Halloween

This Halloween I had two Cowboys, one Cowgirl/monkey depending on the day, and one Grand Tetons Park Ranger. Bridger and Rilynn had so much fun playing in their costumes it's amazing they are still intact. Maclain came up with his costume all on his own, I will admit I am impressed and surprised he stuck to it and had no desire to be anything scary or tough. My second Cowboy just happened to get caught. The neat thing about Maclain's costume is the hat. It happens to be my grandpa's hat and Maclain asked to borrow it for his costume, and he loves it and takes great care of it. It made my grandpa's day to think Maclain would be interested in something of his. My grandpa went in for heart surgery on monday. He is doing good, his recovery is slow but steady, so it looks like he will be ok. Because of that this last week I have thought alot about what it means to age and what really is important, and what it is like to lose people we love, and what people want to get out of life. For everyone the story is different, but often similar too.

Pumpkin Patch

This year took us back to our favorite pumpkin patch to pick out the best pumkins. We have done this the last few years and the kids love it and talk about it as soon as the fall comes. Rilynn and Allie had so much fun on the teeter totter it was hilarious to just listen to them laugh.

On our tactor ride to the pumpkin patch the trailer blew a tire so we had to off load and join another group. Because of the incident they let each of us pick two pumpkins each, so we had lots of pumkins this year, and we even carved them all. We had lots of neighbors comment on how many pumpkins we had lining our porch.

Normally I like to take pictures of our family and the kids in the pumpkin patch but this year I was out voted, and I got zero pictures because they were too busy choosing pumpkins.

Story Time

I had a really hard time with Maclain going to first grade. I missed him, he is like my own little peacemaker. All the homework was new too. It didn't help me missing him when he would say "It's so long, and I don't have very long to play anymore. I miss you and want to stay home with you everyday." Ya none of that helped. But now he likes it and I am getting used to it too. I will say the pay off is Bridger and Rilynn love him reading to them, and I get the kitchen clean all at the same time.

October Fun

We went with Bridger's Preschool on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. We went on a tractor ride out to the patch and the kids got to pick there own pumpkin and the driver cut it off the vine for them. This year you had to dig throught the vines to find the pumpkins because it has been warmer than usual in October, wait then three days later it snowed oh ya. Rilynn would not look at me to take her picture, she is so stubborn, but I thought it looked neat with the pumpkin patch behind her.

Bridger told me I had to get a picture of him in his favorite jamies, he even posed, there are times I wish they could be this good when something is my idea.

I got this sweater for Rilynn for a dollar last year, and I wanted a picture of her in it before it gets to small, so I had to trick her into picking grapes for me and had Bridger make her laugh, because if she knew I wan't a picture I would have gotten the stare. Whatever works, right?

This month has flown by, in fact this year seems to have flown by. Well this month we've been busy. Alex has flown a lot, I have been helping do a fall carnival at Maclain's school, we've had two field trips, two doctors visits, and too many things to do. We spent a whole day with family putting up tomatoes, and another entire day juicing grapes, and soon we will do apples yum. Maclain is loving school finally. Bridger can almost write his name, and Rilynn sings I am a Child of God. So all in all we have had a great month so far, I just can't believe it's really October already.

Photo Shoot

This is a self portait taken by Bridger the day he decided to sneak the camera and take lots of pictures of himself, his sister, and the cat.

This is the last picture he took of Oscar, needless to say Oscar doesn't get mad very easy or very fast, but the look on his face here, is anger and even a paw bat to say go away now......Poor Cat

This happens to be an earlier picture taken while Rilynn is driving her cariage over Oscar. Our poor cats tolerate soooo much. A week later Rilynn gave Mook a fur cut, luckily she didn't hurt herself or Mook, Mook just has a couple layers now.

On with Bridger's photo shoot, he follows poor Oscar downstairs to get a picture of Rilynn's toes with Oscar, you always have to have group shots.

And finally he gets a great shot of Rilynn after she chases Oscar back up the stairs. Bridger "she even put her phone down to pose." Who knows maybe one day he will be a fabulous photographer and to think it all started here.

