs or wear a bike helmet or whatever the event is that we are spirited about-have I mentioned that we've got spirit, yes we do??
So what do you do when it's 9:00 pm on Saturday night (and completely dark) and you hear unfamiliar barking on your front porch and you open the door to find this cute little puffy puff-ball just sitting there on the welcome mat? Let's just say that the kids had the best non-sleeping night ever with our new little puppy pal and hoped that she could just stay with us forever! Alas, it was not to be and it turned out that little "Breeze" here had slipped out of her home and had come to see us from 2 streets away! The kids were really hoping that somehow, magically she could just be part of our crew, but she already has a wonderful home and is now back with her real family. I guess we'll just stick with the 5 kids and cat and dog that we already have going for us...
And who doesn't love a good daddy-daughter luau? You, too, can feel like you'd fit right in on the Big Island, just like Mr. Goff here-stop by your local DI and get yourself hooked up with an amazing shirt...ALOHA!!