october fun

here are all the things that went on between the halloween madness.

is it weird that my almost one year old still loves his swing?

riggs loves kitty.  kitty tolerates riggs. he's learning though.

his sleeping positions make me laugh daily.

riggins gets himself in the worst situations all the time.  he needs to be rescued a LOT.

 one morning when we had no school we all cuddled in bed and watched cartoons.  i soaked it in.

for conference weekend we drove to burley and hung out at my dad's house.

we were able to go watch jaxyn play football.

he ended up getting hit pretty hard (total cheap shot)

my dad was out there helping him through it.

 he got back out there and played awesome.

it's all boys at my dad's house. my girls have no problem with that. lol. they still fit right in.

 rhett bought us all hats for the winter. riggs got one too but he was in bed.

 i struggle with bread. i've never been good at it. i did get ambitious the other day and made these rolls.  they turned out good! i'm still proud.

 i wish someone would have really explained to me a couple years ago to just RELAX when it comes to your kids reading.  I read the other day that most kids are all caught up by third grade and not to push them too hard.  I found that out too late.  we struggled through kindergarten and 1st grade.  lots of tears from both of us.  i'm ashamed how hard i pushed this sweet girl.  i'm hoping i didn't damage her too badly.  2nd grade has been a whole different experience.  BAM! something clicked and she has just taken off at school in all areas.  and even though we had such a rough start luckily she loves reading now.  rhett and i can't wipe the grins off our faces every night when she reads to us.  it's amazing.  one thing we swear that made the biggest difference was we were having her read a scripture verse or two every night.  that's when we really starting seeing changes.  i will be doing things different with the next two kiddos.  sorry tacey, first child always has it the roughest. lesson learned.

 brylee all smiles and ready for school.

most weeks the kids get dragged to mutual with me.  they love it and my beehives are always so sweet and helpful.

the girls touching the temple.

we went through the visitors center that evening and watched a couple videos.  the girls were fascinated.  i actually really was too.

look how adorable my beehives are.  i love them so much.

october started off super chilly the first half of the month. the last half was so nice and perfect warm weather.

this was one of the chillier days.  we were getting ready to go on a walk.

 love our playdates with the kennedy's.  they keep me sane.  

how cute are these two cuddling! 

in a few years when they realize how cute each other is we are going to have to put a stop to this.

 on another walk/bike ride.

perfect weather.

 look at that sunset.

God is good.

 come on kitty, give riggs a chance!

 i thought the kids were just over there watering  my tree and plants.

 WRONG!

 just eating dirt.

favorite part of my day. don't know how much longer these nightly cuddles are going to last.  i'm soaking in every minute of it.

riggs likes to drive to the bus stop and brylee caught it on camera.  

 eating dirt again.

yep, he's a boy.

rhett had like one saturday at home this month.  he decided to do all the science projects out of tacey's book.

it started off great! we made magic mud.  it is the coolest feeling.  i think i had more fun with it then the kids did.

 it was all downhill after the magic mud though.  rhett decided to set a bomb off in my kitchen.  no really.  he set a bomb off.

he made a baking soda/vinegar mixture in one of our shaker bottles.  i yelled 'take it outside' just a couple seconds too late.  it blew up.  everywhere.  ceiling, cupboards, and everything else in a one mile radius.  jk.  but it was bad. 

rhett scrubbed for a long time but i'm still finding baking soda spots all over my kitchen. 

haha.  at least it was a fun memory, right?!

 these pictures really don't do it justice. 

 such a handsome boy.

this right here is why everyone needs a mamas boy.

i thought maybe i could get the bathrooms cleaned with riggins awake.  this worked for about 2 minutes.

 we had the best thunderstorm. 

gorgeous.

this makes my heart melt.

 again with the getting stuck.

lol.

not sure this boy will ever learn.

all things pumpkin and halloween

we made three trips to pumpkin patches this october.

the first patch we visited was a field trip with brylee's preschool class.  riggs and i tagged along.

brylee's cute class and teacher

rhett was gone quite a few times on overnight trips.  one of the nights neither of the girls had school the next day so we made a party out of it. we made caramel apples, decorated the house for halloween, listened to fun halloween music, and ended the night with watching the nightmare before christmas.  even though we missed daddy we had a ball.

brylee crushing the oreos for the apples.

 tacey melting the chocolate.

i overcooked the caramel so it was not edible(almost cracked a tooth) and lets face it, that thing looks hideous! haha.  we made another huge apple but just put white chocolate and crushed oreos on it.  DELICIOUS!

for once that's not dirt on riggins face. it's oreos. 

 the last couple of years i have set my decorations out and let the girls go crazy with it.  they always feel so proud and excited when they are done.   

 i fixed only a couple spots, but really they do a good job.

 this is the second patch we made it to. it was one out by blackfoot.  it was fun, but kind of spendy. not sure i would spend that much again.  at least the girls had a blast though.

tacey led the family through the maze.

 the kids going for a ride.

we were having fun while the kids were on their ride.

we aren't the best with selfies.

and finally our third trip to the patch.  this is actually the one brylee's class went to. it's cute and affordable! 

we rushed home and cut open a pumpkin for the seeds.  the three kids gutted the entire thing.  it was fascinating to them this year.  thankfully, i'm not a fan of that part.

 the roasted seeds were soo good!  tacey was the only one to not like them.

another day rhett had to work the kids and i headed to rexburg to play at the park. it was one of those randomly warm october days.  it was the funnest.

 headed to rexburg again for the hocus pocus event.

 we had kind of a theme going this year with the costumes.  tacey was maleficent, brylee was arora, and riggies was the dragon.  so the girls were so excited that the 'real' maleficent was there!

hay ride!

we met up with this cute family and spent the day with them. we love these guys.

 i am the worst at being a paranoid mom.  all i could think the whole time these girls were getting dolled up was 'gross! how many other kids has that lipgloss been on!' lol.  nobody got sick or died so i was annoying and paranoid for nothing... luckily.

and look how cute the girls look!

 we stopped at the park on the way back and played in the trees and gorgeous leaves. 

 that sunday we had our spooky halloween dinner with the englesteads! toni made the dead man.  so cute and creative!

 at the last minute i remembered brylee was supposed to make a dessert for her preschool halloween party.  so we whipped up monster cupcakes at 7:30 in the morning! we had them ready just in time for class. 

my mom came for halloween weekend!!! 

and she brought us the BEST, YUMMIEST caramel corn! i had that gone in about a day.  

brylee's dance class.

 my mom and i were able to go help with tacey's class halloween party.  i love meeting all the kids in her class and being able to put faces to names.

 lol.  my mom 'tricking' the girls.  

 by the time halloween came around we had already hit so many parties and events and i was beyond burnt out.  and so were the kids.  my in-laws ended up driving through town and pulling us on the back of their trailer and taking us trick or treating.  and then the kennedy's stopped by after and we let the kids burn off all their sugar by running and screaming while we tried talking over them.  haha.  it was a great night.  

and we remembered we never carved our pumpkins.  so we whipped out the drill and let the kids go crazy with it.

i couldn't find pictures from our ward halloween party, but that was another fun night with lots of great people.

we packed everything in that we could this fall and halloween season.  our family made a lot of fun, sweet memories. now we are ready to bring on the next two holidays! my favorite time of year!