Trick-or-Treat!

I find myself making plans and play out how things will go, in my mind. Unfortunately it often backfires and what I imagined is quite different from the reality. Like how it was going to be trick-or-treating this year. I imagined Mcayden dressed in his little fireman costume, wearing his hat and happily stashing away the candy in his bag and smiling for some great photos.
The reality was that Mcayden refused to wear his hat, woudn't smile for any pictures and wanted to eat every piece of candy as it was handed to him. He threw a fit when we would tell him the candy needed to go in his bag until we got home.
Even though it didn't go as smoothly as I had imagined, we did have fun. Mike, Charity and Kadon were with us and Mcayden and Kadon had fun trick-or-treating together. Kadon made us laugh, as he loaded up his pumpkin bucket with goodies. We were glad the boys were able to be together this Halloween.

Mcayden and Kadon were so darling knocking on the doors and saying, "trick-or-treat". We were really proud of them as they politely thanked the people and would say, "Happy Halloween" as they left (with some prompting).

When we got home, we dumped all of his candy on a sheet and Mcayden got to check out all of the candy he got. He looked very pleased.

Addison wanted to eat all the candy she could get her little hands on!

Something From the Farm

I love this time of year. I love the cool air. I love the smell of pumpkins and cinnamon. I love making yummy soups. I love picking out pumpkins and running through corn mazes. I love going to haunted houses and clinging onto Rick. I love the candy at Halloween (a little too much). I love costumes and costume parties. I love that Rick cleans out the pumpkins (my least favorite part) and we make jack-o-lanterns together every year. I love that we get to snuggle up a little more under the covers to stay warm. I love it all!

We really like supporting local farmers and have bought our pumpkins directly from farms since we got married. So, this year we went to a local farm called, "Something From the Farm". Mcayden pulled the wagon around as we hunted for "the perfect pumpkins". There sure seemed to be a lot of green pumpkins this year.

Church Halloween Carnival

Our ward had a Halloween carnival on Saturday night. They had all kinds of fun games set up around the gym and fun prizes and candy! Mcayden did an awesome job at the bean bag toss, the darts and the penny toss. He won some fun prizes. He loved doing the "cake walk" and won a cookie both times. He was in sugar heaven.Towards the end of the carnival, they had a parade for the kids and gave out awards for different costumes.

I was a doctor, Rick said he was the "adult supervision" and Addison was Pooh-Bear dressed as a honey bee.

Treatsylvania

We took Mcayden and Addison to "Treatsylvania" at a local park/farm. It's a huge, year-round park (and farm) where you can take your kids to see the animals and feed them, play on a playground, go walking or biking on the trail, etc.
We bought tickets to their Treatsylvania this year, along with some friends, and went trick-or-treating. It was perfect for kids Mcayden's age. He had such a good time!
Local businesses had little "doors" throughout the park (along a path you follow) and the kids would knock on the doors and trick-or-treat. We also got to go on a hay ride and have cookies at the end. It was so much fun.

Beanies

We were so excited to get a special package in the mail from our dear friend, Auntie Val! She made these adorable beanie caps for our kiddos (and one for both Rick and I) and sent them to us from WA! They are great! I wish the pumpkin one was a little bigger so I could "borrow" it from Addison. :)

Wrap

A friend of mine made a wrap that she carries her baby in and convinced me that I could make one easily. So, I bought the fabric, measured hers and made one. I am not a seamstress, so this was a pretty big deal! It turned out really cute and Addison loves being in it. We used it the other day, while in a nice toy store, and a lady said, "I love your Moby Wrap!" Moby wraps are ones you can buy--these things get expensive! You can find different wraps from like $30-95 depending on the brand. Mine cost about $10 to make!

Solids

Addison is now eating solids. It is quite a messy process to get the food to stay in her mouth! She likes to spit it out and blow bubbles as she eats! She is really excited to be eating food though! She also loves drinking water from a glass and will open her mouth wide and grab for our glass whenever we are drinking.

Halloween Decor

Mcayden has had so much fun doing Halloween crafts. Here are two of the latest things he has made.

This is a spider we made from Mcayden's hand prints. It turned out really cute and Mcayden thought it was fun to play with. He is not an arachnophobe, that's for sure!

Fireman Sam

Mcayden is going to be a fireman for Halloween, so I thought it would be fun for him to meet some firemen and see a firetruck in person.
Home Depot was supposed to have a thing for kids about fire safety on Saturday. So, I got two screaming, crying kids packed up in the car and we headed over. Clenching of the teeth... Mcayden was crying because he didn't want to wear his "fireman jacket" and Addison was crying because she was tired and ready for a nap. It was not pleasant.
We arrived at Home Depot, I pulled out the stroller, loaded up the kids and trekked into the store. Mcayden was excited at this point to "see firemen!" When I asked where the firemen would be, I was told the event was cancelled because of the weather. Weather? What weather? It wasn't raining, no snow, no wind. Mist. Mist, I tell you! I was so annoyed.
So, a quick "Plan B"... I took Mcayden to a nearby firehouse. He was able to meet a couple firemen, see their office and sit in the big firetruck. He didn't want to pose for picture, get in the truck or even stand by it, at first. Rick came by while we were there and he was able to get Mcayden to climb in the truck for a minute. Fireman Brian said the truck is a lot bigger upclose and scares a lot of kids. They were so nice. They gave Mcayden a "Junior Fireman" sticker and a cool coloring book.

CSU Homecoming Parade

We went to the CSU Homecoming Parade on Friday. There is something about a college town--there's such an energy around here. They had a lot of "Go Green" type of floats, which is perfect for this school since they are a "green" school and their colors are green and gold. They had a lot of creative floats...and candy! Isn't that the best part of a parade? We ran into another mom I had met a couple of weeks ago (at a girl's night out) along with her family. Whenever Mcayden would get skipped, as people ran by giving candy to the kids, her kids would bring over candy and put it in his bag. They were so cute.

Pastry Chef in the Making

Mcayden helped decorate some Halloween cupcakes for our neighbors. He did such a great job! He put on all the sprinkles and the little spider toothpick thingies. He was so proud. He is going to be a great cook someday.
We're going to do more little Halloween activities and get some decorations up around the house. I'll post pics of the other things he makes...

Bath Time

Brotherly Love

Mcayden playing "with" Addison. He piled all his little train tracks on her, but she didn't mind a bit. She seems to think anything Mcayden does is fun.

ZOO Day!

We headed down to Denver for a day at the zoo with a couple of my friends & their kiddos. There were three other moms and their kids in our group (all the kids are around the same age and play together every week, so they had a lot of fun together). It was such a beautiful, perfect day for the zoo. It was "free zoo day", so parking was insane, but once we got in the park, it was awesome. It really wasn't too crowded or crazy. We all had so much fun! It's a really nice zoo. Mcayden was really excited to see the lions, elephants and monkeys. But most of all, he wanted to see the zebras and play with some sticks he picked up. It was worth the drive.

Halloween Fun

Last Saturday, while the men were at Priestood Session (a meeting for all the men in our church, world-wide), everyone else met at the church for a chili dinner, pumpkin decorating and Halloween cookie decorating. It was really fun to see Mcayden get so excited about drawing on the pumpkin and decorating (and eating) his cookie.