October

October came and went all too quickly!  We had a busy and fun month!

Here are some highlights of the month...

First snowfall of the year.  October 7th.  A little too early.  My poor trees still had green leaves on them!

 Gracen's first field trip to Venetucci farms.  I even got to go.  We had fun!

Gracen and his best friend from preschool, Alden.  

We went for a weekend out to Arizona to visit my grandparents and my dad.  I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few at a playground we went to... 

The kids with grandpa Gary.  He has been sick.  It was hard to see him that way, but things seem to be getting better for him now.  

Wishing Star Farms.  We went with our friends, the Solomons.  It was a fun little place with plenty for the kids to do!

Then it snowed again!  My poor trees STILL hadn't lost their leaves and were getting so weighed down that Nate had to go out with a broom to lighten the load.

Trunk 'R Treat.  Violet the rainbow fairy, Peter Pan, and Green Lantern.  I was planning to put Bridger in our little cow costume that Brynlee wore her first Halloween.  Searched high and low for that thing and could't find it.  So last minute he became Peter Pan (Gracen's old costume).

 HALLOWEEN...

I found the cow costume!!  Isn't he adorable??

I went to both kids parties at school, then we went home and carved our pumpkins.

They actually got into it this year, other years it's been hard to convince them to pull out the pumpkin guts!

 Green Lantern, cute lil' cow, and Violet the rainbow fairy (which she had actually decided that she was some other fairy at school that day, but I can't remember what it was.) 

  

And of course we also celebrated Gracen's birthday in there too, but he got his own post for that one!  Busy, busy, busy, and it doesn't look like things are going to slow down any time soon!

Dino Party

Gracen has always loved dinosaurs and was more than excited to have a dino party for his birthday this year!   We had a lot of stuff going on around his birthday, so we couldn't have his party for 2 weeks after on November 5th.  

We started with pizza...

Then we dug for dinos...

After that we hunted for dinosaur eggs,

and broke them open to see what was inside.  The kids LOVED this!  They each got to use the hammer to smash open their own egg.  And, of course, they found a dinosaur inside!

Presents!  

Cake!

He wanted a green dinosaur.  

Blowing out the candles!

Natalie, Ethan, Brigham, Alden, Gracen, Sam, Lincoln, Hailey, Peyton, Ethan, and Nick.

 We almost forgot the volcano!  Good thing we had Brigham to remind us!

They loved this too!  They each got a turn to make it go.

He had the "Best birthday EVER!!"  

We missed Brynlee at his party.  She woke up with a fever that morning so she had to stay in the basement. It was sad, but I didn't want to pass on the germs.  We missed Bridger too, Nate took him out to play.  It was much easier that way.  He probably would have been eating the sand from the dino dig had he stayed!

I have to admit, it is pretty exhausting throwing a party for 10 kids.  So, to wind down from all the partying, we put Gracen's new nerf guns to use and ran through the house shooting each other.  It was fun, and the best part was the smiles and giggles from Brynlee and Gracen!