Halloween...

We started off the morning with the girls at tennis.


They got to dress up, as long as they could still play tennis in their costumes.


Brityn decided to be Tinkerbell today and was doing great, but I think she got too freaked out by the coaches' costumes, because she didn't want to keep playing after the first round of volleys.


Kendyl did great and was playing well.

Everyone dressed up and ready to go!

Kendyl was very excited to be a BYU cheerleader--complete with makeup and tatoos on her cheeks!

Brityn dressed up as Tinkerbell and made a very cute one!

My little cowboy Ryder was so cute! I didn't think he would keep his costume on, but he did awesome--he had a hard time keeping his hat on, but he was cute without it!

Even Steve got all dressed up for the trick-or-treating.

Our ward did trunk-or-treat tonight, so that is where we headed.

The kids could hardly wait to start and Ryder was pulling candy out of our basket for himself!


There weren't as many people at the trunk-or-treat compared to years past, so the kids didn't have the overload of candy this year.


It didn't seem to bother them, and I was happy to not see so much candy this year.


Ryder had fun just going through his candy and eating suckers! Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin carving...

This year we got together with some friends to carve pumpkins. We cleaned ours before we went so we wouldn't be carving all night!

Kendyl really got into cleaning the pumpkins and was not afraid to get her hands in all the goo!

Steve cleaned out the rest while I got the food ready.

Here is Kendyl punching holes in the pattern she chose. Perhaps we should encourage our children to be more creative, but the patterned carvings always look so much better!

Brityn chose to carve a bat on her pumpkin.

Ryder was just a happy observer wandering around the whole time. As long as we didn't stop him from going wherever he wanted, he was happy.

Steve is trying to show some "cougar pride", but got a lot of ribbing from the other guys there.

Everyone's pumpkins turned out really cool. There were some very creative ones!

It was fun getting together again this year and the kids all had a great time playing with their friends.

At the end of the evening, the kids were all jumping on the trampoline when Kendyl got knocked down and out came her tooth! Luckily it was a baby tooth that was already loose...and good thing there was a dentist close by! There was quite a bit of blood, but no tears, and she didn't seem upset. One of the girls even found the tooth on the trampoline in the dark, so Kendyl got to put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. :) Steve, on the other hand, was most disappointed that he was not the one that got to pull the tooth out!

October fun...

It has been a busy week with lots of fun activities...


On Monday we made mummy dogs for dinner. The girls loved wrapping the dough around the hotdogs all by themselves.

Then we all laughed when we tried to put faces on the mummies!

Brityn had a Halloween Party at preschool and dressed up as a fairy. She came home with lots of treats and had fun playing games with all her friends.

At Activity Days on Wednesday, the girls made a craft and then we made caramel apples with them. Mine was delicious with caramel, oreo cookies and white chocolate--yummy!

On Thursday, we headed to the office to let everyone see the kids in their costumes and also to see the office staff all dressed up too.

They went with the Wizard of Oz theme this year and looked really good!

Kendyl's school had a carnival for the kids that night so we went all dressed up and played games.

Kendyl's pig actually won the race!

Ryder was a great little cowboy and actually kept his costume on except for his hat!

Pumpkin patch field trip...

Brityn's preschool class went on their first field trip to the pumpkin patch today.




She was very excited and didn't seem too thrilled that I wanted to tag along, but I wanted to go before I have the baby to bring along as well.


So Ryder and I got to explore the pumpkin patch too. He loved pointing out all the 'punkins', but did not want to pose for any pictures with them.


They had a gigantic slide that the kids got to go down as many times as they wanted.

Lucky for Brityn, because she loves sliding!

Ryder had fun bouncing in the jump house. He knows the word jump and the idea of how to jump, but has yet to achieve an actual jump in the air. :)

So he had fun 'bouncing' around and getting bounced around by the other kids.

Brityn's teacher was nice enough to take him down the big slide. I don't think he was too sure about that.

And one time down the slide seemed to be plenty for him. :)

They also had a little swing ride for the kids.

Brityn loved the ride and had fun riding with all her friends.

Everyone seemed to have a fun time.

Ryder got to check out the animals in a little petting area they had. It was a cute little field trip and all the preschoolers had a good time.

Kolob Canyon...

We've had kind of a crazy October...I had 2 concerts this month and Steve spent the last week doing jury duty...so this was our first relatively free weekend, in a long time, so we decided to head up to Zion National Park and go explore the Kolob Canyon section.

We did the main park a couple of years ago and really loved the cool rock formations and pretty waterfalls.


This is Steve demonstrating the angle of the rocks after shifting and tilting had occured.


Ryder was enjoying the scenery in between bites of chocolate chip cookie. And no, he did not want to sit on the bench to pose for the picture.


The girls were very excited to go to "Utah" and were pointing out any fall colors they could see.


They were even excited to take a little hike.

It was nice to get away from all the "busy-ness" of life and just spend some time together.

Beautiful views!