More Halloween Pictures

I had so many pictures from Halloween, that I felt like I needed a separate post to accommodate all of them. :)

Here are the kids at the ward harvest party. They were very happy to show of their costumes for the first time. 

Showing off in the costume parade.

They made some haunted houses at the party. Lila pretty much made hers, then immediately ate the candy from it. Just like her momma! 

Here are some pictures of my coworkers. Don't we look great?!

 Here's Lila during the school costume parade. I didn't get to see her, because the kindergartners didn't go through the whole school. She did go into my friend Megan's classroom, though, so she got pictures for me. :) 

Halloween 2016 Baby!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... Turtles in a half shell, turtle power! 

Aren't we adorable? This year my family were the ninja turtles. (If you didn't already figure that out.) My coworkers and I were already dressing up like the turtles, so instead of my standing by my lonesome as Donatello, I made costumes for the rest of my family as well, and the turtles were born. 

Here we are: Brighton was our leader, Leonardo, Lila was Raphael, Micah was Michelangelo, and I was Donatello.

Don't we look fierce? Look at Lila's face. She's ready for action!

Here are the kids trying on the costumes for the first time. They were very excited. 

Trying out their first ninja moves.  

 Enjoying some of the spoils of their evening.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

For our Halloween decorating this year, we decided to paint pumpkins, rather than carve them. A lot of my siblings do this with their kids and it just seemed like a good idea. I'm not good at carving, and I'm not always good about being patient with my kids and messes. ;) Anyway, there is a local pumpkin patch that's pretty much across from where we live, so we decided to head there. I did take pictures, but lost those.

Lila and Brighton each got to pick a pumpkin of their own. I feel like the choices they made, very much reflect their personalities. Micah got a big one that would count for both him and me.

That night, we painted the pumpkins in our front room, while watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. We love that movie... all of those movies really. (Again, lost pics.) It was great to watch the kids be creative, although, a lot of the time their paint just turned brown because they really wanted to mix all of the colors. We finally, convinced Lila to not mix her colors quite so much so that we can see a difference.

Here are the finished pumpkins. Cute, eh?

Lila's has pink, of course, and Brighton's is the one without the stem.

We'll have to do this again next year.

Family Pictures

Last year for Christmas my sister-in-law Tracee gave me a gift certificate to get family photos done. I was so happy when I saw that was my gift, because I've been wanting to get family pictures done for forever! Micah doesn't love doing them, but because it was a gift he did it this time. It took me awhile to get around to actually getting them done, but I love the fall and wanted to wait for that time of year. The leaves were perfect, so off we went!

The photographer was actually a good family friend of ours, Juli. I would definitely recommend her! She took us up Little Cottonwood Canyon to temple quarry. It was a beautiful setting! We had some trouble finding exactly where she was talking about and drove around for about half an hour before we finally found her. The kids did amazingly well considering the extra driving.

The delay in getting there made it so the sun was lower in the sky and it was a bit colder than it should've been. Oh, well. The pictures turned out beautiful and I could not be happier. Here are some for your viewing pleasure. 

The first two are my favorite!

I love my cute kiddos!

My beautiful, beautiful little girl!

Aren't they so cute?

Brighton was cold and hungry, but trying really, really hard to smile. What a sweetheart!

Thanks, Juli! They turned out amazing. Maybe I can convince Micah again for next year! ;)

Ladies' Night!

Almost every conference, the girls in my family (sometimes just a few, sometimes all) get together at Deseret Book for something called ladies' night. It's an evening to celebrate sisterhood while the priesthood session is going on during general conference. There's always a free gift for the first 100 sisters, (yes, we almost always get it) then throughout the night they draw out names for prizes. 

Even though I go twice a year (it also happens in April for that conference), I pretty much never win. Not even the little prizes... in fact, Lila has won more often than I have. I still love going, but don't expect to win. Luckily, I have the door prize to make up for it. I have a couple of people in my family who seem to ALWAYS win. *cough, Laura, Sarah, and mum, cough* This year, as it was getting closer to the end and the grand prize, I just really wanted to win something. Emma was talking to mum and me about it, and said that we have to be living right in order to win. I jokingly said that I felt like I was living right, and literally right after I said that, they drew the final name for the grand prize and it was me!!! I couldn't believe it! I had actually won! Not only had I won, but the grand prize? No way! 

When Emma texted the rest of my family, they said they didn't believe it, because I never win. :) Ha! It was honestly awesome. I do believe my good luck has been used up for another ten years, though.

I LOVE the prize that I got. It's a painting of the Savior by Liz Lemon Swindle. She even signed the painting. I got to meet her and got a picture with her, but it's lost. Here is one picture from the evening. Can you tell I'm happy? ;)

It's possible that my mum didn't win this year, because I did. Thanks for the sacrifice mum! I really appreciate it. ;)