Pumpkin Patch...finally!

Kate's preschool went on a field trip to a pumpkin patch. It was a fun pumpkin patch, one I'm sure we'll visit again. The field trip was cancelled last week due to rain so we were glad it didn't rain this time until the very end of our trip.

Kate with some of her classmates- L-R: Ryleigh, Zander, Kate and Lanae

Preston not loving the hay bales, ha!

They took the kids on a tractor/wagon ride out to a pumpkin patch where all the kids got to pick out their very own pumpkin. Kate was taking everyone on a wild goose chase to find a pumpkin. We had to stop her so they wouldn't take all day!

This was Kate's favorite activity- jumping into hay! All the kids loved this. They would run around and jump into the middle. They were fearless.

Preston didn't want to jump into hay so he played in mud puddles and got his feet and pants soaked.

Corn pit where they buried each other and played with corn. I put Preston in it and he sank and cried. He didn't like it at all.

Kate coming down a slide.

At the petting farm, Preston followed this dog around. It eventually ran off- ha! They had 3 little pigs and their houses and I guess they normally have a little skit with the 3 pigs, but we didn't see it. The little houses looked cute though.

Eating their treat. This was at the end and it started to rain, well it was a downpour so we were glad we were done and under cover.

The kids loving the rain.

Kate has enjoyed preschool. It's been good for her to have structure and she asks all the time when preschool is. She's learning the days of the week so now she's figuring it out on her own. She started reading several weeks ago and we are excited for her. Her preschool teacher thought she was ready (so did my Mom) and so each week she sends Kate home with books for her to read. Kate wants to write and spell all the time too. Exciting times for learning!

Halloween Spooktacular

Halloween Spooktacular was our first ward activity to plan. We were nervous, hoping it would turn out well. I was more stressed about it than Kyle was, which is typical with everything. I even had a dream that no one came! My Mom offered to come over for the day to help out. I'm SO glad she did. My Mom, Dad, Jared and Marci came and helped out. They took care of the kids while Kyle and I took care of the activity. It was very nice of them. We couldn't have done it without their help. We would have had to hire a babysitter to watch our kids. There's no way we could run the activity and take care of our kids. Preston was clingy so my Dad followed him around and/or held him. Aunt Marci took Kate to all the activities per Kate's request. I have a good family. :) We had great helpers on our activity committee so we were grateful for their help and many people just chipped in to help clean-up. It was great.

My Mom and Dad

Marci and Jared

The dessert table. I made the eye ball and ghost cake pops (recipe from Pioneer Woman). They turned out good even though I forgot to add the eggs to the red velvet cake recipe!!! Sara shared this idea with me and for the activity we wanted people to bring "spooky" themed desserts so it was a great thing to make. Someone brought little mice (made out of truffles) and they were in a box and a sign said that the mice were sleeping. It was fun to see what people made.

For dinner we served baked potatoes, chili, broccoli cheese sauce, salad and rolls. We had homemade root beer and water.

My Mom made the broccoli cheese sauce (my fav) at my house. We were in the kitchen all afternoon making it and decorating the cake pops. We bought the chili to make it easier and accidentally scorched 3 enormous cans of chili. We were using a big pot from the church and it was an awful pot. I should throw it away so no one uses it again! Anyway, we needed more chili so I sent Marci to go get more and she got to Cash and Carry 15 minutes before it closed! Phew! In the meantime, I am trying to load up the car (Kyle was already at the church helping the young men set up the spook house) and trying to get 2 kids and me dressed in our costumes. Needless to say, I was 20 minutes later to the church than I planned. I was stressed! I also was driving with big pots of hot chili in the back and one of them spilled a little in our car. Gross.

The deocartions were simple. We had black and orange tablecloths with lanterns from the dollar store that lit up. It was easy clean-up for sure.

It was a good turn out and people had fun, which is what we wanted. After dinner, we had a little parade with the kids while the adults went to get their activity ready. Each auxillary was asked to do an activity for the kids.

The Young Men did a spook house.

Ewww!!! (that is awesome!)

