Leaves are falling all around!!!

Moving to Lethbridge we had a few new things come to our life. 2 deciduous trees in our yard, and LOTS of wind!!! These two combined with autumn time make for lots of leaves! The wind usually blows toward our house (going to have HUGE snow drifts in the winter...yikes) and I am pretty sure that we are getting all of our neighbors leaves in our back yard. We have an Aspen tree in the front (I think?!) and an apple tree in the back. But there were definitely a lot of leaves that I didn't recognize on our lawn! Anyway, while Justin raked and bagged up 16 bags of leaves, we jumped in them and made them a bigger mess! Thanks for  the fun hon!

Kate not knowing what is about to hit her. Wait, who am I kidding. She's lived with Zach for 3 years now. I am sure she knows just what is going to happen next. :)

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It was just a little bright out. :)

happy halLOWeen!!!

Halloween. Oh Halloween. Not my favorite holiday, but I try to get into it for the kiddos. I loved the dressing up and candy as a kid and I still think that is fun, but I just don't like scary stuff. Scary movies, scary/skanky costumes, gory yucky stories...not my cup of tea. We just stay on the cuter, lighter side of it all.Apparently I need to step it up some though because as we left our house and Zach saw other decorated houses he was disappointed that we hadn't made our house "spooky" yet. Whoops. I do love seeing my kids dressed up and I think it is really fun and cute. After trick or treating this year in Cardston with our 3 youngens, I've decided I am a fan of trunk or treats. They are early, with people you know, done in 20-30 mins, and the kids don't get so tired walking house to house, just car to car!! Better! Next year...Anyway, here are a few of our Halloween funsies.

 I got a recipe and an itch to make slime. I knew the kids would love it! (I made the first recipe link and want to try the second recipe link instead next time. My sister says it stretches more...) The only frustrating thing was finding the ingredients! I was being mom of the year toting the kids around to a few different stores looking for clear glue and Borax. Ended up with white glue which was fine, and Borax? What's borax?? I had no idea until I asked a grandma at the dollar store.  It's used in laundry. So it's in the laundry aisle. But not Walmart's laundry aisle, only Superstore's. Grrrr. Luckily I randomly saw Justin's wonderful Aunt Tammy as I was pulling out of Walmart and she offered to sit with the kids so I could just run in to the last store without the kiddos. THANK YOU!! I needed 2 tsp of Borax. I now own 2 kgs of it. Anyone need Borax? Come on over. :)

 While at the Dollar store I found the same eyeballs that Zach had at his preschool party! We had to buy them. They were a hit! In play and in food as you'll see...

 I used to do a fun Halloween dinner. I don't think I've done one since the girls came around! So we settled on a spontaneous Halloween lunch of mummy dogs, bat heads, and drank blood with an eyeball floating in it. Delicious. The funniest part was that I apparently bought the "good mom" kind of juice...No added sugars, flavors, COLORS...It was fruit punch so I thought it'd be red like blood. Nope! I had to add food coloring to their "no artificial color added" juice! HA!!

 The feast.

 They had dirt and worm cups for a treat afterward. The best part about this was that I randomly had all of this fun food at my house already! Yay for preparedness!

Don't you just want some?! :)

PUMPKIN TIME!!!

Last year I bought 5 pumpkins...one for each of us to carve...and I carved them all. I learned my lesson. 2 pumpkins this year! And Justin carved one!

Luckily I am allergic to the pumpkin guts. I seriously get an itchy rash on my arms whenever I de-gut a pumpkin. My best friend Jolene always did mine for me. That's what friends are for. :) Anyway, now I have Justin and Kate to do it.

The designing/carving. Zach only wanted the scariest spookiest face we could do. I like cute pumpkins. Darn. Maybe I'll have to get 3 next year so I can do my goofy cute face one.

 The finished products.

Our Incredible family headed down to Cardston to go Trick or Treating with Grandma and Grandpa. The kids had a fun time...for a bit. It was pretty cold! Apparently Grandpa always wore this mask and tie (circa 1982) as he took the kids out every year. I don't think many people recognized him, their Stake President. :) Love it.

My little Violets...Incredigirls. :) They all wanted to be what Zach wanted to be.  So I had to round up 3 little Incredible outfits. Incredibles was like so 5 years ago. :) Luckily I found one on kijiji in Lethbridge, 1 in Edmonton, and 1 from a friend.

This Halloween I found out that layering jello isn't easy. And isn't quick. We had to eat our orangepurplegreen=brown eyeball jello the next day because it took FOREVER to set. It just isn't the same on November 1st for some reason, but the kids loved it! We sure got our dollars worth out of those eyeballs. :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

(1 month later...man I am on top of things!)

"Closer to Cheepy!"

She did it! I did it! We did it!!! KATE IS POTTY TRAINED!!!!!!!!!!

