November

In the beginning of November we went to Disney on Ice, and the girls LOVED it. They wore princess dresses and watched with rapt attention. Kaelyn didn't let us take one good picture of her during the whole thing, I think because she was perturbed that we were disturbing her.  We didn't even take pictures during the show though, so who knows?

 This is a clip from our favorite part of the show; Rapunzel and Flynn did aerial ice skating/dancing.  I didn't even know that was a thing, but it was pretty awesome!

 The girls just had a blast, and loved seeing all the princesses.  Yesterday we went up to Temple Square and drove past the place we saw this at, and as soon as Kaelyn saw the building, she recognized it and started telling us all about the show.  I was amazed that she remembered so much, including what building it was in!

 The princesses with their prince after the show.  Doesn't Kaelyn's hoop skirt just crack you up?

 Kaelyn has started waking up and coming to "cuddle" with us (me) in bed.  Usually this happens in the morning and she just takes daddy's place after he leaves for work, but this night she came in at about one, started out between us, and then was sprawled all over me.  She literally had one leg over my stomach, and one arm over my face, just making herself comfortable.  Mike and I were cracking up because she just kept shifting more and more on top of me, and somehow the laughing did not wake her up. Eventually I got up to put her back in bed, and as soon as I stood up, she just completely took over my spot.

 Luckily she hasn't been doing that as much, all though we found it pretty funny.

Before we left for Thanksgiving, we went to the Riverwoods tree lighting and the girls got to meet Elsa.  I think that was their favorite part of the whole thing!

Halloween

As if the week wasn't filled with enough Halloween activities, we decided to fit even more in on the day itself.  In the morning we got the girls all dressed and then went trick or treating at a couple of stores. 

 Toys R Us was our first stop, and it was empty.  And the girls were scared of Geoffery.  If you'll notice in the next 3 pictures, we had him scoot a little closer to them during the picture taking, hoping they wouldn't notice. It worked pretty well.

 Except that you can tell that Alexa totally just realized what happened here.

 The girls thought it was so fun to trick or treat at stores.  We went to a grocery store, and there were a lot of kids there doing it as well.  We also continued our tradition of pumpkin shaped pizza for dinner, and then went trick or treating.

Link, Princess Rosalina, and Princess Peach.

 Link and Zelda.

 Oh, and Kaelyn got a shiner during her quiet time by taking a nose dive off her toy box, so Princess Peach had a black eye for the real Trick or Treating.  I love this picture, she looks so put out!

Halloween Activities

We had a much busier Halloween season than normal; it was a lot of fun, and the kids especially loved it.  First, we had a Clue dinner party at Kari's house, and I made this cake to bring.  And of course, I have to show it off, because I'm vain like that :)  The party was a lot of fun, we all dressed as characters, then essentially played clue with us as the pawns.  I was Ms. Peacock, and Mike was Colonel Mustard. 

 During the week, the girls and I decided to go check out another pumpkin patch that I had heard about.  It was a bit of a drive, but was free and had a lot to do.  We really liked it, the only problem was the 5 field trips that were there!

 They had a huuuuge corn pit, and a really good, tall hay maze for the kids.

 They also had a petting zoo (with a kangaroo) a little haunted 'maze', a couple of slides, and a hay ride.  The hay ride was the painful part with the field trips, because the kids would all just swarm and ignore all the other people that had been waiting.  It was worth the wait, though.  The girls had a blast, and it was a nice long ride.

 Then one night we carved/painted our pumpkins.

 Mike loves that he has to clean mine out, too! :)

 The girls loooooove painting their pumpkins.  I thought for sure Alexa would want to carve hers this year, but no, she was excited to just paint them again! Less work for us!

 On Friday, Alexa's school had their Halloween parade, which we had to go early for since she's in afternoon Kindergarten.  It was pretty cute, and she was the only Rosalina in the whole school.  The most popular costumes we saw were Anna and Elsa (of course) and Star Wars and Batman.

 After the parade we ran to IHOP for free pancakes, which the girls loved.

 And then back to school for Alexa, where she had her Halloween party.  Kaelyn, miraculously, slept almost the whole time Alexa was at school.  It. Was. AWESOME!

The Last Game

Soccer season ended a few weekends ago, and while it was a lot of fun, it is nice to have weekends back.  We've only had a handful of game free Saturdays since March, because there's no break between the seasons.  

We got team pictures done a couple of weeks before the end, and we were only missing 3 kids.

 This is pretty much the only picture from the last game.  Coaching meant that Mike was in charge of all the pictures, so we didn't get a lot :)

This was definitely a new experience, and a bit out of my comfort zone.  I think Alexa enjoyed having me as the coach, in fact, she's already asking if I'll do it again next year, but I'm not sure yet.  It was a little hard with some of the kids, and there were some things that I wasn't a fan of (like when only 2 other kids showed up to our last practice, or the games when we only had 1 sub) but it was really nice seeing the progress the kids made, and earning a free sport season for Alexa!

Pumpkin Patch

I don't think we've ever gone to a pumpkin patch twice, although a lot of that is just how much we've moved.  This was our first Halloween in Utah with kids, so once again it was a new patch.  We liked this one, it had pony rides, a tiny corn maze, free food, a country store, and a hay ride (that we skipped because of the line).  I think that we might keep looking and try to find a better one next year.  

Kaelyn LOVED the pony ride.  It was her first time, and she did great.  It was actually Alexa's first pony ride, too, but only because every other time she flipped out as soon as we got her on (or near) the pony.  She actually wanted to skip it this time, until she saw how excited Kaelyn was. Nothing like peer pressure, and getting shown up by your little sister, right? She ended up enjoying it too, just not to the extent of Kaelyn.

 They both really liked messing around on all the old tractors this place had.

 And they thought the corn maze was pretty cool, but it was pretty sparse, and wasn't really maze-like at all.

 They did really enjoy the slide, although not the hay that got stuck everywhere.

After all the fun stuff we picked pumpkins.  Alexa got a monster- the biggest out of all of ours, and Kaelyn refused to get one big enough to carve, and actually ended up picking a white pumpkin.  Guess that will be a good canvas for painting!

Camping

We had been talking about camping pretty much all summer, and we finally went in September.  Of course, it was the coolest weekend in months, but we had a lot of fun.  The girls were filthy within about 5 minutes of getting there, literally- we hadn't even unloaded anything yet.

 They were pretty excited to sleep in the tent.

 And there were a couple of tiny little paths through the trees that went up the mountain and had gorgeous views.  It was pretty steep, but the girls loved hiking up it!

 They also thought it was pretty cool walking up the road to the big cage full of wood piles, and took their jobs of picking our bundle out very seriously.

We're looking forward to going again, probably next year, when it gets a bit warmer at nights again!

The Cuddler vs. The Terror

Sometimes I think Kaelyn's got a little Jekyll and Hyde thing going on.  On the one hand, we have the girl who loves to curl up ON you (as opposed to next to you) to watch movies or games or anything really.

And on the other you have the girl who puts an entire roll of toilet paper in the toilet....

 Or a whole container of baby powder and bottle of shampoo on the floor (it's a couple of inches thick on the floor)....

 And who seduces her older sister to her evil ways, and wastes probably about $25 of spices (there are more piles to the right).

And those are just the worst messes, but there was one that was another bottle of shampoo, multiple sink floodings, many clogged toilets, and a few others.  All within about 3 weeks.  It was a weird, and terrible time in the house, with a very strange smelling bathroom, and a very spicy smelling kitchen.  Luckily, she seems to be over this phase. Thankfully!