Happy Halloween!

Halloween this year was a lot of fun! The kids were so excited about their costumes and about being STAR WARS this year! I was super excited because the total cost of all four costumes were less than $20! That's pretty good for an entire family! We had Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Yoda, and Obi Wan Kenobi! (Excuse the poor pictures off my phone! I left my camera at my parents!!)

Our first Halloween Celebration was at the church for our soup and bread night. 

Such cute kids! Oh man are they not just the perfect Star Wars characters?  I love how they all turned out!

Caleb's Preschool Halloween Party! I sent Caleb down to get his Halloween costume on and he came up dressed like a ninja! Cute! 

 

School Halloween Carnival: doughnuts on a rope! 

 

My sweet baby yoda! I love his costume! Thanks to the sweet ladies at the church who helped me sew his costume at sewing class!! 

Halloween Party at the school! Obi Wan and Yoda! They sure are darling little guys! 

My little Princess Leia! It was fun seeing her in the parade! 

Ty's class at school! I was able to help out in Ty's class on Halloween. Caleb and Carder joined in on the party and had a great time! 

Trick-or-Treat! We bundled up and went to all the neighbors and most of our ward! Carder loved the walk around the neighborhood and had no idea about all the candy we were getting!!

Ty as Darth Vader! 

Princess Mara as Princess Leia

 Obi Wan Kenobi as Caluba!

 And Nate and Erica?! Well, this is what we were thinking we would go as!! We even found the box and wanted to go for it! But realistically we knew it would not be possible to take care of four kids and us stuck in a box! 

So instead I was STARS and Nate was WARS!! I love it! We kept forgetting to take our picture when we had our shirts on! So this is as good as it gets! My favorite thing about our costumes was this was Nate's third Halloween in a row that he used this black shirt for his costume!!

Caleb's phantom pumpkin! 

Mara's personal design pumpkin! 

Ty's Grim Reaper pumpkin! 

Carder's cute decorated pumpkin!

Cornbelly's Corn Maze!!

The second day of our Fall Break we spent it at Thanksgiving Point at the Cornbelly's Corn Maze! The best part about this activity was being with our cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents! Blake and Maren flew into town to visit and it was so much fun seeing them! 

Princess Mara riding her beautiful pony! 

Three Princesses riding in their carriage!

They had a perfect place for girls to dress up, ride in a carriage, and pretend to be princesses!

Ty and Caleb were thrilled with the life size chess board...the only problem was trying to set it up with a bunch of little kids around! By the time they set it all up other kids came and took the pieces away! They were rather disappointed!

Carder loved the slides and doing what the big kids did!

The giant trampoline was lots of fun!

Even Carder loved to bounce!

Mara and Anna had a fun time jumping!

Ty had all the right moves!

Next it was the bouncy houses and slides!

These are Caleb's favorites!

Ty liked riding the tractors! 

Captain Caleb driving the fire truck!

And then we entered the corn maze....never to be found again! 

Well, at least that's how we felt! It was pretty tricky even with our map, GPS systems on our smart phones, and trivia papers! Several times we felt like we were never going to get out!

Ty and Anna led the way! Everyone took a turn being the leader! I think we finally had to cut through the middle of the corn maze to get out, otherwise we would have never gotten out!

Playing in corn is one of my kid's favorite things to do! I have a box of corn at home that I let my kids play in, but it is nothing like this!

It was a huge room of nothing but corn kernals! Carder thought it was great!

They could have played here for hours, but because there was so much to do we kept hurrying them along!

Caleb was buried in corn!

Ty was so excited to do the rock climbing wall! He made it to the top!

Papa and Caleb had a race on their gunny sacks down the slide! I think Caleb won!

Mara wasn't wearing the right climbing shoes so she went barefoot instead!

Caleb is sure a good little climber! Everyone was impressed how high he could climb!

We all cheered him on to reach the top, he almost did!

Who's Papa's buddy?! Carder! One of Carder's new words is Papa!

Kate, Mara, and Ty going down the slide. I thought it was cute Mara and Ty went down together!

