Happy Halloween

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.

I've always been a bit of a "chicken."

I don't like Haunted Houses,

Or anything that scares me for that matter.

I've been to one Haunted House.

I cluched onto Blake's back,

and did not open my eyes, not for one second.

Best $20+ he's ever spent on me!

It is slightly more fun now that I have children to dress up,

and to see the excitement in their eyes

as they walk up and knock on the neighbors doors.

This is the first year that we have really taken

the kids Trick-or-treating.

They loved it!

Gweny was pretty nervous at first,

but she started getting to the point where she would cautiously

walk up and whisper "trick-or-treat."

Then say "thank you."

Here are a just a few pictures of them in their costumes.

I will post more,

probably next week.

Gweny was Dorothy, she did have a basket with Toto

that she made Daddy carry around for her.



Nixon was a Ninja.

He only wanted to be a Ninja because he

would get to carry nifty swords.

He did inform me that I needed to hang up

his costume nicely so he can wear it again next year.

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween!

Weekend fun

We had a fun weekend, spent with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Nancie.

Saturday, Grandma and I spent the majority of the day painting the bonus room,

While Grandpa spent some much needed time with the kids.

They haven’t seen each other for almost 2 weeks,

And both parties were having major withdrawals.

Papa and Gweny were pretty much inseparable.

They even took a nap together.

Papa had to leave while she was sleeping so I carefully picked her up and took her to her bed.

When she woke up from her nap,

I could hear her crying hysterically from the other room so I ran to get her.

She was crying for Papa and Ammy…

“Mama where is Papa? I need Papa! Ammy Ammy!”

It was the sweetest and saddest thing!

Later that night we met them in Syracuse for the Pumpkin Walk.

I think that it had been going on for a few days before,

Because many of the pumpkins were

Green and wilty.

The kids had so much fun.

There are some very creative people out in the world

When it comes to pumpkin decorating.

Gweny insisted on walking holding Papa’s hand,

And Nixon insisted on riding in the stroller with Grammy pushing him.

Sunday, we went there for dinner

My mom made homemade chicken noodle soup.

She also caramel apples,

The kind dipped in White chocolate

And cinnamon-sugar.

They were delectable.

After a few good apples,

Mom and I made some delicious homemade caramels

They are so easy!

I’ll post the recipe soon.

What are some of your Halloween Traditions?

Arachnids

It's almost Halloween Time. 

Nixon is terrified of Halloween.

I put a few decorations up in the house,

fake webs, a witch

you know the normal.

He took one look at the webs

and left the room crying.

And insisted they come down...

They are still up

{insert evil laugh}

I'm sure that he gets it from me. 

At least thats what Blake says

 In elementary I used to hide my face during the

parade where everyone showed off their costumes,

because I was afraid of the older kids.

I have gone to a Haunted House once,

and it's going to stay that way.

I kept my eyes closed the whole time.

Biggest waste of $30.

Spiders,

Don't even get me started.

I hate those little creepy buggers.

They always pop out,

The ones I find are ALWAYS HUGE!

Gweny...

Not so afraid.

My mom had bought some new Halloween decorations

and had them sitting on her table.

Gweny say these big black hairy spiders 

 with suction cups on them.

She begged Grandma to let her have one.

That girl, carried that spider

around with her everywhere.

She even insisted on taking it to bed with her.

Who wants to cuddle a fake spider?

That girl...

The next morning,

"Mommy where my 'pider?"

We found it,

she carried it around all morning.

She wanted to take it to the babysitters 

I made her leave it

in the car.

Then I covered it with a blanket.

I didn't want to look at it.



Easter 2012

We had such a fun Easter this year. The kids were spoiled by the Easter Bunny as you can see

Nixon showing off some of his prizes from his basket.

As you can kinda tell, the Easter Bunny hid eggs all over the house. Nixon was more worried about getting his Lego Guy put together that he didn't want to find any eggs. I had to bribe him to look for them, and even then he didn't find very many. I ended up picking up a bunch of leftover ones and keeping them to myself. 

Gwen showing off her sweet new Easter dress, and bow. 

I didn't get a picture of Nix in his Easter outfit because he was too excited to come home from church and play with his new baseball and bat. And lets be honest, we never make it to church on time so there was no time to take any pictures before we left. 

Nix in his cute new spring outfit, complete with a red punch mustache. 

Nix showing off his new bat. We signed him up for his first year of T-Ball. Daddy was so excited to teach him some of his tricks to be a great ball player. They headed outside right as soon as they both got changed out of their church clothes

How to throw the ball like a "man," not "like a girl." 

Practicing hitting the ball off the Tee. Nix still needs to figure out how to hit the ball itself and not just the tee. Cute little ball player!

Gweny sitting up big in her cute new spring outfit. She is growing was too fast! 

After Nix and Daddy practiced some ball, Blake had to go work at his part-time job and the kids and I went to visit family. 

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so I didn't get any pictures.

First we went with Blake's family to Woodland Park where we had dutch oven and burgers. We also played some fun games and the kids went on an egg hunt. 

After that we went to my parent's house, ate more food, and hunted more eggs. 

Lets just say we had eggs coming out of our ears!~

It was also so fun this year to try and explain to Nixon the true meaning of Easter and why we Celebrate it. 

