October 2016

October is Southern Utah is my favorite. The weather is absolutely wonderful. Here is a quick recap of what we were up to.

Ellie took to the ottoman to display her artwork during General Conference. Look how proud she is of herself! Unfortunately, marker does not come out of fabric so good. It's a good thing she's so cute! 

We spent a lot of time enjoying Grandma and Grandpa's pool. The kids have turned into little fish. Even Kami, who didn't like putting her head under water now prefers to take her floaties off and can swim short distances. Her favorite activity is to dive to the bottom of the shallow end to pick up dive sticks. Cason's favorite pool activity is to jump off of the jumping rock to catch the football.

Ellie just loves to waddle around and explore, but especially loves when Dan and I get in to play with her.

We discovered an awesome park in Hurricane call Grandpa's pond. There are tons of ducks to feed, walking/biking paths and an amazing playground. We are always happy to find new parks to go too!

There is a cute farm in Hurricane that does a corn maze and has all sorts of fun, fall activities for kids. We went for the first time this year and the kids had a blast, as you can tell from Kami's face. 

Cason could have played on this slide for hours!

They let the kids work the tractor and dig and move dirt which was so neat for them. 

They also got to ride this barrel bull. The poor kid that had to bounce them around sure got a good workout!

There was also a huge zipline that Cason was big enough to go on. He was so excited to get to do it and loved it. 

Dan took the lead at the corn maze and miraculously enough we made it through the whole maze without one wrong turn! Which I was very happy about because I remember getting stuck in them when I was little and how it seemed liked we walked and walked forever and never got anywhere. We passed a few groups that were majorly lost and had to go back out the entrance so we felt pretty lucky to make it out of there with everyone smiling.

Our sweet Kami turned four on the 23rd! I would be happy if she never grew up. She is so kind, silly, snuggly, and sweet! I could write a book of cute things that she says. She wanted to have a swim party for her birthday but I didn't want to worry about lifegaurd duty for a bunch of 3/4 year olds so we went to my parents on Saturday night and had a little family party for her with the Uhrichs. Her actual birthday was on a Sunday. 

She had an impromptu birthday party on Friday with friends. I didn't send out invitations or anything but it just happened to work out that a few of her friends could come over last minute and Christie and Carlie showed up with decorations and I had sugar cookies they could decorate and we threw a birthday party together in no time. She was in heaven and I had absolutely zero stress planning a party. Win, win! 

While the Uhrichs were here, Christie and I took the kids back to Grandpa's pond to feed the ducks and fish.

Luckily, the Uhrichs and fishing pros and were able to get Cason a fish no problem. 

I don't remember where this picture was taken or why I took it but I love it. It really shows how much Kami loves her daddy!

Kami had a Halloween parade at preschool and went as a pink superhero. 

On the last weekend of October, Amy, Christie and I took a quick sister trip to Seattle. It was so fun and a nice break for me. We spent some time on a beautiful island north of Seattle and went whale watching and sight seeing.  While we were whale watching two humpbacks swam right under our boat. It was pretty neat to see their shadows directly below us. We also happened upon this adorable farmers market with the most amazing pastries, snacks, jewelry, artwork, etc. It was so cute. I felt like I was in a different country. And my pregnant self was especially happy with all the delicious snacks and treats we picked up there. 

We also spent some time in downtown Seattle and had brunch on top of the Space Needle. It was amazing. The food was awesome and the rotating views were stunning. It was so fun to spend some uninterrupted time with my sisters for the weekend. They only thing that could have made it better was if Erin, Bryan and my parents could have joined us. By the end of the trip I was excited to get back to my little family. It is always good to get away every once and a while to see what it feels like to miss my kids and realize how much I love being a stay at home mom. I am so grateful for Dan who holds down the fort while I am gone without complaining. He is always such a good sport about me doing fun things like this, he knows I need it.

I got home just in time for Halloween. This year was as fun as always! Cason was a ninja, Kami a superhero, and Ellie a tiger. 

It was Ellie's first time trick-or-treating and she figured it out real fast. Anytime someone would put a bowl out for her to pick  her own she would take as big a handful of candy as she possibly could. At one house, they handed her one piece of candy, she looked at them, put it back in their bowl and reached in for a handful. I was laughing so hard. The kids had so much fun! 

The best part of trick-or-treating is coming home to see what you got and the kids wasted no time going through their candy. I sure love these little kids of ours. I feel so lucky to be their mom.