Halloween

Dave and I decided it would be fun to surprise Payton and fly her and Dave out to Utah so that she could spend Halloween with her cousins.

She wasn't as excited as we thought she would be.  When Dave showed up at the school to take her she started crying.  Initially I thought it was because she was going to be missing her class Halloween Party.  I felt so bad.  But after talking to her a little bit we discovered that she was only crying because she wanted to drive, not fly.  She was afraid of how fast the plane was going to go.  Haha!  Silly girl.

So here are kiddos at the beginning of trick or treating.  After hitting up Jen and Preston's neighborhood we headed off to our friends Debbie and Eric Aston's neighborhood.  We had lots of fun but ended up being out too late.  :o)

Guitar Lessons

The boys are so cute with little William.  Lincoln and Austin are so gentle with him, it is so sweet.

Lincoln has taken a liking to Preston's guitar.  And Preston was nice enough to let him hold it and try to play it.

Baby William

Finally got to meet Baby Will.  He is so cute and such a sweet little baby.  I am having so fun helping to take care of him and Jen and the boys are having so much fun playing with their cousins.

Flying to Utah

Heading out to Utah to meet Baby William and help out Auntie Jenny.

This was Lincoln's first ride on a plane.  I am so grateful it went well because I am a VERY nervous flier and I would have been panicking right along side him.  Haha!

Austin and Lincoln were so cute looking out the window at the plane.  Lincoln was so excited.

Bracelets and Cupcakes

Still soaking up Grandma time before she and Great Grandma fly to Colorado.

We decided today to make beaded bracelets for the cousins today.  Grandma Amma is going to see Caeden, Maddix, and Austin and then I will be heading out to Utah to see Ethan, Grace, and Baby William.  Thought we could send them a little something to let them know we are thinking about them.

The kids did a great job of finding all the letters for everyone's names and then were very thoughtful in picking out the colors for everyone's bracelets.  They turned out great!  We even got some help from Rumba.  Haha!

After making the bracelets, we decided to make Halloween Cupcakes.  Yummy!  Yes, they were from a box mix.  Yes, the frosting was from a can.  And yes, we did share with our friends.  :o)  I think they turned out super cute.  Love the little Frankenstein toppers.
 

Happy Hollow

My mother and grandmother are going out of town to babysit my sister's kiddos while she and her husband, Andy, go to Italy on vacation.  My mother is going to be gone for close to a month it seems so we are trying to get in as much grandma time as we can before she leaves.

Today we went to Happy Hollow.  This is such a great place to go.  I know we went here as kids but for the life of me I just can't remember coming.  I hope all of the kids remember all the fun times they had here. 

It seems every time we come we gravitate toward different areas, this time we spent quite a bit of time in the petting zoo area.  I love watched Austin with animals, he just loves them so much.  Today he almost had a goat poop and pee on him and then he almost stuck his whole hand up a cow's nose.  haha!

We also tried out the wall climbing area which is pretty cool.  I forgot how much strength it takes to hold yourself up onto a wall.  Yesh! 

And the Crooked House was also a point of interest for a while.

What an enjoyable day.

Pumpkin Carving

Today was the day we carved our pumpkins.  Payton and Lincoln definitely know how to work the system and have never ended up gutting the pumpkins themselves.  This year Papa Ralph and Uncle Steven got the honors.

They were really creative with their pumpkins, Payton created a princess pumpkin and Lincoln created an Incredible Hulk pumpkin.  So cute and so grateful for kid safe knives.  :o)

Family Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

I love going to the pumpkin patch with the kids.  They have so much fun.  This year we decided to go to one pretty close to our house that had a whole bunch of bouncy houses, at Lincoln's request.  It took them a little bit to warm up and actually try out one of the bouncy houses but once they did they were in and out of pretty much all of them.  There were lots of smiles and only one instant of tears.  They got stuck in the inflatable maze so Mommy had to come to the rescue.  Yes, I crawled in after my babies and helped them get out and then went in again for someone else's kiddos.  Haha!  I love it when I save the day.  :o)

When I first was looking through these pictures of the kids I was sad that I didn't get the perfect picture of them in the patch.  They aren't looking at the camera.  They are moving around.  Ahhh.  But now that I am looking at them again, I LOVE THEM.  Haha!  They are full of their personality and that is way better than the best posed picture, right?

Monster Shooters

Lincoln and I made monster shooters today.  So fun to watch him put together his monsters and then shoot them.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip for Lincoln

Lincoln's preschool field trip to one of the local pumpkin patches was today.  I just love watching the kids run through pumpkin patches, trying to pick up pumpkins, running through mazes.  So cute!

It is so fun to watch Lincoln interacting with his classmates.  He is like an energizer bunny, so much energy.  I love his sweet smile.

Pipe Cleaner Spiders

Another Halloween craft.  :o)  This time making spiders out of pipe cleaners.  We did this activity last year and it was such a hit that we decided to do it again, this time with beads.

Spiderman Bed

I tried to surprise Lincoln with decorating his bed with spider webs.  He was really excited.  Here is the video of him seeing it for the first time.

Lunch with Daddy

We went to have lunch with Daddy and see where he works.

The kids had so much fun exploring.  They loved the water features in front of the building and measured how deep each on was on the way up to daddy's office.

The kids were able to meet several of the people that Dave works with and even got to see Uncle Rob. 

When we got to his office Dave let the kids use his dry erase markers to draw on the glass wall of his office.  They LOVED it and so did everyone that walked by.

Halloween Cookies

Ever since my friend Jessica taught me how to decorate sugar cookies this way I LOVE doing it.  It is super easy and they turn out super cute.

Recently I discovered that with just a little bit of supervision the kids can do it too and they love it.  Once they figured out how much frosting to put on without it spilling over it was great!  They are super creative too.  They especially liked using the sprinkles and even more the ones with spiders in the mix.

I love the colors they picked out too.

Santa Teresa Hike

After talking with a friend of mine at a play group about how she takes her son on short hikes I decide to give it a try.  Am I crazy?  Yes.  ;O)

Actually, it went really well.  Lincoln hiked about 2 miles with no complaining other than, "Mom, can you just pick Austin up?"  Evidently, Austin wasn't walking fast enough.  Austin, on the other hand, only complained when he was in the hiking backpack.  Haha! What are you going to do.

Lincoln is quite the rock collector.  All his pockets were full by the time we got back to the car. 

I would love to do this again and Lincoln even agreed that he thought it would be fun.  But next time I think it would be fun to go with someone else.  We had fun but I think the kids would have more fun with more kids to interact with.  Good times!

Sidewalk Chalk

Our front courtyard has become very colorful!  :o) 

The kids have again taken an interest in sidewalk chalk.  Granted everyone but Payton made me draw their ideas for them.  Haha!  It definitely put my artistic abilities to the test.  Draw Captain America?  OK?

Payton drew a My Little Pony and Ariel.  Lincoln was only interested in super heroes.  Austin just wanted me to draw something so he could scribble it in.  So fun!

Spider Art

Trying our hand at some Halloween crafts.  Painting a spider web on a piece of paper and then making a spider out of our hand prints.  It was a hit and I am happy to say that we didn't get paint on anything besides out hands and the paper.  Yesss!