Halloween Week

 We had such a fun and busy last week of October! We started our week off by carving our pumpkins. It was funny to see both girls' grossed out faces about the guts though after the initial reaction they both had fun cleaning out their pumpkins. I carved Baylor's into a kitty face and Paige designed hers on paper and then drew it on the pumpkin. It was a little hard for her to cut through the pumpkin so Nate stepped in and helped her out. They both turned out so cute!

All lit up along with Nona's pumpkin.

 Then the day before Halloween we had our ward trunk or treat. It was amazing! They had a Harry Potter theme and the nerd side of me loved every minute of it. There was a lot of preparation for it that I helped out with which was stressful but a lot of fun. Since it was an early release day, Hadlie (Paige's friend from church) came over and played with Paige until it was time to go to the ward party. All three girls dressed up as the most cute princesses ever!

Elsa and Anna

A very cute little princess in training

 For the ward party the young women were in charge of the wand shop- Ollivander's. I volunteered to take charge since I am a Harry Potter nerd and love the party planning/decorating part of ward parties. Last Saturday some of the young women came over to my house and helped paint about 100 wands. They were all slightly different and I loved the sparkly metallic colored paints. I also prepared all the decorations for our wand shop and loved all the little details of Harry Potter that I got to add in.

The gym was decorated as the great hall with each table decorated for each house in the Harry Potter series. They had butter beer and it was a potluck. There were also sorting hat cupcakes that had different colored frosting in the middle to sort you into your house. There was at least 200 people there. So it was crowded, busy, and so much fun! We all ate dinner and then there was three different rooms that you could go to. The wand shop, the other side of the gym for games, and the picture room. 

For the wand shop the young women ran it while I controlled traffic and told everyone where to go. They went up to the table and received their wand. The girls had fun with it and had different options to see what wand fit the young wizard. Then they got to practice two spells with their new wands. The first was lumos/nox. Lumos is turning the light on and nox is turning it off. So I got a remote controlled candle and one of the young women would secretly push the button to turn the candle on and off as the kid did the spell. The other spell was wingardium leviosa which is the levitating spell. I had a feather tied to fishing line and a young women would secretly pull the string down which would lift the feather up. The lights were dim so it was perfect since you couldn't see the string at all. I loved seeing the magic and believing in the kids and their excitement of doing magic. Then as they left they each got a paper filled with spells and how to do them so they can practice at home. 

There were so many fun games that were Harry Potter themed in the gym. Anna put these together and did an amazing job. There was corn hole to free Dobby (you threw socks into the hole), pin the scar on Harry Potter, Quidditch ring toss, get the owls into the owl barn (white balloons with owl faces that you had to get into a cage with wands), and there was another one with glow sticks. I never went in there during the night since I was in the wand shop but I heard it was a lot of fun.

 Then the cute photo area. I should have taken a picture sometime during the night since I was dressed up like Hermonie but I was too busy but you get to see this cute picture of Baylor refusing to look at the camera. :)

Then it was trunk or treat time. The kids had fun going around and around until the candy was gone. I had fun passing out our candy and giving handfuls of candy out since we had a huge pot of candy.

 Then it was Halloween! We had dinner at our house before setting out for trick or treating.

 I loved watching Baylor's excitement for it all this year. She was walking right along with the group and excited to go to each house. Then it turned into Nate carrying her from house to house to keep up with the older kids but she still loved it all and loved getting candy at each house. She even said thank you a few times and waved some. It was just so cute! And Paige was all about it too like she always is and could have kept going for probably another hour but we called it quits a little after 8 so we could get some sleep since there was school the next day.

 We have SO much candy at our house now!

Happy Halloween!

Fun Fall Weekend

 A couple weekends ago, Paige didn't have school on a Friday since it was a teacher workshop day so we invited Addison and as soon as Nate got home from work we went on our annual day trip to Thomasson Family Farm. I knew that it would be crazy busy since it was a no school day but it turned out pretty good. The weather turned out perfect for our day there and we had lots of fun. Nate pretty much stayed with Baylor and followed her around and I followed Paige and Addison around. It was fun to see the smiles on their faces!

Tractor and zip line rides

Some goat petting and Baylor loved pointing out the animals.

Baylor liked the hay maze quite a bit. She liked going down the slides, climbing through the tunnels, and walking and climbing all over the bales of hay.

Paige and Addison both really liked the bikes. They spent quite a bit of time just going around and around. The bikes were too big for Baylor so while Paige and Addison were doing this, Baylor went with Nate to go look at and pet all the animals.

The corn box is always fun but it was super busy and crazy. Because of the craziness of it we didn't last very long in it. Baylor wanted nothing to do with it. I tried to have her go in it with me but she didn't want her feet touching the corn and she was only okay touching it for a little bit before she wanted out. 

 A very bumpy wagon ride and some pumpkin pictures

 It was such a fun little outing for the day and I love this fall time activity!

Then the next day we went to Issaquah and went to the fish hatchery there. The salmon are going through there at this time of year and some of them are HUGE. Baylor loved the fish and was so excited every time she saw one and her words for the day or "wow" and "ooh".

