The rest of our Halloween Adventures

Thursday at pre-school Caitlin had her Halloween party and presentation. It was really cute. She did a good job on all the songs and actions.

Friday we headed to the college for a Halloween parade with the children's center that the girls go to when I am working. It was fun, and there were SOOOO many kids. Chris started out with Ashlee and her 2 year old class, while I was with Caitlin and her 4 year old class. Toward the end then Chris and Ashlee waited for us, and the girls walked the rest of the way together- hand in hand. Just to adorable.

Today we had trunk-or-treat at our church parking lot. It was a good turn out, so the girls each filled their buckets.

The girls costumes looked like this:

But it was a coat wearing Halloween (our first since we moved here), so it was harder to actually tell what they were, especially when Caitlin took her hat off because of the wind.

All in all we have had a fun Halloween season, with way to much candy. The girls had fun dressing up. And I can't wait to take the Halloween decorations down.

Dressing Up- round 1

Last Saturday night we had a Halloween carnival at church. Caitlin wanted to be a ballerina, so Ashlee did too (we had a dragon costume for her but she did not want any part of it). Luckily we had 2 leotards and skirts, but only 1 pair of ballet shoes. But, we did have a pair of tap shoes in our dress-up barrel, so Ashlee was a tapping ballerina. Snow white and the little skunk were with us to, we were babysitting them that night.

Today Caitlin dressed up, like a witch this time, for ballet. Thursday she will dress-up for pre-school, Friday for something at the college, and Saturday for a trunk-or-treat. I am glad that we will be taking the day off on Sunday.

A New Cousin!

We are so excited to have a second cousin on the Bishop side (the girls 3rd cousin total).

My brother, David, and his wife, Julie had their second girl on the 19th!
Welcome Maddie! We can't wait to meet and hold you.

picking pumpkins

Last Thursday the girls and I headed downtown to the local pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. (Chris had rehearsal, so we had to go without him).
They each got to pick a little one for free and we picked 2 others to take home. Caitlin liked looking for the pumpkins we would take home, and Ashlee just walked around. She was to occupied with her little pumpkin to worry about anything else.

Monster Holiday

Courtesy of the Taste of Home Magazine, the girls and I made these fun cupcakes yesterday. I like the Mike Wazowski looking one, but I think the "3 eyed" purple people eater maybe turned out the best.

fall tradition

Last weekend we drove to Colorado to visit Chris' parents, and to make applesauce. This has been a fall tradition with them ever since we moved to Rock Springs.

Trish and I did all the apple preparation, and everyone else ran the machine (the Victorio Strainer). The girls thought it was so fun to help. We had a ton of apples, so we made a lot of applesauce! and even came home with a box full of apples! One can never have to many apples in the fall.


We also love going to the park that is just across the street from Grandma and Grandpa's house.

(Caitlin loves being motherly to her cousin Gavin)

Change underfoot

If you've ever had carpet under your table with small kids, you know it is not that much fun. That's what we have been living with and we decided it was time for a change.

We pulled the carpet and laid new flooring in the dining area, kitchen, entry way and bathroom. Needless to say, we love the change. It looks great and is so much easier to keep clean!

Before:

After:

(the little door is the playroom)

(we downsized our entertainment center, which really opened up the space, plus the old one just kept falling apart more and more)

Our friend, Reed, helped us with the floor and is an absolute saint. It really looks great thanks to him, you are awesome Reed!

Why all the changes recently?

We moved in 2 years ago and didn't really make any changes. We were pretty happy with it overall, and we were overwhelmed with a new baby, a move, a new job, etc. etc. etc. So now we are making changes and making it more of our own.

A house within a house

The walled-in, wasted space under our stairs is wasted no longer.

It started with a hole cut in the wall in June.


Fast foward to September and more work.........


and even more work..........

Fast foward to October when the carpet guy came..........


and we have a little playroom!

A little house the girls can call their own.

It is so fun, so cute, and was so much work that we are glad it is done! And we are thrilled that the girls love it.

Thanks so much for all your help Alex and Reed!!!

Courtesy of Caitlin

I finally uploaded from Caitlin's camera. It is a daunting task for me because it holds 600+ pictures. To have to sort through and delete is very time consuming, but worth it in the end :)
I gave up trying to decide if Caitlin took the picture because it is a favorite toy for a sister and all friends.
This picture, for instance, is by Caitlin's friend, Chandler. This picture is blurry, but he actually has a very good eye. His pictures were by far the best of all on the camera.

This picture is a sneak peak at our new playroom. This is when it was literally just a hole in the wall. As I type, the carpet man is here tucking and laying, and the room will be done today!!!!

I love when Caitlin tries out some of the different features of the camera. It doesn't just take pictures, it does fun edit things to.

And when she adds silly things to the pictures.

I didn't know we were a family of ducks!

A Habit Broken

Remember this? We were kidding ourselves. It might have worked for a day or two, it might have been a good "reminder" to keep the thumbs out, but it didn't last.

Caitlin continued sucking at night, nap, and all waking hours.

We finally decided something HAD to be done. In August I ordered a miracle cure from Amazon.com.

The first evening was rough when she got some on her tongue and couldn't eat dinner because her tongue "was burning". And the first night was rough when she couldn't go to sleep and came downstairs crying, saying "please take it off, I promise I wouldn't suck my thumb."

But we persisted and diligently applied every 3-4 days for about a month.

Now her thumbs have been clear of any and all ointment for a month and we are proud to announce there has been NO THUMB SUCKING!!!!!

Hooray for Caitlin and breaking such a hard habit.

A hike up Pilot Butte

This is Pilot Butte. It is Northwest-ish of us on top of White Mountain. Yesterday we packed a lunch and headed out to it with our friends, the Smith's.

The kids at the bottom of the road leading to Pilot Butte. It doesn't look very steep, be it is. We had to hold on to the kids tight coming back down so they wouldn't slide all the way to the bottom.

We sat at the base of the Butte and ate our lunch.

There use to be a ladder here to climb up to the top, but the ladder is gone now. The dad's decided we would make a human chain and lift all the kids up, it actually worked very well.

Us all standing on top, hoping the picture would take soon because we seemed to have disturbed some sort of bee hive and they were starting to become thick.

The view from the top of the Butte. You can see up to 30 miles in any direction. Basically 30 miles of barren land :)

There is also a giant wild horse reserve on the White Mountain, and we were able to see quite a few horses, albeit from a distance.We LOVE this wonderful fall weather we have been having that allows us to do fun things like this