Halloween Costumes

Here's a shot of all the kids together

Alexa was a witch (We tried to make her look like an ugly witch, but she was still beautiful!)

Landon was a SCARY vampire


Andrea was Alexa's black cat

Rylan was a cute little lion (He, however, hated this costume. Right after this picture we had to take the hood off because the mane was driving him crazy.)

Halloween Festivities

Carving the pumpkin and decorating Halloween sugar cookies . . . always fun, but always an absolute chaotic mess! The kids went a little overboard on the candies that decorated the cookies. Oh well, hopefully Joe's home teaching families enjoyed them and realized that our kids did the decorating.

Boys will be boys!

A couple of weeks ago, we were on our way to church. It was a rainy Sunday morning. Joe is in the bishopric and so Sunday mornings are always a little hectic for me to get all the kids ready for church by myself and out the door to be to church by 9:00 AM. We are always running late, and so when Alexa informed me that Landon had a worm with him in the car, I had to just laugh. He had found a worm in the driveway as he was getting in the car and decided that he was going to bring that worm to church. The thing that makes me laugh is that he could not understand why I wouldn't let him bring that worm into sacrament meeting. He said, "Mom, he's quiet." We had to let the worm go free in the church lawn on our way into the building. After church, he remembered his worm and tried to find it before we went home. Of course, he was unsuccessful (much to my relief!) Because I grew up with all sisters, this whole boy thing has been quite an experience!

My birthday/ Conference Weekend

This year, my birthday fell on the Sunday of Conference weekend. We had my whole side of the family over to our house for the whole weekend. It was pretty crowded and chaotic with all of the cousins running around, but we had a really great time. It's these memories that my kids will remember. Here are some pictures of my birthday celebration. My neice, Bella turned one two days after my birthday, so we had a cake for her too. The picture of all of the kids on my bed is all of my neices and nephews watching a movie in my bedroom. They were so cute! Notice the picture of Joe and my brother-in-law, Boyd really getting a lot out of conference. They claimed that they were still listening, but they looked pretty relaxed to me!

More fun at the Blackfoot Fair

Eastern Idaho State Fair

On Labor Day this year (yes, I know, I'm a little behind on my posts), we went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot. We try to do this every year and we always have a blast! The weather was perfect and the kids had a really great time riding rides, petting the animals in the petting zoo, eating cotton candy, and of course enjoying the famous tiger ears. What a great way to top off the summer!

Big Elk Campground

Shortly after school started, my sister Tiffani invited us to come and spend the day with them at Big Elk campground up by the Palisades reservoir. We took the kids down to the reservoir and found what we thought looked like a great beach. However, it was just a huge mud pit! The kids had a blast playing in the mud, but they were sure hard to clean up. We ended up going home right after this because I hadn't brought my kids any swimsuits or spare clothes and even though I told them to only wade in the water, they completely got drenched and filthy. The shirt Andrea was wearing never came clean, even after spraying stain remover on it and washing it. Oh well . . . I guess they had fun!