Things that go bump in the night

Halloween use to be my least favorite holiday. I HaTeD trying to find costumes for my kids. Everything I liked, they would hate. I would spend hours on their make-up, only to find them in the bathroom minutes later,washing it all off. Not to mention walking up and down the street in the freezing cold with a little one stuttering tttrick-or-tttttreat. As you try to bribe them with anything to get them to go back home and they are begging for one more house. But the last few years I have either mellowed out or changed my thought process. I have let my kids pick out their own costumes and if they want to be Batman for three years in a row, I smile and say GrEaT! I have learned that pirates and monsters and ghosts don't necessarily need their faces done up to be cute. Pumpkins don't have to be Martha Stewart and every dinner doesn't have to have a Halloween theme. Someday, I will miss the endless candy wrappers that I find everywhere for at least two weeks after Halloween. There won't be anyone around to tell me that everything is "SpOoKy" and there will be nobody left to say "bye-bye SpIdErS as we leave our house. Yes, this year I remembered....to just breathe.

Crew had so much fun running to every house. He really liked the "spooky" houses and at some houses, he actually would walk right into their homes. The only problem was that he wanted to open and eat the candy from every house as soon as he got it.

Garrett and his best bud Skylar. Garrett got really sick at our friends house as we were eating dinner. I didn't think he would even make it out this year and was going to have Jared take him home. But, then he snapped out of it and there was no stopping him. We all ended up at Jen's house after and we could hear all the kids downstairs trading their candy with each other.

This is what happens when you tell a thirteen year old that he can NOT go trick or treating without a costume. Yes, they all went into Walgreens and came up with this. Baseball bandits or something to that effect.

Pumpkin Carving

This year we were smart, and started carving our pumpkins a few days before Halloween. I think this is one of my boys favorite activities because it involves sharp objects, and slimy guts. For the first time, we didn't have to buy our pumpkins because we actually had some grow in our garden. We had one big pumpkin, that after much debating, was given to Crew. The other's were still a fairly decent size and the boys all got to do their own.

Halloween Party

Jared and I went to an adult Halloween party this weekend. Much to our dismay, they wanted all of the couples to participate in a Halloween scavenger hunt. They divided us up in groups of three couples. They gave us a list of landmarks between Heber and Midway that we would have to find and then take a picture of our group in front of it. We had one hour. We were told that it would be impossible to get to every place in the time allotted so to be sure and use our time wisely. Well, they didn't know that our group took that as a challenge. With Jared driving and two other men navigating, we found ourselves running through graveyards, posing in front of coffins, bargaining with kids at a skate park, and trying to run fellow competitors off the road. We made it back to the house having hit EVERY landmark with six minutes to spare. We were the first ones back and the only ones who completed the list. Next time they will know to never let three baseball/football coaches on the same team! It was great fun. Thanks guys!

Witches Night Out

Even though Witches Night Out fell on UEA weekend, we were able to round up a few girls and head out to Gardner Village. We had so much fun. No matter how great you think your get up is, there are tons of amazing witch costumes to be envied. Every year, the crowds grow bigger and the wait at Archibald's restaurant grows longer. We got on the list shortly after six and didn't sit down until after nine. It is worth the wait however, because the food is fabulous! We did alot of shopping and witch watching. Next year we are going to have a hat party a few days before we go and decorate our hats. Hopefully, it will fall on a better weekend and all of our missed friends will be able to join us.

UEA and the zoo

We had such beautiful weather over UEA this year. I thought it would be fun to take the boys to the zoo to see the baby animals. Poor Tag was sick, but he was a trooper and came along with us. GG had no interest in seeing the babies, all he wanted to do was find the reptile house. When we finally got there, I couldn't keep GG or Crew away from the snakes. GG actually got the rattlesnake to follow his finger up the glass. I always thought that the reptiles were dead.




The baby elephant was by far my favorite. I could have sat and watched her for hours. The baby giraffe was full of energy and even though she looked so tiny next to her momma, she was a good 7 feet tall! If I had only known that this would be our last week of nice weather. All in all a good time and we rounded out the day with lunch at Red Robin.

Grandpa Johns

It was our weekend to help clean up Grandpa and Grandma's house. They are away on a mission in the Congo. Kaden had a baseball game this weekend, so I headed to Salem with Kade and Crew. Jared took Tag and GG to Elwood. After they had the yard cleaned up, Jared decided to show them around his "stomping grounds". He took them to Mac's for lunch and then they went over to the mighty Bear River High School. He told them the story about how the bleachers were built and they had to sit in the seats that were John and Dixie's. Then they played a little football on the field and took a picture with the bear. If Wasatch wins their playoff game this Saturday and Bear River does too, they will meet up in the next playoff game. So...does our blood run RED or GOLD?

There are some big poles going up behind grandpa's house. I don't know that he will be to happy about that.

Family Photos

After a cold a rainy weekend, we actually had a
nice day for our family photos. These were just
some random photos that Jared took. I hope that our professional ones turn out good. It's taken me five years to update our last one.

Fall colors

Sunday we took a little road trip up Snake Creek canyon. I can't believe how beautiful Heber Valley is this time of year. The boys reluctantly came along. They didn't seem to appreciate the beauty as much as I did.

I mean seriously..how hard can it be to get four boys to smile all at the same time? Don't they know if they did it right the first time, we wouldn't have to have them stand there for 25 more pictures? One decent picture, that's all I ask.

Well, much begging, yelling and cussing later, I still didn't get the picture I wanted. However, this picture really does capture their true character...Tag, the too cool to be with the family pose. Kade, the I really don't like you right now pose and GG and his life is good no matter what face.

Flashback Friday

Hurray for October! I love this time of year. There's nothing like opening boxes of fall decor and remembering things that you forgot you had. My boys LoVe to decorate the house for Halloween. Last year was especially memorable because I refused to decorate my rental and so they hadn't seen some of our decorations for 3 years! I didn't have a blog last October, so I thought I would post some of our pictures from last Halloween.

We had a little party before the kids went off trick-or-treating. The weather was so nice that the boys were outside playing. For some reason, this picture of the boys outside reminds me of something you would see in a Pottery Barn magazine.

I saw this cute pumpkin display in a magazine and thought I could just ThRoW it together. It ended up taking me all day not to mention I ruined Jared's drill bit and I had blisters all over my hands.