Getting Ready for Halloween

As we were getting ready for Halloween activities, Jenzie kept going up to the mirror to admire her hair and makeup and saying things like: "I'm so beautiful," "You're falling in love with me?" "I can't marry you, I'm the princess."

Trick-or-Treating

Here's a picture of the kids trick-or-treating. Apparently Colin needed a little rest at this house. They had a great time!

What a cute little monkey!

Colin wasn't quite sure what "trick-or-treating" was, but he caught on quickly. Pretty soon he was exclaiming, "Let's go to the next house" and running ahead of the rest of us. Candy is so motivating.

What is every princess good at? Posing for a picture in the middle of whatever they're doing. Jenzie was a great princess.

Colin was having a hard time stopping long enough to get his picture taken, so it's a good thing we got some of him alone. This picture was taken at our neighbor's house (the Mangum's). We were having chili and caramel apples while we watched "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." Sounds like the perfect Halloween.

Family Pictures

I've been wanting to get family pictures taken for a long time, and we finally found a night to do it while my sister was in town to help. (Thanks Megs and Lou.) With bribes and threats helping us along, I was pretty pleased with how they turned out. None of you probably care to see as many pictures of our family as I posted, but it's so hard to choose between cute pictures of your children.

There's a little monster in all of us. . . or is that just at my house?

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

The American West Heritage Center

On our family vacation to Logan and Bear Lake we spent one day at the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville. It's a 1820-1920 farm replica with all kinds of fun activities and animals. We had tons of fun, especially on the giant slide and with the gourd launcher. The kids loved feeding the horses and riding the ponies. It was well worth the $6 admission. We got to see goats, chickens, turkeys, peacocks, sheep, horses, donkeys, and buffalo, to name a few. They had a little train ride for the kids and all kinds of other things to do. This was definitely our favorite day on vacation. We especially loved having Aunt Megan there to have all the fun with us. The kids said lots of funny things while we were there, but they're all written under "Life's Full of Laughs." Be sure to check them out on the left of the screen.

When we got there it was really cold. Gary kept Jarom warm by bundling him up inside his coat, and trying to face him toward the sun as much as possible. Unfortunately, Jarom ended up with a sunburn, but apparently he was warm enough. He was a great kid the whole time, he never even peeped. I guess he just loves hanging out with his daddy.

There was a giant hay fort for the kids to play in. I was really excited for them to see it, but they weren't so excited once the hay started going down their pants and into their shoes.

Jenzie didn't seem to have any fear when it came to petting the animals. She let them all eat right out of her hand, even the big horses with the BIG TEETH! (I'm not so sure I'd be willing to do that.) These pygmy goats were really cute, just the right size for the kids to pet.

Even with the mother duck right there, Jenzie was brave enough to pet the ducklings. Then when the mother duck started toward her, she was smart enough to back off.

While Jenzie was busy petting all the animals, Colin took time for his favorite pastime. . . carrying a big stick all over the place. There's no doubt about it, he's all boy.

They had a huge gourd launcher set up for . . . launching gourds. We picked these pumpkins from a nearby field only to discover a wagon full of little gourds right next to the launcher when we walked back. Oops. We weren't very good at it (except Gary), but we had a blast.
The only hiccup came when Jenzie and I were stretching the sling as far as we could. Then Jenzie counted to 3 and I let go, but Jenzie didn't. She was launched a few feet forward and face-planted right in the dirt. Sorry Jenz.

There's more than one way to launch a gourd.
The giant sling shot wasn't working so well for me, so I improvised.

Here's Jenzie on her horse. Both kids got to ride the ponies twice.

Here's Colin riding a horse all by himself. Both kids were really brave around all the animals. Of course this is just about all they talk about these days. They loved it!

Here's Jarom!

I realized that I really haven't included very many pictures of Jarom in our blog. It's not because we don't love him, or even that we don't take pictures. It's mostly that his pictures don't really have a story to go with them. So anyway, here's a picture of our littlest family member. He's such a good baby, we're very thankful to have him. It's hard to believe he's almost 6 months old. Where does the time go?

What is that?

The other day I was sitting on my porch minding my own business when I felt a little tickling at the back of my neck. I thought it was my ponytail, so I reached up to brush it off . . . and SCREAMED. I looked down to see what creature I had brushed off my neck and found this fascinating insect.
Then we trapped it in a jar and had a little science lesson about how some bugs look like their surroundings to keep them safe from predators. The kids loved looking at it - from the safety of the jar. At one point it was climbing up the glass and then fell off, and Colin jumped and cried, "Mommy, the bug scared me." It was a pretty fun experience . . . once I got it off my neck. Later we put it in a bush and the kids really got to see how well their bug blended in to the leaves.

Here's Colin studying our find.

Can you see the hidden bug?

My finger is pointing at our "leaf bug," aka katydid.

Kid's Day at the Fair

Jenzie and Colin both got their faces painted at the Iron County Fair. I'm amazed that two kids who will hardly pause for three seconds would both sit still for a stranger to do this.
They had a lot of fun.

The World's Fair!

Well, here we are that the Wayne County World's Fair! Gary and his family call it that because everyone in the county thinks it's the biggest thing to hit Utah since statehood was granted. We were really excited to take the kids to the rodeo because they love horses. Unfortunately I don't think they could see very well, and things were moving pretty slowly, so they weren't nearly as excited to be there as we thought they would be. The reason they're so happy in these pictures is probably because we finally told them we could go back to Grandma's house.

We couldn't believe that a parade in Wayne County had no horses, but we were excited to see the llamas. I don't think the kids have ever seen a llama this close before.

Here's a picture of Jenzie taking Ava for a walk. We had kind of a hard time keeping all the kids contained, but they had a lot of fun.

The Many Faces of Jenzie

A Happy Face.

A Silly Face.

An Angry Face.