October

OK so again with the huge space between the title and the post. Whatever blogger. or iPhone, whoever is to blame.

October was fun! We had super nice weather! We didn't do that much outside though because holy crap the BEES! For some reason bees everywhere. Getting the mail, taking out the trash... it was like attack of the bees. There was always one trying to get into our car when I was getting kids in and out of it, and a couple of times one flew into the car while we were parked with windows down or doors open.... ahh! Emergency evacuation! They were aggressive too! I know I am not imagining this. But anyway the point is we stayed inside a lot but having nice weather meant whenever we went out it was very enjoyable! 

A friend of mine here is awesome and gave me a bunch of apples from her parents' apple tree. So we did some applesauce! I did this plus a batch a little bigger than this. For the bigger one I tried out the Pioneer Woman's recipe (at the suggestion of another friend), and it is yummy! Not as healthy as plain old applesauce for sure but it is goood. 

I think I already put this picture in last month but in case I didn't.... these two are just the best.


One non-awesome thing that happened to me this month was I had about $60 worth of piano books for my students get lost in the mail. I was ticked. I ordered all my students' Christmas books plus 3 sets of new method books--17 books in all plus 3 packs of stickers--and when it got to me the box had been opened and 5 books were in there. Of course I hadn't purchased insurance, I never do from this company I've been ordering from for like 8 years! Grr. There's more soap opera to that story but it's not really worth writing on here. In the end I ended up with 10 of the 17 books and had to just re-buy the rest. Just what I wanted to spend my money on.



I've been trying to stay home a little more during the days, ever since my Dad died I didn't feel like I could handle just staying home all day with the kids. That sounds weird but I would get really depressed just staying in all day. So pretty much since March I've made a point to plan something to get out of the house for every single day. Finally the past month or so I have been trying a little more to stay home and not always be so on-the-go. Also because Elan is kind of a poo-head about napping unless I stick to his schedule pretty regularly. Anyway, I bring all this up because it has been fun to put together some things for Ashlyn and myself to do while Elan's napping in the mornings. We made some Halloween cookies one day for me to deliver to the ladies I visit teach. Ashlyn of course had a great time decorating hers. We practiced her bat face paint that day too so she looked awesome.

Guess who decorated which cookies??




We put some yarn twists into Ashlyn's hair, something I only attempt about once a year. It was really easy this time, still decently time consuming, but she's old enough now that it's no problem for her to sit while we do it. I let her pick a color to put a little bit of colored yarn in to try that out, she was so excited and even though I veto'd her first pick- RED (yikes!), luckily purple was her next choice and that was fine with me. During one of our hair sessions she wanted to sit inside the ottoman, she really likes to do that which is funny. Cute girl. She actually LOVES hair fixing time now that she knows it means pretty much unlimited TV time until I'm done.


We had some visitors! My buddy Lindsay came over with her kids from Boise to visit us one day. I miss her and her fam so much, she has been awesome to come visit us a couple times here already. Ashlyn and Addison have such a funny little friendship and always call each other their "best friends." We never know if they will actually even play together or not any given day, but they did have a lot of fun playing at our house during their visit. Again with the sitting in the ottoman, so silly. They used to do this when they were really little at our old house too.

Good heavens this child of mine and her faces lately.




Finished views of the yarn twists :)




Ash got ahold of the tongs while I was making applesauce and well, you see what happened. She made a huge mess but who cares, I was home alone with the kids and I'm sure you all know that our level of caring about anything goes down a few notches whenever that happens!


Elan is mister good sport about coming along to whatever we do with Ashlyn. Well, I might need to revise that and say he HAD been a really good sport about all that--up until he started crawling last month. Now he really hates sitting in my lap or being held because he just wants to be down on the floor exploring. Unfortunately, wet grass at soccer games and the filthy floor at gymnastics is not really ok for that. So now I kind of dread having to sit with him through activities, but soccer's over so it's just suffering through gymnastics and CHURCH. Oh Church. I haven't heard a lesson for 3 weeks now and don't know when I will again! He will not sit in class, that's for sure. He's usually tired and ready to nap but won't, so he just yells his signature Elan yells until we walk around in the hall. I thought I had a few more months before I had to start roaming the halls the whole time?? Oh well. Even with that I am so thankful to have him, that's for sure.


