Easter

For Easter I made this fun wreath.

Elise enjoyed a toy the Easter bunny brought her.

We went egg hunting at Chris and Mary's house in Ramona.  They have a lot of land so the kids had a great time finding eggs.

Connor and Claire found several eggs hidden on this dirt hill.

October and November

So I'm a little behind in updating the blog...

Here's October:

 Showing off our cute jammies.  Connor and Chloe received these same jammies last year from Abbie, but they were too small for this year, so Mommy found them on sale at Carters and bought some more.  The kids were excited to wear them.

 We went to this fun pumpkin patch.  This is a goat maze.

 The kids each got to ride a pony.

 And pick out their own pumpkin

 Connor also went to a pumpkin patch with his class for a field trip.  Mommy got to go along too.

 Connor was proud of his white pumpkin.

 We also went to a Halloween carnival at school.  Connor wanted to be a garbage man for Halloween.  I don't know what garbage men wear, so we gave him a construction hat, vest and a garbage bag and he was happy.

In November:
Connor's school had their annual Walk-a-thon.  Connor enjoyed running all of his laps.

 I think this was the cool down lap

 For Thanksgiving we drove to Utah this year.  We stayed with Emily and Drew again and their two cute kiddos Colby and Abby.  The kids had a blast playing together and Connor keeps asking when are we going to go back to Colby's house.  While there, we were invited to an ice cream party, but then it started to snow.

About an hour or two after the snow started, the front yard looked like this:

Connor was so excited, we went outside and watched the snow fall.  Connor exclaims, "I've never seen snow fall from the sky before."  He's only seen snow already on the ground or manmade snow, so this was pretty exciting.  We skipped out on going to the ice cream party and made snowmen instead.  Emily had kept all of her kids' snow gear, so she was able to find something to fit Connor and Chloe so they could go play in the snow.  We did not pack any snow gear as it has never snowed in the years that we have visited for Thanksgiving.  We were happy to have warm snow gear to borrow for the kids.

After building some pretty cool snowmen, the kids eventually came inside and we all had hot chocolate and then got ready for bed.

On one of the days we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity with Emily and her kids, and Amy and her kids.  The kids had a blast and didn't want to go home.  On another day we went to the Treehouse were Connor built this cool arch.  We took Colby with us and the boys wandered around for quite some time picking out their favorite places to be.  Colby played in a school house for a long time.  Connor played in a diner and with these blocks.  Chloe went everywhere!  She finally held still playing with a grocery area with foods, in the diner and in this block area were Legos she enjoyed building.

Look who made two arches with Daddy's help...they were pretty tall.

The kids also did a cute craft-they made a pilgrim and Indian.  Connor brought his home and then promptly wrapped them up.  He said they were my Christmas present.

Chloe loved the dinosaur exhibit.  She had to ride them.

I think this was at the Museum of Natural Curiosity.  Chloe loved the climbing areas.

 On one of the days we went and visited Uncle Blaine's cows.  I believe the two on the left are Blaine's cows and the two on the right are uncle Brent's cows.  The smallest calf was born in early November and the momma was very protective.  Blaine was out feeding the cows so they let Peter and the kids watch relatively close. 

 For Thanksgiving we always rent a church gym and get together potluck style with all the families.  This year we were in charge of bringing fruit.  We made two cute turkey fruit platters and a fruit salad.  We found out that cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon are not to be bought in November here.  The watermelon and cantaloupe went straight into the trash.  The honeydew didn't have much taste, but it wasn't bad, so we kept it.

 On the day after Thanksgiving we went to another church and had a big Oktoberfest party.  Connor and Chloe got in on the dancing.

 Connor even tried his hand at hammering a nail into a piece of wood.

We had a great time as we always do, but after a week of hanging out with family it was time to go home.

Easter

Easter was great.  Saturday we had an egg hunt at Peter's parents' house.  All the cousins enjoyed hunting for eggs and more importantly eating all the candies in the eggs.  I think Connor was the only one that went home with candy.  The big kids searched for eggs beyond the arbor, while the little kids didn't have to look too hard to find an egg.   Chloe even found an egg and enjoyed snacking on it.

dying eggs

Sunday the Easter bunny left us some pretty cool treats.  Connor got a side loader garbage truck to go along with his rear and front loader ones.  He was so excited, he wouldn't let anyone else touch it for awhile.  It even has a musher handle that you twist and the garbage gets pushed to the back of the hopper.  We have been having a great time making garbage out of junk mail for him to pick up.  Chloe got a bubble blower, which we've had a great time using lately.

This weekend we went out and picked strawberries from the garden.

Peter suggested we give Chloe a fresh strawberry in a mesh feeder...it was quite the mess to clean up, but I think she enjoyed it.  The sides of her chair and the floor looked like part of a crime scene.

Utah fun

Friday around noon we set off for Utah. It was raining off and on and was extremely cold when we stopped before Vegas for gas. There was also snow flurries falling and we drove by some snow plows getting ready. Though there was no snow on the road. We stopped in Vegas to watch the Bellagio fountains and see the garden. Connor liked the talking tree best. Friday night we stopped in St. George.

