Halloween

Halloween feels like it lasted all month long. Considering that it's my least favorite holiday, this might not have been such a great thing. But luckily we had lots of family and friends to experience all the fun with.

Grandpa Greer came out the week before Halloween and carved pumpkins with the boys (but because of the sweltering AZ heat, those pumpkins ended up in the pumpkin graveyard long before they could debut as our Halloween Jack-o-lanterns).







We went to a fun Halloween party at our the Fessler's house.



Gage had a couple Halloween parties at school (he's in 2 preschool classes so he gets double the parties)



Grandpa Pasko came out for our ward's Trunk or Treat & carnival.



We had dinner and carved pumpkins (again) with our super fun cousins, the Votaws and got yummy prizes for the awesome pumpkin carving.





And finally it was Halloween and I was tired of taking pictures. Mimi and Papa came over and we headed out for some trick or treating with our friends, the Medleys. Brigg really enjoyed trick or treating. He was running and skipping down the street yelling, "I love this! I love this!!". Days later, he's still walking around our house saying, "trick or treat...thank oo" as he pretends to trick or treat some more. Gage was ready to call it a night after a few houses. So we went around the block and came home to check out their stash.

I let the boys pick out their three favorite pieces of candy to eat that night. Then they left the rest of their candy out for the "candy fairy" who took their candy while they were sleeping (to give to the kids in Guatemala who don't have candy) and in return left the boys new toothbrushes, toothpaste, coloring books and stickers. They were super excited (not joking at all...they loved it).


But now the candy fairy has a HUGE box of candy that she has no idea what to do with. We planned to give it to my dad to take to the kids in Guatemala (if you want to see what he's up to in Guatemala you can check out his travel site where he posts about it every day: http://www.twittertravel.com/) but it looks like he won't be back until Thanksgiving and I really don't want all that candy hanging around waiting to be found by the little sugar monsters.

The Farm

Gage's awesome preschool teacher took his class to Vertuccio Farm for their field trip in October. They had so many fun things to do that Gage had a great time despite his total disinterest in animals of any variety.

Fall Fun

I love camping. Kyle prefers cable TV and comfortable beds. So all summer long I have been asking him to commit to a family camping trip but he has been too busy at work to take a weekend off. October came around and the weather cooled, pools stopped going green and Kyle finally had a weekend off. So we headed up to Payson for the most perfect camping trip ever. Gage was born to be a mountain man. He ran around (half the time without a shirt, even though it was really cold!) collecting wood, building us a firepit, setting up our campsite and exploring the woods for two full days without having a single tantrum or bored moment. He was totally in his element. Brigg on the other hand was terrified of fire and takes after his daddy when it comes to the importance that creature comforts play in his life...so he spent a good part of the weekend crying.


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He even played in the FREEZING creek...

Until he saw these right next to his feet:

Summer of Fun

We experienced lots of summer fun this year consisting mostly of getting up, going to swimming lessons, coming home, eating lunch and going back to the pool for the rest of the day. Because we spent so little time at home, our meals suffered a bit (things like scrambled eggs and carryout pizza became regulars in our dinner rotation for a while), but it was totally worth it. The boys LOVE to swim. It is the only "sport" so far that Gage has shown any passion about and was the perfect outlet for all of his extra energy. He's an amazing swimmer and is totally ready for swim and dive team next year. He's already doing flips off the diving board. And despite Brigg's total fear of the water at the start, he was jumping in and swimming underwater to me by the end of the summer too.


And in between all the swimming, we took a couple weekends off to have some fun with friends and family.
I went to girls camp with my amazing young women again. It was even better than last year. I love those girls so much!


Per our annual tradition, we spent the Fourth of July in Anthem with our good friends, the Harbecks. Our boys love their kids and we all had fun watching fireworks and enjoying spending time with our friends who live WAY too far away.


And we made our annual trip to visit our family in California. We miss them SO much and had a stellar time hanging out with them. My aunt, Kara so graciously put us up and fed us amazing food as usual. Gage had the best time spending all day and night playing with his cousin, Mia (who he refers to now as his best friend). We loved seeing all of our wonderful family and convinced Great Grandma and Grandpa to come to the beach with us one day (I think the last time I saw my grandparents step foot on the beach was when I was about 10 years old). My dad even joined us for a couple days while we were out there so he could spend time playing in the ocean with the boys and teaching them all about snail poop (we don't have snails in AZ so this was a really thrilling discovery for them).

And then, before we knew it, we were back home, the pools closed, school started again and our summer of fun came to an end.

Wanna guess who cut Gage's hair right before his first day of school?