Halloween 2012

I always forget how much I like Halloween until it actually gets here and we get to do all the fun Halloween things. This year was no exception. Here's a summary of the fun things we did!

I don't have any pictures from it, but Leah did get invited to a Halloween themed birthday party for our neighbors' little girl, Millie. Her mom had planned lots of fun activities and the kids had a great time. They especially loved playing with the big bowl of dry black beans and other little objects that they could scoop and pour into jars and cupcake tins. They also enjoyed dancing to "Ghostbusters" with the black light.

The Saturday before Halloween, Leah and I went trick-or-treating at the zoo with Lyndsee and Kynee. We also brought our nephew Carson. The zoo was crazy busy with tons of people. We didn't get to see many animals and the kids didn't really get that much candy. But the important thing was that they had a great time.

When Leah saw the carousal, all she wanted to do was go get on it. But we had to wait for the others to eat their lunch. So by the time she actually got to ride it, she was beyond excited. Look at this big grin she had when she finally got to get on the kangaroo she choose to ride.

If you are familiar with the show "Little Einsteins," then you might know the little girl, "June" who loves to dance. That was what Kynee choose to be for Halloween. So Lyndsee turned her wagon into "Rocket" and we used it to pull the little girls all over the zoo. They loved riding around in Rocket! 

On Sunday we were all home for the evening, so we decided to carve our pumpkins. These two are so cheesy sometimes. I love them!

Leah of course had a great time scooping out the pumpkins, but if you look closely at the picture, you might notice that her previously cleaned out pumpkin is more full of seeds than the blue bowl. She made a mess, but I didn't care as long as it kept her entertained while we were carving. She also couldn't resist tasting the pumpkin guts and informed us several times that they tasted "funny."

After hours of working on the pumpkins we realized that we may have been a little too ambitious when picking our designs. Our carving project carried over into Monday night as well. Ross and I each worked about 4-6 hours on these silly things. But in the end, we were both happy with how they turned out!

On Tuesday, we had our annual Halloween Carnival hosted by the young women and young men in our ward. This is my favorite activity to do with the youth each year. Here are my cute Beehives! I love these girls and they did a great job with their cupcake/cookie walk and "mystery-goo" boxes.

Of course Ross brought Leah over to join in the fun and you can tell by the smile on her face that she was excited to be there.

She especially loved the bounce house! It took up a lot of room in our little gym, but it was a great hit with the kids.

I made sure I got a picture of Leah with my wonderful friend and Young Women President, Janice! We're going to miss her and Debbie so much when they move!

Leah enjoyed the games. Here she is bowling and walking around the pictures for the cupcake walk.

And here's Leah with her buddy, Riley. He is so sweet with her and loves it when she sits with him at church.

On the day of Halloween, I took Leah to run errands and decided to stop my my old work to visit and show off Leah. Everyone was excited to see how big she had gotten and also commented on how cute she was. It was fun to see those people I loved working with and still admire.

Here's our little "Abby Cadabby" all ready for trick-or-treating!

After trick-or-treating, we went to visit the Millers. They are so good to us! It is always a treat to see them. By the end of the night, we were ready for Halloween to be over. We had a great time, but I'm glad it only comes once a year!

Ross and I did a couple other fun things to celebrate the Halloween season. We got to go a local play production of the murder mystery "The Mousetrap," by Agatha Christie. And we had a fun "How to Host a Murder" party. The theme was "Roman Ruins." So we all got to dress up in togas and such. We had a great time getting to know some of the couples in our ward better. I want to do another one in a couple months so we can invite some more of the great couples in our ward.

Pumpkins!

October is a great time for pumpkins! And we've seen plenty of them this season. One evening while visiting my parents, we decided to take a walk to my aunt and uncle's house to see the giant pumpkins my uncle grew. Here's the little girls bundled up for the ride.

Leah was too nervous to sit on the pumpkin by herself. But of course had no problem sitting on Grandpa's lap for a picture. This pumpkin weighed in at over 200 pounds. He had another one that was over 150 pounds.

One Saturday morning we also visited a local pumpkin patch with some of our Leslie family so that Ross's mom could help her grandkids pick out some pumpkins. First we wandered through the corn maze. Leah was more than content to stick with William and Grandma and hold their hands all through the maze.

The kids loved these big pictures where they could stick their faces through for some fun snapshots!

It had poured down rain through the night and I was worried that we would be tromping through giant mud puddles all through the pumpkin patch. But as you can see in the pictures, by morning the sun had come out and it was such a nice morning. We did get a little mud stuck to the bottom of our shoes, but nothing too bad. I was surprised at how firm the ground actually was after so much rain.

Along with many farm animals that the kids could look at, they had some play structures that the kids could climb on and run through. Leah loved climbing to the top of this one and raising her hands up to show how high she was. This little girl has no fear of climbing!

But in all the fun things the pumpkin patch had to offer, this was probably Leah's very favorite part of the whole morning. She LOVED playing on this swing! She played on it for a long, long time. She kept asking me to push her high and take her picture. I had a hard time convincing her to leave it so we could join the others who were picking out their pumpkins. But she didn't care in the least about picking a pumpkin when there was this great swing to play on. Luckily Ross was willing to get our family's pumpkins so that his little girl wouldn't have to quit playing.