 I am so grateful for these three in my life!

 This cheese ball kills me with her faces.

 Always up for an adventure Paige- she loves to learn and explore the world around her. I hope she always keeps that quality with her.

 The fall colors right now are amazing!

 One last stop to look at the little fish before heading on our way.

 Since we were nearby of course we had to stop by Krispy Kreme. They were even making some donuts so more observing and learning for the day.

 And our last stop was to try out this awesome playground!

 This was right before Baylor went head first off the slide... oh well.

What he does to get a laugh out of me. :)

September Happenings

 I can't believe September is already over! It has gone by so fast and it has been busy. With our weekend getaways, I have volleyball and mutual every week, school functions, and other church things, it seems like every week is busy and a lot of evenings I am gone. Nate has been a champ with it all after being tired from work and watching the girls while I go and get everything done I need to in the evenings. 

Labor day was beautiful. It was nice to have everyone home for the three day weekend. On Monday we went to the annual Black Diamond Parade and then we went to Flaming Geyser State Park with Dale and Margaret for a little hike and picnic.

Trees and undergrowth like this is why I love living where I do. There are so many hikes around here that are just so pretty and I love, love all the green.

These two are always up for an adventure!

 We have had a couple of good thunderstorms this month but there was one that was so incredible. It was lightning strikes every couple of minutes and loud thunder. We turned off all the lights and just sat by the windows and watched in awe. Baylor, who is always on the move, sat in front right at the window with her blanket for a good 30 minutes just observing. It was pretty amazing to watch!

 September has been all about getting into a routine after summer break. After getting everyone ready and Paige to school, it is just Baylor and I and I love it. She is silly and fun and does pretty good about playing on her own if I am doing something. On Mondays we usually go to the library for their story time. On Tuesday I like to clean up the house. Baylor gets her play vacuum and plays around while I vacuum the house. Sometime during the week we go grocery shopping which she is getting better at staying in the cart as long as she is eating a snack. She takes a nap in the afternoon and that is when I get some other cleaning done, read my scriptures and Come Follow Me, get stuff done on the computer, prep dinner if needed, or watch a show that I want to catch up on. Baylor right now loves to have books read to her especially the books with animals. Another thing she loves is look out the windows at the garbage truck and mail car. She really loves the garbage truck and if she hears it she gets excited and runs to the window and watches him get everyone's garbage. She loves any big truck and the buses at school. I also love that when I leave or when Nate gets home from work you can count on Paige and Baylor waving to you at the window and blowing you kisses. It is the sweetest thing ever!

Baylor is so full of fun and mischief. She has the cutest cheesy grin with the little gap in her teeth. She is also at the stage where she loves accessories. She loves wearing Paige's shoes, wearing backpacks or holding her purse, carrying around a baby doll, and she absolutely loves sunglasses. She loves her nails painted and wearing bracelets.

 Whenever I am making anything in the kitchen, Baylor will push a chair over and try to help. Sometimes she is too much help but she does love to mix anything and try anything I make. The other day I made some nachos and I was mixing the sour cream with a little bit of milk and she loved to stir and then got her own spoon and was eating spoonfuls of it. Then once I put the cheese on, she kept snitching the cheese and toppings. She is constantly messy with food and just eats by the handful. Also if you look close at these pictures you can see pen all over her arms. This is also a constant of catching her drawing all over herself with whatever she can find. 

Paige is her oh so sweet self. I miss her while she is at school. I love her creativeness and just how she sees the world. I love finding cute pictures and videos that she has taken on my phone. She is doing awesome in school and her teacher sent her a post card in the mail last week telling us how great of a student she is.

Some crafts that she did. Oftentimes after I leave her room at night time she gets to stay up for a little bit and she usually crafts and creates. She truly can create anything she wants.

 This past Saturday we decorated the house with the small amount of Halloween decorations that we have. Paige loves to decorate the house and Baylor likes to destroy whatever we were trying to decorate. It took creative planning and putting things out of Baylor's reach.

Another advantage of the big windows in the front of the house is that we get a great view of all the gorgeous sunsets. Pictures never do sunsets justice but there has been some pretty amazing ones that last few weeks.

Last night Paige played school with me. She has the most amazing mind and can remember so many things from school. On the computer she created three different areas in school for me to learn. We did a science one on flowers where we discussed different flowers and their properties (her words not mine.) Then we did three different math problems where we used three different strategies to solve the problems. Last was a writing assignment where she told me the different parts of a complete sentence- she typed it all out for me to see (starts with a capital letter and ends with a period, finger space between words, and it makes sense). We corrected bad examples and wrote good examples. Like I said, she is pretty amazing with remembering all of this stuff and being able to create her own ones on the computer for me to do. Last we did a family art project that she came up with. She said they did it last year at school so we painted autumn trees with Q-tips. 

 September was a pretty great month! We did lots of fun activities as a family and enjoyed the small moments of life together. Each month brings new adventures and more fun times and memories made!