Fall to Winter

Fall was late and warm this year. It made for many happy afternoons playing and working outside.

The first week of November our maple tree finally turned gold and started dropping it's leaves. It was right on schedule with the cottonwoods behind our house. I love looking outside to see gold everywhere and wish it lasted longer than a week!

Our annual flowers were still blooming strong until the frost hit on November 7th. Then it was time to pull everything out.

I even kept our pumpkins as long as possible. Since they were still green they stayed fresh a long time.

One day when we were playing in the back yard the wind picked up and it looked like it was raining gold leaves. You can't really tell in this picture but they filled the sky and the yard, and the kids thought it was magical.

The boys collected handfuls of golden treasure.

And then, just three days later the cold front came and we saw our first snowflakes!

Play has moved indoors for the most part, which is fun on one hand and messy on the other.

The first morning there was frost on the ground the boys wanted to bundle up and stomp through it.

Luckily it was only a few days later that we woke up to snow, and they really had fun stomping around!

Jake had the idea to ride his tricycle through it, and Ty was dying to make a snow angel. We need to get these boys some new boots!

It melted fast but we had time after preschool to make a baby snowman, complete with a carrot nose.

This past Saturday was warm again, and we spent the afternoon doing odd jobs to winterize the yard. We just about got the vegetable garden cleaned out, and Mike took down the tramp for the season. Ty was pretty sad about it, but I can already tell they'll love getting it out again next spring!

Daddy also gave into pressure from all of us to put the Christmas lights up. Our neighborhood is lit up already! Some of our neighbors start really early, which of course gets the kids begging. I was just trying to spare Mike some numb fingers since it was such a nice day, but I have to say it's pretty fun to have them up!

Halloween 2015

Our week started with dressing up for Red Ribbon Week.

The girls' favorite day is wacky hair day. We ended up with rainbow hair and a butterfly garden. 

Ty did some dressing up of his own. He made a fun fox mask at preschool and added lots of detail at home.

The girls got to dress up for ballet. I'm amazed they could dance in these outfits but they made it work! Ella did inform me that she took her dress off to do the splits.

One of our very favorite Halloween traditions is BOO-ing. The week of Halloween it still hadn't been done yet so we took it into our own hands to get things going. Mike is super intense about everyone being in black and the kids soak it up.

The boys and I were the treat holders and lookout while the girls helped Daddy knock and run. We didn't get caught this year so it was a success! To top it off there was a full moon and we pet a black cat. Spooooky!

We waited as long as we could for our pumpkins to turn orange, but alas they were still green when it was time to carve. It was still worth saying we planted and harvested them ourselves! The kids take great pride in their pumpkin patch.

It was hilarious to watch them pull the tops off and look at the pumpkin guts.

Maddie's was Rainbow Dash, Ella's a Cinderella carriage, Ty's a spooky grin with triangle eyes, and Jake's a smiley happy face.

The Friday before Halloween was the school parade. The boys dressed up too to go watch the girls.

The kids walked by so fast I hardly got a shot and the ones I got were all blurry!

I helped at Maddie's class party with a spider web craft, and snapped another quick on of her holding still.

I didn't get to help with Ella's party but I stopped in to say hello and sneak a peak of my pretty princess.

That night we surprisingly had no plans, so we made a pumpkin pizza and the kids watched a Halloween movie while I cleaned house.

And then the Halloween festivities really began! Saturday night was our ward Trunk-or-Treat at the church.

By then we had Maddie's pony mane perfected.

Batman was all smiles, and muscles.

CinderElla was glowing in her gown and excited to wear make-up.

Jake was the cutest dinosaur I've ever seen!

After making the rounds the kids were happy to park it and eat their candy while Mom & Dad visited.

After this bun the bakery is closed for business... although Mike says he wants a baker's dozen! Oh my.

We spent the rest of the evening trick-or-treating in our busy and fun neighborhood, and trying to man the door (Mike likes to go out as a family, but that makes it tricky to hand out treats!) ;) It was a fun and happy Halloween!

Harry Potter at the Hutchings Museum

The two oldest girls on the left, Paige & Maddie, recently finished the Harry Potter series so we took advantage of an opportunity at the local Hutchings Museum to be witches and wizards! The two girls caught on to every nuance, but the younger kids still had fun checking out all the exhibits.

They planted baby mandrakes first.

Professor Lockhart did a demonstration on accessorizing.

We toured the hall of owls and saw three live ones and some puppets.

The kids had their fortunes told. Ella is going to get a wart on her nose and Maddie is bound to have nightmares. Ty is going to have a vampire suck his blood.

Ella and the boys were able to hold a baby bunny.

We watched a potions demonstration. Not pictured was a station where the kids could pop magic bubbles with their wands. On our way out everyone got a candy stick from Honeydukes, and we were chased by a dementor!