Happy Halloween! Happy Halloween! (again)

Halloween here in Utah, if on a Sunday, if celebrated on Saturday. I love that. I think it's great that we avoid celebrating it on Sunday so that we can try to keep that day a special and holy day.
We always have my family over for Halloween. We have the best dinner of soups and pumpkin bread bowls. Then we keep water warm in the crock pot for hot chocolate, and we head out for trick-or-treating.






We have a great neighborhood for trick-or-treating because we know so many people, and because the homes are so close together that the kids love how much ground they can cover! :)
This year was especially fun because my parents were able to spend Halloween with us for the first time. It was an especially good treat because my parents are always so helpful and the house was cleaned up for us!
It was a rainy and cold Halloween, so the boys didn't last long, but they still had a lot of fun. I enjoy taking them and was a little sad when they wanted to go home, but I had to get back to take care of Chloe, so I got over it.

Seth always takes the older cousins out again after the families have gone together and the younger kids are worn out. They LOVE this. They talk about it all year long. The legend of Seth gets bigger and better each year! :) He runs they to all the "good houses", you know, the ones that give out the biggest and bestest candy. they stay our late and have good times. I married such a great guy! It's things like this that I just love about him!

We did save the carving of our pumpkins until Sunday...because we forgot beforehand! :) This was the first year we carved pumpkins with them and it was really fun.

Chili Cook-Off

Our ward has had the yearly tradition of having a Chili Cook-Off. It is one of the best activities we have each year. The kids come in their costumes and run around crazy while the adults try to keep track of them and load up on chili at the same time.
We had a great time. I'm not a huge chili fan, but I still love letting my kids dress up and play while Seth enjoys the chili. It's fun to be with our ward family at a fun activity.
I really hope we get more activities planned and traditions started. I love my memories of my ward parties while I was growing up. I hope that my kids can have those types of memories too.

Pumpkin Patch

We have the best Pumpkin Patch close to us. It would have been just as great as last year if we wouldn't have gone after we had gotten some rain and snow! It was SOOOO muddy and gross. But the boys still loved it of course.
We let them play on the tractors and trailers and then they each got to pick out a pumpkin. We had to get a little pumpkin for Chloe too! :) She enjoyed the trip in her nice warm seat.



The boys loved trying to push the wheel barrel with their dad. It was cute to see them try to be so helpful.


Even though it was so incredibly nasty, we still had a great time. Even after James fell in the mud. We just all had to take our shoes off, and some of us had to strip :) before getting back into the car!

"The number 619....

...has been disconnected, or is no longer in service."
Those are the words I heard when I tried to call my parents this last week and I almost started crying. I knew that they were moving here, but it never was really real until I couldn't call them "there" anymore.
That has been "my home number" my whole life, and to hear the end of it was hard. I am so glad that my parents will only be 30 minutes away now, but I am sad to see that my childhood home is now just a memory I will keep dear....and that's all I can say as I get teary eyed again.

'Tis the Season

After Family Night on Monday we decided to jump in the car and drive around to see Halloween lights. It was fun, but we were a little sad to see that people haven't got into it like they did last year.
I was pleased to see that our home was one of the funnest and most decorated. (It helps that we have great neighbors next to us that hang great lights too.) As any of you know I do love my holidays and always put them up too early, and hesitate to take them down. Holidays just seem to bring fun and good times and lots of family and friends.
Needless to say, it was still fun and the it got us out of the house! :)

Witch Hunt

After hearing about how fun it is to go to Gardner Village and see all the witches, we finally did it this year....and it lived up to all it's expectations...and more!
The witches were EVERYWHERE. From the moment you drive in you have fun witches to see. They aren't just standing around either. They are doing the funnest things. The boys (and I) loved it.
We went with Seth's sister, Jaime, and her girls. The boys loved having their cousins with them and it was fun for me to spend some time with Jaime.

