Happy Halloween!!

What a fun Halloween! Every year gets more fun! The kids are sure excited about this holiday! They love dressing up, eating candy, carving pumpkins, class parties....what's not to love?! This year was especially fun going as the family stone-age family....

Flintstones! Meet the Flintstones!!
This was at our Ward Halloween Soup and Bread Night. We won 2nd place for our costumes in the category of 'Best Theme'!
I lucked out finding these awesome Flintstones costumes for $15 total!! Sweet! I already had two little dinosaur costumes from previous years! Sweet! I just had to find one for Ty! I asked him if he wanted to be a caveman (Bam-Bam) but if you know Ty his answer was "NO I want to be a dinosaur!" It's not easy finding a size 8-10 dinosaur costume!! We really had to search! But ebay came through for us!
Mara was super excited about being Pebbles! Don't let her face confuse you, she wasn't mad or hating it. I'm not sure why she has such a grumpy face!

 I love this Fred Flintstone! He has come a long way with Halloween costumes! What a trooper and team player! When I asked him if he would possibly be Fred he said sure, after he saw the costume he said 'It's a dress! I have to wear a dress!" It wasn't so bad, in fact i think he looks quite handsome!

 Halloween day was BUSY! We started in the morning at Mara's class for her Halloween party! It was a lot of fun being with Mara and meeting her friends. Caleb loved being part of the party!

After the party we raced home for a quick bite to eat, went to the track with Nate and walked a mile, raced back to the school for the Halloween Parade! Caleb thought it was so cool to walk in the parade with Mara! Carder slept through the entire party and parade! He is such a great baby, in fact......

Carder is a SUPER baby!! I borrowed this cute costume from my sister-in-law because I thought we were going to be super heros but then we went with the Flinstones! But I couldn't resist getting his picture in this cute costume! 

 We really couldn't have asked for a nicer Halloween night or better weather! It was wonderful!! It was so warm and light! I took the kids trick-or-treating while Nate stayed home with a sick tummy. He wasn't feeling well so I loaded up the troop and went around the neighborhood! We didn't stop until our bags were full!

 

Here is the loot! I don't know what we are going to do with all this candy. I guess eat it! (Maybe put some away for later!) 

Mara's cat pumpkin!

 Caleb's witch stirring a pot of brew pumpkin!

Ty's moon, witch, and graveyard pumpkin. He carved this by himself (with a pattern!) Very good!

 

It was a perfect night! So much fun! Happy Halloween! Glad it only comes once a year! I'm exhausted!

 I made this cute Halloween craft! Those are adorable ghosts if you can't tell! It was super easy and very cheep, less than $5!!

Pumpkin carving!

I love my cute little pumpkin kids! They were all so excited to carve pumpkins this year! I've decided hat carving pumpkins with young children really means the parents doing all the work!! No wonder the kids love it! It really was a fun activity for the family and the smell of pumpkins will always remind me of carving pumpkins as a kid!

 Carder just hung out while we carved the pumpkins! The kids really wanted to get Carder his own pumpkin, even though we didn't carve his!

Mara was not a huge fan of cleaning out her pumpkin! She did her best and her mom did the rest!!

 Caleb was super serious about this pumpkin carving project!

 Ty is assessing the cleaning duty! Wondering how he is going to get all that gunk out!

 He dug right in and got to work!

The finished product and a sneak peak at the kids costumes this year!! On Monday the kids dressed up and we went to the school for the Halloween carnival. It has been a fun week of Halloween festivities!

Dutch Oven Pizza!

The weather is getting cooler and cooler, so before it was too cold we decided to go up the mountain one last time! Nate has discovered a new talent and hobby: Dutch oven cooking! He is really good at it! He tried a new recipe: dutch oven pizza! Yummmmy!

Mara is snuggling with Carder to keep him warm! It was a little chilly up the mountain, but Carder stayed nice and warm wrapped up!

We made two pizzas: cheese, pepperoni, olive for the kids and pepperoni, sausage, pepper, onion, olive, yellow peppers....for the parents! Both were delicious! (One was a little more done than the other but still tasted good! It was our first time at this,  but definitely not our last!)

Here's our 'little chef' as he likes to be called helping make the pizza!

We had a great fire which we used to roast marshmallows and tell stories after our pizza!

Cool picture! I especially love Caleb's bright flaming cheeks!

Lagoon!!!

For Mother's Day Nate gave me two all-day passes to Lagoon! But at the time I was pregnant and I wouldn't have been able to ride any rides! I did not want to go to Lagoon if I couldn't even ride on any rides! So we debated when we should go. We really didn't want to take a newborn to an amusement park, so we thought of selling our tickets, or giving them away! We finally decided we should just go and use our tickets and make the best of it! So we did! Over Fall Break Lagoon was open, so we headed up for the best play day ever!

