Trunk or Treat

We had our ward truck or treat last night and it was alot of fun. This year Daniel and I dressed up too. Jamison was a teddy bear. Eva was princess fiona. Alexander was spider man. Daniel was Clark Kent and I was super mom. Daniel decorated the back of the car. I love Halloween. I am sad Halloween is on a Sunday here but the kids had a lot of fun last night.

Its not Halloween without the pumpkins

We have a lot of pumpkins this year!!

Well not compared to Carly and Andrew.
Andrew brought out some perfect sized pumpkins for us. Check out the one in the middle!

(click on it to make it bigger, I took the picture at night and they are on the fireplace mantle)
That is some major planning ahead on those kind. Oh and they have a huge pumpkin patch that they are selling pumpkins so go get some home grown pumpkins from them!

Here are the pumpkins Alexander and Eva choose at the pumpkin patch.
They chose one for Jamison and made him hold it.
We painted them:


Then we chose 3 to carve

Eva kept telling Alexander she was cleaning the pumpkins and it was yucky,
Alexander put his hand in once and ran to wash his hands.

Here are the final creations that we did together as a family.

Alexander used so many colors that it turned black :)
and Eva's was a copper toned one
Daniel did the two with faces.

Daniel pretty much did all of the pumpkins and I watched :)

Happy Halloween!!

P.S sad little story. I had 2 fake big pumpkins on the front porch area because last year the real ones rotted when we kept them outside. Then we had a huge wind storm while I was out for the day and I came home and one of the pumpkins had flown away as well as half of my decorations. Sad but true. There where also some extra trash cans in front of our house because it was trash day and the storms only seem to happen on trash day here so that all the trash cans escape!

The pumpkin Patch

We have been trying to usher in Halloween spirit around here so I did my autumn cleaning and got some decorations out and it was great. Then we went to the pumpkin patch that someone created right by Target :) It was spur of the moment so I forgot the camera! However Daniel's new phone has a camera on it (well better than my camera's phone) so we got some pictures of the evening. We went at twilight and it was just a beautiful night.

Jamison slept the whole time in his bear suit/ Halloween costume[This is the one photo from my phone]

Then there was a fun rubber ducky race

There was a fun little corn maze which Daniel Alexander and Eva took advantage of

Then there was a haystack maze. This is the one the kids enjoyed the most. I liked it because I could see them and just stand at the beginning of the maze with Jamison and they just ran and ran and ran some more. It was cute.I made them stand still and take this photo :)

It was a fun evening and I love Halloween.

Opposites

Sunday was our primary presentation. It was Alexander's first. We have a super huge primary so they needed to utilize two rows back and three across (4 small rows and two big ones) as well as the entire pulpit area and added chairs. All Alexander had to do was sit with his class on one of the front rows (not on the pulpit) we had two practices and he screamed and yelled when I tried to get him to sit with his class. All his class had to do was sing the Sunbeam song and sing along with all the other songs. Nope he wouldn't do any off it no bribe worked and lots of screaming. On Sunday I hoped things would go better. Nope. Here is what happened. He wanted to sit up there in the beginning of church (we got there early) but it wasn't time until after the sacraments so we waited.

He changed his mind yelled and screamed that he didn't want to go up there. Then Eva saw all the primary children going up there and started yelling and screaming also "I NEED TO GO UP I NEED TO GO UP" um yeah they are exactly opposite when it comes to shyness and their social skills. It was a great time [insert sarcasm]. I am not sure that Alexander will ever like those things. He just doesn't like change in any way shape or form. He thought is was time for primary during the practice time so he didn't like it and then he thought we were just going to church but he had to sit with his primary class and he didn't like it. Anyway that was our Sunday.

(I started writing this post on Sunday night and have been so occupied with children, cleaning and organizing and Dolce that I am just posting it now. WOW its been busy)

Today we visited the pediatrician

Alexander needed to get his immunizations today 6! He did well but I had to take all of the kids in with me and it took 2 hours because I had to fill out the what can your 4 year old do worksheets. It went well actually but I need to catch Eva up on hers and Jamison is doing just fine there. Anyway I figured I would share some pictures because I haven't in a while. Of Jamison of course because he changes the most.

Eva is always asking to hold Jamison.
She says "Mamma I need to hold Jamison"
He is so big though it is difficult for her :)

Here he is smiling.
I can get him to smile every once in awhile and he smiles when he sees Daniel

He is just a chunk.
Quite heavy already but oh so cute.

Reeves weekly update

I have been so busy!! Jamison is waking up only once or twice in the night now and we have started sleep training in the crib. Its going very well. That being said I have much more energy!! Its amazing what 5 straight hours of sleep can do for a person. I have also started working out and it gives we way more energy in the day. It was my birthday last month and Daniel got me the gift I have wanted for years!! An exercise bike. I have wanted one since Alexander was born. I couldn't start using it until two weeks ago though and I love it! Its perfect because I don't have to leave the house to use it and I use it during nap time and its just lovely with some music!

