The holiday season is in full swing and I love it! Matt put the Christmas lights up last Thursday and I love seeing the lights when we pull up to our house. I can't wait to put up the rest of the decorations this weekend!

The 15th was our wards primary program and Kaleb did a great job. I also experienced my singing my first (and hopefully last) solo. You're probably thinking "I didn't know you could sing?" and I don't. At least not solo sing. I was in choir but that was the "cool" thing to do when I was in high school. Our choir was huge. But overall I think I did a good job.

This last week has been stressful and I'm glad I have a long weekend ahead to spend with family and good food! These 2 pictures are from a couple of weeks ago; the boys loved the first snow storm (while I sat on the nice warm couch and took pictures) and then Ashton decided he wanted to wait in a laundry basket while we were getting ready for church one Sunday.

School Pictures & Halloween

School pictures have improved since I was in school (other than I wish I could have fixed Kaleb's hair before they took the picture). They let you pick if you want close-up shots instead of just the standard from the chest up picture. Then they have a high resolution cd with the images on it (color, black/white, sepia) so that you can do whatever you want with them. Although I don't think I'll need anymore than what I have it's kind of cool to be able to save them to your computer. We always seem to cut Kaleb's hair right after getting his yearly pictures taken and then we let it grow out for a year and cut it again.

A couple days before Halloween Kaleb had his school parade and then I helped with the class party after.


Halloween morning we went with my mom and sister to the SLCC Halloween Party. We go every year because there are about 20 different stations that the kids can do things at and it's all free. They decorated pumpkins, cookies, played games and had lots of fun. My favorite is watching the donut on a string. Even Ashton tried joining in on it.

And the fun continues...

Matt's branch won a contest and so we were able to go to a Real game. The boys had fun, Kaleb liked watching the game and Ashton just liked being outside and probably didn't care about the game. He did like meeting the mascot though. They were handing out chicken buckets to wear as hats and Kaleb thought he was so cool.



And last weekend was our annual Halloween Party. This year only the kids dressed up and they had fun jumping on the trampoline while we were getting dinner ready.

Fun on the Farm

This is what alot of my pictures look like; either a) Ashton will have a cheesy smile or b) it's a picture of Ashton's hair because I'm obsessed with it.

This video shows how "cheesy" my boys are when they see the camera.

We had a great weekend in Logan, UT. It was a last minute trip with my dad's side of the family and we had a blast. Bowling, movies, swimming and the best part was this farm that had tons of activities. Corn mazes, pony rides, train rides, pumpkin launcher, HUGE slide and lots more. All for $6/person.

Kaleb loved jumping in the hay!

This is the slide. We didn't know at first you could use burlap sacks to ride down on to make it less bumpy. Ashton went down by himself after Kaleb before we could stop him. I wish I had video of when he was alone. He ended up flipping around and went head first down the slide. I think he was a little hesitant to go down alone after that.

Here are 2 videos of Ashton and then Kaleb. (Matt took the 2nd video and didn't realize you can't turn the camera when shooting video)

Next up was the sling-shot. There was a pumpkin target down the hill. We never did manage to hit it but came really close a couple of times.

Then came the corn maze. Shortly after this picture Ashton fell asleep in the stroller. He needed a quick nap so he had energy to see everything else.

Next was the pony ride. Ashton didn't want to leave the "mamimals" as he calls them.

Then the train.

Had to pet the goats.

After the goats we were going through some of the old farm houses and there were some kittys that had been abandoned there the day before. Someone had dropped them off. One of them sat in Kaleb's lap for 30+ minutes and Kaleb begged to let him keep him. He said how they didn't have a family and the kitty liked him. It was sad, and cute but not enough for me to bring a cat home to take care of. But it was cute to see Kaleb get attached so quickly. He's been begging for a pet lately but ever since our fish experience I haven't jumped at the idea. Meanwhile Ashton chased the ducks and turkeys.

And the boys loved swimming at the hotel. (It was really steamy so it was hard to get a good picture.)

Overall it was a great weekend and nice to get away and have some fun!

Where to start.....

Soccer is going great. I can't believe how much our team has improved. Sounds silly when talking about 5 year olds but they are doing awesome. I have alot of fun coaching them. Oh, and I found out one of the kids on our team, his dad was my 11th grade Math teacher Mr. Bowen. Crazy to be coaching my high school math teacher's son.

I'm sad the warm summer nights are ending but I'm loving the cool crisp mornings. We've had so much fun spending our nights in the backyard. Eating dinner outside, playing on the slide, trampoline and bikes, I'm going to miss it when the snow comes. Although I won't miss the constant baths from the boys playing in the dirt. Ashton's always covered from head to toe.

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend we went to Hogle Zoo. There were alot of baby animals. I thought the baby giraffe was cute. I think the best part for Kaleb and Ashton was the train ride. The driver was going fast! I didn't know that little train could go that fast.



After the zoo we went to RCWilley and this is where the boys hung out. The adjustable bed that gave you a massage. Kaleb thought it was pretty cool.

About a month ago we had a ward party and they had a slip-n-slide down the hill for the kids. Later a fire truck came and the kids thought it was the coolest thing. I couldn't believe how far the water shot out. This isn't even half of the distance. The field was more like a lake when they left.

My friends Chris and Amber just had their baby boy Conner (he's so cute!) and I appliqued a couple of onsies for him. We were going to do it at her shower but didn't have time. In addition to the rocket and octopus I made a tie one but I didn't get a picture. I used the patterns from THIS blog. I've seen alot of people prefer the 'straight' stitch instead of the 'zig-zag' stitch so I tried it on the octopus. I'm NOT a fan of the straight stitch. I thought it was harder to sew and it doesn't look as finished to me.

Saturday (with the help of my parents) we took out all of the bushes in our backyard (except 1). I think there were somewhere around 25-30 bushes total. Oh, and 1 tree. The only tree we had was growing between our fence and the church's fence so it had to be taken down before it ruined the fence. We've planted a couple of fruit trees and we're going to get raspberry, blackberry and grape starts from my dad and plant them along the fence.