Silly Kids

After all the trucks, trains and guns I find everywhere in our house, I feel bad for Rilynn, we don't have much in the department for girls, but through it all she has learned to hold her own. She doesn't let the boys push her around for nothing, and I guess it's ok for little girls to like monster trucks too. One day while I was picking up I saw her shoes laying on the floor, like always ( she has a thing for shoes) and even with the scuffs on the toes I thought we really do have a little girl in our house. As she gets older maybe she will be more girly, but for now this is as close as it gets.

THis is what you get when you ask our kids to smile........Cheese - Bridger

Fake smile from Maclain - he's finally beyond the Cheese.

And Rilynn, a straight face, because smiling would be too easy.

Where did October go?

Ok so our weather doesn't know what it's doing one day it's hot, one day it's nice, and the next it snows, and then it's cold go figure. Well the kids took full advantage of the snow, Maclain played outside in it for hours the Sunday it snowed, and Bridger and Rilynn continued it on into the next day too. They like being all bundled up now, but when they have to everyday it will be another story. This is Rilynn laughing at Bridger eating the snow.

This is the only second outside Bridger was not eating the snow.

We went on a field trip with Bridger's Preschool class to our brand new fire station. I learned Bridger needs to work on pretending, he would have nothing to do with pretend fire on his clothes to stop drop and roll, and there was NO way he was crawling under a sheet pretending it was smoke. He also was the only child there who would not give the fireman a high five. When someone writes a book on how to understand three year olds let me know. Rilynn on the other hand loved it, and now is totally facinated with ambulences she got in and out and in and out and cried when they shut the door. She could have cared less about the fire truck she wanted to be in the ambulence, I told her she better never have to ride in one.

This is Bridger giving the poor fireman the evil eye, even not in his full gear Bridger would not let that guy even help him out of the truck. I kid you not Bridger wanted nothing to do with the firefighters. It is so strange knowing him I would have thought he would be all over the tools and coat, but no.

Temple Square Splash

We took the kids on tracks to Salt Lake, and one of our stops was Temple Square. There are several fountains that kids love to throw money in and touch the water, and we are not the first parents to warn their kids they might fall in. I have never until now ever heard of a kid really falling in. Bridger wasn't even trying to touch the water he was just crawling around the side of the fountain, and did a perfect acidental roll into the fountain. It was so funny, we couldn't help but laugh at him. Because we were laughing he got so so mad. Lucky for us he has now learned this lesson the hard way all by himself. We are just glad he learned it in September and not in December while in all his winter gear looking at lights.

Wood Cutting

Last night we went to get wood up the canyon. Mountains in the fall are one of my favorite things. Last year at this time we had Isaac and his family visiting and they went with us last year to this same place. While we were there last night Isaac happened to call from Afghanistan. After to talking to him about how the weather and senery were almost identical to last year, it made me stop and think about how things in our lives change and how sometimes things are the same. It often is amazing to me how the hand of the Lord is sometimes very strong and changing and sometimes very subtle with no less power. Anyway even the kids helped out. Maclain and Bridger had fun picking up and stacking the wood in the trailer. But the best part for all of them was climbing on the giant pile of trees. It makes me happy that my kids love being outside doing whatever it is we might be doing.

Bear Lake

We went to Bear Lake over the weekend, to combine the TOU with some family camping time. It was a lot of fun. The leaves had started to change and we had some thunderstorms. It was beautiful. The kids had a blast playing in the sand and riding their bikes.

Top Of Utah

Alex and his brother Phillip ran the TOU marathon on Sept 20 in 4hrs. 19min. Alex also wore Isaac's number, because he ran it with them from Afghanistan.
We were parked right by the Logan Temple and even with the temple gate in the way I loved this picture. The boys were fighting over dads metal, so Phillip lent his to Bridger.

Snake

The other day we found a snake in our backyard. The kids loved it. Even Rilynn wanted to hold the snake. She kept smashing it, because it would wiggle at her, so she opted to hold it by the tail. Bridger wanted to keep it forever, I convinced him to let it go in the garden.

SPLASH!

We took a drive to Smith and Moore House, it was beautiful the leaves are just starting to change. We stopped to throw rocks and were trying to decide what the best part is, the rock, the throwing, or the splash. All of us decided it's the SPLASH, the bigger the splash the better. We had a lot of fun.