Halloween & Oct Playdates

Our Halloween weekend was pretty good. We had the church trunk-or-treat on Saturday night:


And our ninjas enjoyed trick-or-treating on Monday night:



Anndra was feeling yucky from an immunization she received, so she didn't stay up to trick-or-treat. And besides, she was still refusing to wear a costume... how do you explain to a 2-year-old that you have to dress up to get candy?


Also included in this post are pics from some of the MANY happy playdates we had last month. Enjoy!























Looking back at these pictures makes me realize how much good use we've gotten out of our backyard, wii, and playroom. I'm so thankful to have such a kid-friendly house. I love hosting my kids' friends.

Parker is NINE today!

We've been celebrating Parker's birthday for a couple of weeks already, so I think he's pretty happy that now it actually IS his big day and he can say he's 9! Here are some pics from his party last week:





Following a family tradition from my childhood, our kids have family parties on even years and friend parties on odd years. So we gave Parker the choice of 1) having lots of friends come to a party at our house or 2) going to a fun place for the party and inviting 2 close friends. He requested the second option and picked Stevie B's - a pizza buffet with arcade games - as the location.

Checking out the prizes they could earn with the tickets they win:



Easy to serve cake - 9 cupcakes in the shape of a 9:



Opening presents while friends, Grandma & Lincoln look on:



(I love the way Syd is looking up at him in this last pic)

Hello and Goodbye

We took another feels-too-short-but-is-really-just-long-enough trip to Alabama. We said HELLO to our new baby nephew/cousin, Bruce:


- and GOODBYE to Mom/Grandy since this was the last time we'd see her before she & Dad leave for their mission.


My boys were happy to give Bruce attention, but I think Anndra couldn't figure out what the big deal was. She'd point to him and say "baby" - but she wasn't very interested. At least the boys bonded:






We attended church with Jess & fam - and it happened to be the Sunday of their primary program. It was fun to see Jane and Maren do their parts.



More happy smiles and other silliness:





Sunday evening we took the kids on a nature walk and they loved collecting leaves, pine-cones, sticks, etc. in their little bags:





It was beautiful weather, so we ALL went (even Bruce):


Parker was really good about showing the camera his treasures:



The other kids were too busy running from one thing to the next and seeing whose bag was fullest:


This next pic is funny because Jessie stopped all the kids to point out a big fire-ant nest and warn them to watch for these and not step on them. Then about two seconds after I took this shot Anndra walked right into it!


We tried to get a picture of the kids on a merry-go-round we passed, but it kept turning even when no one was pushing it... so it didn't turn out very well:


Cute pic of Anndra (too bad the road is in the background):


Right before we left, we lined the kids up and had them hold signs for their ages because we thought it was fun that right now we have a kid for each digit from zero to five: