At the end of last year's Halloween Lila wanted to wear Ellie's witch costume and then I found Dorothy and a lion costume on clearance so we decided to be themed this year and I found Steve a tinman costume and made myself a scarecrow costume.  The kids think it is great and Steve is such a good sport to indulge us and dress-up.  

To get in the Halloween spirit I decided to take the kids to the Ogden Dinosaur Park Halloween party (I've been wanting to take them to check out the dinousaur park and admission to this event is cheaper than normal admission--there were long lines for the carnival like games and candy, but the rest of the evening was fun).  Last Saturday we worked hard on a few projects (ok Steve worked hard--he was like the energizer bunny that day finishing up projects--working on the mudroom shelves, spackling holes in the walls, mowing the front yard, he even painted the spackled holes after we returned from the party).  As we were getting in costume in my bathroom Andrew was playing with the spray water bottle--he likes to squirt himself or drink from it, but after I got Lila ready he started chasing her trying to squirt her and I said, "no Andrew she'll melt" and we all laughed.  

It was fun to see the dinosaurs.  Andrew on occasion would even feign being scared by squealing and jumping, it was quite humorous.  

He was even Roaring here. :)

After walking around the dinosaurs and playing in the kids area for a bit we went and got hot cocoa and pie samples.  Then the girls enjoyed the presentation by the paleontologist about dinosaurs.  Then we did the costume parade and got a good amount of candy before returning home.

We carved our pumpkin Friday evening.  When we brought the pumpkin in to carve, Andrew got all excited and said, "paint, paint!" That kid doesn't forget anything.  The girls picked Dracula--I think in honor of seeing Hotel Transylvania 2 a few weeks ago and they did most of the work themselves.







Then on Halloween we had our annual mummy dog and soup dinner.  I made cookie spiders for dessert.  We made a batch the previous week to share with Stephanie and crew at Sunday dinner and it was such a hit we made them again--Andrew kept asking for a spider cookie. :)  We also had monster mouths with apples and banana ghosts (a couple of healthy sides).






After dinner we got dressed to go trick-or-treating.  Andrew was really cute and got the hang of things pretty quickly.  The girls would wait for him then knock, but Andrew would have to do his own knock still and say, "Knock, Knock".  After getting his candy he would say, "Thank you. You're welcome."  Sometimes he'd even throw in a "See ya later".  Then he would come back and point to the candy he had just received and say, "Halloween. Candy. Yum."  On occasion when people wouldn't answer, he would shake his head sadly and say, "oh no."  We kind of took a crazy route through the neighborhood because I wanted to say Hi to certain people. After starting our route the girls insisted that we hit the home with hot cocoa and hot dogs on our way home so we had to extend the route a bit.  Andrew decided at the halfway point he was done collecting and was ready to start eating so Steve carried him while he ate a couple of pieces of candy.  Then he happily had hot cocoa and hot dogs with the girls. Lila even said to a crowd, "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too." We got lots of comments about being theme oriented and what a sport Steve was to dress-up with us, but it really is fun to make it a family event. "East-West, home's best."
 side note: We had a little make-up issue with Lila's green face paint--when I opened the package I realized the end did not get sealed properly and the make-up was drying out.  I was able to get enough out for our event last Saturday and then went to the store on Monday to exchange it, but they were out so I picked up a different kind at another store.  It was a darker green which was a bummer and it turned my fingers blue I was really afraid that Lila's face might be smurf like the next day, but it came off in the shower--whew!

We decided to go to Boise while the girls are on break since we didn't get to make our trip in July to visit the Flake cousins.  We drove to the City of Rocks on Wed and hiked around for a bit.  It was fun.  The kids enjoyed climbing around on some rocks and we started a hike that turned into a climb so we turned around.  Andrew was a trooper hiking the whole way.  Steve would enjoy to do some real rock climbing at some point so we will probably go back. 






