October

I love fall! I love the crispness in the air, the colors of the leaves and the color of the sky, I love how blue the sky is in the fall. I love the warm days and the cool evenings. Fall is just so beautiful, too bad winter follows, but while it lasts I just love it. We had a beautiful October this year, I enjoy the fall outings we do with the kids, the corn maze, the pumpkin patch, the cute pumpkin walk in Shelley, the decorations and the carving of pumpkins. So here's a little look at our October.

Here is the amazing pumpkin tree we made for the dining hutch in the kitchen! I saw the idea in my Country Living Magazine and thought it would look so great on this dining hutch. I bought the pumpkins and black paint and ta da a very cool tree in the dining room. I loved how festive it made the house feel, ooh and a little spooky! Very fun for fall, I am pretty sure one will appear again next October.

We took the kids and a few extras, (Emily, Ronan, Kendrik and Ashlyn came along too) to a corn maze. We had so much fun with everyone, but Emily and I decided next year we are NOT wearing flip flops/sandals again, we had some seriously filthy feet from walking in all that dirt!! What were we thinking?!? This corn maze was really neat because it had a little mystery you could solve as you went through the maze, kind of like the game Clue. It was really fun for the kids to hit all the clue spots and ultimately solve the mystery. By the way it was the pig with the pipe wrench in the haystack. The corn maze also had a little barrel train you could take rides in, it was a crazy driver let me tell you! Emily and I both thought we were going to meet our demise. I have never laughed so hard in my life and as a result we both had our teeth covered in a fine powdery dust, so gross! But hilarious and so much fun. We rode the dang thing a zillion times because the kids couldn't get enough, it was so funny!

Pouring rainstorm produced a beautiful double rainbow! It was so gorgeous! We loved the long drive in the rain and watching the rainbow appear.

Kids were out of school, so I made pumpkin shaped sugar and let the kids decorate them. Grace made one that she wanted to take across the street to her friend Ryan, she made is it "super special," in her words. I have never seen so many candy corns and sprinkles on a single cookie in my life. She was so excited walking it across the street to him. It was really sweet, but poor Ryan trying to eat that little project! Wait a minute he's four too, he probably loved all the goodies on it!

We snuck in as many last minute trips to the park as we could knowing that these days are definitely numbered. Audrey is our little swinging girl, she loves it! Such a fun day with the kids.

Another day at the park! Jonas is a total boy and loves being outside more than anything. I'm afraid it's going to be a very long winter.

Best friends McKade and Grace! I love how much these two love each other and enjoy spending time together. McKade was over for a play date and they played and played then settled down for movie time. So cute them snuggled up together on the couch.

The girl's afternoon invention! This made me laugh so hard when I looked out the window and saw them pulling Grace down the sidewalk on this sled on wheels. Savannah and Audrey pulled the wheels off Larren's shop-vac and then attached the wheels to the sled with duct tape- good thinkin'! Then they took turns pulling Grace up and down the sidewalk on this contraption. I love how clever and inventive they are and how much fun they have playing together with whatever wild idea they come up with.

October was the month of the great Mountain Lion Scare for us Idaho Falls residents. On October 15th at the crack of dawn we received a reverse 911 call informing us that a mountain lion had been spotted in Blue Ridge Estates, the neighborhood adjacent to ours and to not allow our children to walk to school. So when Larren and I took the kids to school a bit later, the school was surrounded!! So I gave the girls a big pep talk and told them to relax and not to worry, they would be safe at school. We pulled into the main parking lot of the school right by the front doors, where they were letting the kids right into the building. They got out of the van and Savannah grabs Audrey's hand and yells in a panicked voice, "Run Audrey!" So much for my pep talk. It was so funny to see them running for their lives! I felt so bad for the teachers that day, a bunch of crazy scared kids trapped inside all day! Yes, they were inside all day, no recess due to this ominous threat. Then the school sent out a text message telling parents that no students would be allowed to walk home, we had to come and get them or a bus would be bringing them around to their doorsteps. I went to get the girls, which actually really disappointed them because they were really hoping for the bus ride to the doorstep! When they saw me they were like, "Why did you come, this was our chance to ride a bus!" It was such a crazy funny day.

The weekend continued with several sightings throughout the area, even to the point that people were seeing things and one of the "mountain lion" sightings turned out to be, "a large house cat." The whole city was on high alert and seriously went wild kingdom crazy! It made for an exciting few days though, nothing like a mountain lion reverse 911 call to keep us hopping for a few days!

Kaylee's 4th birthday party! The kids loved attacking the pinata!

Savannah's turn!

Kaylee's birthday cake. Lisa has a knack for creating the cutest little birthday cakes for her girls' birthdays! I have a knack for ordering them from the bakery! I love seeing all her amazing creations! This caterpillar was super cute!

Savannah at the pumpkin patch. She is looking so grown-up lately, makes me all sad. I can't believe how fast time is going by with her, she is becoming such a beautiful young woman! I just love her so much!

Audrey with her pumpkin all picked out!

Grace found her perfect pumpkin!

