Annual pumpkin carving night

Last night was our annual pumpkin carving night. The girls are still too young to carve themselves but that didn't stop them from being front and center for all the carving action.

This shot was taken after Taber got the first lid off. I'm cracking up over Teya's new picture pose, cheek to shoulder with a head tilt. You'll see it again at the end of the post. She thinks it's like the ultimate way to look beautiful for picture taking.

And yes, Brinley is wearing wings and Teya is sporting a crown. They are as girly as it gets. I hope baby brother can survive the princess/fairy overload around here!

Teya grabbed the camera and took one of me. I'm glad there is proof that I was there for the carving too. ; ) I carved the kitty pumpkin and Taber did "Big Bertha" (the name Teya bestowed on our big pumpkin)

The girly girls thought the pumpkin guts were super disgusting. Teya was squealing and plugging her nose.

Finally I got them some kitchen gloves and they got brave enough to stick their hands in and dig out some seeds.

Geting the seeds ready for cooking. YUM!

And ta-da! Here are the finished pumpkins. (complete with Teya's "beautiful" head tilt pose ; )

I think they'll make a nice addition to our porch decorations this year.

Random Recaps

I wanted to put up a quick post of some of the fun things we did last week while Taber was out of town. On Friday I got to chaperone Teya's first preschool field trip. They went to the apple farm and it was fun seeing Teya with all her little friends.

The little girl on her right in the polka dots is her bestest best friend. We've already had to set up a few playdates because they cry every time they have to say goodbye.

Several cameras were going off at once so none of them knew where to look. Still cute to see Teya with all her little buddies.

I also got to go on a special Mommy/daughter date with the girls while Taber was out of town. We went to the Olive Garden to reward all of us, (mostly myself ; ) for holding up so well without Daddy around.

The girls did great which was nice because a restaurant with kids can be pretty scary sometimes.

When Taber came back to town we had a special night out to see Wicked down in Boston with some of our friends. We bought the tickets like 4 months ago so it was SO awesome to finally get to see it.

Me, my friend Becca and her daughter Emily by the Wicked sign. We actually had about 10 people in the group but it was hard to get everyone together for a pic.

And here's a shot of the stage I took before they announced that you can't take pictures in there. Oops!

The show definitely lived up to all the hype and I had chills listening to the amazing actresses belt there hearts out up there. There was definitely a time in my life that I imagined myself touring with a Broadway production. Even just to be in the chorus would be amazing. Now though I'm happy to just sit in the audience and enjoy.

"Business Trip"

Last week Taber went on a "Business trip" to Utah to do some recruiting for General Mills at BYU's MBA school. I use the term" business trip" pretty loosely since from the pictures I've seen it looked a little too fun to classify as business : ) Still, I'm glad he got to go and super jealous that he got to see so many people that we love out in Utah. Here are some of the fun pics he brought back on his phone.

Goodies they gave out at the info session. I love that they use the full size boxes instead of the sample sizes. That alone would make me want to sign up for an interview!

Taber had some leftover boxes of cereal so he took them over to my sister Rachel's house and got to visit with her and her family for a bit. Aren't my nieces and nephew the cutest?

While he was there he stayed with my younger sister Sarah who just had a baby in July. I haven't met the little guy yet but Taber took this scrumptious picture of his squishy little rolls for me and I LOVE it! What a sweet little nugget!

Taber also got to meet up with his niece Tessa, and nephews Jordan, Devin and Devin's wife Stephanie. They're all going to BYU right now so it was great that he got to see them and have dinner together. We saw those guys quite a bit when we lived in California. They seemed so young then, crazy that they're all college kids now!

Another big highlight of the trip was hanging out with one of his best friends from Alaska who lives in Salt Lake. Dave and his family took Taber up to their cabin in Park City for a day of four wheeling.

They had an awesome time and Taber said it was so gorgeous up there.

Dave has twin boys that are just turning two. I think hanging out with them definitely got Taber excited about having a little guy of our own. : )

The rest of Dave's cute family.

