Recent snapshots

Here are some fun pictures I have taken of the kids in the last few weeks:

Jackson and Mason riding the "Vacuum Train"


Jefferson and Mason "in jail"


Jackson pretending that he was going to school

The House of Strep

Sorry I've been MIA for awhile now. I have a miserable case of strep throat and all of the kids also came down with it. Somehow Nate has avoided it thus far. I'll post more when we are all better

Halloween! Finally!

I know I'm a little late getting these up. I've been waiting for some pictures a friend took at our Ward Halloween Party, but it's been 2 weeks and I still haven't received them, so here are the pictures from actual Halloween night:

Mason was a frog and Jackson was a monkey:

Jefferson was a fireman (again) and I was a Pirate:

I wanted Nate to be "The Man With the Yellow Hat" but I didn't get around to finding a yellow hat and a pair of pants that would work and dying a white shirt yellow. I was just too busy everything else going on (like the Murder Mystery Party).

The night started off with Jefferson sneaking outside while we were handing out candy to kids at our door. After about 5 minutes of scary panicked searching, I found him around the corner. We had a little chat about not going out alone to go trick-or-treating and then we went back home and picked up Jackson and Mason and continued on our way. Jackson was definately more into trick-or-treating this year. He enjoyed going up to the doors and holding his bag out. He even said "trick-or-treat" a couple of times! Mason was stuck in the stroller the whole time, but didn't complain much at all. Jefferson had fun running from door to door and after about 30 homes was content with his candy ("Wow, I've got lots of candy!") so we returned home. Pretty short and sweet.

Poor Jefferson

I have to apologize to Jefferson- he inherited his klutziness from me. And just like me, he has trouble walking without tripping- especially up stairs. He came downstairs whining about something after we put him to bed and on his way back upstairs he tripped and managed to bust his lip open. He came crying to me in the family room where Nate and I were watching TV and I gave him a hug not realizing that he was bleeding (the lights were off). I realized that his teeth looked a funny color and then saw the mouthful of blood (and the blood ALL OVER my shirt). This is a picture of him the morning after he busted his lip open:

Then, the next day he tripped on the playground at school and opened back up his cut on his lip. The office called me to tell me his lip was swollen and had bled a little and they gave him some ice. I then told them that he had actually cut his lip the night before so not to worry about it being swollen. His teacher hadn't actually seen him before he fell since the fall at school happened before school started (the kindergartners play on the kindergartner playground between getting dropped off and school starting) so they didn't know he had come to school that way.

Jefferson's Kindergarten Halloween Party

I was able to help out with Jefferson's class Halloween Party. We sent up four stations for the kids and rotated them around the room. We did Pumpkin Bowling, Don't Eat Pete, Halloween Bingo, and cookie decorating (and eating). I was in charge of Pumpkin Bowling. I took a bunch of bottles (juice, soda, milk) and covered them with white fabric to look like ghosts and then the kids took turns bowling a small pumpkin trying to knock over the ghosts. The kids had lots of fun (and silly me didn't think to take any pictures of the kids in action).

Here are some pictures of Jefferson's class, another parent, and his teacher:

The Pumpkin Patch

The Saturday before Halloween we took a trip to a local pumpkin patch (Mabey's Pumpkin Patch in South Jordan- a great find!) to pick out some pumpkins and take some cute pictures. It was getting a little late in the season to be picking out pumpkins, so the choices were limited, but we still found some great pumpkins to take home. The kids had lots of fun running around the pumpkin patch and picking up pumpkins. Jefferson was ready to buy almost every pumpkin but we talked him down to his favorite two (one of which was "for dad"). Mason loved picking up the small pumpkins, and Jackson was fascinated by the tractor going around.

For FHE on Monday we carved the pumpkins. I carved a mean Jack Skellington and Jefferson had Nate do a traditional Jack-o-lantern face. Jefferson had fun scooping out the insides of the pumpkins. Mason and Jackson weren't interested.