The Young Women did a cupcake walk with a VERY decorated room! The Primary did a fishing pond and the Relief Society did a bean bag toss. The Elder's Quorum was going to do pumpkin bowling, but it didn't happen. We'll make sure they make up for it next year! :)

After the activities, we had the kids go back into the gym while people went to their trunks to get ready for the trunk-or-treaters. We had the bishopric judge the trunks and the winners of the trunks were: "funniest"- they had a Wii set up in the back of their trunk, "most creative"- someone was dressed like a tree and popped out from behind the tree next to their trunk, and "scariest"- had a super scary trunk. It turned out well and we're glad it's over! Now onto planning the Christmas activity. We'll have to make sure my parents can come over for that activity too! ha!

Toy Story Halloween

This year we got to celebrate Halloween early because our ward had Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday. Kyle and I were in charge since we are activities co-chairs (another post about that). My Mom made Kate's little Bo Peep costume (adorable!!!) and Preston's Woody costume is from when my brother wore it several years ago.

Preston was not too cooperative with pictures and/or dressing up. He was fine when I put these clothes on him, but he wouldn't keep the badge on or his cowboy hat (even though he was wearing it earlier and saying "yee haw!").

Little Bo Peep posing...she was playing with this cane at my Mom's house and acting like she was little bo peep...then she said she wanted to be that for Halloween...then my Mom said she'd make her a costume... She was going to be a black cat... Oh well, this is cuter.

Woody...he wouldn't keep the hat on so I would have my Dad put it on right before I took a picture before Preston could pull it off.

Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head...Kyle's costume was from when my brother, Jeff, was 10 yrs old...it was a bit snug (ha ha!). My Mom made mine this last week with my lips (yes they are a bit puffy, I just got collagen injections. hee hee). It was pretty funny and kind of hard to reach things being all puffed up. We both had 2 pillows to fill us out.

Our family. It was a Toy Story theme this year.

Trying to get a decent picture. This is how it really looks behind the scenes. :) Preston wasn't cooperating and I guess 2 year olds do that.

Fall is Here!

We have been dressing more like this now. Kate was bundled up for her preschool field trip to a pumpkin patch, but it was raining so hard it got cancelled until another day. We are definitely getting rain, torrential downpours at times. It's kind of cool to watch it come down like that. Kate and Preston have loved playing in the water after it rains. The other day, Preston went outside with no shoes on without me knowing and he was already soaking wet in a rain puddle by the time I got to him. I just let him run around more b/c he was having so much fun splashing in the puddles.

A tree with beautiful vibrant red leaves right out our front door. I love the colors of fall.

Preston and Reed watching Cars. This could be an advertisement. ;) Melanie, Milo and their family came over for a wedding reception and stayed with us for a few days. It was fun to have them visit us. Melanie highlighted and cut my hair into the wee hours of the night even though she was tired! Thanks! The men took the older kids to the local children's museum while Melanie and I took Reed and Preston shopping. We were going to take the kids to a pumpkin patch, but it was raining so we went with plan B.

The kids watching a movie after a long day of fun...we seriously didn't just let the kids watch t.v. all the time even though that is what all my pictures are of! ha! I liked how all the kids were SO into this movie. They didn't even look at me when I was taking the picture.

Kate making french bread with me. She was making me a pie. hmmm...with french bread dough. I'm sure it would be good. :)

On Saturday, there was a fireside with Sheri Dew and only 3 stakes were invited- ours was one of them. Melanie was here so she came with me. It was great to listen to Sheri Dew speak. I really enjoyed what she had to say. She talked about our influence in the world as being women of the Church. She asked us if we were influencing the world and pushing back against evil. Are we being influenced or are we being the influencer? Who is influencing you? She talked about how Satan doesn't want us as women to 1) know our identity, 2) never learn what the Savior did for us during the Atonement and 3) not know how to receive personal revelation. So in order to stand strong against the adversary we need to 1) Know our identity as women, 2) gain a personal witness of the atonement and it's power in our lives and 3) learn how to receive personal revelation. This is how we can accomplish the things we need to in this life and be an influence for good in the world. She said we all probably influence at least 100 people in our lives. That is a lot when you multiply that by how many good women there are in this Church and in the world!

