A beautiful fall day...

Every day for the past week my kids have begged me to take them to the park after school. I took them last week on a whim and we weren't prepared for how chilly it was. I thought we could handle it for a little while, but about 2 minutes after we got there, Evie went down a slide without looking and at the bottom was a large cold puddle. Needles to say, I had two very disappointed children to herd back to the car. (And one was particularly upset with me when I made her take off her pants for the drive home....)

For various reasons it hasn't worked to go earlier this week, so I am very grateful that the weather cooperated by staying nice enough for us to go today. The kids were in heaven. Especially Lila, who had her first turn on a swing. She just belly laughed the whole time she was on it. I actually took a video clip, but forgot to hold the camera the right way. Bummer.


Jake was so cute pushing her on the swing. They just kept laughing at each other.


Jake is such a sweet brother. He spent quite a bit of time on the see-saw with Evie too, because she isn't big enough to power it on her own yet.


Not that that stopped him from climbing all over the place...


...and practicing his best ninja moves. (He should sleep really good tonight.)


Evie couldn't decide if she liked the swings or the see-saw the best. I think she was a little leery of the slides after our last park visit...


I think I need to make going to the park a priority for my kids as long as the weather stays nice.

Better late than never...

Or maybe a better title would be Post of a thousand pictures...

Okay, maybe there aren't a thousand, but there are quite a few. So consider yourself warned. Last month, over conference weekend, we went to Idaho to visit my cousin and her family. We had a blast. We had a picnic dinner and fed ducks, we had a popcorn movie night and watched Monsters vs. Aliens (Steven makes really yummy air popped popcorn!), we spent all day Saturday driving through the beauties of nature and enjoying each other's company and all in all had a wonderful time.


Getting read to Road Trip! This was the first time we have ever just taken our little family on a trip, by ourselves. It was a lot of fun. We had a little travel DVD player, plenty of kid's movies, some snacks and drinks and we were ready to go!


A few hours later they were all asleep. I just loved how kicked back Evie was in this picture.


We got the kids these activity desks so they could color in the car. We also went to the All-a-Dollar and got a handful of new coloring books to keep them entertained when we were hanging around the apartment. Jake got a lot of use out of his.


Evie was so tired she just laid her head down on her coloring book and caught a few Z's.


Lila enjoyed trying out Kaia's toys for her, since she's not quite old enough to play with them yet.


Buddies! Here they are modeling the hat and scarves that they borrowed from Tiffany. We knew it would be chilly, but we were not prepared for how cold it really was.


Lila's ready to go on a picnic, gotta love the mismatched outfit.


We went to a local park and grilled shishkebabs. There is a pond there and the local wild life is very used to being fed. If you so much as take a step in their direction, they swarm and follow you around. Fortunately, Tiff had a bag of stale rolls for the kids to feed the ducks.


Steven cemented his place in Evie's heart by being her knight in shining white hoodie! He held her up so she could feed the ducks in safety.


I just love this picture, I think the way the hat is sitting makes her look like a garden gnome.


We stopped at Mesa Falls on the way to Yellowstone. They were so beautiful, but it made me dizzy to look down.


Jake was mesmerized by them.


Trying to capture the rainbow in the spray from the falls.


Some times a boy has just gotta spread his wings and run the wiggles out.


We stopped for lunch in West Yellowstone, at the city park. All of the kids had to take a turn on these rocking horses.


Jake having a "Yee Haw!" moment. (Notice behind him? Well I did say all the kids took a turn...)


Lila got really into it once she figured out she could rock it herself.


The kids were so excited to look for wild life. Jake was poised with pen and a paper the park rangers gave us when we entered the park that had pictures of all the animals that you might see. Evie on the other hand just kept straining to see out her window so that she wouldn't miss any "aminals". She was also convinced that when the road went through thick stands of trees, we had entered the jungle. For 10 minutes or so, all we heard from the back seat was, "Now we're in the jungle, now we're in the forest, now we're in the jungle, now we're in the forest...."


We saw a few elk and deer, but this buffalo was by far the best animal sighting of the day. So beautiful and majestic.


Trying to smile without breathing. They did not care for the sulfur smell of the geysers and hot springs.


My good looking boys. Next time we go to Yellowstone we are definitely taking Brian's scooter, but I was so glad that he made the effort to sight see with the kids as much as he was able.