He also hung out with some of our old friends from Living Legends but I guess they had too much fun to take any pictures : ) Anyway, as you can see, in 4 short days and with all the "business" he had to do, Taber managed to have quite a bit of fun and see a lot of great people. Just wish we could've gone with him! Maybe next year...

Halloween Crafts

A little while ago my friend Tara posted these crafty decorating ideas for Halloween. I've never really decorated for the holidays (besides Christmas) but I was inspired after reading her post. I remembered as a kid when the decorations for each holiday would go up at school I would just get so excited. I wanted my kids to feel that same excitement so I found some kid friendly Halloween crafts we could do together. Here are some of our projects:

Spooky Halloween Wreath: Got the idea for this Here.

It was really easy. Just spray paint a wreath black and use hot glue to add on spooky decorations. You could use ghosts, spiders, skulls, whatever you can find. I found these skulls for a dollar each at the craft store.

The girls had fun helping me and wanted to pose with it making "spooky faces". Definitely worth clicking to enlarge those facial expressions!

Bat-O-Laterns: Detailed instructions can be found Here.

Brinley was napping when we tried these out but we saved a pumpkin for her to do later.

These were awesome because kids love painting pumpkins, and you can't mess them up, they're ALL black!

After paining we cut out wings and eyes (there's a template on the website) and stuck them in the pumpkin using toothpicks and skewers. The website says to use crafting foam for the wings but we used black cardstock and they came out just fine.

Here they are with their finished bat-o-lanterns. Teya's making another one of her hilarious "spooky faces" since apparently that's the only way to pose with a Halloween project : )

They look pretty cool on top of the t.v. in the craft room!

Cheesecloth Ghosts: Detailed instructions are Here.

So this was the most involved craft we did and Brinley wasn't really into it. Teya had a blast though so I think if you have preschooler or older they would like it. Basically you just cut up cheesecloth into squares, dip it in fabric stiffener and drape it over balloons.

Once they're dry you pop the balloons. I thought Teya would be scared to pop them but that ended up being her FAVORITE part!

Love that reaction!

Here's how they came out. I thought they were pretty cute.

Here's a close up of Mr. Spooky pants.

And one more view from the door complete with spooky spiderwebs!!

The house is starting to feel much more festive and it's been so fun seeing the girls get all excited about Halloween. : )

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday before General Conference we decided to hit up a local pumpkin patch. Since we're on the East Coast, Conference doesn't start till noon so we had plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful Fall morning. We didn't bring our camera but we had our phones and they take pretty good pics outdoors. Here are some of the cute shots we captured.

The girls on pumpkin mountain. Isn't Brinley getting big? She just seems so grown up lately.

Brinley and the pumpkin she picked. They were in love with the tiny pumpkins.

No farm is complete with a Tractor to play on

They loved taking turns being in the drivers seat

A Lady saw us taking pics and offered to take one of the family. I'm not a huge fan of being photographed right now but she captured a rare shot with all four of us where everyone is looking at the camera so I can't complain : )

Posing by the giant 300lb pumpkin (it's halfway in the shade so you can't see it that well but it was huge!)

They also had apple orchards, a pick your own pumpkin patch and sunflower gardens. We only bought pumpkins but it was fun walking through all the growing fields.

We had a great morning and came home with 4 good looking pumpkins and some happy Fall family memories : )

Omi Time

Last week my beautiful little sister Naomi drove out from Chicago to visit with her two girls and her best friend Jennie. They came out to run the half marathon with Taber so it was a pretty quick visit. Still we managed to have some fun times with a house full of 7 girls (poor Taber) while she was here.

We sidewalked chalked

The girls played hopscotch.

I got to bond with my ridiculously adorable newest niece, Lily. Who happens to rival Brinley for world's best baby. Seriously she is the EASIEST going most pleasant baby on the planet.

Jennie and Naomi helped me make cake pops, which I've been dying to try for awhile but just needed some back up before I attempted it. Our cake pops didn't look as beautiful as the airbrushed ones from the magazine but I will say that they tasted awesome and I would definitely make them again.

We also hit the apple orchard. Always a good time and the apples were scrumptious.

And of course just had lots of fun chatting, laughing, and watching all our sweet girls play together. Thanks for making the long drive out Omi kin!! We love you!