Thanksgiving

"I'm a turkey that is scared of Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is the worst.  Farmer Brown was planning on a feast.  I'm going to be eatein.  Live is tough being"

"a turky.  People like Thanksgiving.  There favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the turkey.  They try to get the juiciest turkey ever."

I loved this Thanksgiving story Ally wrote at school.  I love her creativity and getting a peek into her mind.

"The pilgrums livd in inglind [England] they travld on a sip [ship] cold [called] the maflour. It was misrobol. They areivde at a land the americins gave them sedse [seeds].

Ally wrote down some of the things she had learned about Thanksgiving at school.  Love the parts of the story that stuck out to her and I love her phonetic spelling.

Our Thanksgiving!  

Steve was working on Thanksgiving, lucky for him we had a second full Thanksgiving the next day.  

Post Thanksgiving lounging.  I love Colton perched on top of James!

The kids had fun with Tiara and Jimmy.  Jimmy indulged Colton's endless desire to swing. Tiara and Colton enjoyed the post photo op lollipops.

Ally took charge and came up with a Thanksgiving craft that she and Eva did all on their own.  Love their little turkeys.

Eva's Turkey

Fall at The Ranch

Fall at The Ranch is beautiful.  The cooling temperatures and the golden light are even more beautiful this year with the green grass after some early rains. 

My favorite black oak, I love it's red leaves in the fall.

We fed our cats while my parents were out of town.  Colton was in heaven with the cats but only Pepper would tolerate his love.  I love the look of pure joy on his face.

He really wanted to feed Pepper by hand.

I love the carpets of crunchy leaves everywhere. 

Colton and I enjoyed a walk through the leaves.  He is just so cute.

Happy Fall

Visiting McKinley Drive

The kids love visiting our new house just as much as Steve and I do.  They love running around and finding "treasures".

I love showing them what all the different rooms will be and hearing their ideas on how their rooms should be set up. 

Being silly climbing the dirt pile.

They looked so cute up on the pile but Eva would only give me silly grumpy faces.

Colton loved walking around on our front porch.  I loved that it was all filled in, much safer for wandering kids and I was able to get better feel for the size of the porch.

I love watching Colton and Eva running around and playing here, it is truly home and I can't wait to move back so they can run around and explore here every day.

Creek Adventure

We invited some friends to join us for a little exploring around the creek.  We had had a pretty good rain storm that got the creek running high.  

The kids loved throwing rocks in the water.  We had to keep reminding them to make sure no one was in front of them before they threw (Colton was one of the worst offenders). 

It was a lot harder trying to keep 8 kids together and safe while exploring than with just my 3.  Still we had a lot of fun and even had a snake sighting (not sure what kind, we just knew it wasn't a rattlesnake). 

Colton sat down in the water and had to finish the adventure pants-less.  He didn't mind at all.  

October House Update

We came back from Idaho and suddenly our house had taken shape!  So exciting to see the progress.  I am loving our porch already.

A view from the back.

We took the kids to see the house and let them walk through the house, showing them their new rooms.

Its fun to see the floor plan take shape. 

The plywood finished on the roof and almost finished on the sides.

Windows in!

October Little Things

Enjoying the sunshine during a picnic lunch.  These two crack each

other up.

10.2.16
Eva told Colton "Stop being grouchy in the movie theater".  We were in the car driving across Nevada.

One of my very favorite pictures, Love. 

10.6.16
I said something to Colton about being careful and not bumping his head.  Eva said "you don't want to bump your beano"

10.7.16
Ally and Colton were making annoying sounds in the car.  Eva said "stop it kids, we are not home yet."

Eva got to tag along a fun girls breakfast at The Cowpoke for Aunt Kathryn's birthday.

10.10.16
Colton and Eva were fighting over duplos.  Colton stole one from eva, she marched off yelling "Colton, you are not my brother!"

Ally came running in from outside very upset.  She told me Eva called her a "bummer head" and wouldn't stop.  She was so upset but I could hardly keep myself from laughing.  It wasn't as serious as I thought it was going to be.

We stopped by Library Park after some fireplace shopping.  Colton was in love with the geese, the geese didn't love him nearly as much.

Daddy and Eva walking along the floating dock.  Colton and I took a less enjoyable walk on the dock, halfway across he refused to hold hands and attempted to run away from me.  I ignored his protests and carried him off the dock.

10.11.16
Eva said she wanted to be a grown up so she could fill her own baths and go on hikes by herself. Priories.

10.14.16
While driving on the ranch (on a cow pie covered road) Eva said "Why do the cows go potty here?"  I asked her where they should go, she said "way far away over there"

10.21.16
Eva said "I'm in my saucy pants", I think she meant in her "sassy pants".

Nana and Papa Cherry came to see Ally in the Primary Program.  I wanted to get a picture of them with the kids but I unfortunately waited until after sacrament meeting, this was the best I could get.

10.23.16
When we walked in the door from church Eva said "Monkey blankie!  I'm so happy to see you!"

Eva said "when I grow up I want to be a pizza man"

10.25.16
Colton can request his favorite TV show.  He says "I want Calliou mom".

10. 31.16
Eva - "This is a different kind of M&M mom!"
I looked over to see her eating skittles

Halloween 2016

Ally decided quite a while ago she wanted to be a mummy.  I thought it was a cute idea and I mistakenly thought it would easy.  We struggled getting her costume to stay in place and ended up being late to school.  Still she looked pretty cute. 

Colton and Eva dressed up to go watch the costume parade at Ally's school.  I had a hard time finding Superman pajamas in his size, but Walmart online to the rescue.  He is just the cutest Superman I've ever seen.  Eva was so excited to be a cowgirl.  She loved the skirt I made for her, until she put it on.  Just as we worked through that struggle it turned out she didn't like any of the shirts I had picked out to be part of her costume.  Apparently she had a very specific shirt in mind, it needed to have a picture of a cowgirl on the front of the shirt.  Since we didn't have a shirt like that we were able to compromise with her "amazing" t-shirt.

The costume parade is always fun to watch, so many cute costumes (and some scary ones from the older kids).  Poor Ally was having all sorts of trouble with her costume, though her trailing bandages just made her costume a little more realistic. 

We had some fun Trick or Treaters come to our house!  The brought us treats, and joined us for dinner.  This year I made a lasagna in the morning making dinner time so much less stressful, I need to remember this for next year.

After dinner we adjusted costumes and loaded up in the car to meet up with friends for Trick or Treating.

We were so happy to have a break in the rain!  Sadly it only lasted long enough for us to get a picture and head to our  first house.  A little rain didn't bother these Trick or Treaters.  They had so much fun.  Colton never wants to be left out, and even though he was a lot slower he made sure he went to every door that the other kids did.  I had a hard time convincing him that we didn't need to go up to some doors because the other kids had already discovered no one was home.  

Post Trick or Treating, soaking we and digging into their candy.  

I was worried that Ally would want to Trick or Treat longer than Colton or Eva, but right about the time that Colton started melting down Ally was getting tired as well.  

Ally used some of the extra strips from her costume to turn her teddy into a mummy.

After everyone changed into warm (and dry!) pajamas we watched Room on the Broom with hot chocolate.  It was the perfect way to relax and warm up before bed.