Happy Halloween!!

We had a fun Halloween this year! We started off our morning by having gingerbread skeletons for breakfast- yum!  Jacob and Ephraim both got to wear their costumes to school, so I got everyone dressed and we went out to take some pictures.

Don't my boys look handsome? They looked so awesome in their costumes. Since we were going to the costume parade at Jacob's school, I dressed Amelia up too. So I got a picture of all three of my kids in their costumes. Hooray!

AND they are all looking at me and smiling! Wow!
I figured while we were at it I might as well take pictures of each of the kids. So here is Jacob the fighter pilot.

And Ephraim the astronaut!

I love how shiny Ephraim's costume is! It was really fun and we got a lot of compliments on it. Amelia even sat on the porch for me for about 2 seconds. Long enough to get a picture!

Then she decided that not only did she need wings, she also needed wheels.

What a funny girl!

Amelia and I went to Jacob's school and watched the Halloween parade. It basically consists of all the kids walking around to all the other classrooms in the school. We waited in the library until Jacob's class finally walked by. Then we went and exchanged books (since it was Wednesday!). Then Amelia and I went home for a minute.

Since we had some time, I went and took some cute pictures of Amelia in her costume.

As you can see, she was feeling particularly attached to her bear that morning. So we just let him tag along for the pictures.

I love how well Amelia's costume turned out. I found the T-shirt at Kohls after I had already made the tutu. I actually bought the wings last year on clearance!

I had to use two different colors of tulle, but they blended to make the right color. Isn't she a doll?

I wanted to go take fun pictures of the boys in their costumes, but I haven't had time yet! I may not get to it, but at least I have the cute pictures I took in the morning!

After taking pictures, Amelia and I went to pick Ephraim up. He had a great time at his preschool Halloween party! Amelia took a nap and it wasn't too long before Jacob got out of school. I told the boys I would take them to "Treats in the Park", which is where they go to the PG city park and go trick or treating. But they decided that they would rather just stay home and watch "Wild Kratts".

Fine by me! Instead I gave Amelia a bath, which she thought was a great idea.

She even got to play outside for a while before we had dinner. Then we got dressed and headed to the trunk or treat.

Since Joe had to teach class on Wednesday, I took the kids to the trunk or treat myself. Looking back on it, I probably should have brought a stroller. I totally overestimated Amelia's ability to follow me. So I ended up carrying her most of the time. Phew!

So as you can imagine, I didn't end up with very many pictures of the trunk or treat. Especially not any of me in costume. I was actually wearing a pilot's jumpsuit and headset too. So I fit right in with the boys.

Amelia didn't quite get the purpose of trick or treating. She just wanted to open the candy and eat it! She ended up with so much candy in her mouth that she gagged on it and spit up all over her tutu. Yuck!

It wasn't too long after that we headed for home. By the time we got there, Daddy was just pulling up in his car. So I gave Amelia to Daddy and took the boys to Melinda's house. She was nice enough to take a picture of me and the boys. We also went trick-or-treating to 15-20 houses in her neighborhood. Just enough for the boys to get the experience.

Then we headed home. On the way home I realized that I was missing one of my diamond stud earrings. My heart fell to the floor. I was pretty sure that I must have lost it at the trunk or treat. So after putting the kids to bed I went over to the church parking lot with a flashlight and searched for it for over an hour with no luck.

I was really devastated because they were the earrings that Joe bought for me for our anniversary several years ago. I have worn them every day since then, for probably 6 years or so. We searched everywhere I had been in the house and still didn't find them. I was so sad!

I prayed several times that night to find my earrings, practically the entire time I was searching and later on that night. But there was no sign of my earring. Then the next morning as I got out of the shower I spotted my earring in the bathroom rug! I was SO excited! I know that I had checked there the night before and so did Joe, but neither one of us found it. I could very easily have vacuumed it up sometime without ever seeing it. I am so glad that I have my earring back, and I know that Heavenly Father answered my prayers. An earring may not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but this one was important to me.

Twas the Night Before Halloween

... and all through the house, Mommy was BUSY getting ready for tomorrow. First I got our Angry Birds pumpkins out on the front porch. Aren't they awesome?

It all started when Ephraim wanted to paint his pumpkin like the bomb bird. Then I just knew that Jacob would want to paint a red bird and of course we needed a pig, right?

 So over the weekend the kids painted the pumpkins and then I painted on the faces. We ended up with three birds and a pig! I love how they turned out.

Then I made some gingerdead men (aka. gingerbread skeletons)!