I have given potty training a good try 2-3 times with this stubborn girl. Just wasn't ready and didn't care! She'd rather wear a diaper than be bothered with having to run to the toilet all of the time. Not anymore! She is a potty champ and I am a happy (almost) diaper free mom. Just Kate at bedtime now, but do those really count? Kara just mastered the panties at bed time. She wanted it bad and is doing well. I need a lot of wood to knock on now because I don't want to redo any of this again. :)

 It all began at Walmart. I was a brave wonderful mom and wife and took the kids with me one week day to Walmart to get the oil changed. We just played in the toy aisles until it was time to go. Of course they all found a few "favorite toys" that they wanted so bad. We had to part with them though. It was time to go. Kate had this not so cute bird. A Pokemon pigeon stuffed animal. She named it Cheepy. She wanted Cheepy SO bad. Like try and hide it so mom doesn't see me taking it home bad. So I said maybe if you go potty you can get Cheepy. That did it. We started the next day. There were a few accidents, and I was getting that familiar feeling..."Maybe she's not ready and I shouldn't push it..." but the second day she caught on and is much more independent at it than even Kara. She just goes when she has too! I love it!!! And after every time she got a sticker on her chart that had a little drawing of Cheepy at the end of it. She'd go potty and then say "I'm closa to Cheepy!!!" If she ever had an accident (twice I think?) She said "I'm fartha from Cheepy." :(  She was so good that even 4 days into it (Robbie and Cammie's wedding reception in Cardston) she did NOT want to wear a diaper and I didn't want to put her in one. It felt like a huge step back because she had been doing so well in panties all day long the last few days. I let her wear panties all day in her pretty dress. I was a tiny bit hesitant, just because I didn't want her brand new dress and tights to be ruined on that day, but I really trust Kate when she says something because she does what she says and I think she had it. And she did! It was a busy crazy day and she was even without her nap and she stayed dry. So yeah, she didn't potty train until 2 1/2 months before she was 3, but being a bit older sure makes it go quickly. They just get it. YAY! I love relishing in the successes of my children. :)

 The happiness upon receiving Cheepy.

 Pure joy.

SHE DID IT!!!!!!! Way to go Kate!!! Isn't cheepy cute?...$10 for that little bundle of cuteness. Yikes. If she is happy, I'm happy. And now her pants fit better and she has a cute little squishy bum I can pat and pinch. I bet she loves that. :)

Preschool Halloween Party

 I was in charge of baking sugar cookies for Zach's preschool Halloween party, so that morning we invited some of our good friends over and did cookies. The kids loved rolling out their dough and then later decorating their own creations. Fun messes.

 They were THAT good. :)

 Parents got to attend the party with the kids, so Zach and I had a good time exploring the activities and games they had there for them. Brains and eyeballs were one of Zach's favorite stations.

 Daddy even stopped by on his break for 10 minutes! That is one perk of living in a small town. Everything is so close it makes things like this possible! He helped Zach decorate...

 ...and eat his cookie. Caught ya hon. The funny thing is they were supposed to save their cookies for their snack at the end of the party. Way to go hon. Rule breaker. I bet all the other kids were jealous.

 I love Zach's proud face here. :) So cute. Markers on pumpkins and then they just wiped it right off. Genius.

 :)

Another fun activity was when they threw the yarn ball around to all of the classmates and made a spider web. Great idea. Zach always wants to do this at home. We need to have more kids!

Class picture. Cute little kidlets all dressed up. :) I don't love the gross, spooky, yucky side of Halloween, but the cutesy pumpkin kids dressed up stuff is fun!

Edmonton for Annie!!!

One weekend in mid October I decided to be brave and take the kids on a whirlwind trip up to Edmonton all by myself. It was the last time I could without driving in the snow and a few of my good buddies were in the play "Annie". We stayed with Jason and Kamry, saw some neighbors and friends, cried when I saw and then went into my own house (pregnancy hormones to the max) and had a good quick trip. I didn't take many photos...too busy! But we had fun...(except for when I had to put them to bed and it took hours. At least they went to bed for Kamry one night in 5 minutes flat. No fuss. What's with that??) I really miss Edmonton and my home and all of the wonderful people there. Lethbridge is great and we are just fine and getting settled, but going up there made me miss Edmonton again.

Us at "Annie." It was seriously SO good. The orphans were so cute and did a great job!

 

 Playing at Talia's house. :) Zach LOVES Talia and she loves him. They are pretty cute together. We bought Zach's costume while we were up there. Dash from Incredibles. It is a sweet costume and he loved it! He pretty much lived in it until Halloween came around. And Jace is pretty much the cutest little baby boy around.

Cousins!! Thanks for letting us stay Jason and Kamry!

Harvesting Grandpa's Garden

 Thanksgiving weekend we stayed in Cardston and helped harvest (almost) the rest of the garden. I love the harvesting because the kids can actually help without any worry of pulling out plans or stepping on potential food. They had fun!

 I didn't have any garden approved jackets and the girls gum boots were too small for them, but Cynthia had us covered! She pulled out some old boots and coats from when her kids were little! Backflash to the 80s. :)

 Somehow Kate missed the whole "garden approved jacket" thing.

 My cute little 80s baby.

 Helping Papa pull out the old zucchini plants.

Sweet coat. :)