Trunk or Treat

Why hello, distinguished colleagues.  We had a fun week getting through final preparations for Halloween, though it did a get a bit crazy and messy in the house as we blitzed at the end.  Everything went well though.  Last night was our ward Halloween party!  We do a chili cookoff and trunk or treating. We had a good time, and were all in our Grinch costumes!  Well... except Grayson, but once he was in the Pikachu costume there was no being anything else.

We got our first snow of the year this past week.  It wasn't much, and didn't stick for very long.  Anyway, that meant we needed to do our final harvest, where we pick every tomato so they can ripen in the house.  Grayson is an expert tomato finder and was still picking some after the rest of us thought we got them all!

Brooke got this cheetah chair... for her birthday last year maybe?  I don't remember.  Anyway, when I put Grayson down for his nap it was sitting on the floor next to his crib.  It was in with him when I got him up.  He reached through the bars and pulled it up into his crib!  Gotta be careful with this kid.  Fortunately, he still hasn't tried to climb out of his crib.

The girls dance studio moved to a new location over fall break, and they were both very excited to go to the new studio.  Here's Brooke and Eleanor when they got to their dance class.  I don't remember seeing this decoration up when I took Winry the next day... but anyway, it's a nice new space.

Back to the garden, we also harvested the front yard.  There were a few carrots and a beet out there.  The girls each got to pick a few.  I think that's the first time we've grown carrots, and it was pretty cool to pull them.

Grayson loves to go down the stairs "lightning speed."  That's what he says when he does it.  He basically just slides down the stairs really quickly, and I always worry his stomach is going to get a rug burn, but so far he's been okay.  He's done this for a long time, I just never thought to capture it until now.

We finally went through the stuff Oriah sent our way, and there was a Buc-ee jump suit in it!  We put Grayson in it, and he had fun crawling around and stuff for a little, but eventually wanted out.

He next got into the pikachu costume, and there was no getting him back after that.  He loved it, so that kinda killed the plans of him being Max (the Grinch's dog) with our family.  If I find it I'll clip a pokeball to my Santa belt when we go trick or treating tomorrow night.  Anyway, here he is at the girls school trunk or treat.

We didn't take many pictures there it turns out.  We got slide passes for both of the girls, and while they were waiting in line it deflated... Winry was very upset about it, but the good news is it wasn't a hole, someone just unplugged the fan.  So they blew it back up and were back for business.

When we got home the girls looked through their goodie bags and Winry found out that she got a pair of disguise glasses!  She loves them, and she looks really silly wearing them too.

On Saturday the girls had Cassie's Birthday party.  They live one house over across the street from us.  They did a painting there of a mermaid, and there was an extra spot so Grayson painted a picture too.  They all had a lot of fun, and I'm really glad they invited us to come.

They also had a mermaid picture station, and I didn't notice Brooke's shoes poking under the bottom until I was putting the picture in here... oops.

And then last night we went to the ward trunk or treat.  It was a pretty crazy day because the young women were in charge of decorations and Monica basically volunteered to come up with the plan for all of it. So she had to go over and help and take a lot of the things.  They did a superb job with the decorations.  My favorite was the ofrenda.  The decorations were Day of the Dead themed, and we had a ward family history challenge leading up to the party, so we invited everyone to bring a picture of an ancestor they did work for to put on our ward ofrenda!

Meanwhile, at the photo station, I had to be a Grinch and try to scare Cindy Lou and snatch the Christmas tree!  Also, look at Winry's eyes, she's standing in front of me, but somehow, a good Christmas tree always knows.

This morning while we were getting ready for church Grayson was doing his block truck.  It has different shaped blocks and different holes to put them in, and apparently this was the easiest way to interact with the far side of the truck.  Oh to be young again!

I think that's everything I've got for now.  Tomorrow's Halloween, and the kids are really excited.  Grayson has been loving playing with his candy (you can see that in the above picture too.  He was putting his Kitkats on his car track and driving them down), and the girls play trick or treat with each other.  We should all have a good time, and I'll fill you in on it next week.

Happy Birthday Grayson!!

Oh my just look at this cute little buddy!  It's crazy to think that Grayson is already 2 years old!  We had a good week, and a great birthday weekend.  Grayson was really happy and a lot of fun!  He can be pretty crazy and high energy, but he loves to be silly and really brings a great energy to our home.  He's been such a joy to have around, and always keeps us on our toes!  Birthday cakes included!  If you don't watch the video, he grabbed his candle when we said to blow it out, but fortunately didn't seem to get hurt at all.