At the pumpkin patch, they also had a little straw maze for the kids to go through and inside the straw maze were a couple of these John Deer ride on tractors, Jonas was in heaven! We had major trauma getting him off of the tractor. He loved scooting around on it!

All four kids in the wagon at the pumpkin patch, eventually they got out and we filled the wagon with pumpkins! It was such a fun day!

FHE tonight! We learned about the story of Samuel the Lamanite. After the lesson I gave the kids marshmallows and let them try hitting "Samuel" with them. It was so cute! The kids were giggling and shrieking the entire time. It was a really fun lesson and activity with the kids! Although Samuel was never struck by any rocks or arrows in the Book of Mormon, in our version Samuel got hit quite a few times, but it was all in good fun and "Samuel" was none the worse for wear! I don't think so anyway!

De-plumming the plum trees. Larren's ingenious idea this year was to shake the plums from the tree rather that wait for them to all fall on the ground, become a huge smushed mess and then try to clean them all up. Audrey and Grace wanted to "help," so they got all decked out in their bike helmets to be part of the action. I will say dealing with the plums like this was way better than having them all over the lawn and trying to rake them and if you ask the girls, they loved this method- crazy girls!

A friend of mine told me about this cute little pumpkin walk in Shelley three years ago and we have been every year since. It's tradition- well if three years and going strong makes a tradition, it does in my book! The vignettes are so stinkin' cute all made out of pumpkins and types of squash to make up the characters in the scenes. It is our favorite thing to do in October or is our favorite thing Boo at the Zoo or the pumpkin patch or the corn maze?? I don't know they are all great! Anyway the above photo was definitely a huge hit with our passel of girls- they love the Disney princesses!

Audrey in front of the Wizard of Oz- this is one of her favorite movies, she was so excited when she saw it! It was super cute!

Little Rascals-

October was the Primary Program- Savannah was asked to play and Audre sing, "I Feel my Savior's Love." Savannah was so nervous and reluctant to do it at first, but Audrey begged her, "Savannah you have to! It's my one chance to be a star!" That girl is humble I tell you what!! So Savannah agreed and got to practicing. Audrey practiced hard too, she had four verses to memorize! When the time came to sing/play in Sacrament Meeting, they both did so well. I was so nervous for them, I think I held my breath the entire time. All three of them also had their little parts memorized, it was a really nice program well once I started breathing again! I was so proud of all of them and their hard work!

We went to the Pumpkin Walk twice this year, the first time with my friend Melissa and her kids. Afterwards her kids gave my kids little Halloween treat bags with some goodies inside. One of the goodies in the bag were these vampire teeth. Jonas was obsessed with them! He'd put them in and then growl at me and I would scream. Then he would quickly take them out and say, "Sorry Mom!" Then he'd put them back in growl again and wait for my scream. It was such a fun little game that we played all of October.

Audrey was totally grossed out as she is every year, she doesn't like the slime. I love her face in this photo, she is like "Seriously, this is totally gross!" Once she got past all the icky stuff she had so much fun carving her Jack-O-Lantern. She carved a kitty face into her pumpkin, it was so cute!

Grace digging out all her guts! She loved carving her pumpkin too and this year she wanted to carve a sad face on hers. It was the cutest little sad face ever! I loved it!

Jonas watching daddy carve his little pumkin. I'm not sure he really got what the heck we were doing but he loved watching all the action. I also love the little Halloween jammers he's wearing. The skeleton pieces glowed in the dark. He loved going to bed with his bones glowing- it was so cute! He wanted to wear them every night, he even wore them a little into November because I couldn't bring myself to take them away from him!

The cousins together, well a lot of them at least at Snake River Landing for the Trick-or-Trick Street, we went because Emily was there passing out candy at one of the trailers and wanted us to come by and see her. I loved Kendrik's costume- hilarious! It was so fun to see them all dressed up and as always it's great spend time with the cousins!

Emily and I threw a Halloween party for all the cousins this year. We had so much fun- I am so glad we decided to undertake the challenge! The kids all had a wonderful time and it was just so much fun to be together. We decorated cookies, played several really fun games, guessed how many candy corns were in a jar and generally had a blast! It was a fabulous afternoon!

Jonas decorating a sugar cookie at the party. He loved licking the knife as much if not more more than frosting the cookie. He was a super sticky mess, but he loved every minute of it!

All of us playing Trick-or-Treat, the object was to draw a card and if it said "Trick" you had to do the trick it said on the back of the card. For example, "walk like a spider crawl," "cackle like a witch," "fly around like a bat," etc. If you drew a card that said "Treat" then you got a treat, in our case it was a full-size candy bar. The kids loved this game, I think we played it three times, it was really fun!

Here are all the kiddos in their Halloween costumes. They looked so cute all dressed up! Grace was our little witch, Jonas the Magnificant, I loved his little magician costume, Audrey was a scarecrow and Savannah was fortune teller complete with a tamborine! They were all really excited about their costumes, what a bunch of cuties!

Trick-or-Treating

Here's all our Jack-O-Lanterns, each kid picked their own design (OK well Jonas really didn't) and then Larren helped where they need help in getting them all carved. They turned out really cute!