I love how they turned out! I actually tried to make these on Sunday night, but the recipe for gingerbread cookies that I tried out was a flop. Luckily Auntie Em told me where to find a good recipe and this time the cookies worked, hooray!

It took me quite a while to frost them, but I think they turned out pretty awesome. Of course the boys thought they were the best skeletons they had ever eaten!

Then we had dentist appointments. I know! What was I thinking, the day before Halloween? Sheesh! Luckily they went well so we could come home and carve our pumpkin!

Amelia wasn't so sure about Mommy scooping the guts our of the pumpkin. She had to climb up on the table for a closer look!

The boys were really good about helping me this year. We like to use a pattern so we get an awesome looking jack-o-lantern.

We picked an easy pattern, since we didn't have too long to get it done. This year the boys even got to help me carve it using the little saws. They thought that was pretty cool!

We would have carved more pumpkins, but we did spend quite a bit of time over the weekend painting our Angry Birds pumpkins. So we only did the one. But I think he turned out pretty awesome!

Now we just can't wait for tomorrow...

Happy Halloween!

Cornbellys

Last week I was planning to take the kids to Cornbelly's on Wednesday when Daddy had to work late teaching class. But when we woke up that morning it was all soggy outside. Plus I had a bit of a frog in my throat. So I promised the kids that we would go on Monday instead.

Luckily it was a beautiful day! We left home just after Jacob got home from school and got to Cornbelly's just as it opened. The first thing we decided to do was to go to the big jumping pillow.

The boys have been on the jumping pillow once before, but Amelia wasn't sure what to make of it at first. I actually had to take her up to the top of it because she couldn't climb up there by herself.

Then the boys jumped and played with her. They even slid down the side a couple of times. That meant I had to drag Amelia back to the top, but at least they were having fun!

When our turn was up we decided just to get back in line and go again!

This time I jumped with Amelia for a while. She thought it was fun to bounce around and I had a great time listening to her giggle.

After that we wandered around to see what we could find. There were some big tricycles!

There were also wooden playsets of every kind. We played on airplanes, semi trucks, tractors, and buses.

There was even a real fire truck for the kids to check out!

The boys thought it was awesome to be able to flip the switches and turn the dials.

Even Amelia got on for a minute.

After exploring a little more we found out that we could take a ride in a wagon train pulled by a tractor. The boys thought that was pretty fun.

But even more fun than that was their ride on the cow train!

Each kid got to sit in a "cow" and get pulled around by a tractor. Since I could buckle Amelia into her seat, I thought it was pretty safe for her to go by herself. After all, she had one brother on either side of her!

The kids thought it was awesome! We went on that ride twice too. The second time I went with the kids and sat with Amelia, which was fun.

Before we knew it the sun was starting to go down (and the moon was coming up!).

But it wasn't bedtime yet, so we decided to play around a little more. There were tons of things to look at and do.

They had some pretty impressive carved pumpkins in a very tall pyramid. We walked around all the sides and looked at them.

Amelia and I went and checked out a sandbox made of corn for a minute, which she thought was pretty fun. As I was changing her diaper that night I found corn kernels in there!

Of course there were some fun cutouts to take pictures in too. Amelia was too small to get into the cutouts without help. So I mostly just took pictures of the boys.

We had so much fun at Cornbelly's, but it was getting really close to bedtime. So we headed for the exit. But we had to stop and take a picture in the big rocking chair!

Cornbelly's was awesome and I think we definitely want to go next year. I think I will try to get tickets early and go on a weekend so we can spend as much time there as we want. We were there for three hours and still didn't even make it into the corn maze! It was a blast.

As I got the kids home and in bed, I couldn't help but notice the big, full moon. Isn't it gorgeous?

Snow in October

This morning when we woke up there was snow on the ground! It has been a wet week, and apparently it finally got cold enough to snow. We haven't had snow in October for a long time!

The boys were really excited about the snow. What they really wanted to do was shovel the driveway, but there wasn't really enough snow for that.

The weather was supposed to warm up later in the day, so I knew the snow wouldn't last long. So I went out to take some pictures.

The last of our roses were covered with snow and ice crystals. It was actually quite beautiful.

I used my macro filters to get as close as I could to the ice crystals. They were pretty tall, but as I was taking pictures the sun came out and they started to melt.

I caught some pretty cool pictures of the ice crystals on one of our yellow roses. Here is one of my favorites.

Mount Timpanogos had a nice layer of white on it, as did our roof. As you can see, the snow quickly melted off the driveway.

It will be interesting to see how much snow we get this year. Last year we didn't get very much at all, so maybe this year will make up for it! Either way I plan to take the boys sledding and build a snowman this year. Hopefully while we are home for Christmas break.