Fall Festivities

We've had lots of fun this last month. The kids were so excited to carve pumpkins.. more like watch mom and dad carve them! They helped scoop out the innards of course. Braden requested a toothy grin with big eyes and Susie picked this spooky bird. 

We went to the annual Syracuse pumpkin walk, which we LOVE! There were tons of great pumpkins there. We even met Boba Fett and a Jedi master. 

I got to go on a wonderful girls trip with my mom and sisters. We love and miss California, especially one of our favorite spots, Apple Hill in Placerville. We drove 10 hours all the way to Sacramento and visited Apple Hill the next day. It was heavenly! We ate apple crisp and apple strudel and apple cider and lots of apple donuts. It was so fun to get away and be with my favorite friends. 

Halloween was awesome at my house. We started the day with a great party for preschool. The costumes were adorable and we played some fun games. We even hired Belle to come and sing for the occasion. 

Paul got to leave work a little early and made it home in time to eat dinner with us. We changed in our costumes and had a great time trick or treating. The kids were out of their minds excited. It was so cute! Clark got the "tri o tree" down after just a few houses. They had so much fun walking around collecting candy. It doesn't get any better for a kid than that right? 

We had a fun weekend in Cedar City. We traveled down to go to the Cedar City temple

open house. Paul and I took advantage of the free baby-sitters and took off the the day. It was so nice to get away and have some fun together. It filled my bucket for sure. 

Happy Birthday Paul

We had fun celebrating Paul's birthday. He turned 31. We had friends over night before his birthday and played some games and had a little potluck. They all had to write on a poster we made, one reason Paul is awesome. 

He had his birthday off of work so we dropped the kids off at a friends and we had a little day date. Lunch and shopping. LAST year for his birthday I gave him a Big 5 gift card, so a year later he used it, and bought this hiking backpack! haha 

We had cake and presents with the kids. We gave him a new pair of sunglasses and a Hogwarts painting on canvas by Jessica and a few other little things. 

We also got to meet some family in SLC for dinner at an authentic place called the Bohemian. They make some great German style dishes. Paul was excited to order the red cabbage and it was fun to hang out with his family. Birthdays are the best! 

Fall Fun

We are enjoying the season so much! 

Susie is working hard in 1st grade. She is doing great at reading and just got switched into the highest math group. She struggles a little in math so we have been working with her and now she is doing much better! They have been studying monarch butterflies at school. Susie and her class went to Clinton City Council and presented their research and asked permission to plant milkweed seeds at local parks to help save the monarchs. Susie had a speaking part and everything. We went to a celebration of learning at school and looked and listened to all they've learned about butterflies. Susie likes school, although some mornings she isn't too excited about going. She has lots of friends at school. Her favorite thing is playing out side with friends and going on dates with mom and dad. I took her on a date the other day and she said, "I'll never forget this day my whole life." What a sweetie.

We loved General Conference. What a blessing it is to receive guidance and inspiration from God's chosen prophets. I know I felt answers to my prayers. We tried to do some activities again, like the General Conference store but they didn't work out as well this time. 

We've been to a few pumpkin patches. Braden and I had a preschool field trip to Black Island Farms and I got a few adorable pictures of him. He was so excited for his field trip! It was a lot of fun. Braden is doing great at preschool. He is really good at blending sounds so I'm hoping reading is on the horizon. He gets a little anxiety about worksheets and art so we are working on that. It's so fun to have him in a preschool class at home. I love it! 

We also went to Susie's school carnival. They were most excited about the face painting. Susie got a butterfly of course, and Braden picked Batman. We played some fun carnival games too.