October 2015

Bring on October! 

I love fall weather!!!

Leave it up to Grandma Deb to start off the month of Halloween the right way...with cookies of course! Charlie was excited to go up to her house and make these cute little sugar cookies with pumpkins on them.


Sam is finally old enough to attend the Priesthood session of General Conference!

Dad and Sam got invited to go downtown to the Conference Center for the session! What a special treat!

They went with Uncle Kazi, Grandpa Leigh, Uncle Mark, and Uncle Matt.

Sam told me later that night that when he walked into the Conference Center it "took his breath away!"

According to Dad, Sam did very well sitting through all of the Priesthood Session. I'm sure it was a lot to take in!

Sam and Grandpa Leigh went on a walk/jog adventure on the Jordan River Parkway. Grandpa surprised us all with his picture taking skills with his cell phone!

Sam performed in his very FIRST violin recital!

Not only was it his first violin recital, but his FIRST recital of any kind!
His teacher, Aimee, is just adorable and so sweet with Sam. Sam impressed her week after week with his musical theory knowledge and with how quickly his is picking up the violin.

He played one song by himself and also a duet with his teacher. The tone he produced on his violin was very rich and smooth...especially for such a beginner!

We were so proud of our Sam for how well he performed. Way to go Sam!

Our fist Connect Pass date for this month was to the Utah Olympic Park!

The visitor's center wasn't too impressive, but the kids liked getting in the bobsled for a picture! (Charlie's expression...hilarious!)

We were in for a surprise treat when we got there...we got to see some world class aerial skiers practicing their skills!

I was surprised to find out that the pool they land in was NOT heated. Brrrr!

I promise that I did NOT tell Charlie and Lilly to pose...they just came up with that all on their own!

Pretty view...and silly boys.

Dad, Lilly, and Tyler were brave enough to do the ropes course!

Tyler lead the way, with Lilly right behind him, and Dad as the caboose.

There were several moments of "I'm scared!" and "I can't do this!" from Lilly...but she was able to complete all but one of the obstacles on her own!

Charlie and Sam did NOT want to participate, so I stayed with them down below. We had fun cheering for the "brave ones"...and taking selfies, of course! My favorite moment of the day was when Sam started chatting it up with one of the girls that worked on the ropes course. They probably chatted for a good 20 minutes! What a friendly boy! After Tyler, Lilly, and Dad finished the course they got to do the zipline back to the bottom! How fun! Next, Charlie and Dad got to go on the Alpine Slide! Dad said that he wasn't sure if Charlie had fun or if it was too scary...he was a little hard to read. By the time they were done, we were all starving! We got lunch down in Park City and then headed back home in time for Sam's Miracle League game.

Our next Connect Pass date was to go see the Thanksgiving Point Gardens!

We went with Brett and Jaymie's family and invited Grandma Deb to come along too!
There was a Scarecrow Festival going on while we were there, which it made our visit extra festive!

There were different scarecrows all along the main path through the gardens...all decorated and donated by local businesses. We were all very fond of the University of Utah themed scarecrow. (Uncle Brett was workin' his Heisman pose)

Charlie pretty much wanted to pose with EVERY scarecrow!

Then he got Grandma in on that action! Work it!

Sam was in charge of our map. He also brought along "Jif" (the musical bear who was on loan from his violin teacher). "Jif" spent the entire day inside of Sam's shirt...cozy.

We got to feed the fish, who were ENORMOUS!, in the pond.

The weather couldn't have been more beautiful!

Charlie was having so much fun posing and running around...but totally wore himself out! He was tired and hungry...and sometimes that causes tears. What a sweet boy though!

By the time we had seen all of the scarecrows and all of the gardens, Sam was pretty bored and tired. Grandma and Sam had a little cuddle time together while the rest of us explored the waterfall area.

When we were ready to leave we decided to all go out to lunch at JCW's in Lehi. It was a delicious way to end our adventure!

The Gardner Village date with Grandma continues!!!
(This was our 12th year in a row...ever since Sam was a tiny tike!)

Cousin Alex came along too. Instead of doing the Witch Hunt we did a Gardner Village history hunt. It was much harder than the Witch Hunt, and we ended up not being able to finish it...but the kids didn't mind! Grandma bought them each a cookie from the bakery to make up for it! :)

The Grant Elementary Fun Run was a success!

Lilly and Tyler both wanted Daddy to run with them this year!

