Halloween Festivities

This is for you, Dad.  Sorry I've been a slacker!! :0)

We had so much fun this year during the month of October.  It's a lot of fun having older kids who truly love Halloween and really get into it.

Paige had so much fun at her Halloween party at school.  She LOVED showing off her little brother and sister to everyone.  Isn't she such a beautiful medieval princess?  Funny story...when we first got her costume, we told her that her dress made her look like a medieval princess.  So, whenever anyone asked her what she was going to be for Halloween, she would say, "An evil princess."  They would always look a little confused until I explained that she kept forgetting to say the "mid" in medieval.  By the time Halloween rolled around, though, she had the correct "name" down! :0)

Bryn LOVED this little girl's costume.  Those wings fascinated her!

As you can tell, Bryn liked the treats as well.  This was taken while Paige played her "Hot Pumpkin" game so Paige couldn't protect her stash.  Luckily Paige didn't mind sharing!!  What a good sister!

The "Hot Pumpkin" game

These little creatures visited our home throughout most of October.  Aren't they so cute?  Paige and Austin are constantly begging me to do projects lately and this is one we came up with.  Sadly, Bryn's didn't last more than a day.  She's kind of our "human tornado".  Everywhere she goes, there is a trail of messes behind her!!  Her crow was a victim of that!!

Austin with his crow.  Have to love that he's still in his jammies!!  It was because I was a slacker mom and didn't realize that he didn't have clean pants until that morning.  He had to wait for a pair to be washed.  Oops!

Bryn with her crow before she destroyed it.  Notice that she's upright!  She's finally walking!!  It's been nice having our 3rd child be a late crawler and walker, but it is nice not having to worry about holey pants and scuffed shoes as much as when she was just crawling.  Good job, Bryn!!

Paige was very proud of her crow.  She did everything by herself and couldn't stop showing it off.  Another post will explain this further!

Austin with his cute preschool class.  Transformers were very popular this year.  Two Bumblebees and one Optimus Prime.

They happened to play "Hot Pumpkin" in Austin's class, too. :0)  Paige was my photographer for most of the activities.

This is Bryn's "Peek-a-boo" pose.  She does this ALL...THE....TIME!!  We love it, though!

TREATS!

Our pumpkin assortment for this year.  The kids picked the big pumpkin for Brian at a farm that we went to (pictures in another post).  Austin thought it was so cool that the pumpkin weighed as much as he did - 35 lbs!  Can you guess which pumpkin Brian did?  We had to represent our teams, Ohio State (my pumpkin) and BYU (Austin's pumpkin).  Austin painted his all blue and wanted me to paint the Y.  Ever since he slept in his cousin, Ethan's, BYU room, he's been obsessed! ;0)  Paige's pumpkin is pretty obvious with the flowers! ;0)  And cute Bryn had a cute pumpkin to match!

another view of Paige and Austin's pumpkins

The kids in their Halloween outfits.  Do you recognize Austin's shirt from last year?  He wore it for the last time today.  It is now officially too small. :0)

Bryn with her matching pumpkin.  Aren't the teeth and the button nose perfect?!? :0)

Paige showing off her masterpiece.

See, he's obsessed!! ;0)

Here we are at our Trunk-or-treat.  For our decorations this year, the kids cut out pumpkins, bats and ghosts and drew faces on them.  Then we just hung them up in the back (I should say Kandra and Paige hung them up in the back).  Not as cool as last year, but oh well.  My SIL, Julie, took that prize this year!! ;0)  We picked up Bri's wig at the Pharmacy in town and he already had the tennis suit.  He's such a good sport!!  The hair is hot, though, don't you think?!? ;0)  Bryn was a little kitty, Austin as Bumblebee, Paige as a medieval princess, and me as a Gypsy.  Do you see Paige's bag?  I made each of the kids one.  Paige wanted a black cat, Austin a ghost and we made Bryn a jack-o-lantern.  They turned out really cute.  I thought I took a picture of them, but I couldn't find it.  Oh well.

Some random pics

Here are a few (OK, a lot of) pictures from the last 3 months.

Paige being the character that she is!

Paige with some friends in the leaves.  We really love the people in our neighborhood.  We just hope more boys will come around for Austin!! ;0)

The 3 kiddos.  I had a really hard time getting them all to look at the camera and smile at the same time.  Thought I'd put a picture where none of them are both looking at the camera and smiling! ;0)  Austin's the closest to the goal!

Paige and one of our next door neighbors.  They're the same age and get along so well.

Happy Austin.  I just love his smile!

