Halloween Night

It's here.  Halloween has come and we were so excited for tonight.  We decided to skip the usual trick or treating around a neighborhood because it was too cold and dark, so we headed out to Pinedale with my mom and siblings.  The fire department hosted a trunk or treat for the community at the fire station.  There was dinner, games to play to win candy, a cake walk, and then at the end of the night, some people brought candy and sat at their cars so kids could trick or treat.  It was a really fun night and we had a lot of fun going out.  Poor Nate had to stay home though.  For 3 of 6 years we have celebrated Halloween together, Nate has been sick and couldn't go out with us.  The kids were so cute.  Kayton was a ninja and Merrick was a super cute dinosaur.  Happy Halloween!!

Eating dinner

The cake walk.  Kayton really liked it and all of us won once.

Going fishing for candy

Plinko (Halloween style)

Feed the zombie

My little dinosaur

All who dressed up

Nate's costumes

Nate got dressed up twice this year.  The first day, was for the Linden Elementary School Halloween Carnival.  All the teachers dressed up as if they were a super hero and I got some pictures of Nate after he got home from school that day.  He was Music Man I guess, and he dressed up with music notes and the letter A on his shirt for Adams.  He looked so great and got lots of compliments.  He was so awesome.  

 Then on Halloween, he only had a half day of school so he dressed up in something else a little more comfy.  A hippie guy with a fro.  He looked pretty darn cute in that too.  That was all Nate got to do for Halloween since he didn't feel well to go trick or treating with us.  

Pumpkin Carving

I don't remember the last year we bought pumpkins and carve them.  I don't think it's been since I was pregnant with Kayton, but I really wanted to do it this year.  We bought two pumpkins and hoped the kids would want to help us clean them out and carve them.   Merrick had a little more fun helping me spoon out some of the seeds but Kayton didn't even want to sit at the table to help for more than 3 minutes.  Nate actually was ok with all of this though, because he wanted to carve some awesome stuff on it.  We decided to do Mike and Sully from Monster's Inc.  Nate of course did it the manly way with his Dremel tool.  He was up for like 2 or 3 hours carving their faces out, but I'm glad he did.  They looked so awesome and the kids loved the end result.  Happy Halloween!

They took over

It's mornings like this that I am grateful that I have a king size bed.  Sometime during the night Merrick came in and snuggled with me for whatever reason and then a little later, Kayton came in and found a place for himself.  Now the problem is though that they did this on my side of the bed and I got moved over to Nate's side.  I just like knowing that nights like this can happen and we can all still stay in our bed together.  They were so cute and they even slept in for a while.  

Show Low Trunk or Treat

So we found out this year that there is an annual Trunk or Treat that the town does down town and I was anxious to get out of the house and we knew some friends who were going, so we went.  It took a little effort to get their costumes on and get them to look at the camera.  The way it was set up, we started at one end of a street and stayed in a line with everyone else.  We stopped at booths that stores sponsored and handed out candy.  There were some vendors there just selling food and then they had some rock bands lined up all day.  It was fun and very crowded.  The kids got a lot of candy and it should last them for a while.  Happy Halloween!

One of the booths had a bowling type game set up where the kids had to knock down at least one pin to get their candy

Preschool lessons

Our cousin Rachelle just moved back to town to get ready for her wedding in the spring, and she got her degree in Preschool Education.  She loves it and so she has volunteered to come over like once a week and do little activities with him.  She is working on helping him learn his name and how to spell and also counting to 20.  She is doing so good with it and he gets so excited when I tell him that she is coming over to do an activity with him.  

Must be doing something right

Some days I wonder if my kids actually learn anything I try to teach them.  If the things I do only a little bit sticks with them and they see it.  It's moments like this where one day I look and he has heard me and figured it out.  My favorite thing right now is that Kayton has been really great at prayers lately.  Him and Merrick love taking turns and now Kayton has gotten to the point where he sits and folds his arms and closes his eyes.  He even makes the comment to us after prayer that he did it right.  He is so cute and so big, I just can't believe it anymore.  

Pumpkin Patch

When I was growing up, when it came to picking out pumpkins we would just go to Safeway and pick a good one to carve, we never went to a pumpkin patch.  We have been living near some now and we have tried to go and visit them every year.  I love getting to walk around and try to find a good pumpkin.  Today we went to one down the road and we didn't find anything good, but the boys had fun pulling a wagon around trying to find some that they thought were really cool.  

Nana and Papa visit

Today, we had a wonderful visit, from our Colorado family.  My Dad, Mom and sister Mikayla, were on their way to California to take Mikayla to college.  They took a detour and came through Show Low to see us.  We were so excited to see them.  Sadly, it was only a short 2 hour visit, but we were grateful for it.  We sat and chatted and played with the kids.  Mikayla ended up playing Mario Kart with Kayton and we got a gift from Dad.  He is now a published author with his first book and he gave us our personal copy of his book.  We are so proud of him and love that his words are in our house.  We love our family and wish we were closer to them so we could see them more.  We hope Mikayla has a good college time in California and we will miss her.  The kids loved seeing Nana and Papa and I'm grateful that they can know who they are.  We love you!