This past week I have been organizing the house like crazy! Every Spring and Fall I get the organizing bug. In the Fall I want to get it ready to be decorated for the fall so I like it organized from top to bottom. I winterized the kids closets and I also got all the correct sizes in there and put the old ones in storage. Then we cleaned out the garage but only organized it a bit. We need to get some kind of organization system in there. I just love organizing and throwing things away. It puts me in such a good mood! We also donated toys and clothes to savers. I love to go through all their toys and donate all the ones that drive me nuts. How horrible is that? Well I have started trying to make rules with kids toys. If its broken throw it away and if Christmas is coming purge a lot of toys to make room for the new toys. Its all a process I guess.

Oh and last week was Daniel's 30th Birthday. I got him a Wii and surprised him and everything. I am horrible with surprising him! He has been getting birthday presents for a least a month now because I can't wait and I give it to him early.

So here is a video of the kids playing the wii together.

GROSSSS!!

Daniel was at work yesterday (in our neighborhood) and he found this:



First on the handle of his shovel and then it went into the back of his truck! Yes that is right it is a Tarantula!!! IN OUT NEIGHBORHOOD. I am guessing they live on the outskirts of the neighborhood because there is a lot of sand and nothingness out there. Anyway its totally gross and it doesn't help that I have these fake spiders and snakes and scorpions all over the house because the kids are obsessed with the Halloween decorations! I was doing laundry and there were two scorpions in there and then I walked up the stairs and there was a black snake there and everytime I turn around there are big giant black spiders all over the place. My adrenaline has been running all day!

Miriam

Balloon Fiesta/ Conference Weekend final

The weekend was Fantastic. We really enjoyed having family come visit us and the kids were in la la land. Just a warning there are going to be many photos in this post.

Balloon Fiesta was a blast even with the early wake up call.


So many Giants and people watching them fly away. The funniest thing I saw the whole time was the Darth Vader Balloon.


It was there last year but this year they went all out and had this guy


in front of it and these guys
guarding it. They were only missing the music.

Eva and Alexander enjoyed the balloons for probably 30 minutes and then just played with Garrett the entire time. Garrett is officially Alexander's favorite person at the moment.you can see Alexander look up at Garrett in amazement, by the way this is pretty much what happened most of the weekend. Eva and Alexander followed Garrett around and Mallory held Jamison. I think Mallory was Jamison's favorite because she always got him to be calm.

This was Jamison the whole morning. He just slept and we were happy.

Beckam found a balloon he liked

We were all a bit tired so we sat around waiting for donuts :)

Eva dressed for warmer weather.
We lucked out this year and got some pretty warm weather
(last year we were freezing and Eva was screaming because of cold hands so we over compensated this year)

Showing how close we got to the balloons
Here is the balloon they were standing in front of.
This is my favorite shot because of the moon.

And this is the final shot.
I think its the funniest shot of the day.
Alexander was being a frog and I caught it.

Conference was another story. Our internet went out on Friday night and stayed out until Monday morning. How LAME is that. We felt so bad because we only got bits and peices of conference so now everyone will have to watch it on their own. This is my favorite time of year. The weather turns cooler the colors change and conference gives that boost we all need.

That was our weekend with our fun visitors now its back to regular life which is going to be great with the holidays coming.

Miriam

Balloon Fiesta/Conference/Reeves weekend Part One

This weekend was fun. We had some Reeves and Goulding's come down to visit us and we loved it. It was Conference weekend and the start of balloon fiesta. We had a very early wake up time of 430 which made for some very tired people at the end of the day (me the most) but it was worth it. I haven't uploaded any photos from our camera but I did upload some of Ralph's so here are some to explain the event.

We attended what is called mass ascension. It was the first one this year so many of the balloons didn't go up for some reason. However here is the first balloon we saw walking into the park:

They were getting ready to make it go up. As you can see the sun was not all the way up yet.

I LOVE this picture. It shows the first row of balloons getting ready. I always think it looks like they are all asleep in their beds waiting to get up. (yes that is a huge field of green grass in New Mexico)
Then they wake up and are ready to go. I can't remember what this group was called but rainbow was in their name.
Here are two twinner balloons getting ready to go up. This picture really shows you the crowds. Its like being at one of those huge concerts with many different bands except there is no backstage and you can go where ever you want :)

This was my favorite ref person. I am glad Ralph got a photo of him. These guys run around and blow whistles telling the balloons when it is their turn to fly.

Here is a shot of me. Yep I allowed one of me in here. I had the camera up most of the time

and here is a lovely shot of the balloons. Its so colorful and I love seeing all the balloons in the park waiting to be blown up and waiting to fly away. I will have more to write in the next post which probably won't be until tomorrow. I still need to upload our camera too.
I highly recommend if you ever plan on visiting Albuquerque to come on Balloon Fiesta week. It really is a site to see and you can stay at our house.

Miriam