Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Duchesne with my family this year. We got up early Thanksgiving day to make pies and other goodies. Pumpkin, apple, and pecan with Ben's homemade pie crusts. Delish. Unfortunately everyone at my grandma's house was sick that weekend. It hit Olivia the worst on Thanksgiving day and she had a temperature of 105 degrees! The poor girl barely ate anything and laid on the couch all day. Here are a few pics from that day...

After dinner, all the girls got together for a nail painting party. Fun times.

Poor Liv got her toenails painted as she laid on me sick.

The next day, Millie and Opa got some serious coloring in. Poor Opa couldn't do anything without asking permission from Miss Boss first.

We went to Ben's parents house to watch help his mom dip chocolates. I spent more time snuggling the babies than I did dipping chocolates though. Breanna's baby, Katie Jo, and Sunny's baby, Elle, couldn't be cuter. And I'm the favorite aunt.

After chocolates, we went shooting in Indian Canyon. I decided shooting is a lot more fun when you are trying to hit a target. :) Usually I just go and shoot into the abyss and call it good. But I got pretty good shooting little cans of pork and beans. Fun times.

Snow Day

Right before Thanksgiving, it got down to 0 degrees in Pocatello. Then came the snow and it didn't stop for a few days. It was so much fun for the kids. Idaho doesn't snow plow like Utah. Basically they get the main roads and the freeway and leave the rest. So we went sledding in the road. Good times, but only because we didn't have to drive around town.

After all the snow fun, it was time for sitting by with fire with hot cocoa. The fireplace has become my favorite feature of this house!

This is Halloween!

I love Halloween! I always look forward to figuring out crazy costumes for my kids. The morning of Halloween, the kids ate ghost pancakes and headed to school. I showed up for the parade and parties a little later. They loved being able to dress up. In Logan, costumes weren't allowed in school.

Millie was the official "wand holder" during all of Andrew's games. All his classmates fawn over her every week and fight over who gets to sit by her when I volunteer. Andrew won this time.

After school, the kids got ready for trick or treating. Olivia chose to be a bat this year. Thank heaven that was an easy costume to make. I love that she always chooses interesting things to be. She has never wanted to be the typical Princess or witch. She has gone as a ladybug, an elephant, a bunch of grapes, a lion, and a raccoon.

Andrew chose to be Harry Potter. We borrowed a cape from a neighbor and I bought the wand and glasses at a Halloween store. Easy peasy. He lost the wand about 15 minutes into trick or treating, which was a big disappointment. He always takes his costumes so seriously.

Millie was a cupcake this year, which took a little more time than the other two to make, but was well worth it. I wanted to eat her, she was so adorable! She ran from house to house saying, "Happy trick or treating!" She was having the time of her life. It was the cutest thing.

We had dinner in a pumpkin that night, which thrilled the kids. I love that they are so easily impressed by everything I do. Haha.

Ben came home and dressed up like a creepy ax man, despite my pleas that he choose something a little more family friendly. I think his days of working in the haunted corn maze were coming back to him. He had all sorts of plans to scare the life out of unsuspecting children. Fortunately, we only had a few trick or treaters and I got to the door first. Our kids absolutely loved his costume though. Check out Millie's giant smile in this picture.

After about an hour and a half of trick or treating, Millie suddenly lost steam and started stripping her costume off and saying, "I want to go home." The other two could have gone all night, but we headed to a neighbor's for a little Halloween get together and played games and visited until 10pm. They all slept well that night!

Carving Pumpkins

We won the neighbor lottery when we moved into this house. The people next door are from South Carolina and only have one adult son, so they have taken us under their wing. A few weeks ago, she called me and asked if she could take the kids to pick out a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch. They all came back with pumpkins, carving kits, and frosties from Wendy's. They were thrilled.

It took us several weeks to finally get around to carving the pumpkins though. I think this was the day before Halloween.

Andrew and Liv did pretty good this year cutting out most of their designs.

We got a pumpkin face, a bat, a ghost, and a "creepy" pumpkin.