Run, run, run...as fast as you can!

Tyler ran his heart out...so proud of this boy!

Lilly ended up getting 5th place! Way to go Lils!

Here's a little random picture of sibling goodness:


We were lucky enough to babysit two different baby girls this month.
The first was Poppy Mack...who belongs to my friend Emily.

Tyler and Lilly couldn't get enough of her! They loved playing with her on the bed. She liked sticking her hand in their mouths! :)

We also babysat our newest next door neighbor...Adelaide Stahl.

She was mostly asleep the entire time we had her...but the kids were happy to get turns to hold her.

(Sam and Charlie, on the other hand, were happy to be as far away from the those babies as possible!)

Daddy got a last-minute opportunity to go play golf with some of his Octappella buddies.

He took this selfie and sent it to us!

While he was gone to play golf, we went to see the movie "Pan" with Grandma.

The movie was a little too intense for Charlie to go see, so he stayed home with Papa and watched Thomas DVDs instead. :)

Dad and Tyler got to go see the University of Utah football game together!

It was a late game (and a WET game) but they had fun! And the Utes won...that always makes it better!

Charlie earned a sticky mustache for being a good boy at the Orthodontist...we weren't there for him, but he came along when Sam and Tyler had their appointment. 

Silly boy.

Here is Goose again in the back of the van...we sometimes like to take treats and snacks with us and sit in the back of the van while we wait for the kids to get home from school.

It was our favorite babysitter's (Katie Gardner) birthday. We showed up to her house to give her a gift but she wasn't home. We took a picture with the spooky decorations on her porch instead (just while we waited for her to get home from work). :)

Lilly and I got to go on a date...she wanted to go to Gardner Village (even though we had just been there with Grandma). We did the Witch Hunt and then went out to eat at Arctic Circle. Fun and yummy!

We picked out our pumpkins this year at a little local farm in West Jordan.

We were pleasantly surprised with the awesome selection, friendly farmer, and fabulous prices!

The farmer even gave all the kids a mini pumpkin for free! We'll definitely be back next year!

Pumpkin carving time!!!!!

Lilly wanted to draw a picture on one of her pumpkins and carve the other.

Daddy helped her with the fancy design.

Fabulous!

Sam got out the plastic pumpkin faces and designed his own creation!

Mr. Goose called his pumpkin "Angry Cat."

Dad was determined to get his JUST right...he eventually ditched the knife and got out his "saws-all" power tool. Awesome!

I decorated two pumpkins too! My first pumpkin had a silly face and I painted a "U of U" sign on my second one.

Tyler carved his own pumpkins this year...and they turned out fantastic.

The elementary school costume parade was QUITE memorable this year!

It started out pretty normal. Grandma Deb was kind enough to arrive super early for good seats in the auditorium. Charlie and I met up with her after dropping off the big kids to their classes.

While we were waiting for the fun to begin, one of Lilly's friends' moms took this picture of some of the first grade girls and texted it to me. Lilly looked so beautiful in her Jasmine costume!

About 2 minutes after her friend's mom sent me that text, the school's principal got on the loud speaker. "We're having a problem in the first grade hall and we need all the parents to clear out." (Uh...that's Lilly's hall!) Then, thirty seconds later...."we need to evacuate the school immediately!" All of the parents and grandparents in the auditorium kind of groaned and then we started filing outside into the parking lot. I was a little nervous that whatever caused the school to be evacuated was in Lilly's hall. Soon a firetruck and two police cars arrived on the scene. Seriously!?!? Then we were all being told to congregate on the east side of the school in the field where the kids were gathered. Soon word started spreading that there was something in the air (inside the school, near Lilly's classroom) that was causing everyone to cough, choke, feel nauseous, burning their eyes, etc! Yikes. I located Lilly as soon as I could and was relieved to find out that she was just fine. She had no symptoms at all. Phew! Next, I found Tyler and he was fine too. All of the kiddos were shivering (it was VERY cold and most of the costumes I saw were not meant to keep the kids warm) and so were the parents, grandparents, and siblings who were there for the parade. While things were getting sorted out inside of the school, the principal made another announcement that the parade would continue....just outside on the playground. The kids promptly started following their teachers in a very orderly fashion and walked in a circle around the playground. I didn't really get a chance to see Lilly very well, but Tyler stopped to get a quick picture while his class walked by.

