All About the Argyles

Happy Halloween everyone!!! Quote for the day: Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold. — Judith Olney Every year my grandfather's independent living center sponsors a really fun Halloween party. It is so much fun and the residents that live there love to see the kids. They all buy tons of candy and then sit in chairs/wheelchairs in the dining room and pass it out to the trick or treaters. They put together an awesome haunted house, and provide hotdogs,punch, and cookies for atleast 100 kids. This year they had a phenomenal balloon artist. He was the best one I have ever seen! Check out this spider he made for Reagan! They also have a costume contest: Tanner was Nacho Libre and Brady was Ramses (thankyou to the amazingly talented Sarah!!!) Kiki and Reagan went as farmers to Zeus's cow. We made "utters" and he wore a cowbell. They carried milk buckets and wore overalls and John Deere hats. The farmers ...

What are the odds of a wasp flying into the open window of a moving car and stinging an innocent person on the eyelid? I would like to know because that is just what happened to our poor Kiki last Monday night. Here is the proof. If I didn't see it for myself I would not have believed it.

Thanks Natalie. I was having a crummy morning. This made me smile. Then I realized how much worse it will be if we get a Democrat in the oval office! I'm not smiling anymore. :O(

We celebrated Fall by going to Cooper's annual Fall Festival and it was AMAZING! Pretty much everything was free. We were there for 2 hours and didn't even do everything we wanted too. It was so much fun!, All the kids got a caricature drawing. Here is Tanner's One of many bounce houses. Reagan wins at the cake/cookie walk! Pin the patch on the pirate Jensen models the face painting with "I love twilight" on her cheek, have I mentioned that she is twilight obsessed? pony rides for the little kids a petting zoo pumpkin decorating Tanner models his "goatee" and tasted sushi for the first time. He liked it! It was a great way to celebrate the arrival of Fall for All!!!! I will try to post about it ahead of time next year so that you guys can go too! It is totally open to the community (you don't have to be a cooper fitness member) and free. A gauranteed good time for the fam!!!

On Friday our friends, the Bassis, came over and we all went to the big Prosper game against Celina. Here is Alexis with their cute little baby girl Susie. Isn't she adorable? The rivalry between Prosper vs. Celina is a little like TEXAS -OU weekend in our small town. Everybody everywhere in the entire town is wearing their green in anticipation of the big night. Here are Brent and Tanner all decked out in their Prosper Eagle-wear. Celina has beat us for the last 25 years. But that streak is over! The final score was 33-7, PROSPER EAGLES! There's nothing like Texas High School Football!!!!!

I finished this in two days. She is a really gifted writer. The prose were beautiful. Although her situation seems tragic early on - her husband is killed and leaves her a single mother of four young children- she triumphs over hardship, finds out what she is really made of, and then decides to use her strength to help others as a Chaplain to search and rescue missions in Maine. Good Read.

I was listening to a BYU fireside today from Elder Dallin H. Oaks about adversity and he shared this quote from Pres. Kimball. It was especially poignant to us. As some of you know Brent has suffered from a serious and chronic illness for a little over 2 years. When I shared it with him it brought tears to his eyes. I thought you might enjoy it too. The irony was not lost on us that these were the words from a man who suffered from a number of serious and life-threatening illnesses in his lifetime. "I am grateful that my priesthood power is limited. I don't want to heal all the sick. Sickness is sometimes a great blessing. People become angels through sickness. Have you ever seen someone who has been helpless for so long that he has divested himself of every envy and jealousy and ugliness in his whole life? And who has perfected his life? I have. Have you seen mothers who have struggled with unfortunate children for years and years and have become saints through it? Have you s...

