I Want to Ride My Tricycle!

This morning my little girl woke up on the wrong side of the bed. She was cranky and moody from the get-go and I couldn't seem to cheer her up no matter what I did. I totally blame it on the weather. It was cold, dreary and a little damp today so we didn't go play outside, and there is only one thing that Amelia wants to do lately.

Yep. She wants to ride her tricycle! Actually, it's Ephraim's tricycle and technically she doesn't actually ride it. She mostly just scoots around on it. But she desperately WANTS to ride it!

Just yesterday I spent a large portion of my afternoon following her around. It was a cloudy day, but not too cold and she was having a blast. She was so dang cute that I had to take some pictures with my phone.

We played a game where she tried to "get me" with the tricycle. I ended up with the cutest pictures that way. Isn't she adorable?

I know we need the moisture, but here's hoping that the weather clears up a bit this week so we can play outside. Goodness only knows what I am going to do with this girl all winter!

Last Soccer Game and Sleeping Angel

Saturday was Jacob's last soccer game of the season. It was a great day for a soccer game!

We always enjoy soccer season, but it is nice when it ends because it is starting to get a bit cold. Jacob is always sad when soccer ends, but at least we get to have Spring season start again in March.

Here is a fun picture of Jacob practicing with his coach during a break in play. We really have enjoyed having Coach Art, even if he is stretched a bit thin this fall. He is coaching a few other teams because they couldn't get any parents to coach them.

I didn't get too many pictures of Jacob during the game. It is hard enough to keep my eye on Amelia and enjoy the game!

After the game we went home and had our regular, busy Saturday. We always have plenty to do to keep busy. Of course Amelia went down for her afternoon nap, and this time I got the cutest pictures of her!

I don't usually take pictures of Amelia when she is napping because she tends to wake up (unlike Ephraim!). But today she was really tired, so I figured I could get away with it.

She always sleeps with Brown Bear, which is kind of funny because he used to belong to Jacob. Apparently Amelia had laid claim to him!

What a beautiful girl! We love her so!

Preschool Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Yesterday Ephraim's preschool class went on a trip to the pumpkin patch in Vineyard. In the past the kids and I have gone to Hee Haw's, so it was fun to go somewhere different. The pumpkin patch in Vineyard is actually part of a plant nursery, so they had more than just pumpkins. They sold all sorts of gardening stuff.

Of course the kids weren't interested in that, they wanted to go and have fun in the corn maze!

I wouldn't call it a corn maze, as much as a corn trail. The kids followed the trail and there were various cutouts that they could put their heads into. They thought that was fun.

Ephraim has really been enjoying preschool this year. His class has 8 boys and 2 girls. The kids all live in our stake, so hopefully Ephraim will know a few kids in his class when he starts Kindergarten.

This year the theme of the pumpkin patch was Alice in Wonderland. I laughed when I caught this picture of Ephraim coming out of the Queen's Castle.

There was a ton of play equipment, including the pumpkin pyramid. I have seen the orange pyramid many times on my way to UVU, but I never knew that there was a slide at the top!

We were at the pumpkin patch for several hours and the kids had a blast. At the end, Ephraim got to pick out his own pumpkin!

They had lots of pretty pumpkins to choose from, but I think Ephraim got a good one. He has already told me that he wants to paint it black so he can decorate it like the bomb bird on Angry birds. What a funny boy!

This was the first field trip that I have been able to go to, so that was fun. I am glad Ephraim is enjoying preschool. At first we weren't sure if he liked it because he would tell us that he didn't, but he was always excited to go each morning. And he was really sad on the days that he didn't have preschool. Finally we figured out that he likes it SO much that he doesn't want to leave. So he makes himself feel better by saying he doesn't like it when he isn't there. Make sense? Well, apparently it does to Ephraim!

Crazy Hair Day

This week is spirit week at our elementary school. So each day the kids wear something different to show their school spirit. Yesterday was crazy hair day. Fun huh?

Jacob came home and told me, "You are not going to spray paint my hair, and I don't want a mohawk!". I had to laugh a little because he doesn't have long enough hair for a mohawk anyway.

Good thing I just bought Madagascar 3 and it came with a striped Afro!

I told Jacob that he should wear the Afro and the kids at school would love it. He didn't really believe me, but I convinced him to take it in his backpack anyway in case he changed his mind. Then while driving carpool, I had him show it to the boys we take to school. They said "that's so cool" and "awesome!". Then Jacob decided he would wear the Afro after all.