I'm so thankful for the knowledge that we have a Savior that was crucified that we might be forgiven for our sins. And even more that he was resurrsurected. This shows us that we have the opportunity to live for Eternity with our Loving Heavenly Father, and especially with our families. 

I am so Thankful for this Knowledge!

CLICK HERE for a Beautiful Testimony from our Prophet!

St. Patty's Day

We have a fun tradition that every St. Patrick's day Nixon and his cousins build Leprechaun traps to try and catch a Leprechaun to get his Gold. This is the process of building the traps.

After awhile the kids got bored and pretty much Chad, Tauna and I finished making the traps.

All of them lined up ready to be set up.
Nixon's
His had a swinging door that we were hoping would trap one.

Jaycie's had one that a cage would fall on top of him.

Hunter's was similar to Jaycie's but had reinforced sides so there was a good chance the Leprechaun wouldn't be able to break the bars.

Nixon took his home and set it all up, with some "Lucky Charms" as a bribe. (It's almost impossible to take a decent picture of this kid, he likes to be silly way too often)

Much better smile in this one.

Well... We didn't end up catching one this year. He must have been way too strong because he broke through the bars. But the bait must have worked cause all the marshmallows were gone and the rest were crushed to bits. But he did leave Nixon a note telling how close he was, a few prizes and of course some gold (the real kind as well as the chocolate kind). I also heard from Hunter that the Leprechaun he almost caught came prepared with matches because his cage was set on fire! Those sneaky buggers!

I also made sure to find some cute shirts for the kids to make sure they didn't get pinched for not wearing Green!

I would for sure kiss this Boy! And we really do have a little bit of Irish in us, my dad's mother was part Irish so this shirt fits!

I didn't get a pic of Gwen in her outfit except this one, but she is wearing a cute little dress that says "Luckiest Girl Ever" She sure is lucky to have such a sweet brother as this one!

Presidents Day

I sure LOVE Bankers Holidays. I got to spend all day with these sweet faces. We went to lunch at good ol' Mickey Dees so Nixon could burn some energy on the playground, since it was too cold out to play at a real Playground. Gweny was extremely Jealous and wanted to join in on the fun, the time is going to come far too soon where she will be big enough to play with the "big kids."

Then, Blake had to go to work so I had the whole evening to try and keep the kids busy and having fun. I pulled out the playdough and Nixon had a blast rolling it out and cutting shapes into it.

And Gwenyth watched with approval.

Then when she started getting bored I put her in the jumpy toy, I don't know the real name for it so I call it the jumpy toy. She Loved it! She played in there for a good 30 minutes and didn't even complain!

Are those some of the prettiest Big brown eyes you've ever seen or what?

I promise she had fun, this picture would actually make you think otherwise though.

And when we got bored of all of those activities I splurged and let them do their very favorite thing.

BATH TIME

Nixon played with his toys. It is so funny to hear him play make believe!

And this is him taking a picture of me when he noticed I was taking pictures of him.

And Gwen Splish splashing. She goes crazy whenever her little body hits the water. She is like a fish! She absolutely LOVES the tub!

All in all it was a fun day spent together!

Spiderman, Spiderman does whatever a Spider can

Halloween was fun this year. Nixon is getting old enough where he is really starting the realize the fun in the Holidays. His cousins are obsessed with Halloween so with all of their talk about the fun day that was coming up, Nixon was really looking forward to the day filled with dressing up and treats.

He chose to be Spiderman and I bought his costume pretty early, like in September because I didn't want to worry about trying to find one with the new baby. The only bad thing is I had to hide it from him so he wouldn't bother me about putting it on him every day until Halloween.

I think that Nixon made quite a cute Spiderman!

We were able to go to our Ward Trunk-or-Treat the week before Halloween. It was really fun to spend time with our fun neighbors, and get to know others a little bit better. We ate soup, breadsticks, and drank homemade Root Beer. It was pretty warm and all the kids went outside to trunk-or-treat. There are some fun people in our ward who spend hours decorating their cars with lights and scary creatures. Blake and I just stayed close to the car so we could keep little Gweny warm. He made out like a bandit with lots and lots of candy for Mommy and Daddy!

Halloween day itself was a hard day for me. I had to go back to work pretty quickly after having the baby because they didn't pay for a very long maternity leave, so Halloween was my first day back. I was excited to get off of work and take Nix trick-or-treating.

This was Nix Trick-or-Treating, he had a blast but didn't really want to wear the mask that went with his costume.

We only did a little bit of trick-or-treating, mostly just to our neighbors right in our cul-de-sac and then we made the drive to our various family members to show off Nixon's costume. I am a bad mom and not only did I forget to take any pictures of Gwen, but I didn't even buy her a costume. She did have a really cute outfit that she wore though!

I don't know why it is so small. The shirt is darling it says "I Love my Mummy" Thanks to my sweet friend Erin who found that for her!

One of the stops we made was at Aunt Patrice's to visit her, Broc, and Haley. I tried to get a picture of all 4 of the kids together, but they don't hold still long enough to do that. This one is a pretty good one of Spiderman and Aurora (aka Nixon and Jaycie) Also you can see the hobo (Brielle) up in the top lefthand corner.