The last few years we have started a tradition of making pumpkin bread (Cheryl Blair shared her UNbelievable recipe a few years back). For those of you who don't know Cheryl she is Cherise Sallaway's (from Frisco 4th ward) mom. Anyway, fall just isn't fall at the Argyle home anymore until we have spent a Sunday afternoon baking pumpkin bread and then delivering it to a few families that we either visit teach, home teach, want to say "thank you" to, want to say "get well soon" to, want to say "hello" to etc. It has become such a fun family tradition that we thought we would share it with you. Maybe some of you who have daughters will start this tradition down the road some time. (I say "daughters" because at our house this is what we do while the boys enjoy THEIR tradition of watching the Cowboy game.) Kiki likes to don her "Young Chefs Academy" apron first. (She and Reagan take cooking classes there sometimes.) Here is the c...

Well written. Interesting premise. Hated the ending. To read or not to read? I say NOT to read.

Just when I start contemplating whether or not I want to keep driving to, paying for, and sacrificing valuable family time for piano lessons and nagging 4 of my 5 kiddos to practice, Jensen runs in the door from school and says "I am going to practice my piano right now 'cuz I couldn't wait all day- I kept thinking about how much I wanted to play this new piece - I just love it!" She is playing "Out There" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Brent just commented to me the other day that Tanner has really improved a lot lately too. He is playing The All American Reject's "It Ends Tonight". I can't believe it! He is really getting good. Our goal when we started him a year and a half ago is that he would be able to play the hymns by the time he leaves to go on a mission and I can see it happening now! They both read music way better than me or Brent. It's a small miracle that I am grateful for. Maybe the sacrifice is worth it. (BTW, he wasn...

My kids love it when we make this every Fall. And yes, they actually eat the pumpkin. 1 medium pumpkin or squash (8 to 10 lbs.) 2 lbs. lean ground beef ½ tsp salt package of frozen corn ½ c. onion, chopped 1 can of crushed tomatoes 2 c. hot cooked rice (I use brown) 2 Tbsp. brown sugar (optional) Directions Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brown ground beef and drain. While beef is cooking, cut a 3-inch opening in the stem end of a pumpkin, like you would a jack-o-lantern, reserving the top piece. Remove and discard seeds and pulp. Add tomatoes, rice and corn to beef; cook until tender. Add the brown sugar. Spoon into the pumpkin or squash. Lightly grease a 10-inch circle in the center of a baking sheet. Place filled pumpkin on greased pan. Bake 1 to 2 hours or until pumpkin is tender and filling is bubbly and hot throughout. To serve, spoon some of the cooked pumpkin along with the meat filling onto plates. Serves 6 to 8. Great to serve with a side salad and crusty bread.

I just LOVE conference weekend, don't you? Not only is it totally edifying but I love being able to "go to church" in my jammies! I think every single talk was wonderful and I really feel like I took something away from each one. I always walk away from conference realizing I have alot of work to do!!! My favorite talk today was Elder Oak's about the Sacrament. This is something I have been thinking alot about lately. Right before Tanner was ordained to the Aaronic priesthood in December we studied the priesthood as a family and specifically some of the symbolism in the sacrament - (since he was going to be passing it we thought that would be a good thing for him to know but in the end I think I learned the most!) I just recently listened to a talk by a favorite speaker, John Bytheway, called "The best 3 hours of the week". He shared some ideas about how we can get the most out of our sunday worship services-especially sacrament meeting. It really made me re...

Picked this up last time I was at Target, it's a new product they are selling. It is called J.R. Watkins Natural Home Care All Purpose Cleaner. The thing I love about it is the scent. My faves are "coconut oil" and "palm oil". It smells so good and it is one of the few things I like for granite. It doesn't leave a waxy buildup. JUST FYI next time you are at target you might want to take a sniff and a gander. It's good stuff.

Bree's post about music made me think how much I love music and haven't been turning it on as often. With all the political going's on and oprah and friends on XM I have been listening to a lot of talk radio lately. Let me tell you about two of my faves that are of more of a spiritual nature. She is an lds artist and does kind of EFY type music. Jensen and I just LOVE her and put her cd on most sunday mornings while we are getting ready for church. You can go to her website: jessieclarkfunk.com and order it or get it deseret.com. What are your favorite "inspirational" cds? I'm curious.....