Getting ready for Halloween

We seriously love Halloween around here and had lots of fun getting ready.  We loved helping my mom decorate her house.  And Claire and I even made a few new decorations to put up in our new house next year.  (Can I just tell you that it feels like it is taking them forever to get our house built.) 

 

My and my ma putting the spiders and webs on her house.  Of course we chose a cold and windy day to do it...not one of our smartest ideas.  I need to take a picture of the house with it all decorated.   It really looks cool covered with the webs and the spider invasion .

Claire and Crue had a blast raking and jumping in the leaves. I couldn't get Crue to sit still long enough for a pic. 

Claire making "monster" cupcakes.

Crue enjoying his sister's creation.

Our little Frankenstein cake. 

Zions

Last year we went down to run a race outside of Zion National Park and at the raffle that they do at the end of the race I ended up winning a two night stay at one of the lodges at Zions.  We have had it booked for about five months but I had the wrong date down so we ended up missing the first night.  Total bummer!  But we still headed down and enjoyed every minute of our short little trip.  And lucky for us, Utah's Governor reopened the park that weekend we even though the government was still shut down. 

 

This Is The Place

A few weeks ago was UEA weekend and I wanted to go do something fun and fall-ish since Claire was not in school. We ended up going to This is the Place Park.  The last time we went was about four years and it was the middle of the summer.  Between the heat, a horrible rain storm and a little girl that had an agenda of her own, we didn't get to see a whole lot.  We were not sure what to expect this time around and honestly was not expecting a whole lot but we ended up being very surprised.   

We LOVED it. 

October is definitely a fun time to go.  The kids were able to go trick or treating in some of the historic buildings, make crafts, the candy cannon, train ride, horse ride, story and songs by a friendly witch, and of course learn about how things were done and how people lived long ago.  It was a great day.

 

 

Just had to show Claire's cute hair for the day.  And to think that I was terrified of having a baby girl because I couldn't do hair.  Seriously, six years ago I couldn't do a decent pony tail on someone else. 

 Claire wanting to do silly faces while we waited for our homemade donuts.

Claire and Crue in the old schoolhouse.

My cute kiddos.  I am so lucky to be their mom.  I am so grateful to be able to spend each and every day with them.  They are my life.

 

Claire playing a Halloween game.  They got extra candy if they got a hoop over a witch hat.  Crue was determined to get the extra candy so he grabbed the hoops, walked right over to the hat and placed the hoops over it, and then walked straight over to the worker and asked for his candy.  It was so funny. 

 

The kids with Grandma listening to the witch tell stories. 

This was definitely the highlight for Crue.  Several weeks later he is still talking about how he was able to ride a real horse all by himself. 

Look at that happy face!

My other little munchkin on her horse.

Why, yes....a certain little somebody did miss naptime.

The Box

Its funny how the most simple thing can bring hours of entertainment and fun. 

Let me introduce the box.

A pumpkin box (Its huge...barely fit in my van even when folded up)

From Walmart (Said no one had ever asked for a box this big)

 

  And suddenly the box becomes a fort/playhouse/giant coloring book.

The kids love it.

 

The Greatest Show On Earth

Last week Luke and I surprised the kids and took them to the circus.  You are never too old to go to the circus and I am pretty sure Luke and I enjoyed it as much as the kids did.  It was pretty awesome. Claire's eyes would just light up with every new thing that she saw.  It was a great night. 

  However...

Claire has decided that she is going to join the circus.

And...

Crue has decided that he wants a real tiger for his birthday.

 

Primary Program

The Sunday when the children put on the primary program is always my favorite Sunday of the year.  I love watching the kids sing and hearing about what they have learned during the year. It never fails that each year there happens to be at least one child that will trying to secretly wave to his/her family, or make faces at the audience, or blow kisses.  Can you guess who that child was this year??  Why yes, our sweet little Claire.  My favorite part was when the looked over to see the boy that she has a crush on standing at the podium saying his part.  Her eyes got really big and she had this huge smile on her face and then she tried to cover up the smile with her hand and with the other hand she was motioning for me to look up at Wally and once she had my attention she kept pointing at him.  It was hilarious.  She did a great job and it was so fun watching her up there just singing her little heart out. 

 

Crue also loved the primary program and would randomly start to sing along with them.  At one point they were singing 'Families Can Be Together Forever'  and Crue got really excited and said "They are singing my song".  He loves that song and I would rock him to sleep at night and sing this to him.  I just love that he considers it his song. 

September

It seems like September just flew by but here are a few of the highlights...

 

One afternoon I received a phone call from a florist saying that she had just dropped off some flowers.  This is what Claire and I found on the front porch.  My little girl was so excited to get flowers from her daddy.  She showed everyone that happened to come over and even when the flowers died she refused to let me throw them away. 

Here is what my amazing husband sent me.  He is the best!!

Claire had been saving her allowance and doing some extra chores so I finally took her to Target and let her pick something out and she instantly fell in love with a kite.  Luckily the next day it was windy and Luke took the kids out and taught her how to get it going.

Crue's latest obsession has been bandaids.  Okay, bandaids and baseball -  he is constantly talking about baseball.  I recently restocked on bandaids but apparently he knew just where I had put them. 

 

We drove by our lot to see if anything had been done yet (it seems like it is taking FOREVER) and this is what we found.  Claire was so excited that we had a foundation that we had to stop and take a picture of her in front of it. 

And of course we need to take a picture of her scary face.

And the silly face. 

Crue was asleep in the van or we would have ended up with quite the photo shoot with the two of them and their silly faces.

 

We bought the kids some new bike helmets. 

You never can be too safe eating breakfast. 

Or riding in the car. 

Or jumping on the tramp. 

Or taking a nap.