Pumpkin Patch

It was a crazy month - we had a really hard time fitting in a time for our annual trip to the pumpkin patch before Chad and I left for Hawaii. I decided we would have to go this year without Chad and without Brad and Chelsea :(.



I lectured the kids before we got there that they would only be allowed to go on one ride (Mama has to save her money for Hawaii). It took awhile to make their decision but they all chose the exact same ride. The perfect thing was they had multiple of them, so they all had a turn at the same time - way to kill 4 birds with one stone.

They bounced, they flipped and had a ball! The man let them go extra long and they all came off with big smiles on their faces while they complained about how much it hurt - figure that one out!
With our trip to the pumpkin patch finished I felt like we were pretty much ready to head to Hawaii (no kids) and return on the morning of Halloween. Now that takes a lot of preparation!

Go Cougars

My husband and son are pretty obsessive BYU football fans. Why we had to get season passes for the home games when we live a 10 hour drive away I do not know! When BYU came to town to play SDSU we again decided to get a group together to go to the game. It just so happened that we ended up purchasing 90 tickets! Although it was a little confusing with the money and the seating it was totally worth it being surrounded by friends and family cheering on our cougars.

Trent and his boys!

Cute little LuLu even got into cheering with her mama Chelsea! Lucy was wearing a little BYU cheerleader outfit - it was so stinkin cute on her.

Luke and Jack thought they were so cool with no shirts on and their body paint



Hayley and her friends went a little crazy with the body paint and decorated every bit of skin that was showing

Abby, Chad and baby Beck. It was a good day - luckily BYU won - though it wasn't as easily as we had expected - a win is still a win. We ended the night with a trip to In n out to celebrate!

I'm a lucky/old woman

For my 37th birthday this year - some sweet friends took me to the Glen Ivy Day Spa in Corona. How fun is this place? Did you know that on your birthday you get in free? Once you enter the spa you have free range of all the pools and fun places that they have. The only thing the entry fee doesn't include is a treatment (which we didn't do) and lunch (which of course we did).

Our first stop was the mud baths. We started off in the water where we began to slather the mud all over, then we moved to the dry mud area where we completed the process of covering our bodies.


Then it was time for the mud to bake and dry on our bodies in this heating room. It was fun to look at how gross this process was, as well as sloughing it all off!

After we got cleaned off it was time for a little bite to eat - delicious

we relaxed in the roman tubs

sweat off a few pounds in the steam room

and soaked up some rays while floating around the pool. It was a wonderful way to spend my big day!

Opening presents with the kids - I got new towels and new bedding :)

My birthday cake - chocolate - my fave compliments of Brittany! I have a good life! Thank you family and friends!

If you give a mouse a cookie

The first graders put on a cookie night every year. They do all sorts of activities based on the book - If you give a mouse a cookie, which is a part of the core literature. We enjoyed taste testers and graphed our results of our favorites, did some cookie math, crafts, and played guessing games. The finale is a short program of the kids reciting some poetry and my Luke could not be more adorable - I am so in love! At the end of the program we were given a cookie, then a glass of milk, and of course a straw to go with it!

Our garden

We loved reaping what we sowed in our veggie garden this year. One of Chads and the kids favorite things to do was go inspect the garden, pick some fresh tomatoes and then come and feast. It is like a feeding frenzy I tell you (I am the only family member who does not LOVE tomatoes). It was this perfectly orchestrated little ritual. Bring in the tomatoes, slice them up, salt and pepper them, and then devour them, even licking the plate.



We even had success with our melons - both the watermelons and the cantaloupe were scrumptious! We only got one watermelon but what we lacked in numbers it made up for it in taste!