On Monday I took the kids to the park in the morning.  Brooke has been working really hard on the monkey bars, and she made it all the way across for the first time!  She went across three times that morning.

In the afternoon I took Grayson on an adventure walk.  Over by the creek there are some dirt trails that wind through the plants, and I thought he'd really love to go walk around through it.  While I was right about that, we saw the creek at one point, and all I heard about after that was how he wanted to go climb in the creek and go swimming.  It was a bit cold, and we were a bit in normal clothing...

So we went to the pool on Tuesday!  All of the kids had a really great time swimming.  Grayson stayed in the shallow end by these water things the whole time, and Winry went down the slide on the playground basically the whole time (about 90 minutes straight).  Brooke was swimming around all over the place, and I don't really know what she did the whole time.

That afternoon Grayson and I went on another adventure walk.  He's really been loving walks lately.  We stopped by the pig that we found the day before.  I told him not to touch it, but he did bend in real close to say "hi."

On Wednesday Niki came out.  We picked her up in the morning, and the kids had had so much fun the day before that we went swimming again!  On Thursday we headed to the zoo.  It was a pretty good animal sighting day, and we had a lot of fun.  We got to ride the carousel. 

And we even found an escaped big foot!  The kids really liked him, and all gave high fives.  It was really cute, and Niki got a video!  Only, we realized later that she actually started the video when she thought she stopped it, so instead we ended up with a 3 minute video of us walking around the zoo...  I won't include it.

Monica has been working on Halloween costumes and finished Brooke's and Winry's this week.  We're Grinch theme, and Brooke is Cindy Lou Who, and Winry is the Christmas tree.  I'll be the Grinch, and Grayson will be Max, his dog.  Monica will round things out as a snow flake.

And.... apparently that was all we recorded outside Grayson's birthday... We let him open presents after breakfast on Friday.  He's suddenly really fallen in love with Bluey, and wanted a Bluey birthday party.  As such, his presents ended up Bluey themed.  He got some toys, books, and shirts for it.

Speaking of books, there's no better place to get them out than the middle of the floor in the living room.  We know how to have a good time.

For Grayson's birthday we went to Monkey Bizness in the morning.  It's essentially an indoor playground.  They had lots of stuff, some playgrounds, some inflatables, kid cars, you name it.  Just all kinds of kids stuff, and everyone had a great time.

Here's Brooke climbing up this... volcano or something.

And the kids really wanted me to come in the bounce house with them, so I went in and sat on the side to try to be out of the way, though I did bounce a little with everyone.

Niki was there with us too!  She came out on Wednesday to help out for a few days..  It's fall break this week, so we got to spend quite a bit of time together.  Here's Niki with the kids just before we left.

When we got home I put Grayson down for a nap, and then when he woke up we headed out for an adventure.  He's really loved going for walks this week, and really loves walking in the flood path and along the dirt paths by our house.  He really wanted to see the pig, but it was gone!

There are a bunch of places with rocks set in cement, and he loves to walk from rock to rock with my help.

For dinner we had Spice Kitchen because he loves their Chicken Tikka Masala.  He ate some, but apparently got a piece of chicken he didn't like or something...

and ended up eating a pouch!  It was also family movie night on Grayson's birthday, so he got to pick what we watched and of course picked Bluey.  He sometimes pays attention, and sometimes looks for alternate activities, like riding a cat.  We also had some balloons out all day.  Mostly the kids just really like balloons, but now of course they have to play keepy uppy.

After a few episodes, we had cake and ice cream, and Grayson quickly realized that silverware was overrated.

But he was having a fantastic time making everyone laugh, including himself!

Grayson and I did a little Bluey dancing before I took him up for bedtime.  He really seemed to enjoy it.

After Grayson went to bed, the girls did some Halloween nails with Niki.  She mailed these out a while ago, and the girls have been really excited to put them on.  When she came out she brought some for herself as well.

The girls both really love their nails.  They were stick on, so we did that and left it to see how long they would last.  I believe we've put a few back on with nail glue at this point in time, so they lasted a day or two.

Saturday was Grayson's birthday party.  We were getting decorations ready and that included a Bluey table cloth.  When he saw it go on the table he just had to climb on, and then laid on the table for at least a half hour until his party started!

The party was a lot of fun.  We had lunch, and then a piñata.  I think Grayson was holding back when he took his swings because he's pretty good friends with the sun piñata.

The kids played in our leaf pile before we opened presents in the back yard.

And came in for cupcakes!  We did a little candle blow out coaching before singing happy birthday this time, and he did a great job blowing out his candle.  No hands involved.

And here's everyone who came in front of a Bluey banner that the Cammacks brought with them!

