Cornbelly's !

Our kids had Friday off for UEA, and so we enjoyed a beautiful day at Cornbelly's, a fall festival at Thanksgiving Point. I am a huge fan of staying anywhere for almost any amount of time where my kids are self entertained. And this is the place! There just seems to be endless amounts of fun, and they keep wanting to go back to activities that they already did again and again. The temperature was in the high 60's, low 70's, and so incredibly perfect! It's days like this that are my favorites that I will remember forever. I love watching my kids play together and love one another and get so excited over simple things. There aren't any mechanical rides, video games, computers, etc. It's all "farm fun" at it's best. Later in the evening, we met up with some of the Williamson family for dinner and a dark confusing trek through the corn maze. Thank goodness it wasn't haunted - it's scary enough trying to keep track of oodles of kids in a dark maze!

Halloween Party...

Saturday night we celebrated Halloween with my extended family at our house. The kids are always so excited to hang out with everyone and decorate pumpkins and enjoy great food. My brothers brought some boxes full of "eyeballs", "brains", "guts", etc. for the kids to put their hands in and feel. They hadn't ever done this before and it was fun to see their grossed out faces, and they really believed what they were touching were real body parts. Caleb brought dry ice which was the big entertainment of the night and was put in the wassail and inside of the carved pumpkins so they looked like they were breathing smoke. There was talk of making a dry ice bomb, but luckily, that didn't happen. Our boys don't need any more mischevious ideas presented to them - they come up with enough on their own! We had some candied apples I saw on Pinterest that I'm ADDICTED to! You dip an apple in caramel, then white chocolate, then sprinkle cinnamin and sugar all over it. Yes, it is a sugar overload and unfortunately I'm into those! Our family Halloween party is my favorite part of Halloween, and I'm so glad we are all close enough to get together and fun together! Thanks to Fred and Jill for the fun Halloween decorations, book, and airplanes. The kids LOVE them!

Fun Witches !

On Friday after the boys got out of school, it was a beautiful day and we decided to go check out the witches at Gardner Village. It's a perfect Halloween activity for younger kids because it's the fun Halloween - not spooky Halloween! There was a scavenger hunt with about 25 clues on it such as "find the location of the witch who is reading the newspaper". After completing the hunt, the kids got to have a chocolate chip cookie from the bakery there. It was 75 degrees outside - mid October- in Utah! It was amazing, and we just couldn't let the day go to waste. I loved being with my little munchkins and witnessing their child like amazement of all the festivities. I keep telling James we've got to take advantage of every opportunity we have with them because they are growing up way too fast :(

Tooth Fairy Drama !

Jackson has been loosing his baby teeth left and right these past few weeks. He has built up quite a collection of teeth since sometimes the Tooth Fairy leaves his teeth behind. One morning a few weeks ago he burst into my room and woke me up to say "Sarah, I'm beginning to think that the Tooth Fairy isn't real! This is the fourth night in a row she hasn't left me any money!" Uhhh... I'm fired!

So today, Jackson' tooth collection mysteriously went missing. He was pretty distraught, and he spent a lot of time looking all through the house for them while quizzing Alanna and Paul on their whereabouts. Finally, Jackson found several teeth under Paul's pillow. Paul, of course, was thinking that he could reuse his brother's teeth to get some of his own money from the Tooth Fairy! We had a hard time scolding him for his actions because it was quite a clever idea he had :)

The "Best Weekend Ever"....

We spent the whole weekend with extended family, and on the ride home Sunday night, Jackson said "Paul, wasn't that the best weekend ever?" I love it! It started out with Caleb and Lauren coming down to babysit them while James and I finally had a date night to a really fun party. They spoiled the kids (as usual), and took them to see the "UP" house here in our town, and to Wendy's, and to the park.

Then on Saturday, we headed up to my parent's house where we got to hang out with Luke, Andrea, and little cousin Peter. I tried really hard to get a good picture of Blaze and Peter playing together, but of course, they don't really "play" together yet! Grandma Ce-Ce set up a tent across the creek in their backyard to play in, and they caught several kinds of bugs to bring home. We also had two campfires where the kids stuffed themselves full of marshmallows - I'm told that James fed Blaze 5 big marshmallows! Conference weekend is always a great time to relax and spend time with family while being spiritually edified. I really wish it happened more than twice a year!

Pinkalicious!

If you have a little girl and you don't know what Pinkalicious is... you should run to your library and check out one of the books. If you can get your hands on a copy that is! They are the cutest books that every little girl loves because it's about all things girly. Alanna's cousin, Kaia, had a Pinkalicious party last week. The girls were just so adorable, and of course, everything had to be pink - including a buffet of pink treats like marshmallows, cookies, wafers, etc. She had a blast, especially since three of her little cousins were in attendance.

There is also a picture of some "Pop Arty" beads that Kaia gave Alanna for her birthday. She LOVES them. They are like the girl version of Legos. These kept my kids busy during conference so they could have something to occupy their busy little hands, and hopefully, some of what was said was absorbed too!

Family Pictures 2011

Family Pictures 2011 - flash slideshow maker