Leaves Are Falling All Around

Kids throwing leaves -- my favorite part of fall :)

Nov 5, 2015

Trunk-or-Treat

We crashed another ward's Halloween morning party for free donuts, candy walk, face paint, and a few other little kid games. Then at night, we went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat. The kids had a lot of fun, and of course, brought home more candy than we needed. We have the Hulk, Elsa, Lion, Thor, and hospital surgery person? (apparently if you give the hospital thousands of dollars for a surgery, they give you free Halloween costume). The whole month, Jake had said he wanted to be Spiderman, but right before the party, he ran up and got Hulk instead. He did end up switching back to Spiderman at night though. It's hard to pick favorite superheros around here... good thing for lots of dress-ups!

(Right before Halloween, Emma had a week off school for Fall Break, and we had yet another Red Air Quality Alert, which meant no outdoors with Lucas. We spend a lot of time on Halloween crafts) The kids loved it. 

Oct 31, 2015

Carving Pumpkins

First handful of guts.

 Emma did a lot better this year dealing with all the goop -- doing quite a bit of it on her own. Jake still doesn't like having messy hands.

 Last year I ended up doing almost all of the carving, so I told Emma she was doing hers. She was so proud of herself carving that pumpkin. She worked really hard, and did almost all of it. I only helped her a little bit towards the end. Way to go Emma!

Jake wanted to help a whole bunch, so he'd jab it in, and I'd try to guide it in the right direction while he saw'd back and forth, until he got bored and I finished it.

 Turned out pretty good!

 Happy Halloween 2015!

Oct 30, 2015

Cars Round 2

Jake went through a Cars movie phase, and would want it on almost every day. We were finally getting a break from it, and then Lucas started bringing me the case. At first, I just thought he knew it was Jake's favorite thing, so he wanted to hold it. He handed it to me one day, and I said 'thanks' and put it back down. Instant meltdown. I put the movie on, and he was again happy. Watched it for about 15 minutes, and then would go play -- it has now become his show  that the other two get tired of...  Here we go Cars round 2. 

Oct 29, 2015

Preschool Pumpkin Patch

Jake's Preschool field trip at the Farmstead. We took a wagon ride out to the patch with smaller pumpkins and each of the kids grabbed one.

 Jake, having just taken his cast off, still had the hardware in his arm that poked out a bit, and was told to take it easy. So he wasn't able to do many of the activities like the jumping pillow and slides, but he liked the cow ride and petting all the animals with Lexi (his best preschool friend, sitting behind him in the picture).  

Oct 20, 2015

First Lost Tooth and Cast Off!

Emma didn't have any teeth come in until she was about 13 months old, so I kind of expected them to fall out later than the other kids. Sure enough, she kept coming home disappointed that all the other kids were losing teeth. Finally, her turn came! She wasn't too thrilled about the pain that comes with loose teeth, and wasn't great about pulling on it. I gave her quite a while to try and get it out on her own, and then finally, I told her to let me wiggle it one more time, and instead gave it a good yank. She gave the classic, utter surprised look as she felt around for her tooth. She was thrilled to have a tooth to put under her pillow, and said I'd have to trick her again next time because she didn't like pulling them out. Mom fail moment? She came down the next morning in tears because the tooth fairy had forgotten... Me suddenly having my 'ah crap!' moment, asked if she had checked everywhere. I ran up with her, with a few dollars hidden in my hand, and hid them under her covers. I set an alarm the next time she lost a tooth...

Oct 10, 2015

And Jake finally got his cast off! He was pretty nervous and scared to have it off, and it took him a while to be comfortable with it again. We had to do stretches all through the day for a few weeks to try and get mobility back into his elbow. Easier said than done with a four year old who doesn't want his arm touched, and without knowing how much it hurts him, hard to know how hard to push him. Thankfully, we've got almost all range of motion back. And a gnarly scar for the girls. 

Oct 15, 2015

San Diego Vacation!

Day 1

Our first real trip without kids -- celebrating our 10 year anniversary and me turning old -- 30 -- in San Diego. Brad got a list of things to do/places to eat from some friends at work that used to live there. We got off the plane and headed to Point Loma Seafood. It was spectacular. It was right in the marina, so we sat on the balcony and watched a seal that kept popping in and out of the water while we ate shrimp, fish, and chips. Probably the best seafood ever.

Then we headed to the Cabrillo National Monument lookout spot and museum area. Amazing view.

Another amazing view.

Point Loma tide pools/cliffs that we walked around, and this is one of the seals that was at our hotel (Bahia Resort). At the end of every day we'd head back to the hotel and jump in the pool and hot tub. I was telling Brad, I've spent more time in a pool this year than any other (because of our neighborhood pool), but this was the only time I was actually able to swim and relax. Life with little kids that can't swim... It was SOO relaxing. We had dinner at the hotel, which was actually pretty yummy.

 Day 2

USS Midway. Massive aircraft carrier. It was pretty amazing running around all over this ship -- it has everything anyone could ever need on it. I think we spent about 4 hours there?

Coronado bridge -- amazingly long bridge. We were in the middle and I took one facing forward, then one looking back. It was huge.

Coronado Beach. Love. 

It had probably been 15 years since I'd been to the beach, and I absolutely loved every minute of it. Emma had requested we bring her back some seashells, so I walked along and found some pretty good sand dollars and a few random shells. I think she was expecting the beautiful spiral shells and such, because she wasn't too impressed with what I brought back :).  

Little fairy boat thing that runs from our hotel to another in the bay. They gave us a couple free tickets, so we had a nice little 30 min ride to the other side where we had a yummy dinner  at Tony Roma's?, and watched part of a Star Wars movie on the beach at the other hotel.

View of our hotel from the boat.

Day 3

Seaworld! I was pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed Seaworld. I would say the beach and this were my two favorites. 

Their whale shows, seal shows, and dolphin shows were amazing to watch, and the seal show just kept cracking me up. Definitely need to take the kids back for this.

Walking through the tunnel under the sharks.

Dolphins

Little sucker fish cleaning my hands. 

Also noteworthy, I had the best "Bold Tacos" here. Fish and shrimp tacos with yummy white sauce and pico de gallo (or something?). Amazing.

Day 4

I don't have any pictures from this day -- it was pretty stormy, so in the morning we went to a movie (The Martian), and walked around some shops finding little souvenirs for the kids in La Jolla. There was a slight break in the clouds, and I didn't want to miss my last chance at the beach, so we walked over and I played in the (cold) waves for a bit while Brad watched from the sand as he was a bit grossed out with floating kelp and seaweed getting caught on our legs, and dirty/sandy looking water. Then it just started pouring rain. Normally, not a big deal, but Brad had his laptop, so we dashed through the sand to the nearest little shop for shelter. The store worker laughed at us running from the rain when we were in our swimming suits.. It was pretty fun. Nothing like running in sand through the rain. I can't say how much I love the beach. Lucky for my kids, cause we are definitely going back soon.

We walked back to our hotel -- pretty cold from the beach water and rain, and jumped right in the hot tub. AHHH.

Day 5

Our last "place to eat" Tom Ham's Lighthouse (pretty fancy, also right on the water) wasn't quite open, so we walked along the water watching little baby crabs running around. Took one last picture with the water, ate some more fish and chips, and 

said good-bye to San Diego! We had such a fun and relaxing time, but sure missed seeing the kids. A big thanks to my mom for staying with them, and putting up with a sick and teething Lucas -- she bolted out of here pretty quick ;). 

*Another note to self -- get pictures from Brad's phone*

Oct 1-5, 2015