Then we stayed the night in Rupert with my parents.  The kids love seeing Grandpa and Mimi and Andrew loved on the cat so much he was covered in hair.  As we were getting ready for bed, Steve told the girls they could just wear the clothes they had on because we didn't think through just packing an overnight bag and he didn't want to unload all of the luggage. . .well the girls replied in true girl fashion, "but Dad we packed 4 outfits, one for each day."  They put on fresh clothes the next day.

We drove to Boise to look at the two rental places we are investing in up there.  Had lunch with Mimi, Aunt Brenda, Aunt Rita and my cousin Jolie who is getting married in a month. Then we finished the drive out to Horseshoe Bend.  We were pleasantly surprised to find Steve's oldest sister, Jessica there visiting too.  The kids immediately started playing together.  Andrew jumped and jumped on their trampoline.  He loved the swing too and would ask to go higher, higher.  He totally kamikazed out of the swing, flipped, and then landed flat on his front side (glad it wasn't his head or something), but after a good cry he still wanted to swing high and would get mad if you didn't push him high.

Friday, Jessica's boyfriend Paul who was in Boise fighting the fire had made arrangements for everyone to go see the plane.  It was a fun field trip that the kids, including Steve enjoyed.  They all went out for pizza afterwards.  Steve enjoyed spending the time with Jess and meeting Paul who he said was super nice.

















That evening the kids played in the hot tub and even jumped in the freezing pool for a few seconds in between warming up.

Saturday the girls got to ride the horses.  They loved that.  Andrew also loved the horses.  The first day he fed them some carrots and every day after that he would run to the fence where the horses were and try to call them.
















Andrew also loved all the boy cousins.  He would call them in his little voice, "Preston, Wesley" and then wave for them to follow him or say, "outisde" and they would oblige and play with him on the playground.  The girls drove around in their little razor and hummer cars.  Ellie took Andrew for a drive in the razor and he loved it (we have video of it)--his ride in the hummer with Caroline was not as fun for him for some reason.




We made the big drive home on Sunday.  We made a pitstop in Rupert to pick-up Zoe and use Grandpa and Mimi's restroom.  We rested for an hour and visited with Grandpa.  The kids did really good for how long we were in the car.

It was nice to get away an unplug from life for a bit--literally since we don't get cell service out there.

Our ward has started a new fall activity tradition that we just love.  The first weekend in October we meet at the end of the neighborhood for a potluck (meat provided by the ward) and then J&J Nursery let's us go out into their fields and pick pumpkins (it helps that the owners are in our ward).  My kids look forward to this every year.  This year it was supposed to rain all day Friday, but miracles happened and it only sprinkled on the party for about 15 minutes.
 
We arrived a little early since I was helping a family from Park Village and invited their children and they each invited a friend to come with us . . . we had a full car--full of kids and pumpkins.  Our kids only picked one pumpkin each, but the other kids wanted to pick extra pumpkins for their siblings (I couldn't say No--they have so little anyways) so I told them they could each get 2 then they showed up with 3.  After dinner we went looking for them and found them in the pumpkin patch getting another pumpkin--they wanted to go out again, but I told them it was time to go.  Steve was a trooper and loaded all of the pumpkins, he couldn't get the van door to latch all the way so we took it easy as we drove everyone home.  They kept saying thank you and that they had so much fun. :)
 
Anyway since we were a little early we were the first on the hayride out to the fields.

















Andrew was more interested in throwing dirt clods than the pumpkins. Then during the Saturday morning of General Conference we let the kids paint their pumpkins. Andrew was a pretty enthusiastic painter with fast strong strokes and paint went flying, then we calmed down a bit.













Ellie made her pumpkin into a black widow (it even has the red diamond on the back side).  Lila's is a cute kitty she made with glued on felt.  Andrew's is a puppy.  Mine sits in the cute spider thing from my Mom and we wait and carve Steve's right before Halloween.














Snuggling after pumpkin painting.

We made carmel apples for our family dinner that night and had a costume try-on session.  Lila now asks how many more days to Halloween . . . a lot, but it was a lovely weekend to start off the fall festivities.













The girls holding their new cousin Enzo Stanley Douglas Durbano.  Every time we see them Izzy says, "Come meet Enzo, he's out of my Mom's tummy."  :)