Pumpkins

Last night was the long-awaited Pumpkin Painting night. The kids were SO excited to get their pumpkins! We brought Ali's in first and told them that was the biggest one. Cole was a little sad until we brought in the other two and he realized we were tricking him!

They worked hard to paint them just the way they wanted them...

The finished products:

OK, this last pumpkin one is a flashback a few years ago - Cole worked so hard to paint this pumpkin and he named it "Punky Poopstain" all by himself. We laughed about it forever - in fact we are still laughing!!
Josh found a great new alternative to socks - GLOVES!

Ali looking pretty
Josh got a new Batman bed - this expression says it all. When h walked in his room he started screaming and jumping up and down and holding out his p.j. shirt to show that it matched his new bed. He loves it!
The boys chillin with Batman

Random Photos

Our litte Hula GirlMy parents' sweet neighbors went to Hawaii and brought back some darling outfits for our kids!
Cole and Josh at the circus. Love the expressions!
There was a double rainbow outside after the last rainstorm. You can't see both of them in the picture, but the kids thought it was pretty cool.

'Tis The Season

Ok, not that season, but it is my favorite season. Fall is here! I love fall! I love the weather, the colored leaves, the fact that football season has started, all of the fun, upcoming holidays...but most of all...I love that Arctic Circle now has their PUMPKIN SHAKES!! Yum!! So here's my funny story that I have to share. We finally went last week to get a pumpkin shake (and it was soooo worth the wait!) and we saw that they have sweet potato fries. I wanted to see if Kris could eat them, so I asked the guy working there if they were breaded or had flour on them. He actually responded by saying "I don't know...(pause) oh - I know - they do have sweet potatoes in them". Kris had to turn around because he started laughing and I couldn't even think of anything to say. Did he really tell me that the sweet potato fries had sweet potatoes in them??? So then this girl working there hears us and says "oh I love them. They are good!" So again, I ask her...are they breaded or do they have wheat? I even tell her we have an allergy so I need to know. Her response: "I don't know. But I love to dip them in caramel. It is so good!". Needless to say, they are not so helpful. But I do recommend you go get a pumpkin shake - I don't know that it even has pumpkin in it but it is so good!

Multi-Tasking

The other day my friend Shelley had a picturure on her blog of her little girl on the potty reading a book and said "like father like daughter" and "where else would she have learned this?"
Well...can you tell Joshua's dad is an artist????

(And just for the record Kris does have an art studio - and no - it's not the bathroom!)

It's Official!

Cole officially turned 5 yesterday! He woke up and came in and asked if he was 5 now and then was so amazed all day that you just wake up and you're older - tha you don't even have to wait for your birthday party to turn older. He was so happy all day. He had a fun Batman Birthday Party and had a great time celebrating with his friends!

I can't believe Cole is 5! It seems like he was just a new baby. He is so smart and so funny and adds so much happiness to our house. He has an incredible imagination andwe are amazed at what an adult-sense-of-humor he already has. He is a good helper and friend to Josh and to Alaria. He loves superheroes, legos, playing toys, pepperoni pizza, going to preschool, and playing with friends and cousins. We love you Cole!

Baseball and Birthdays

A couple of weeks ago we met my family for an Orem Owlz baseball game. The kids loved it! The next morning Josh woke up and told me that he gets to go to another game sometime, and later that morning when Ali was crying he told her "It's OK, we will go to another baseball game". We went early and the boys met the players and got their autographs
So proud of his signed baseball!
Making pizzas for lunch. I didn't think there would be anything left to bake of Josh's - he just kept taking bites out of the dough!
Cole had his first birthday party over Labor Day. He and Grandpa Gamber have a party together every year since their birthdays are only 8 days apart

Cole said the 5 on the candle was for him, but also for Grandpa because "he is turning 25"
Josh and Ali struttin' their stuff and showing off their gold chains. (Josh made a rap video after their walk)
Labor Day was so cold and rainy we even got to light a fire! It made me so exicted for fall to come to sit by the fire and read all morning.
Birthday party #2 - Cole and Aunt Steph share Sept. birthdays as well so we had a fun birthday dinner on Sunday

What Will I Feed Them???

