I started out this glorious month with the traditional Halloween shirts. Funny enough this was the first time my kids had put on a long sleeve shirt since last winter. Notice they're paired with shorts. Ha! And just so you know, my kids don't always sit still and look happily at my camera. I say this because I know you all are all deep in family picture taking time and are probably wondering (and cursing at me) because my kids always look so happily posed. Oh no. This picture is actually comprised of 3 different pictures. After years of taking other's family pictures I've gotten quite good at the art of head swapping. ;)
Maybe because I can't stop telling my mom how amazing fall is in Utah, she and my dad managed to come visit TWICE this month. We weren't sure if there would still be fall foliage by the end of the month so we made sure to make it up the mountain to frolic around for a few hours at the beginning of the month. I love having them around. And so do my kids.
And then there was the annual trip to Lagoon! We always go during Frightmares, when the weather is cool, the lines are short(er), and the wet rides are closed :) Tessa was thrilled because this was her first year that she got to come along (instead of being left behind at Nana's house). We quickly realized we have a thrill seeker on our hands! The bigger the ride the better.
Bryan and I endure the rides (our equallibriums just aren't what they used to be) for the chance to create more fun memories with our kids.
But I must admit it was nice when we ran into our friends the Veaters, cuz then the kids wanted to do a few rides with each other instead and left us adults to sit and let the nausea subside. Oh if only matchmaking still existed, I'd pair up each of my boys up with one of these darling girls. Maybe one of them will teach Tessa how to smile for the camera.
We got our next set of visitors for General Conference Weekend. We met the Christensen family 8 years ago, in Oklahoma, when we both had 2 kids, we lived down the street from each other and both Bryan and Eddie were in residency together. Now we have 10 kids all together, they're far away in AZ and we only get to see them about once a year. But when we do get together its a party!
It's great because everyone has a friend to play with.
Sometimes I'm amazed that we have produced this many humans.
Life sure is different for us now, in comparison to our residency days, but happily there are some things that haven't changed.
The fun continued as we boarded a plane, just a day after our fun company left. The kids were so excited to be on a plane again. It has been years for them. My older kids remember our frequent plane trips to go visit family while we were in residency. Usually it was just me and a bunch of tiny kids, because Bryan would have to stay back and work. The kids LOVED flying, but in the past few years we've tended to stick to driving everywhere, because who wants to pay for 6 plane tickets?! But then again, who wants to drive to ORLANDO from Utah?
So we sucked it up and bought 6 tickets to Florida (thank goodness Knox is still under 2 years old or it would've been 7!). The big kids did great, and it was so nice having Bryan to help, but I have to admit I was ready to get off that plane after 4 (or maybe it was 5, it felt like 5) hours of Knox on my lap, throwing food, keeping him and Tessa from kicking the chairs in front of us, spilling airplane soda, finding lost crayons, changing a stinky diaper (whoever designed planes NEVER had to change a diaper on one), and trying to keep Tessa's fascination with the airplane bathrooms to a minimum. But we survived. More than survived actually. I can't help but think about the pioneers every time we fly. We get in a "comfortable" seat, twist our air conditioning to blow on our face, pop on a overhead light if we want to do some reading, while we are whisked away to our destination in a mere couple of hours. I had great, great grandparents who when they traveled across the United States, chose a few select items, packed as much food as they could carry along with them and WALKED for hundreds and hundreds of miles, for months, and gave birth and buried family along the way. I shouldn't complain.
Anyway, our reasons for visiting Orlando were two fold. First, and foremost, was that in continuing our tradition to go to one BYU football away game each year, we decided to go the BYU vs Central Florida game. We love to support our Cougars (even when it gets much harder to support them when they STINK!). Nanna and Gunka flew out to Florida too. A big trip like this requires more helping hands!
We cheered, ate extremely expensive candy and pretzels, watched more season ending injuries and ran into a bunch of old friends from our BYU, Oklahoma and Kentucky days!
I had to include this pic, just because it makes me laugh. A toddler selfie. Ha!
The second reason for coming out to Florida, and the main reason we decided to bring all the kids, was Harry Potter world!! We started reading the books this summer as a family, so we're all pretty big Potter fans now. To be honest I think I was just excited as my kids to see (and ride on!) things like the Hogwarts Express.
The number one thing on my list of To Do's was to taste Butterbeer! And it was so good! As you can see, Knox couldn't get enough of it! We waited outside Honeydukes while the kids chose between candy like chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean. Awesome. I know!
Bertie Botts Beans won out. Here they are looking through all the flavors, some like Cherry and Cinnamon, but the fun ones were more like Boogers, Dirt and Vomit.
Pretty sure this pic was taken after they dared each other to each an Ear Wax bean. It's fun when food is also entertainment!
The lines were long for the big Harry Potter rides, like this one in Gringotts Bank, and the most incredible one inside of Hogwarts, but we passed the time with a fun app on my phone called Heads Up (where you put the phone up on your forehead and words show up for everyone to try to act out so you can guess them). And it was so awesome to see the things we've read in our books come to life.
Knox wasn't as entertained by it all as the rest of us were.
Harry Potter World is actually just a section of Universal Studios, so we spent plenty of time there too!
I don't know why but this is my favorite picture from the entire trip. Apple pie carmel apple is a family favorite.
I don't love amusement parks, probably cuz I'm not a huge fan of crowds, but I loved hanging with my favorite people and watching them enjoying themselves.
To be honest I think the kids enjoyed the hotel as much, if not more, than Universal Studios. I highly recommend Cabana Bay Beach Resort.
