Happy Halloween

This year for halloween we decided to go traditional with our costumes: Owen was a Skeleton and Olivia was a witch. I, of course, did not take one picture of the two of them together. Brilliant Mother than I am. :) We did have a fabulous time, however and thoroughly enjoyed watching our kids have fun. Nate and I sort-of dressed up. I wore a witches hat and he wore his operation T shirt:

with a red clown nose. Sorry, no pictures of us either.
We carved pumpkins and spent a solid hour carving that skeleton (Owen’s pick). After that, we let him draw on the pumpkins and then cut out his drawings to make 2 more jack-o-lanterns. I think they turned out pretty good.
We had a great time at the ward trunk-or-treat and then we headed up to the Puzeys for some old school door to door trick-or-treating fun. Owen and Kate and the other little neighbor kids went running from door to door. They are all about the same age, and it was cute to watch the little pack of them go. Olivia wanted to walk the entire way as well, which left her and I (or her and Nate...as we took turns) lagging behind the group. She did get to toddle her way up to a few doors and say trick-or-treat, which she really loved. She wants to do everything Owen is doing these days.
We went back to Puzey’s for a movie and some serious candy counting. It was really cute.
We had a Happy Halloween and hope yours was too! :)

Trip to Washington

We took our annual fall pilgrimage to the northwest again this year, visiting my family. We always make sure to go to Gordon’s pumpkin patch and we always have a great time. Here are some of this year’s pics. To see last year’s pics look here.

Gordon’s also has an apple orchard, so we (after Karen pointed it out to us) took a few more pictures...

Another favorite stop is Christensen’s Nursery. They have beautiful plants and a really cute home boutique to boot! This year we went out back and found an old school house and some farm animals too. It was a fun place to wander around with the kids.

We also stopped by to visit Grandma and Grandpa at the Bishop’s storehouse. They serve there during the week and we took the kids by to say hello. They got to ride on carts and Owen and Grandpa even got a ride on the forklift! We love to visit Grandma and Grandpa. :)
Sorry...all I had was a phone picture...

We also like to take a few days to stay at Slesk Orchard and Gardens. This year Jamie hosted Octoberfest again and much fun was had. We started the kids off with some sugar cookie decorating. Then they each got to make a ghost costume before heading out on a “ghosts and goblin’s scavenger hunt” that ended with a pinata! They LOVED it. Then we took them to the pumpkin patch where they rode in the tractor cars and this year the owner had a trebuchet. I hadn’t ever heard of one before, but it is somewhat like a catapult. He launched pumpkins into the sky and over the patch into the next field where they exploded. It was a big hit! Nate took some video, but I don’t know how to put video on my site yet, so you can look up pumpkin trebuchet on youtube and find some videos of just what it looked like. It was a lot of fun.
We made some apple cider, and it is oh so delicious when it is that fresh. YUMMM!
They guys built a lean-to on Jamie’s garden shed and also had a hatchet throwing contest. You know... man stuff. A good time was had by all.

Pumpkin Patch

We set out for a really cute pumpkin patch, and ended up in the wrong place. Luckily we found a cute church with a lawn full of pumpkins where we could snap a few fall pictures of the kids and buy our pumpkins too.

Botanical Garden

We had a fun day at the Botanical Garden a few weeks ago with Lori and Reagan. We had never been before but the kids and I loved it! The flowers were beautiful and it is fun to let the kids run around and play outside. They also had hundreds of scarecrows up for the holiday season, which was fun to see. We had a great time. Thanks for letting us tag along, Lori! :)

Pink Tutu

Please indulge me... Buying pink tutus is one of the great things I get to do because I have a little girl...

Olivia LOVES her little girly toys. She loves her tutu and her purses, her jewelry and her sunglasses and hair pretties... and I LOVE that about her.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Today was Nate’s birthday! Happy Birthday Sweets :) Nate found a really great last-minute deal on U2 tickets and we decided to go for it. It was really fun! (That’s Bono on the screen above.) Pretty sweet way to celebrate your birthday if you ask me.

Words

This is one of our favorite toys and it is used almost daily. I love it. Owen spells words by himself and Olivia dances around to the tune of the ABCs.