This was Ty's first time to Lagoon! He was big enough and brave enough to ride all the adult rides!

When Mimi and Papa found out about our plans to go to Lagoon they wanted to go too! It was so much fun to have them with us! They were also a lot of help! We wouldn't have been able to go on nearly any rides without them! We all took turns going on rides, watching little kids go on rides, and holding Carder. Thanks again mom and dad for going with us to Lagoon!

I haven't been to Lagoon since I graduated from high school! It has been over twelve years!! I couldn't believe all the new rides! This was one of my favorites! It was called wicked, and that is just what it was--a wicked scary ride!! So much fun!

 

This is one of my favorite rides at Lagoon!! Tidlewave! I wasn't able to ride it this time since it was my turn to hold Carder and when we were going to ride it later it was closed! Bummer! Caleb loved this ride! He takes after his mom, he is a little thrill seeker!

 Miss Mara on the other hand is not a thrill seeker!! Here we are on the swings together another of my favorite rides, and all I hear is 'make it stop! I want to get off! moans and groans like I am torturing her!! 

 

Mara and Ty did enjoy the music express ride. It spins really fast in a circle and goes up and down. I was laughing so hard watching Mara try to hold on for dear life and squishing the heck out of Ty as the force of the ride pushed her towards Ty!!  

Ty loved this ride! I did too! I don't think I've ever laughed so hard!!

 Mara on the other hand hated every minute of it! I kept thinking the more rides she went on the more she would enjoy it! Maybe when she's older!

 This was my first time to Frightmares, it wasn't scary like I thought it would be! It was a lot of fun, they had several of these boards around Lagoon that you could stand behind and get your picture taken. Mara is an astronaut! 

 One of Caleb's favorite rides (and Mimi's too!) was the merry-go-round! I thought it was funny that Caleb told Mimi she had to ride on the green frog!!

 Oh to be a kid again!! That's what I felt like being at Lagoon! Ty was probably too big for this ride but no one said anything to him so he went on it!!

 It was so fun to watch my kids have such a great time!

 This was Mara's kind of ride! She liked this one!

 I really liked all the new kid rides at Lagoon! Mara really liked this swing ride!

 Here we ALL are on the train ride, and when I say all I mean all eight of us were in one little train! This was the only ride Carder could go on!

 Mara and Papa squished on the other side of the train!

 I would go on most rides, but water rides in October?! No thanks! I volunteered to watch Carder when everyone else was excited and determined to go on them! I did not want to get wet and be cold!

Carder was the best little trooper at Lagoon! He mostly slept in his stroller! He did have one big-nasty blowout! But other than that he did great!

 Now for the best part of the day!!!  The Sky Coaster! I have always wanted to do this, even more than bungee jumping! My dad really wanted to do it to, so we did it together!! What a great daddy daughter experience!

 I was really nervous! It's a good thing I went with my dad, I might have chickened out!!

 We go inside this box to get all strapped on! The girls that are hanging there had just gone on it! Now it's our turn!

 This was probably the scariest part for me, being lifted off the ground.

 Up, up, up and away we went! Higher and higher! It was pretty scary being lifted 150 feet up in the air! We locked arms for support and were told we couldn't let go until we flew past a certain line!

Almost there! That little black speck on the right hand side of the pole is us! My dad was the one to pull the chord! It's a good thing, because I don't think I could have been the one to do it!!

Spread your wings and fly!!! Well, that's what they told us to do! At first I just couldn't I was so scared! My dad said to me "let go of me!" "I can't dad! I'm too scared!"

 I did finally let go of him and spread my wings to fly! It was incredible! I felt like I was flying!

What a rush! I don't know if I have ever had such an adrenaline rush in my life! This was amazing! 

WOW! So.much.fun! After this ride anything I went on was just ok! It didn't seem to compare!

 To stop we had to catch the loop and pull. It was the fastest most speeding ride I have ever been on! We were going somewhere between 40-80 mph!

I did it!! I really did it! I can't wait to do it again! That was seriously the coolest thing ever!

 This was the family favorite ride! The Bombora! It was a fun, fast but not too scary roller coaster! Even Mara liked it! We went on this ride several times! There at the end of the night there was no line so we could keep going on it!

 We had the best day ever! Disneyland might be the 'happiest place on earth, but Lagoon could possibly be the 'happiest place in Utah!'  We stayed until late at night and we were all too cold and too tired! Caleb fell asleep before we even got to the car! The kids keep asking when we get to go back to Lagoon! I hope soon! I can't wait to go back!! Thanks for a fun day Mimi and Papa! We sure enjoyed being with you! Thanks for your help with the kiddos! We couldn't have done it without you!