Here are some shots of our favorite witches. It was really hard to pick favorites since they were all so cute...or ugly....you decide! :)









It was a really rainy day (I loved it, except for the fact that I wanted to be outside with my kids). I had already told the boys that we were going to see the witches and they were very excited. Even though it was pouring outside I decided to pack up the kids with a prayer in my heart that Heavenly Father would let it stop raining for even just 10 minutes for a mom who needed an outing with her kids. Well, my prayers were answered and I was so grateful. About 5 minutes after we got there it stopped raining and we had a clear, and dry, outing. I am so grateful for little experiences like this that seem so small and unimportant, yet so huge and faith-building at that same time. As we were walking around enjoying the witches we were finding I just kept thinking in my mind and heart how grateful I was for answered prayers!

Hands and Fingers

Chloe has found her fingers and loves them. She gets so excited each time she rediscovers them.

She even held a rattle for a little bit the other morning. It was fun to see her get so excited and still not know what was going on as the rattle would move around and make noise!

James' Almost First Day of Hockey

We were all there for support. He had his new skates. We packed everything we would need. Sam was going to go out with him too. We had scheduled a trip to McDonald's for afterwards. But with all the preparations we had made, it still wasn't the greatest day of hockey ever!
James attempted his first day of hockey last week. He really wanted to play and be out there on the ice with Dad and Sam. There was just one problem - the helmet! :)
Poor James did NOT want anything to do with his helmet. He did brave it enough to go skate a lap with Dad, but that was short lived and then he cried the rest of the time on Mom's lap because he wanted to go back out, but without his helmet.
We didn't start Sam with hockey until he was 3, and he had a little bit of a hard time with it, so we knew it might be tricky with James, who just turned 2, but he was so eager.
I think if we just work on the helmet at home that he will feel more comfortable and then we will never be able to get him off the ice!

Sam-isms

Sam: "Hey, Mom, where's my cretoxyrhina?"
Me: "Your what?!"
Sam: "My cretoxyrhina. You know, a shark."
Me: "Oh, of course."
(apparently a shark in the Jurassic period was known as a cretoxyrhina)


This was our conversation while I was changing Chloe's diaper. Sam was watching for the first time.
Sam" "Gasp. Where's Chloe's pee pee."
Me: "Chloe's a girl. She has a girl pee pee."
Sam: (as he pulls down his pants) "I have a pee pee."
Me: "Yes you do, but Chloe is a girl, so she has a girl pee pee."
Sam: "But I can't see it!"

Rubba-Dub-Dub, 3 Kids in a Tub

...but not all at once! :)
Chloe had her first bath this week and to celebrate the boys got the Ultimate Bubble Bath. I could barely find them in all the mountains of bubbles they were playing in. They loved it. We had a bubble fight and got covered from head to toe!

"Sethia", Tummy Time, Dolly, and Pretty Church Clothes

Before we even knew it Chloe had a nickname. Apparently one of Seth's co-workers, Mel, told some people at work that Seth really wanted to name a son after himself, but since he had a girl he had to improvise....so he named her "Sethia". Some of his co-workers believed him and started letting everyone know. We had a good laugh about it and love that that is something people would believe who know Seth.
Anyways, we got some really cute things from his great friends at work, and this is a picture of one of them.....Nicole put "S-E-T-H-I-A" on her shirt with sticky letters.

We've started Tummy Time and are doing great at it. Chloe is constantly trying to look around when you hold her up. I think she's starting to realize just how much is going on around her and she doesn't want to miss out!


James is still adjusting to Chloe, but he has found a bond. He loves to make sure that she has her dolly wherever she is. I was even upstairs with her the other morning and she started crying. James instantly disappeared, raced downstairs and came back with dolly. He was convinced that dolly would cheer Chloe up. It is very cute.


I just had to make an outfit for my daughter and I thought a little one for church would be perfect. I had my friend Aymee come over and help me since she is the queen of cute girly things. She taught me a lot and I am so proud of how the outfit turned out and how cute Chloe looked. I have a feeling this is going to be a new addiction! :)

If your child says....

"Mom, I need to throw up." You may want to take their word for it!
That is what Sam said to me when we were at Seth's Hockey game (my first outing with the 3 kids by the way!) :)
He said it a few times and I just told him he was fine. Then he finally got on my lap, said it again, and started to heave toward my face. Gross! So I walked him over to the trash can. And low and behold, he was right!
I have learned an important lesson here. When a 3, almost 4, year old tells you something, you may want to listen!