Our Little Singer

I got this impromptu video of Leah a couple nights ago and thought it was too cute not to share (despite her scary hair). Enjoy!

Ross's Birthday

For Ross's birthday post I decided to do something different. After the festivities Ross sent an email to his family telling them about how he spent his birthday. So with his permission, I just used his email for my post so you can read how his birthday went in his own words (along with a few pictures I added):

I had a great birthday Friday. Thank you for the correspondence through email, text messages, phone calls, and cards. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Actually, the birthday festivities lasted pretty much through the weekend. Thursday night Cyleste and I enjoyed my birthday meal together at Tucanos, the Brazilian meat place where they slice the meat right at your table. Keep the meat coming and we don't want the grilled vegetables or cod. They were offering a special, grilled salmon at no extra charge, which was very tasty and fresh. I'm part of the Tucanos birthday club, so my meal was free, and since we had money left on a gift card, Cyleste's meal was free as well. We only paid for the tip. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Friday, was a really neat day at work. Several people and students at school wished me happy birthday and I received a huge mug with a can of root beer inside as a gift from the office staff. It was neat to see Leah when I returned home from work. She proudly declared that today is daddy's birthday and wanted me to see the "Happy Birthday" banner that Cyleste hung in the living room. Leah thought the banner said, "Happy Birthday, Leah." Cyleste's family came down to our house Friday afternoon before the BYU football game, and we ate pizza at our house and went to the game. (BYU beat Hawaii 47-0). Two of Cyleste's uncles and her cousin and his wife also came down for the game. After the game we enjoyed apple pie a la mode. I opened presents and cards after her family left, and I received a new white shirt for church, a BYU tee shirt that I wore to the game, a gift card to Tucanos from Cyleste's parents, and a check from mom.

Saturday, Norma watched Leah while Cyleste and I went to the temple, and later in the afternoon, we went back to Norma's house for a special burrito dinner, which was great. I loved that fruit salad, Norma. Following dinner Mom, Norma, and Cyleste went to the Relief Society meeting that evening at Norma's stake center, while Brian and I stayed home and watched the kids. While the women were away, Brian made brownies with peaches baked in and ice cream for dessert once the women arrived home.

Sunday, we went to mom's house for dinner, and spent the evening with her.

This was a great weekend and a very enjoyable time with family. Thanks again for your thoughts and wishes. Love to all.

Ross

A Trip to a Corn Maze

Last week our neighbor invited me and Leah to join her and another neighbor for a trip to a corn maze. As it turned out, taking three 2-year-olds and an almost 1-year-old through a big corn maze was a bad idea! We made it about 10-15 minutes before we decided that wandering around in circles at a snail's pace was not the way we wanted to spend our afternoon. But we did get a few cute pictures of the kids playing in the corn maze before we went back to the maze entrance (we were still so close to the entrance, it was very easy find.)

Fortunately they had tons of other activities for the kids to enjoy. They all had a lot more fun trying everything else than they were having in the corn maze. Here they are trying the duck races, although the pumps were so hard to pump that none of them could actually do it by themselves. But that didn't stop them from playing in the water.

Another favorite were these big tractors, trucks, buses and trains that they could climb all over and slide off of.

One of Leah's favorite things was the cow train. It was a tractor pulling a train of "cars" made out of barrels painted like to look like cows. She wasn't sure about it at first, but loved it by the time the ride was over.

She also loved these swings made out of tires. Some of the other attractions included a jumping pillow, bounce houses, slides, pig races, and hay bales for climbing, just to name a few.

We were only there a couple of hours or so before we needed to leave. But it was getting hot and Leah still hadn't had a nap. So it was probably good that we needed to go. As we were driving home, Leah said, "Mommy, that was a fun day!" Without a doubt, she had a great time. Maybe I can try to get her there again this month. She'd love it!

First Day of Fall

On the first day of fall, Ross's mom invited us to join her on a drive up the canyon to a little hiking place called Cascade Springs. We were surprised at how much the leaves in the canyon had changed colors already. The mountainside was covered in vibrant reds, yellows and oranges. I forgot to bring our camera, so all I got were a few shots with my cell phone. So of course, the pictures do not do the beauty of the trees justice. Cascade Springs is located down at the bottom of a valley, so the colors there weren't quite as vibrant yet, but we still enjoyed a nice little hike.

Considering that Leah had only had about a 10 minute nap, she did pretty well on our hike. We brought a stroller to push her around in, but she didn't want much to do with it.

Then when she was walking down a steeper part of the trail, she tripped and fell. This sent her into meltdown mode and she was pretty whiny and grumpy the rest of the walk. I tried to get a picture of the two of us with my phone. But she was so grumpy that this was the best that I could get.

By far Leah's favorite part of the hike was stopping to look at all the "stop signs" as she called them. We had to stop at every little plaque along the trail so that she could touch the picture and pretend to read the words. Here she is checking out the big plaque at the end of our hike.

We weren't the only ones with the idea to drive up the canyon that day. The canyon was full of cars and people who came to see the colors also. Having so many cars share such a narrow winding road wasn't fun. But we were all still very glad we took the time to get out and see such a beautiful display in nature. I love living so close to mountains so we can enjoy them so easily!