When I went to the school to change books, Mrs. Glass told me that Jacob's hair was the hit of his class. Apparently he wore it most of the day. Good thing Jacob decided to listen to his friends his Mommy!

The Show and Tell Fiasco

Every Tuesday Jacob has the opportunity to bring something to school for show-and-tell. I have to admit that for the first month he hardly ever brought anything because I wasn't used to our school schedule. We have been doing much better the past few weeks at sending him to school with something fun to show his class.

This week we couldn't decide what Jacob should bring for show and tell. After combing the house, we finally decided that he could take his wind-up airplane. I thought the boys in his class would think it is cool that he would wind up the gun and make the airplane fly by "shooting" it. So I let Jacob take it, but I told him that he just needed to be careful and make sure that if he took it out to recess that he didn't shoot it onto the roof of the school because then we would never get it back!

Jacob came home from school in the afternoon and I asked him how show-and-tell went. He said, "It was fine". I asked him if he got to show his class how his plane worked and he said, "yeah". Then he started to cry. Uh-oh!

So I asked what was wrong. Finally I got Jacob to tell me that on his way out of school he shot off his airplane and it flew over a fence into a pasture. He was sad that he couldn't get his plane and he was afraid that I would be mad at him.

I told Jacob that I wasn't mad and that we would try to get his plane back. We drove over to the back of the school, and sure enough we saw his plane in the pasture. So we tried to figure out which house the pasture belonged to. After knocking on a door we found out that we would have to get to the house from State Street. We located the driveway to the house and headed down to the house.

When we got there I wasn't sure how long we would be gone, so I decided to take the kids with me. I was carrying Amelia in my arms as we walked up the the house and knocked on the door, but no one answered. I could see that someone was out behind the house on a tractor and that there was more than one house-like building, so we decided to go knock at the other one. As we approached the house, a rather large, happy and friendly dog came bounding towards us. Ephraim freaked out! I told him to come stand by me and that the dog was friendly and wasn't trying to hurt him. Of course Ephraim was panicked so he didn't move and the dog decided to be friendly and go say "hi" to Ephraim.

He knocked Ephraim over while Ephraim was practically screaming. By this point I had made it over to Ephraim and picked him up with the arm that wasn't holding Amelia. The dog was not mean at all, just overly friendly. But Ephraim couldn't see that. Luckily the man on the tractor got the dog and locked him up for us.

I apologized and explained why we were there. The nice man took us back to the pasture so we could get the airplane. I told Ephraim to walk with me and everything would be o.k. I promised I would keep him safe. As we walked towards the pasture opening a neighbor dog who was behind a fence ran towards us barking. I told Ephraim, "See? That dog is much scarier than the farmer's nice dog" but when I turned around Ephraim was gone!

He hightailed it back to the van as fast as he could run! So Jacob, Amelia and I got the plane from the pasture (all the while being followed by a friendly cow), thanked the man, and went back to the van. Ephraim was there waiting for us.

I explained to Ephraim that I would not have let the dog hurt him and the dog was just trying to be nice, but I think that he may have a dog phobia for quite some time! Poor kid.

Fall Break at the Dinosaur Museum

For Fall Break we spent Wednesday and Thursday night and Grandma and Grandpa's house. Then we headed to Logan and spent Saturday at the Kirkham's. Jeanette and I had a great time cutting vinyl and making really cute home decor. I will have to post some of it later.

At the end of the day on Saturday we headed home. We would have stayed at Jeanette's or Grandma's house longer, but Daddy was home from his conference and we wanted to spend Sunday at home with him.

We did have fun plans lined up for Monday, since it was still Fall break. We went with Karyn and Melinda and their kids to the dinosaur museum!

My kids love to go to the dinosaur museum! It is even more fun with friends. One of the first things we did was to hustle to the erosion table. Since we got there first thing in the morning we knew it wouldn't be crowded yet. We actually had the place to ourselves for quite a while.

The kids had a great time playing in the water and sand. Amelia wasn't quite sure what to make of the whole thing and she was barely tall enough to see over the edge!

This time the boys were finished with the erosion table before the girls were. Probably because they found a computer to play on!

After playing at the erosion table, we went back to the beginning and went through to look at the exhibits. The boys had a fun time spinning the wheels of time, trying to see if they could get the biggest wheel to spin.

I love watching how the kids take interest in more and more things each time we go to the museum. They really enjoyed looking at everything with their friends.

It was nice to have somewhere fun to take the kids on the last day of fall break!

Above is Jacob, Micah and Clara checking out some sea life. Below is Ephraim and Jesse looking at a diorama.