They had awesome pools, a lazy river, a water slide, a great dining area, an indoor bowling alley, just lots and lots of fun for kids!
We didn't even have to drive an hour away to go to a beach. They had a few huge sand areas there!
It was exhausting. But it was fun. And we made so many great family memories. Now if only we could've just sent the kids out to play while Bry and I cuddled in the hotel room.
We did get one date night without the kids though! Nanna and Gunka watched the kiddos while we found a theater with our friends Lee and Ginger Akin who happened to be visiting Orlando from NY that same weekend. We went to see the new Meet The Mormons movie. Highly recommend going to see it. And all the proceeds from the movie go to charities like the American Red Cross.
A couple days after our trip it was time to pack again! It was Fall Break and Bryan and Gunka took Ty on his first hunting trip.
They spent a few days looking for that "perfect" deer but had to settle on this little guy on the last day. Even though I don't love the idea of hunting, I do love any activity where some good father son bonding can occur.
Well I'm not one to sit back and be sad that my weekend is ruined because the hubs is gone (life in residency taught me that!) so I decided to take the other 4 kids and spend a few days at our favorite spot in Midway. I knew fall would be heavenly there! It did not disappoint!
I invited my sister and her kids to come along too! We had a little slumber party. We don't let our kids sleep over at anyone's house (this article explains some of our reasons why- its got tons of AWESOME parenting advice) so this was extra fun for the kids!
They were only with us for one day/night but that was plenty of time to play, swim, go to the park and celebrate our cousin Gavin's birthday (with birthday donuts!).
And of course we had to go fish.
The fish weren't biting, but that never gets us down! Cousins can always find something fun to do!
Knox ignored the whole fishing thing altogether and spent most of his time sliding down the same slide over and over again.
After our cousins left we headed out for some hiking.
Knox was pretty thrilled to be allowed to hike on his own two feet. No baby back pack or stroller to be toted around in. I may have been more excited than he was.
Of course, this kind of terrain resulted in a few face plants, but after a couple of minutes of riding on Mom he was back to trying to keep up with his siblings again.
And then there was another first for Knox. He's graduated from mom's arms to floaties! Next summer it'll be time to teach him to swim! I keep telling this boy to stop growing but he's not listening.
I think we swam a total of 6 times in 2 1/2 days. It was the first thing we did when we got there and the last thing we did before hopping into our jammies and heading back home.
The sign of a super fun weekend.
The rest of the month we did the usual things. More nights cheering on the Cougars (date night!).
More father son bonding over football.
Kept up the usual after school activities. Knox and Cason proudly announced to me that they've conquered the rope at gymnastics. I'm seriously impressed.
Building their muscles!
Tessa loves putting on her so incredibly cute irish ghillies for dance class.
And daily we have the most darling gang of boys roaming the neighborhood after school.
One of those boys was there to support Ty when his new gerbil (new as in we'd had it about 6 hours) was sadly smashed after a not so intelligent game of gerbil hide and go seek in the dark. Of course this called for a funeral, with deep thoughts by Ty. "I just keep thinking of ALL the fun times I had with him" my sweet boy said with such emotion. Try keeping a straight face while comforting him after that.
And we're continually working (still) on things for the house. You're all now invited to come over because we actually have some where for you to sit.
But when you come over don't look at the absolute mess outside my house. Do what I do, look past the weeds, rocks and tractors and focus on that mountain ridge! love.
My boys will probably really miss the mess. Like the zillion boulders dumped onto the lot. Who needs a swing set?
Hoping that someday our yard will look like the rest of this gorgeous neighborhood. I LOOOOOOVE driving in and out of my lane everyday.
And I love my nightly hot chocolate almost as much. I'm not exaggerating, I drink this EVERY night.
While I look forward to my hot chocolate, my husband looks forward to his Franken Berry. I only buy it in October. And let me tell you, these 3 boxes are gone in a week (he does share with the kids…. sometimes).
We squeezed a birthday in too. My birthday. I'd like to say it was fabulous day, but it wasn't. It was a pretty normal day. Gerbil funeral, church, husband stuck at a hospital, car broken down, me making (and cleaning up) breakfast, lunch and dinner kind of day. But I tried to stay focused on how blessed my 36 years on this earth have been. That made it better.
Picking out my own birthday presents made it better too. Meet my new friend Roomba. He rocks.
And I did have a romantic dinner with my one and only on another night. So it wasn't a total bust.
A few days before Halloween we realized we still hadn't gotten our pumpkins. So off we went to the pumpkin patch for Family Home Evening!
Each kiddo picked out there own pumpkin while discussing the cool way they were going to carve it. Sadly we never actually got around to the whole carving thing. Life just got too crazy. So now they are continuing to live out their days on our front porch through Thanksgiving because they haven't melted into a mushy moldy mess.
Despite the cold temp that night, we all had lots of fun, even if Tessa doesn't look it.
We concluded this fabulous month with Halloween! My parents were in town to see everyone in their costumes and helped me put together our Halloween dinner. Our dead man dinner was a hit!
Then it was time for costumes! The boys chose our Harry Potter theme! I'm so glad they're still game for my family themed costumes.
Meet Harry Potter.
His best friend Ron Weasely.
Their enemy Draco Malfoy.
And smarty pants Hermoine Granger.
And last but not least, Harry's pet owl, Hedwig. Thank you Pinterest for helping me make his costume!!
Heading out to trick or treat with our cousins.
And now digging into the goods.
Knox stole all of his candy from his siblings.
October 31st. The month is over. But the fun just continues.
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