Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Halloween Festivities!


Whitney and I hosted a kids Halloween party again this year so we kicked off the season with that. Averi was a butterfly fairy and Kadence was Minnie Mouse. The kids had fun decorating caramel apples, playing Witch Hat Ring Toss, competing in the doughnut eating competition and hanging out with their friends while munching on food.
 
My little Minnie Mouse princess
 
 The next traditional activity was a trip to Tolmachoff Farms and pumpkin patch.
 Averi, Ezra, and Elliana had fun seeing all the animals and going on the train ride. Elliana and Averi even had a blast on the Giant Pillow. Averi spent most of the time on her knees but was loving every minute of it.
 Playing in the corn!
 Climbing the hay stack. Poor Averi and her sensitive skin. In this picture she is trying to scratch her neck and her knee at the same time.
 Then, of course what else would we do in late October, we went swimming! (The high was 91 so I figured we better!)
 No friends this time,...just me and my two adorable, sweet,  hilarious, crazy girls!
 Then on to the ward Halloween party where yours truly won the chilli cookoff! The last 3 years I have made the same pumpkin chilli and it has placed in the top 3...This time I finally WON! What did I win? A piece of paper stating that I won ;)
Averi's cupcake that she won at the Cake Walk. She decided to wear her "other" fairy costume this time around.
 Pretty little Minnie trying not to smile.
 The dart game... Averi was actually really good at this game! She never actually popped a balloon but she hit the dart board every time!
 I just had to include these pics of my adorable baby. She thinks she is SO funny!




 Just a cute pic of Princess Sophia
 THEN... Nammy and Papa came!!!

They came last year for Halloween so I guess we figured we should carry on the tradition. Averi was in Heaven having a 24/7 play mate. Here she is with Nancy (crammed) in her "house". The look on her face says it all :)
 Cliff was helping us fix random things around the house so during that time, us girls headed off to the Wildlife World Zoo. We also went there last year but it is such a good zoo that we never get sick of it.

 The petting zoo, on the other hand, was in sane. I swear they must never feed those goats because they were mauling us the whole time. They were trying to eat our clothes, the stroller, and anything else they could get their mouths on. We decided it might be safer feeding the starving goats from outside their pen. Notice how frantic they look to get one tiny little bite of grain!!

 Averi's preschool had a Halloween party so we took Nammy along with us.

 Off to Lowes to get a couple things on Halloween morning. Kadence is sporting the new headband Grandma H gave her. Love it!

 Playing in the back yard
 We went trick-or-treating with Katelyn and her mom like last year. We also met up with the Daynes which was fun.
 Averi wired from all the candy
 Kadence wired from all the candy
 Averi "feeling full" after eating too much candy
 The next morning Averi woke up before me and helped herself to a nice healthy breakfast of candy
 Cliff helping us pick out what kind of fence we wanted
 The finished product!
Another successful Halloween season and many more sweet memories made!

Monday, November 11, 2013

Golf

Doug has a customer who told him about this non-profit organization that teaches kids how to play golf for $5 per lesson. We took Averi and met her friends Ezra and Quin there. It was still pretty hot so they were kind of miserable but I think they enjoyed the golf part :) 

 

I turn 29

I celebrated my birthday with some close friends by riding our bikes to the nail salon, getting pedicures, and riding back to Jill's house to do presents and cake. Since Whitney was out of town for her birthday, we celebrated hers at the same time. Laurie is an amazing food-artist and made use these gorgeous cakes. I cannot even imagine making something like that!
I love the great friends I have made here and am so thankful for them!

Day trip to Prescott, AZ

In August my friend Samara and I decided to take a day trip to Prescott since neither of us had been there and we wanted to get out of the heat for a bit. It was about a 2 hour drive and the kids were really good whish was awesome.
 When we got there we went on a long walk around Lynx Lake
 Averi got a little mopey as you can see in the pic
  Then we had a picnic and took some cute pics of the kids
Kadence and Taelyn
 All of 'em
 Cute Kadence
 Averi didn't want to be left out
 After the picnic we went into town and hit the shops. Averi was pretty curious about this giant bear statue:
 Then we went across the street to the capital building (Prescott used to be the capital a long time ago).

 The kids thought they were pretty cool way up at the top
 Averi performing a little jig for us
 This is my favorite picture of Kadence. You can tell my the look on her face that she thinks she is pretty hot stuff 
 I would try and get her to smile by telling her that I was going to tickle her, then she would laugh and try to tickle ME. Oh man, I love that girl!
 Throwing pennies in the fountain
 The drive  home was VERY quiet :)