Love this Caleb boy! We almost lost him at Cornbelly's! I'm so glad we found him. It is a terrible feeling to lose a child at a busy place! Grateful he was watched over and protected!

Two rule breakers taking a time out!!

Fun fun family times! It was such a great day! We could have spent more time here but glad we had the time we did! We loved going on the hay ride and seeing all the fun fall festivities! It was a beautiful fall day and a perfect way to celebrate Fall Break!

Little Wild Horse Hike!!

For Fall Break we set out on a little adventure for a hike not too far from our house. I have always wanted to hike the Little Wild Horse trail. It is a slot canyon near Goblin Valley. Nate has hiked it several times but we never have as a family! It was so awesome!

 

The weather was perfect! It's so nice to drive a couple hours south and have warm sunny weather!!

 

 

Carder is ready to hike! He likes to do what the big kids do! He didn't last too long on his own two feet! We would have never made it had he hiked!  

 

 The autumn leaves were vibrant and beautiful!  

I've been more and more impressed with what a good hiker Mara has become! We won't let her be a sissy on our hikes!

 

Ty has always been a good little hiker! I often remember the first hikes we took him on when he was a little boy and he could totally keep up with us! 

 



This ledge we are sitting on went up for a ways, we actually had to climb it up to the top and around a mountain as part of the trail.

 

 We had to hike up and over before we got to the slot.

 

 

 I love this picture of Ty! It looks like he is on top of the world!  

We hiked around this boulder and then back down. The hike is a circle but would take us several more hours so we didn't hike the entire trail.

 

This is the beginning of the slot canyon. The slot canyon was the best part of the hike!

 

Sure love my sweet family! I love the fun times we have together!

 

Fun memories right here!

 

Ty found every nook and cranny to hide in along t he hike!

 

The rock formations were amazing! Check out these holes in the rocks!

 

I don't know how he can fit in that hole!

 

They look like little mice in their holes!

 

Love this picture of all of us in our cubbies!

 

Way to go buddy Caleb! He hiked the entire trail carrying his own backpack!

 

There were so many cool things to hike around, under and through!

 

Just taking a quick break in a nook!

 

Mara is so funny, she has no problems climbing up as high as she can, but when it comes to going back down she starts whimpering!!

 

Can you se me in the center of the slot?

 

What kind of silly face is that Mara?!

 

Looks like Swiss Cheese!

 

Seriously! Coolest hike ever!

 

It just kept getting more narrow!

 

What a little munchkin!

 

Ty climbing steps.

 

Every turn was different!

 

It kept weaving around. Look closely and you can see me and four kids!

 

Mara climbed up on the rocks and made Caleb climb under her legs!

 

It was so narrow it was only as wide as Carder's arm span!

 

There was a slot along the hike that was so narrow Ty had to climb up the rocks in order to let someone go under his legs!

 

I usually get claustrophobic in situations like this, but it wasn't too bad!

 

Cute climbing kids!

 

Cute posing girl!

 

This is where we had our little picnic lunch!

 

Cool rocks!

 

Ty was loving climbing up these rocks!

 

Looks like a tunnel!

 

The human bridge!

 

Only Caleb could walk under this rock!

 

In the shade of the slot canyon it was actually a little chilly!!

 

The other cool thing about the hike was the water puddles we came to. Luckily we didn't fall in, but it made it interesting to find ways around them!

 

I can't wait to hike this place again....next time with John and Tracie!

 

There was one part in the hike that was so narrow I had to take Carder off my back and go sideways or I wouldn't have fit!

 

It felt like a maze!

 

I love southern Utah red rocks!

 

We were amazed at the beauty of the hike! So many different cool rock formations!

 

I love hiking with my baby on my back!

 

The kids even got to rock climb!

 

Daddy and his buddy taking a turn!

 



 We are definitely going to do this hike again! Maybe in the spring! What a fun day! I think what made this day so great was we woke up and just decided to go last minute! We could have stayed home and worked on the house or done things at home but we definitely chose the right playing together as a family!!