New Finds

Lately, I've had some great finds so I wanted to share. I LOVE finding good deals.

Thanks to my mother-in-law, I have a new purse. And it's purple (they call it amethyst)! I found it at TJ Maxx and today was my first day to use it. I like it! It's a Kathy Van Zeeland and thanks to Melanie, I just learned about them. They are way cheaper at TJ Maxx, Ross or Marshalls stores.

Dee Ann also bought this dress for Kate and she wore it on Sunday. It was so cute and she loved her "butterfly dress". I found dark brown shoes to match at Walmart so I was happy about that. I had to go to 2 different Walmarts 2 different times in ONE DAY. It was annoying, but I had to get the right size of shoes (one Walmart didn't have her size so I was running from store to store!).

I also saw these adorable black shoes for Kate at Walmart and fell in love! They will be perfect for winter to go with all her winter dresses. They have a little ruffle on the toe and they are SO cute. You can get them in black or red. I'm all about the ruffles lately...on shirts...shoes...everything. I just got a black shirt for me that came with a ruffly plaid scarf.

Thanks to Craigslist I found this 4 drawer HON file cabinet for only $20!!! So CHEAP!!! They normally cost almost $300 so this was a steal for sure. It's basically new. We need to dust it off and wipe it down, but it's as good as new. I'm not a huge shopper on Craigslist b/c I get nervous calling/emailing the sellers and then having to go to their house to check it out...and then I feel bad if I don't want it. But I'm getting more brave. :) I was just telling my Mom that I wanted a file cabinet for Christmas and we figured we'd pool a bunch of money together to buy one so now I need to think of another Christmas gift idea! I was telling Kyle the other day how I wanted/needed one and he told me I should check Craigslist. So I did last night and the lady selling this file cabinet had JUST posted her ad that day. I emailed her right away and went to check it out this afternoon. I was lucky in my timing b/c other ads for filing cabinets were in the hundreds of dollars. So exciting!

Happy Real Birthday!

We celebrated Preston's real 2nd birthday on Tuesday. You can't celebrate your birthday too many times can you??! We had him open our presents and then he played with them all morning. After naps, we took him to the mall playground. He loves to play and climb on their soft kid toys. Then we took him to Red Robin for dinner (pretty much our choice, but he eats good there too!) then home for a birthday brownie.

This was right before he stuck his finger in the flame and burned it! His finger is fine. He didn't quite get how to blow the candles out. His lip looks good, huh? It's amazing how fast kids heal.

Baby Hailey

Jeni had her baby last week. Haily Jewel was born on Wednesday and weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. So far she is a good baby and Jeni is doing great. It's Jeni's 4th kid and so I hope Hailey is a good baby for her! Kate loved holding her and asked me if we could have a baby like her. :)

We've Got a Mission!

Preston turned 2 years old on October 6th and this last weekend we had a birthday party with his cousins at my parent's house. Preston LOVES the Little Einstein show so I made that his theme. I sent out invites saying "We've got a mission! We're going on a trip with our favorite rocket ship to celebrate Preston's 2nd birthday!"

I found this rocket cake online and my Mom made it. It turned out pretty cute. It was even cuter watching Preston look at it. We found the figurines at the Disney Store just the day before we went over to my parent's so I'm glad we had those.

Preston loves music so that is a big reason why he likes Little Einstein's. I had games centered around music and things they do on the show. The kids played musical chairs to classical music. I had to get some classical music off Itunes since I didn't have any (like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven).

While the kids played musical chairs, Preston played with this. ha!

I had them watch an Einstein show and Preston gets into it when Rocket "blasts off!". (If you have ever watched the show, you know what I mean.)

"Blast off!!!" Preston loved that all his cousins were getting into the show too. He had all these people watching the show with him. He was so excited. It was funny to watch him.

The kids painted and made batons so they could conduct music like Leo does on Einstein's. We also had them dance around to classical music.

Preston did a little of this too...opening presents. He got some awesome presents and loves all of them. I want to be 2 again and have no worries. :)

Blowing out the candle.

Eating his cake. Red frosting is messy! He loved the cake though. This is his new cheesy grin.