Trick or Treat

Halloween was tons of fun this year! We started our festivities by carving a pumpkin for Family Night on Monday. I was super impressed that everyone braved the icky pumpkin gunk and helped to clean it out. In years past I've been on my own with that task. Sydney enjoyed that part lots and Chris got in on the action this year by carving it up.

The kiddos got to double up on their candy intake this year with trick or treating on two occasions. First, we had our Ward's Trunk or Treat at the church and the kids had a great time with all their friends going from car to car then afterwards getting to play some fun Halloween themed carnival games inside. Tanner was not excited about the whole dressing up experience until he realized that people were going to give him candy and his attitude quickly changed. Since Sydney wasn't walking yet we felt a little sheepish collecting candy for her but she's got quite the sweet tooth so we knew she'd be highly disappointed if she missed out.

Then on Halloween night we were so excited to enjoy trick or treating in our new neighborhood. We even invited over a couple families, had yummy Cheesy Vegetable Chowder and bread, then headed out to collect  our goodies. The kids had a blast running from house to house and the neighborhood was the perfect size for them to get more than enough.

We had a great time, even Chris who in years past has been dubbed "Halloween Scrooge," seemed to enjoy the night!

Joy School Halloween Party

Tanner is participating in Joy School this year. We've got 5 cute kiddos in our group and they gel together really well. For Halloween we had a party with another joy school group from church. Liz hosted and did an amazing job with everything. She even set up a little photo backdrop so here's the group.

 Julia

 Ian

 Melissa

 Jessica

 Tanner (who is not thrilled about picture taking)

Tanner has been doing really well with school. He is really shy around new friends and adults and even around ones he knows sometimes, but he is coming around a little at a time and I can see him learning and growing into his own personality as the year goes on.

Miscellaneous October

 Just had to show my little girl's curls! Love them!!

 Great clean up effort

 Ethan love playing with my camera...here's one of my favorites..haha!

 I walked into the living room and found this cute little scene, both kids engrossed in their reading

 Sydney's giving us a sneak peak at how big she'll be when she decides to walk. She's now 17 months and still no walking. Honestly she doesn't even have interest in it. She's perfected her "leaning" though and luckily she's pretty cute doing it!

 Ethan's kindergarten class took a field trip to the Apple Orchard and I was lucky to find someone to watch my other kiddos so I could go along for the adventure. We had such a fun day picking apples, going on a hay ride, and tasting some delicious apple cider. No pictures from the day but here's my peeled apples ready  to be turned into applesauce. My crockpot worked great to cook the apples, the house smelled amazing while it was cooking, but I accidentally added too much sugar so it ended up tasting more like apple pie filling. Oh well, still delicious! 

 Put Sydney on my bed, went out to do a couple things, came back and...

 

 1st Quarter Awards Assembly and Ethan came home with quite a few awards, not to mention a report card filled with praises. He's doing fantastic and we are so proud of him!

The BIG 29 and a Temple Trip

My super special Birthday Crown :)

It's birthday time for me and this year was the BIG 29! 

My wonderful friends planned a surprise lunch for me which I unfortunately don't have any pictures from. Melissa picked me up to go out for my free Firehouse sub and instead drove the super "long way" and we ended up at La Villa with lots of friends for a delicious meal! (Don't worry I still got my free sub) I can't pass up free on my birthday. Chris got me beautiful flowers and we enjoyed a fun date together that night.

The weekend after my birthday, I planned a girl's temple trip down to Raleigh. We had such a great time!! We all rode crammed into Dacy's van and enjoyed 2 hours of great conversation on the way to the temple. After a relaxing session, we headed to PF Changs for lunch. We enjoyed a family style meal and shared everything. So fun getting to try everything...YUM! Then we were off for an afternoon of shopping. We walked the mall and then stopped by an outlet on the way back home. Overall, we were so grateful to our wonderful husbands who were willing to enjoy a "Daddy Day" so we could escape for a fun day trip.

2012 Family Pictures

We kept it simple this year.

Clothes we already had, our favorite photographer, Jessica, and our front yard as our backdrop.

I was very pleased by the results, especially with how fast we got them done due to the crazy mosquitos.