October with kids

Just in case you were wondering what the month of October looks like when you have kids, here you go:

Driving to Grandpa and Grandma's house to spend General Conference weekend

(Who can resist those chubby legs?)

Visiting a pumpkin patch with preschool friends

Chillin' with cousins after Aunt Becky took our family photos

Riding ponies at Farm Country

Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point.  (I can't overemphasize how much fun this was!  I'm so glad our friends invited us.  Cassie and Benson both had a blast.)

Halloween!  I'm pretty sure this is the first time since Trevor was 11 that he has worn a costume.  He's not a huge fan of dressing up for Halloween.  I thought Waldo would be the perfect costume for him, and he said that if I got him a Waldo costume, he would wear it.  So I had to make it happen!  Even if it involved lots of red duct tape.  Also, for the record, Cassie requested to be a fairy for Halloween.  Yup, that's year 5 of the wings.

All boy

It's pretty fun to see how different Benson and Cassie are.  Some days I think to myself, "Benson is such a boy!"  He really is into "boy" things, especially cars, trucks, and "diggers" or anything construction related.  When he sees anything with wheels, his immediate reaction is to say, "brrrm brrrm!"  We ran into this tractor at a pumpkin patch and I had a hard time tearing him away from it.

Same story with this sweet ride in the mall.

Benson is more brave than Cassie in a lot of ways.  He is definitely a thrill-seeker.  He likes to jump off of beds/chairs/stairs etc. into our arms, and he loves when Trevor tosses him in the air.  He isn't afraid of animals at all (Cassie is usually a little wary, or at least cautious).  He will chase dogs that are much bigger than he is, just so he can pet them.  And he's a little too brave on the playground for my taste.  He goes down slides by himself without any hesitation.  He loves to climb as high as he can, then stand at the top platform on the very edge and grin and giggle.  I am constantly standing underneath him, because I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he thought it would be a good idea to jump.  Crazy kid.

Running after pigs at a pumpkin patch.  Go get 'em!

 He would have gone down this by himself if I let him...

 I'm pretty excited to use these pictures for blackmail someday.  I guess part of being a little brother is wanting to be like your big sister sometimes...

 I can't believe I captured this pose...seriously, priceless.

We love you, Mr. B!

Try to remember the kind of September...

(Just a little reference for all my musical theater nerd friends out there...3 gold stars if you can name the musical!)

Really though, September was so long ago that I'm trying to remember what we did.  Good thing I took pictures, or I really would have forgotten.

Cassie started some new adventures: dance and preschool!


Her dance teacher holds classes in her basement and is ridiculously good with little girls. Cassie adores her.


We are doing a co-op preschool with 4 other moms/kids in the neighborhood, and I love it.  (Missing one friend in the picture.)  I was a little hesitant to create our own curriculum, but it's actually going very well and hasn't been too much work.  I know it's not for everyone, but I love being involved in Cassie's learning and watching her interact and learn with the other kids.  I couldn't handle teaching preschool full-time, but I love the once-every-five-weeks gig.

Every year about mid-October, when the leaves start changing colors in the valley, I think, "Gee, wouldn't it be great to go on a drive up the canyon and see all the beautiful fall colors?"  And then I remember that the leaves up the canyon changed colors a month ago, and I kick myself for missing it again.  Well, not this year! We took a scenic drive in the mountains on a Sunday in September (along with every other family in the county...seriously, there were tons of people that day) and caught the beginning of the changing leaves.  We went on a 5 minute "hike," as Cassie called it.  It really was beautiful!

And we enjoyed the fruits of our labors...well, the vegetables of our labors: carrots, onions, peas, beans, and tomatoes from our garden!

A day of no labor

I had so much fun on Labor Day, I was too busy to take pictures.  My family came to our house for the day.  We:

• Put our chest freezer in the basement.  Technically, we've owned this freezer for almost 6 years, but this is the first time it has lived in our home.  It was a (very generous) wedding gift from Trevor's grandma, and Trevor's parents kept it in their basement until we moved out of student housing (because we had no room for it).  We thought we could fit it on our balcony at our last apartment, but after Trevor's parents loaded in their suburban, drove it to us, and tried everything possible to get it onto our balcony, we finally succumbed to the fact that it wasn't going to fit through our sliding glass door (Or our window.  Or be lifted via pulley system over our 2nd floor railing.)  One of Trevor's co-workers kindly stored it in his unfinished basement until further notice.  Then, when my brother and sister-in-law were pregnant with twins, they asked if they could borrow it and could stock it with freezer meals so they could still eat decent meals after the twins came.  The twins are now 8 months old, and the freezer meals are finished, so they brought the freezer to us on Labor Day.  The men had to take the lid off the freezer in order to fit it through all the doors, but it is successfully sitting in our basement, just waiting to be filled with food storage.
• Saw Renae's ring!  My little brother is finally engaged to his awesome girlfriend, and we are SO excited!  We absolutely love her and we have been looking forward to this for a long time.  I told Trevor about 10 months ago that I wanted to host a bridal shower for her at our new house.  So yeah, we are ready for this to happen.  I really wish I had a picture of them, they are such a cute couple!
• Went swimming!  My mom stayed home with the babies, and Dad and Christie stayed in the shade on the side of the pool, so it was just me, Trevor, Robert, Renae, Vaughn, and little Lexi and Cassie in the pool.  We have loved visiting our neighborhood pool all summer, and we went early enough on Labor Day that we had the pool mostly to ourselves.  Cassie was wearing her life jacket and playing with Lexi, so I actually got to (gasp) play in the water!  Robert, Renae, Trevor, and I played keep away and some variations of fly's up, and I had so much fun!  I need to get out more...
• Ate lunch.  Mom did most of the work, but we all contributed a little bit and had a delicious meal.
• Played games.  Mom and Dad beat us all on Apples to Apples, and I think Dad won the tiebreaker at the end.  Our game of Uno Attack sort of failed when all the kids melted down, but Trevor, Mom, and Dad played some Bananagrams.
• Took naps, relaxed, vegged, etc.  This is when I finally got out the camera:

 Aw.  Uncle Vaughn and Cassie snuggling and watching A Bug's Life.

Bananagrams!

Mom and Dad stayed for dinner, then we spent the evening outside talking with our neighbors while the kids rode bikes.  It was wonderful to have a long, relaxing day!

Weekend trip

We went to our nephew's baby blessing in Rexburg a few weeks ago.  We headed out on Saturday morning, stopped in Centerville and ate lunch with my parents, then stopped in Idaho Falls to play with Trevor's brother's family and some other family that stopped to visit.  Cassie loves playing with her cousins!

Saturday evening:

Our kids were pooped after playing for hours with their cousins, but of course it took a few hours for them to fall asleep once we got to the hotel in Rexburg.  And then they woke up super early on Sunday...

Sunday morning:

Baby Emmitt and his fan club

At the park:

Cassie started feeling really sick on Sunday (as you can see in the picture above- she wrapped up in a blanket after lunch and fell asleep).  She had a fever, no appetite, and was lethargic and sad.  She slept for most of the drive home, but when she wasn't sleeping, she cried because she wanted to be lying down in a bed.  Poor baby.  We just tried to keep her hydrated and get home as quickly as we could.  So the drive home was a little stressful, and felt pretty long without all the stops we made on the way to Rexburg, but we made it home and Cassie felt much better on Monday.