November 6, 2016

Halloween '16

For Halloween this year, the kids had multiple opportunities to dress up.
First was the school Halloween dance where Pete was a nerd & Benji a Power Ranger and Travis some sort of King. Nora and I stayed home and watched Angelina Ballerina :)
We carved pumpkins one night and Benji made his to look like Harry Potter - he's currently reading the second book and that's all he wants to play :)

My favorite is his 'design' he drew on the back

Peter's nerdy pumpkin

Our friend Dillon stayed with us the week of Halloween and he carved a Percy Jackson pumpkin while Daddy took care of the big guy.

 This was taken on the way to our church's trunk or treat - I love Dillon's photo bomb in the background. The kids LOVED having Dillon stay with us. They all played so well together and were sad when he went back home. He's such a good kid.

Benji wound up dressing up as the Boy Who Lived -- which actually was perfect since he has his own 'scar' and got bit by a basilisk (mojave green snake) when he was a baby. He really is our miracle boy!

  Nora was the cutest little Elsa you ever saw.

Since Benji and I were both going as characters from Harry Potter, we decided to make wands one afternoon. This simple craft was so fun, all the kids got in on the action. You take a chopstick and use hot glue to make the designs and then paint over it all. I also used a coat of mod podge over the top to keep the paint from chipping.
Instant wizard wand!
 Nora loves to tell me about 50 times a day "I like pink and purple" so guess which wand is hers?

Nora and I went to see the Halloween parade at the boy's school which was so cute.
Peter and Nehemiah
Tyler, Benji, Cole 
I then took Nora in her 'swellekin' shirt to meet some friends at Chick fil a for breakfast and free donuts at Krispy Kreme afterwards.
Here's the crew all ready to head out to go trick or treating.
Elsa, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, and a Blue Ninja
 And yours truly dressed as Tonks from HP.
 We met up with a few other families from church to go trick or treating and these girls were so cute running around together. They play so well together in nursery and kept getting so excited about each piece of candy in their buckets.
Nora was pretty much exhausted by the time this picture was taken but it was still a really fun night.
Lily, Paige, Nora, and Lizzie

Happy Halloween!

Glitter Mountain

With just a short ride in between spots and it being such a nice day, we then drove out to Glitter Mountain - which is an old gypsum mine so the kids could look for pretty rocks. I had no idea what was in store!

You drive up to this big crater in a hill but upon closer inspection, the ground was covered with glittery pieces of gypsum crystals.

We were lucky it was such a sunny day -- the ground just shimmers!





 Nora kept picking up all the tiny pieces and saying "Oooh! Itz so pretty!"
No one wanted to leave and all the kids came away with a bucket full of gorgeous rocks!



Such a fun adventure! Thank you, Jen for taking us to such an amazing place!
We stopped at the St. George temple on our way home and learned from a visitors center missionary that the early saints covered the temple with gypsum so that it would sparkle. Too cool!

Hunting for Dinosaurs

The kids had a 4-day weekend for Columbus Day and so we decided to go to St. George to visit family and go exploring.

Travis had to head out Monday for a work trip (boo!) so Jen and I took our kids to meet Silly Grandpa at Warner Valley park where you could see dinosaur footprints out in the wild. It was really cool! I've never seen actual footprints outdoors before -- even the kids thought it was awesome.
The larger tracks we found are from an Eubrontes and the smaller tracks are from Grallators. There were hundreds of the tracks all over - some better preserved than others.

Size comparison


 Looks like we found a couple of live ones!



 Nora and Lincoln making their own way through the desert.


I even found a carved T&M heart out by the footprints -- I think a T-Rex must have made it.


It was a great little hike - just perfect for our own little dinosaur's attention spans. 

Soccer Ninja

Benji started his AYSO U-6 soccer season last month too. He has been so excited to play this year.
His team the Green Ninjas:
Julian, Benji, Eddie Ray, Xavian, Grayson, and Andy

They are quite the funny bunch.
Benji's coaches have been great and he has learned so much this year. 
In fact, at the last game one of the coaches said Benji is the by far the most improved play since this is his first year playing.



Benji even scored in two different games! Which is a really big deal and cause for celebration!

Between Kindergarten and soccer, we often find Benji in the car asleep like this in the afternoons, but he has loved playing this season so much.

SETP & Disney!

In September, Travis once again got to go to the SETP conference held at Disneyland.
And (once again) because I didn't want to do the park all by myself, the kids and I just came down the last night to stay in the Disney hotel and see the sights the next day.
Everyone was VERY excited!
This year we tried out the Surfs Up character breakfast with Mickey Mouse and we loved it.
On the website it kept reminding parents that little kids 'might be scared of the characters' and boy were they ever right. Nora took one look at Mickey and would not go near him for anything. 
But the boys sure were excited!


Not only did we get to meet Mickey, we were visited by Pluto
 Minnie Mouse
who Nora liked a bit more
and Daisy Duck. Nora actually liked her the best since she had a pink dress and a giant bow. 
Meeting Stitch was a favorite with the boys because he was silly and tried to eat their food and tickle them. But I had to physically take Nora away from the table when he came around because she was so scared. Poor kid.


So glad we spent all the money on a character breakfast so that Nora could eat Frozen cereal...

The kids (and Travis) all enjoyed dancing around with the characters
 We really enjoyed our breakfast. Everyone was so nice and spent a lot of time with each kid (that wanted to talk to them!). Plus, the breakfast was amazing! Travis and I tried our best to make up for the fact that Benji only ate a piece of bacon and half a bowl of cereal.

They were all sad to say goodbye to Mickey.


By the end, even Nora was okay because we kept telling her the characters weren't real and that there were people inside of the costumes. 
This statue of Goofy was in the lobby of the hotel and initially scared her silly. But by the time we left she would point to him and say, "Itz not real, mommy. He not real." and would consent to go and stand next to him for a picture.

Peter joined Travis for one of the presentations Saturday morning (that's why he's wearing a suit to breakfast) which he really enjoyed -- or at least he enjoyed getting all the swag the different companies handed out. 
After wandering around the shops for a bit, we spent the rest of the day at the pool, enjoying the water slides. It was a fun little trip and the kids were so happy to go.