So Fall-y

Fall is finally here!! The weather is finally cooperating too, which is the best part, right? If you look around my house you can tell that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Any excuse to cook and bake and decorate is my favorite I guess. Mark has been trying to teach me some photography and photoshop basics and this is what I have come up with so far. It is so fun and kind of like an art project, but SO much to learn and remember. Really fun to play with though.

Speaking of baking, I took these little treats to my visiting teaching ladies (and a couple other neighbors) last week, it is Jills YUMMY pumpkin bar recipe and cream cheese frosting that I did up as cupcakes and stacked in jars. They go great with Pres. Monsons Saturday (??) afternoon conference talk about the farming family who got electricity.

I made a sticker for the top that said "Give thanks" I'm mostly just giving thanks that I got it done so early in the month!

This is Halloween!

Does anybody else feel like Halloween was a bit anti-climatic this year?? Halloween on Sunday is LAME. The kids dressed up for our trunk or treat and chili cook-off/carnival thingy on Friday which was really fun. Saturday I was gone all day spending the day with Jen and her sister Deb who was going through the temple. It was a great experience!! It was so great that Mark got to finish the pumpkin carving and then went to Cades basketball game. Our neighbor Matt took the kids to the Spooktacular in the neighboorhood and then Cade had a Halloween party.
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We did get a LOT of candy, trick or treating or no....

I did get ONE cute halloween project done (at my moms in Montana) I made this candy corn pennant. It turned out really cute :D


Sunday the fun continued and we let the kids dress up and hand out candy and scare people who came to the door. The only one who had a problem with the lack of official trick or treating was Wyatt, who informed me that he had THE worst Halloween in history. Then he proceeded to change into every costume he could put together and moped around. Oh it was SOOOOO horrible for him! LOL We had a big family party (continued from Saturday's temple festivities) and ate lots of good stuff. It was so lovely! It was great to put the kids in charge of handing out candy and the adults got to chill and visit.

And now it is officially the MOST wonderful time.........OF THE YEAR, which is FALL and Thanksgiving! Woop Woop! I have already started preparations, the thanksgiving tree will be up this week (fingers crossed) and I have started Christmas shopping. WOO HOO!

Montana trip~Girls Weekend!!

The first weekend in October my mom flew Sadie and I up to visit her in Montana for a long weekend. It was so nice to get away and relax and breathe real air :D With all the craziness with the boys, Sadie really deserved a little R&R and a treat too!! We crammed a LOT into the 4 days!

First of all, how amazing is this? I saw this in a little convenience store in the town I want to retire in, Shodoah, MT. 1Cent gum! SO cool!

We hung out at my moms friend MaryLous house and had fun with these :

Mini Fuji Apples growing wild in her yard!

And ADORABLE crab apples! My inner crafty self went into overdrive and I just had all these fun visions of coring these sour mini apples and putting a stick in them and dipping them in caramel and all sorts of coatings and packaging them up in cute little dozens. I need a tree like this :

We went Hiking......SERIOUS hiking!! Up to Hidden Lake. It was all switchbacks uphill and pretty tiring, good thing I'm tough :D It was all wooded and SO green!

This is a little more than halfway up, and YES, we ended up allllll the way at the top where the waterfall starts!! Usually it is a roaring waterfall, but not this time of year.

YAY we made it to the top!! Go us!!!! The water was freezing but we filled up our water bottles and it honestly tasted better and colder than any water bottle you could buy. Like, Fiji water good! Awesome!

Oooh we were sore the next day!! We did some Halloween crafts (which I will do a separate post on) and ate yummy food. On the last day we drove the convertible (weeeeee!) down to a different lake where my moms boyfriend Ron had the boat and we cruised around the lake for an hour or so.

Lookin cute in the convertible mustang, girl!!!

It really could not have been more gorgeous of a weekend!! Warm sun, cool breeze, AHHHmazing!! Thanks mom!!!

Are you ready for some football??

A lot of my time since August has been devoted to Cade, Cooper and Wyatts football season, so it certainly deserves its own post.

Lets start with the little guy:

Wyatt is blocking here, he is number 77

How cute is he?? When he is not daydreaming he is a good little player with lots of energy and aggression. He is just so Wyatt! His team is doing pretty good, since this is the first season of tackle for all of them. He has learned so much, and has turned into a little football fanatic! I think some of that has to do with the fact that football gear makes you look cool when you wear it :D HAHA

Next is the CoopDog:

I feel bad, Mark has been taking great pictures of the other boys at their games in action, but he is assistant coaching Coops team ,and he is so busy he can't be photographer too. I will get some next week. Cooper has it the roughest because he is by far the smallest on his team, but can't play down because of his age. He does his best to hang with the big boys. We have to hope he makes weight, as in weighing ENOUGH. He is liking everything but the running. He plays safety, and is also learning a LOT about how football works and really gives his best effort and hates letting a run get past him.


And then we have Cadester :D

Here he is playing Quarterback, He has the ball -getting ready to run it in for a touchdown! He's number 81!!

So far his stats this season are fantastic: 3 touchdown runs, somewhere around 200 yards run, 1 Touchdown pass, and 4 sacks. An amazing season on offense AND defense! If he keeps it up, we can look for Cade to have an exciting high school football career!!

So that is what I have been up to. Football. It has been expensive, hot, gas guzzling, traveling, expensive, stressful, fun, and rewarding!! It is amazing to see their self confidence and abilities come out like they have. Cade has been waiting for a long time for his little brothers to get into football like he has, and now he finally has them wanting to play with him and it has been so good for all of them. It sure is easy to forget about all the pain in the butts we go through when we see one of them kicking butt on the field. It makes is all worth it! I get SO anxious when Cooper is playing and waiting for a run to come his way, or when Cade gets running with the ball. I love it and I do feel like it has been really good for them personally and as brothers. I don't know if we will be able to do all 3 at once ever again, and I'm not sure if Wyatt or Cooper will do another season for a while, but it has been a great adventure!