The rest of the morning was NUTS. After the parade had ended, everyone was still waiting for word about what was going on inside. The firemen were trying to figure out what caused the problem in the first place and were also making sure it would be ok to send everyone back inside. After about 30 minutes of waiting, they let everyone back inside. (Grandma Deb had left by then with Charlie...they weren't going to wait around in the cold anymore!). I was supposed to help in Lilly's classroom for their party, so I went inside with her. After about 10 minutes of being back in the school there were more people having those horrible symptoms again! So....we had to evacuate the school AGAIN! This time we waited for another 30 minutes before the school secretary came outside and announced that if any of the parents wanted to take their kids home for the day, they could. Tyler was ready to go home but Lilly needed some convincing. She was worried they would let everyone back inside and she would miss out on the class party. However, when I talked to Mrs. Frampton she said that she would like to reschedule the party for the next week. Tyler's teacher said the same thing. So, we were good to go...however, Tyler's tester was still inside of the school. We had to have the PTA president sneak inside the school (the fire department were still inside checking things out and were NOT letting anyone back inside)...and she got the tester for us! :) (Note: The cause of the mystery irritant in the air was never figured out. My personal guess was that someone has mace or pepper spray with them an it accidentally got sprayed when there were so many people in the hallways before the parade. I'm sure it wasn't on purpose.) When we got home, Lilly had a few tears because she was sad to miss out on Halloween fun. We got out Chutes and Ladders to play all together (Grandma too!) but that wasn't good enough for her. Luckily, Grandma had some Halloween painting pictures with her and so Lilly did those instead. We found out, about an hour later, that the students were let back inside the school...but not the first grade hall. It was supposed to be a half day of school anyway, so everyone was done by 1:00pm. I took Lilly and Tyler back over later to get their backpacks and to go to the Book Fair. We picked up some McDonalds and Arbies for lunch and made the most out of the rest of our day!

Halloween Day....
Sam had his last Miracle League baseball game of the season. All of the teams were invited to come and wear their costumes too! Sam was THRILLED to have a good reason to wear his Luigi costume for the first time!

Thanks to Savers, Amazon, and Goodwill we were able to pull off Sam's costume! He really had his heart set on being Luigi this year and he looked fabulous!

Sam was sooooo excited when he saw another fellow Miracle League player dressed up as Mario! It was an unexpected social skills lesson...and it went very well. Sam asked the other boy if he could get his picture taken with him...and the other boy agreed. For the rest of the game they were buddies! When it was Sam's turn to hit the ball, "Mario" got to pitch to him. The announcer man, who was also in charge of the music, saw what was happening he hurried quickly to turn on the "Super Mario Bros." theme music on the stereo system. It was AWESOME!

Tyler, Lilly, Charlie, Dad, and I all got to help with pitching and gathering balls too. Charlie was just happy to get some candy for helping. He loves Nerds a little too much.

We lucked out again in the weather department for Trick-or-Treating this year!

The kids were ok with me staying home to answer the door and let Dad take them out and about in the neighborhood. I wore a super cool 1980's jumpsuit and did my hair in a high side ponytail! I had a few trick-or-treaters ask me who I was supposed to be....my answer: "1980's Awesomeness!"

Strike a pose!

Dad got off easy with the pizza costume.

Here's my beautiful Princess Jasmine!

Doing her hair was super fun. I had to look up a few ideas online and then we made up our own hair-do. I also made that headband the night before!

Here is Sam in his full Luigi costume! He practiced that pose a lot!

Tyler's "phantom" costume was scarier once it got dark. He had a hood that he wore that covered his face. He also wore these glasses that made it look like he had red glowing eyes behind the black hooded face! Creepy!

I think Charlie's "fire fighter pose" was extra unique!

One of the first houses that the kids stopped at was giving out donuts! Charlie stopped right there and ate his donut on their front lawn before he was ready to move on! :)

Sam didn't last long trick-or-treating...but neither did Charlie. They came home after about an hour's worth. Sam only collects the three candies that he will eat: Hershey's, M&Ms, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Even after just an hour, he still had an entire gallon sized baggie full of his favorites!

Dad stayed out with Tyler and Lilly....they lasted for 3 hours! He even drove them outside of the neighborhood to go to some of our ward friends and other school friends' houses. They visited the Baldwin's, the Milne's, the Burtenshaw's, and even Miss Victoria (Tyler's dance teacher)....just to name a few. They came home with TWO gallon sized baggies worth of candy! Oh my goodness! How fun!