The kids especially enjoyed playing with the magnetic dinosaur puzzles. For the most part everyone did really well at the dinosaur museum. I had to put Amelia back in her stroller several times because she doesn't quite understand the concept of staying with Mommy. She gets curious and tends to wander off if I don't keep and eye on her!

We had a great time checking out the exhibits. Even the scary ones!

Of course at the end of the visit we got to dig for dinosaur bones. It is always a favorite part of our trips to the dinosaur museum.

After our visit to the dinosaur museum, it was lunchtime. So we all went to McDonalds together. What a fun day for the kids! I have to say that I really enjoyed myself as well. It was nice to get to talk to Karyn and Melinda. We don't get to see each other as much as we used to! It seems that our kids keep us busier than ever the older they get.

Leaf Jumpers

One of my boys favorite things to do at Grandma and Grandpa Heiner's house (besides going on airplane rides) is to go on a ride in the Razr. They think it is SO fun!

Luckily Grandma was fine with taking them for a ride around the neighborhood.

They actually ended up taking two rides because they thought it was so much fun!

While they were gone, Amelia and I decided to find a rake and get busy. Grandma and Grandpa Heiner have lots of leaves, so we thought we would see how big of a pile of leaves we could make. Nothing says Fall quite like jumping into an enormous pile of leaves!

Our leaves are just barely starting to fall off the trees here, so we would end up with a pretty skimpy pile. Good thing we got to visit Grandma and Grandpa Heiner this weekend. They had TONS of leaves.

Jacob and Ephraim LOVED raking the leaves into a huge pile and then seeing just how high they could leap into the leaves.

Amelia wasn't so sure that jumping in the leaves was a good idea. She would scream, "Oh!" in alarm as the boys jumped into the crunchy leaves. Finally she decided that they were having so much fun that it couldn't be that bad. She didn't jump into the pile, but she did sit in it!

And that's pretty much all she did in the leaves! She sure was cute though.

My boys sure didn't sit in the pile for very long! I can't even remember how many times we raked the pile up big again so they could jump in.

I got some awesome pictures of the boys jumping really high!

I had so much fun taking pictures and helping the boys rake the leaves back into the pile. It made me happy to watch them enjoy themselves so much.

Amelia was funny. She just sat in the pile. Eventually she decided to taste the leaves! Yuck!

I love Fall! Sometimes I wish it could stay a little longer, but I guess then it would lose some of its magic. We are lucky because there are parts of Fall we will get to experience twice. You can bet that when our leaves fall off the trees we will be raking, and leaping and laughing all over again!

Let's Go Fly a Plane

So it is kind of funny that Grandma and Grandpa Heiner visited us over conference weekend because it was only a few days later that the kids and I drove up to Wyoming to visit them!

Jacob had fall break and Joe was at an IT conference in St. George. So I loaded up the kids in the van and headed for Star Valley. It has been a long time since we visited Grandma and Grandpa and the boys were excited to go.

I sent Jacob to school with the A-track, so he was done with school just after 2 pm. We took his backpack home and hit the road. The drive went pretty well, but after 4 hours Amelia was done being in the van!

We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's and then the next morning we headed out to the FBO. The kids were going to get to go on an airplane ride, hooray!

We are lucky that Grandpa is a pilot, so my boys have had the opportunity to fly quite a few times. However, this was the first time that we took Amelia with us (unless you count in utero!).

She was a little nervous as we got into the plane, but settled down when she realized that Mommy was going with her.

Amelia and I were content to sit in the back. On the other hand we had to let the boys take turns in the front so that they could each be the copilot for a while. Ephraim started out as the copilot, which he LOVED.

It was so fun to go for a flight with my cute kids. They had a fabulous time looking out the windows.

It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely view of the valley.

Plus it is hard not to have fun when you have such enthusiastic passengers!

Amelia even relaxed enough to look out the windows and enjoy the ride.

Before too long it was time for the boys to trade places. Jacob was pretty excited to get his turn at the controls.

Good thing I knew that Grandpa was the one really flying the plane! Not that my little pilots aren't absolutely adorable.

Ephraim didn't really mind moving to the back because even though he was not at the controls, he was having so much fun talking into his headset. He kept saying things like, "Can you hear me, Captain Mommy? Over!" It was hilarious!

What a great morning for a flight. We all had a great time.

But all good things must eventually come to an end. So we flew back to the airport, landed the plane, and helped Grandpa push it back into the hanger.

Thank you so much for the airplane ride Grandpa! We LOVED it.