Saturday we drove to Zion and took a bus tour. We hiked to a waterfall. It was raining and we were cold and hungry so we didn't stay too long. Then we hopped back in the car and drove to Syracuse, where Emily (Peter's cousin), Drew, Colby-4 and Abby-2 lived. We stayed with them for the week.

Brrr it was cold and rainy!

 Here's the waterfall we hiked to

 "Mommy take a picture of me touching the rock"

"and again"

Sunday we went to church with them, took a much needed nap, and went to dinner at Aunt Janet's house(Peter's aunt-Emily's mom). We had a great turkey dinner. We also visited with more cousins and their kids.

Monday we went to the Carl Bloch painting exhibit at BYU, harassed Laurel at Jamba Juice,and Connor enjoyed playing in the piles of fall leaves. We also went to dinner at Tucanos-yummy! Then we walked around the mall looking at Christmas lights. Connor and Chloe sat on Santa's lap. When Santa asked Connor what he wanted for Christmas, his response was bananas. Santa suggested some oranges too and Connor agreed.

Rolling in the leaves with Kirk

 Throwing leaves at everyone was great fun

 Seeing Santa

Tuesday we went to the Childrens Treehouse Museum in Ogden. Connor had a blast! He enjoyed the firetruck, train table, china house with noodles and chopsticks, and milking a cow. It was so much fun we'll make that a must visit place next time we're up there. Connor had so much fun, we had to take him home kicking and screaming. That night we had dinner at Janet's again, and then several of us went out for Farr ice cream. Peter and Connor shared Playdoh ice cream.

Driving the firetruck

 The train tables-a favorite

 

 Riding a bull

 

 Milking a cow-fake cow, real liquid came out-so cool

 

 The music room

 

 House of China-Noodles anyone?

 

 Playdoh ice cream

 

Wednesday we did the Logan run with a few other families. Before heading there though, we stopped at the Hill Naval base museum. I fed Chloe while Connor and Peter walked around looking at the airplanes. Then we headed off to Logan. We met up with family at the Cheese factory, went to A&W for hamburgers and root beer, the pepperidge farm factory, the pajama factory, an ice cream shop, and a house to get 10 pound buckets of pitted tart frozen cherries. We bought two buckets-one for my parents. Then we stored them in one of uncle Brent's freezers. Peter also went out and found a 3 gallon bucket of Playdoh ice cream at the store and stored that in Brent's freezer as well. Wednesday night we went out for Thai food with families that didn't go on the Logan run.

Sharing some yummy root beer

 

 Cookies?

 Connor enjoyed throwing some snow at people...he wasn't terribly thrilled when he got some ice put down his shirt, but everyone else thought it was pretty funny.

 

 more ice cream

 

 

 pretzel rings

Thursday was Turkey Day. We went to Dean and Connie's to see their train set up in their backyard, then went to the Mackley's to meet up with Sean and Amy and to get busy on making turkey legs for the place settings. They were a brown paper bag with popcorn inside and a piece of white cardstock cut to look like a bone. Looked like a turkey leg when it was all done. When done we headed to the church for the feast. They were expecting 65 people for dinner.

Kirk and Connor enjoyed a horse ride at the Mackley home

Chloe had enough partying...

 so she let grandpa know

 

Friday was Oktoberfest. In the morning Laurel, Diana, Chloe and I went to Seagull Book, while Peter and Connor went to Costco to pick up supplies for dinner. They then met us for lunch. We picked up the last ingredients and some Steven's hot cocoa and then headed to Brent and Lisa's to make chicken schnitzel. Peter decided he really needed another tub of playdoh ice cream, so he went out and bought another one. When done we headed over to another church and had a yummy dinner and danced/sang/had a great party. More family showed up and several visitors came. Probably close to 80 people.

Connor fed grape leaves to the goats that lived next door to Lisa and Brent.

Chloe and I took a nap

Then the fun began!  Chloe and Brent with chicken hats on.

Connor and mommy dressed up too

We're bobsledding-Sean is in front

The strength test.  Amy is in the middle and she won.

Chugging root beer from a cow bottle-Heidi and Kirk had fun.  Kirk came in 2nd place.

Sean tried chugging root beer too-he's on the right

Some gnomes I think I know

Saturday morning we packed up, picked up our tubs of ice cream and cherries and loaded them into a cooler with dry ice. We drove to Orem and stopped for a quick visit with Melissa and Vince and their baby Addie. Then we hit the road...it was a loooooong drive. I'd much rather break it up and take two days, but we had ice cream that we were worried about so we made the drive in one day. We arrived home shortly after 1am. Chloe's diaper had leaked all over her car seat. I changed and fed Chloe before bed and then she promptly spit up everything all over me and the bed. I changed clothes and then threw a towel on the bed and went to sleep-It was almost 2. We were all exhausted!

Playing with foam stickers on the way home.

We had a wonderful time visiting all the families and going on new adventures.  Also traveling with two kids wasn't too bad.  Chloe was generally happy or asleep.  A couple times I sat between the car seats to calm her.  Connor was good most of the time too.  He enjoyed opening gifts throughout the drive.  Foam stickers were his favorite.

While we were gone a new cousin was born. Chris and Mary welcomed Oliver into their lives on Thanksgiving!