First of all let me say that I am happy that my kids are good eaters, butI just had to write this post because....well, frankly...I am pretty grossed out!
Keep in mind I have 3 kids and the oldest is 4 years old. The following is what was consumed today for lunch by my children (just the kids - this doesn't include my food):

1 full package of hot dogs
3 Peaches
A tupperware of leftover hamburger meat
About 2 Cups of Mustard (they filled their plates when I took Alaria up for a nap and ate it with their fingers. Yuck!)
2 Bowls of Cereal
2 Pieces of toast with peanut butter and jelly
3 cups of milk
2 cups of juice

I also have to throw in that the other night we had tacos for dinner and Cole at 5 tacos and Josh had 3. These were full size tacos like Kris and I were eating - fully loaded!

Wow! What I'm really worried about is how I am going to feed them when they are teenagers!

Florida / Take 2

A few more pictures from our trip...They had these amazing trees where vines would grow down and then take root into the ground. This is all one tree. They were huge.
This is where we stayed...

Pictures of the mini-circus (from previous post) This is just the "main tent" of their set-up.
The detail of each piece was incredible

Some memorable moments from the trip:

- of course being stranded in a deserted airport

- wearing my glasses and having them fog up every time I walked out of a building our got out of the car (not to mention the camera lens did the same thing!)

-the wildlife we saw in the yard - lizzards, squirrels, rabbits and cranes

- making fun of people at the airport (the guy who had to be in the front of every line and would do so at any cost, the over-anxious luggage claimers)

- Getting Ice Cream at Big Olaf - the coolest ice cream place down by the beach. There was a huge line clear out the door to go in.

- Walking around the shops at St. Armands

- Sitting out by the water at Phillipi Creek's Oyster Bar and enjoying delicious crab legs

- Our tour of Sarasota at 3 a.m.

- A very elderly lady at the pool doing laps for over 30 minutes! Wow!

- The street name "Tuttle"

- The GPS voice which Kris decided sounded like Barry Gibbs and we had to imitate it with each new street name

- Getting to fly first class and being able to skip past all of the lines (and have as much diet coke on the plane as I wished)

- Blistering Sunburns

- Finishing entire books (yes, Kris included)

- Eating breakfast at a little local cafe and getting a pancake that was as large as the dinner plate and 2" thick!

- A late night dollar movie with some interesting locals

- Driving past $10 million beach homes on the way to the beach

- Our (elderly) "tour guide" advising us not to go into Cheetah's because "they charge you $5 to get in and the girls do all sorts of crazy things on the stage".

7 Days in Florida + No Kids = VACATION!

We just got back from a fabulous vacation in Florida. The Hortons were AWESOME to take all of our kids for a week.

Our trip started out with a great beginning - the plane on our last flight had an overheated engine just as we were about to take off, so we had to de-board and get on a new plane. We called our ride in Sarasota to let them know we would be delayed, and said we would just call when we landed. Well...he fell asleep. And no, his phone didn't wake him up. Our flight was the last flight to land at the Sarasota airport (we landed just after midnight) and EVERYONE left. All of the passengers...all of the employees. We were literally the only two people in the entire airport. The last security guard told us as he was leaving "Good Luck. Coffee and Donuts open at 4 a.m." It was pretty strange being the only ones there! Well...I won't give you the full length story, but we finally got to our condo we stayed at at 4 a.m. What a night!!

The beach was beautiful!! This is Siesta Beach. The sand was pure white and felt as soft as flour. The water was clear and so warm. It was so great. I actually had a jelly fish come up by me as I was out in the water. Luckily I saw it just as it brushed up against my arm and was able to hurry and brush it away. We also got super sunburned the first day we went to the beach! I had little blisters all over me - it was so painful! I guess it's been much too long since I've been out in sun like that!

These are from Marina Jack's. The boats were beautiful!

We even found a board with boats for sale. This one here is just under $4 million!
We also went to the Ringling Museum. It has the mansion of John and Mable Ringling (yes, of the Ringling Circus). It was unbelievable! This house had 14 bathrooms! They spent more on their master suite than on the local high school. The bay crashed right up onto their back terrace.

This is from the Ringling Circus Museum...and of course we had to get this photo for Cole!
They have gone through and created an entire town and circus out of miniature figures. It was great! I couldn't believe all the detail and work that went into it. I'm not a huge circus fan by any means, but I really enjoyed this!

There was also an art museum with all of the artworks that John Ringling had purchased/collected. It had like 21 galleries and was enormous. The courtyard was beautiful.


We ended up with over 200 photos....but this is enough for now. Needless to say, it was a great week full of sun, relaxing, shopping, fantastic seafood, and too much ice cream! But it's good to be home again.

Lagoon

Saturday we took the kids to Lagoon and we all had a blast! Here are a few of the highlights...