Bryn's "Oh my goodness" pose

How we love this girl.  That smile gets us every time!  You can kind of see her top tooth coming through in this picture.  A couple of weeks ago she got her 2nd top tooth.  So at almost 15 months she still only has 4 teeth!

This is Bryn's peek-a-boo stance.  She looks through her legs and says jibberish that we know to mean "peek-a-boo".  It has the same syllables as peek-a-boo, just not the same sounds! ;0)

We made chocolate cupcakes for FHE one night and the kids devoured them.  (We try to only have dessert on the weekends and for Family Home Evening on Monday nights.)  After they ate their's, we went and delivered some to our neighbors.

Paige took this picture of Bryn.  Pretty good, don't you think?

Paige and Austin have been pretty silly lately (when they're not fighting).  You have to love their outfits!

As you can tell, Bryn loves her food.  You wouldn't see that just by looking at her because she's so small, but she loves to eat.  We found out this summer that she LOVES corn, especially corn on the cob.  She also loves her some sugar cereal.  Her favorites are Trix, Honeycomb, Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms.  She does like Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies, too.

Bryn is a little troublemaker, also.  She is constantly into something.  The bathroom doors have to stay shut, or else she does this or goes to the toilet and tries to pry the bolt covers off of the bottom of the toilet.  Yeah, pretty much disgusting!

"A troublemaker you say?  Not me, I'm innocent!!"  :0)

Fall Break

Paige and Austin had a week off from school, so we decided to take advantage and go somewhere we haven't been before, but still close by.  We decided that place was Eden, UT.  We couldn't have asked for better weather and a more beautiful place.  We went on a hike at Snowbasin, Brian golfed, we played a little putt-putt golf, hit a few tennis balls and just enjoyed being together as a family.  We were able to have my mom and dad come over night one of the nights and they went on the hike with us.  It was great!  After our 3 nights in Eden, we went to Salt Lake to be with Brian's brother and his family.  We went to Discovery Gateway, which we loved because it reminded us of COSI in Columbus.  Austin's favorite place was the construction area. Bryn's favorite place was the magnet area.  She could have stayed there for hours.  Bryn screamed when we left to eat dinner!  Paige's favorite part was "everything".  She especially loved the pretend area with the grocery store and the play house.  After playing there for a few hours, we ate dinner at the SkyBox with the HUGE projection screen and the arcade games.  Austin is still asking to go eat and play there again!  Of course, I forgot to get the camera out of the car while we were there, so no pictures of our time with Tom, Em, Ethan, Ashley, Jane and Lucy.  Just know that we had a lot of fun and enjoyed each other's company immensely!!! ;0)

Our first night at the condo in Eden.  I love this picture!  Bryn was so excited to eat at the bar with the other 2!

Here's Austin and my dad at our stopping point.  We could have gone a little higher, but the kids were done.  My mom and dad ended up going to a peak a little higher than this, but Brian, the kids, and I made our way back down the mountain.  We figure the hike was about 4 miles and the kids did quite well.  Paige walked most of it by herself (she had a few piggyback rides from daddy).  Austin was on Bri's shoulders for about 1/3 of the way.  Bryn was on my back in the baby carrier the whole way, obviously. :0)  She cried most of the way down the mountain because she was so tired, but at least it's shorter going down the mountain then going up!!

Grandma and Bryn hanging out at the top.  It was a little windy at the top as you can see from my mom's hair! :0)

Don't ask me why Brian didn't turn the camera to take this picture so it would include Austin!  It's a cute picture of Paige, though! ;0)

If you look closely at the ridge in the middle, you can see my mom and dad.

Besides Bryn waking up early, she did really well on our trip.  She was so happy!  She learned to stand up completely by herself and even took 6 steps while we were gone.  If she made up her mind to walk all the time, she could.  She just hasn't decided that it's very important yet! ;0)

On our hike, the kids picked up several rocks and we put eye and mouth stickers on them.  They turned out so cute.  As you can see, Paige and Austin were (and still are) very proud of them.  Bryn was pretty excited about them, too. :0)

Paige showing us how it's done!

Bryn just followed us around the putt-putt course.  She LOVED it!!

We found a little playground after golfing.  They had fun on this, also.

Bryn loved the slides, too.  She ended up going up the steps, getting on the slide, and sliding down all by herself by the time we left.  She would have done it a hundred more times if we let her.  She didn't want to leave.

Paige didn't play on the playground equipment at all.  She was too excited to build this awesome sand castle all by herself!  I personally LOVE the flag on the top made from a twig and a leaf!

Here's Bryn showing us that she can do it all by herself!!

Walking back to the condo.

A shot of the main living area of the condo.  It was a great little place to stay!