And October would not be complete without a trip to the Pumpkin Patch! There is a decent one in Twin Falls, actually it's kind of nice because the ones in Boise/Meridian we felt had been starting to get sort of out of control! Basically an all-out fall carnival, and expensive too! The Twin one is more like how those ones used to be about 8 years ago when we first started going. I don't know why we always feel like we have to take and save like 50 pictures from the pumpkin patch, I guess it is really just kind of the essence of fall and fun fall stuff for kids. So, sorry but there are a lot of pumpkin patch pictures ahead.

Ashlyn got to brush a pony, she loved it.

They had a few pretty big steep hay slides! Ashlyn only wiped out a couple of times, but she really liked it.

Racing ducks in the drain pipes with water pumps.... so simple and this was what she wanted to do for the longest.



These are my favorites!

Elan! Oh my heck. He though it was the COOLEST to peek through that hole! He was the best poser!







They also had a pretty big straw bale maze. Why you would take the time to make a straw bale maze and not just use corn is beyond me... but it was fun and not too hard. There was a big slide in the middle that we found our way to, and then were able to find our way out. Ashlyn thought it was soo cool. It was fun!


And of course the token adorable kids pumpkin patch picture!



Ashlyn got a medal at her last soccer game! I let her wear it to Church the next day, she really really wanted to. She looked so. cool. let me tell you.






We found a little time to carve pumpkins! We are not home together in the evenings much with my teaching and Collin's calling and job right now, which is sometimes annoying. But that's life I guess. We did pumpkins in like 30 minutes in between wrestling practice and bishopric meeting. ;)



Ashlyn chose the emotions of both pumpkins, if you hadn't guessed.





My little buddy while I get ready in the mornings.

One of his favorite things to do is dump all the magazines in my "to read" pile (they're only like a year old by now) all over the floor. Good times! It's a ritual every morning.


I love this with Elan the background going magazine crazy! When Ashlyn wakes up early too it's sort of a circus as I'm getting dressed and ready, that's for sure! I will miss this some day!


Ashlyn's preschool class did a little program of singing some Halloween songs at a retirement home. Ashlyn was the cheese of the show. Before they started, when they were standing there waiting for their teacher to be ready, Ashlyn took it upon herself to address the audience and tell them all "It's almost Halloween! It's coming soon!" and a few other things. No other kids were talking to everyone... just her. It was pretty much the cutest. And also hilarious.


That same day (if you can't tell by Ash's outfit), I had several errands to run in Twin Falls. This is something I really still dislike about living here. If I have more than like, 2 stops to make in Twin it is going to be a big time commitment because I have to drive clear in there. And it's not worth the trip/gas to make tons of trips in all the time (I go like 3-5 days a week as it is!). So if I have to take the kids in between Elan's naps, it's right during lunch time. Hence on our errand day last week we ended up making a stop at Arctic Circle for lunch. Not planned but what else can I do when I'm 20 miles from home with hungry kids who need to get out of the car? Oh well maybe they will have fond memories of this type of thing.

Big boy sitting in a high chair!

Elan tried his first french fry!


Andrea came to visit us over Halloween weekend! She is in Logan now just starting as a freshman at USU. It was great to have her here to hang out with us during all the festivities! She was a good sport and played with Ashlyn a lot too. Even Memory which can be a little *ahem* completely maddening to play with her. ;)


Halloween!! I just die at this cute little Tiger.

And the bat--her #1 requested costume she has been insisting on since September. I made it, if you can't tell. She LOVED every time she got to wear her bat wings and would "fly" everywhere she went. It was really cute. Not my first choice of a costume for my little girl at all, but seeing her so happy was fine with me!









Total random last-second costumes (literally) for me and Collin, and I'm sad you can't really see it but Lucy had a sombrero on!


Our ward had a trunk or treat and cinnamon rolls on Halloween night. Kind of weird because we missed a lot of trick or treating, but it was fun. Andrea and I made that cool streamer decoration for our car in like 10 minutes before we left, I actually liked how it turned out! I sat behind it in my witch costume to hand out candy and it scared some kids! ha ha!

And of course our Halloween tradition of a Jack o Lantern pizza from Papa Murphy's! One of my favorite traditions I think. When we got home from the trunk or treat Andrea took Ashlyn out for a quick trick or treating trip around the block while I got dinner ready and Collin put Elan to bed. Then we all scarfed our pizza (starving!) and Collin and Ashlyn headed out and trick or treated for another 45 minutes or so. We didn't have nearly as many trick or treaters coming to our house this year as last year-- go figure, I had prepared and bought more candy! We live on a street that's not as central in the neighborhood as we were last year, I think that's probably why. Whatever the reason, it was fine with me! And it is SO fun to have trick or treaters come. Love it. And that is our October!