Jake on the board walk. That orange-y stuff to his right is called a bacteria mat. Tiffany, Evie and I were looking at it and trying to figure out what exactly it was. Tiffany was leaning down for a closer look and she asked, "Is is crystals?" Evie leaned over by her and then announced in a very loud, carrying voice, "No, that is diarrhea!" The other tourists around us got quite a kick out of that.


The crew hanging out on the board walk waiting for Old Faithful. (We could not have timed it more perfectly if we had tried, we waited for less than 10 minutes!)


My cute baby! (And the rare photographic evidence that I was actually on this trip too.)


Evie with her 2nd favorite guy! What I love is that she calls him "Steven" with the exact same inflection that Tiffany uses. Cracks me up...


Smile Jake! Hmmm, could he be any more six?


Thar she blows!


We only ate out once on our trip. We went to dinner in Jackson Hole at a bbq place that Steven knew about. It was pretty good, and the kids had fun looking at all the cowboy/western decor on the walls and drinking out of mason jar mugs.


We sat right across from this bear and the kids couldn't wait to be done eating so I would take their picture with it. They insisted that Tiffany get in the picture with them, and she was such a good sport. They adored playing with her and Steven all weekend.


Jake wanted to sit with Tiffany at dinner. Jake got the kid's bbq chicken. It was a quarter of a whole chicken! The breast and wing, and he ate every bit of it!


Evie was digging her grilled cheese sandwich. I am really lucky that my kids are such good eaters, even when I throw major wrenchs in the works, like not feeding them until 9 pm. They usually just roll with whatever new adventure we are having.


Cute little family! Steven, Tiffany and Kaia. She was such a good baby, even after being stuck in the car for more than 12 hours.

We had such a great weekend. Tiffany and Steven were great hosts, Evie told me every day for a week when we got back that she wanted to go sleepover at their house again. We can't wait to do this again!

Happy Halloween!

This little witch has pretty much had it with the whole dressing up and being cute thing. She refused to look at the camera and any attempt to hold her in place was met with much screaming and back arching. So this is as good as it gets...


This little witch, however, was more than happy to pose and prance for the camera. She especially liked this "action shot" of her flying on her broomstick. Her favorite part of trick or treating was getting m&m's. She likes it when things match.


Here is the tail shot of my little platypus. At every house Jake would say "Trick-or-treat. I am a secret agent platypus." The response was awesome. The best one was when he came back to where I was waiting on the side walk and told me, "Mom, that man said I was the coolest platypus he's seen all night."


After trick-or-treating we went back to Pa Dave's and had baths to warm up. The kids all got Halloween jammies, because I really just love any excuse to get new jammies. I made Jake's pants out of fabric that he got to pick out. The girls' shirts say "Too cute to spook." Evie informed me when she put them on that they are "the best-ist jammies in the whole wide world of my life!" And you just can't get any better than that.


And because it is Halloween here is the scariest picture I took all night!

Halloween Parties

It has been a week of Halloween festivities for us. On Monday Evie had a party with the neighborhood preschool. 10+ 3 and 4 year olds in costume, hopped up on sugar? Fantastic!


They played some fun games, did a pumpkin craft, had little monster face pizzas for lunch and read "scary" Halloween stories.


I dressed Lila up in her costume too and stayed to help at the party. (I don't know that I was a whole lot of help, but it was fun to see all the preschoolers in their costumes.)

That night we had a family Halloween party at Brian's parent's house. They aren't going to be here for Halloween night so they wanted to see the kids in their costumes and celebrate with them before they left. I forgot to take my camera with me. I was scrambling to finish Jake's costume, and by the time we left the house I am lucky I remembered to take all three children with me.


Today was the costume parade and Halloween party at Jake's school. Brian went into work late so he could come watch the parade with us. Daddy and his two little witches!


Here is the only picture I could snag of Jake as he ran past. Can you tell what he is? (It's kind of tricky, because you can't see his tail in this shot.) He is a platypus. A secret agent platypus. Perry the Platypus!


If you haven't seen Phineas and Ferb you are probably confused. It's a cartoon on the Disney channel that Jake loves. Phineas and Ferb are brothers who make all kinds of crazy contraptions and plans. Perry is their pet platypus, but they don't know that he is actually a secret agent who battles the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz in each episode. It is really hilarious.


And this just made me laugh. It's not a convenient as a binkie, but I bet it will be a lot harder to lose!