We had a really great week, and it's crazy that Grayson's two!  I'm also really glad Niki was able to come spend a few days with us.  Grayson and I took Niki back to the airport after his nap, and that's about all that's gone on.  Hope you have a wonderful week.

Grandparents Day

This past Thursday the kids had grandparents day at school, and my dad was able to make it out!  He got to visit their school, have "brunch" with them, and go see their classrooms.  Everyone had a great time, but it was strictly no parents, so I don't have a lot of details.  Thanks for coming dad!  It means a lot to the girls.

This past week was Brooke's last week of soccer.  It was actually already supposed to be over, but there were enough rainy days that they gave them a make up game on Saturday, so her coach had practice on Monday as well.  I caught her doing dribbling drills before I got swept away to the playground for the rest of practice.  I can't wait for "next time" when our kids do sports and I actually get to watch them.

Grayson has been accompanying me to pick up the girls from school as we don't have another adult around that's allowed to get him up if he wakes up from his nap.  It's okay, he's riding in style in his car and eating snacks, so he's always in a great mood!

Winry's preschool had a special fireman/firetruck day.  A firetruck came over between preschool classes for all the kids to see as it was fire safety week.  We also saw Brooke heading in from lunch recess as we got there, so that was cool.  Anyway, a fireman put on all his stuff so the kids could see it and not think it was scary, and then they were going to let the kids see the truck and stuff, and I don't even know what all, because right then they got a call and had to book it out of there.  Fortunately they did drive down the school road a bit before turning on the siren, but it was pretty crazy!

On Thursday, after grandparents day and school, we headed to Tyson and Tina's house.  This was both for Grandpa drop off, and for dinner!  I received the opportunity to get on their roof to get Luke's toy down, and despite hating heights I always seem to jump at the opportunity to climb onto a roof with a shallow slope.

Thursday night Monica's friends all came into town for a girls weekend trip.  Friday morning I took the kids to the library, and Grayson asked everyone to hold his hands while he walked in!  We had a good time at the library and found some great books.  Brooke has already read 2 of the chapter books she got, and they were both parts of new series that she really liked.  That girl is a reading machine!

Later in the day I finished up the leaf pile, and we all headed out for some jumping.  I did take Grayson in the pile once with me, but he really didn't seem to be a fan.  He enjoyed watching his sisters, but spent more time looking at the garden... which is always worrisome.  

It seems everyone loves to play in the basement, and I'm not sure why everything is so much more fun down there.  Anyway, Grayson has really enjoyed this flowers lately, and he loves to stack them all.  He doesn't use the green stem pieces, but does make pretty good flower towers.

Off in Breckenridge it's dinner time!  If Monica wants to talk about her trip when she reads this, I assume she'll put it here: Some of my best friends ever came out and we went on a trip to the mountains! We took it reeeal easy since it still hasn't been that long since my surgery. But it was so great to get together and catch up. It had been 3+ years since we'd all seen each other!

Also, they went on a "hike" and found the Breckenridge troll!

Back at home we were well on our way to the moon.  I saw, and set up the kids play tent.  It's got space pictures all over on it, so of course it was a rocket and they went to the moon.  They had a good time on the moon napping and... talking... and whatever else you do on the moon.  I've never been.

Saturday afternoon was Brooke's final soccer game.  I made the kids watch for a little at the start of the game, and then come back in the second half to watch some more.  Brooke did so great!  I wish my phone was out at the start because she had a great defensive stop where she got the ball and kicked it back down the field to her team mate.  She had a lot of fun, and I'm so glad she did.  She said she'd love to play again, so that's great news too.

After, we headed to the team party at Fuzzy Tacos.  We HAD to go since it was the last game, and it was also a great place to have dinner!  A little early, but I take what I can get.  Brooke sat with her teammates and coach while she ate, and Winry joined her a little later when the bench didn't fill up next to Brooke.  Her coach told me he thinks Brooke was the most improved player on the team through the season.

Grayson just wants to hang on everything lately.  He'll walk into the kitchen pull out some draws, and then hang on them.  He also hung from the edge of the table at Fuzzy's.  He was really enjoying this for quite a while.  Eventually he fell off, which didn't end up being the deterrent you might think until he fell off AGAIN and hit his head on the floor.  Fortunately he didn't hit very hard because he fell on his bottom first.

After dinner we headed to Kilwin's to get some ice cream, again, to celebrate the season.  Then we went to a park until sunset to let the kids burn off all their sugar energy.  Good news, it worked!  They slept SOOO well!

And that's everything I've got for this week.  Monica got back a little before church, and now we're just after church!  So yeah... that's all.  Bye.