Another Anniversary

Barrett and I celebrated our anniversary this weekend.

When Barrett's mom was here, she stayed home with the boys (while she was sick!) so we could go to the temple together (usually we just go as a family and Barrett and I switch off). It was so good to be inside together! I also ran into 2 ladies from our old ward who filled me in on the bishop who's health is failing. We have such good memories of our time there and it was good to see familiar faces at a wonderful place...the temple! Barrett and I were able to go to P.F. Chang's for dinner before heading home. It was amazing. We were so lucky to have that time and so grateful Barrett's mom was willing to entertain the boys for many hours!

For our actual anniversary, we decided to have a family party...since we were basically celebrating the start of our little family.
Barrett and Damon were in charge of the dinner and I was responsible for dessert. Barrett made a delicious salad and stuffed shells. Tommy devoured 2 shells, Damon only had 2 bites:) Our dessert was awesome. I found it on Mel's Kitchen Cafe and it was delicious! We also watched our wedding video...and fast forwarded most parts to keep the boys' attention. We sure were adorable and good looking 7 years ago!! It was fun to see all the people that came and supported us that special day.

Barrett gave me the best gift...he wrote me a song!! Well, he changed the words to the song, Are you gonna kiss me or not. I have ALWAYS wanted a guy to write me a song on the guitar and sing it to me (I AM glad he ended up being my husband). It was amazing...sweet and special. I loved it! Tommy loved dancing to it and Damon sings lines of it around the house:) Barrett also bought me red roses, but since Damon went with him to the store, he claims they are from him:) I sure love my boys!

Our Little Turkeys!

We haven't done many turkey projects this November. We did one at the library and I helped the boys make 2 different turkeys with paint. We also made turkeys out of brownie bites. I thought they turned out pretty cute.





Other random things...

Does this really need a description?! Sometimes Damon is the funniest kid around...


This is Tommy's first REAL drawing done completely by himself!! We were so proud of him! He said it was a dragon.

Fun Weekend

We were able to enjoy an afternoon at a State Park on Saturday this month. We always love to go and hike around the pond in the fall. One of the boys that Barrett works with in the Young Men's program is also in my seminary class and as a Freshman, was running Varsity for the State Cross Country meet (or something like that...I'm not up on my cross country lingo). It was being held at Killens Pond...perfect for us! We did a lot of waiting around...which was fine by us since we wanted to go play there anyway. The boys spent a lot of time running races with dad. I wish they had on pedometers...they may very well have run their own 5K for all the running they did. I was happy to just sit and watch since my pockets were full of keys, phones, and the camera:) We were super impressed that these high school kids were running 3.2 miles under 20 minutes! The kid who one the boys race was around 16 minutes! Seriously fast kids.

Skeleton

When Barrett was little, his Grandma made them a skeleton out of paper plates. They put it up every Halloween. When Barrett's mom came to visit, she made the same skeleton with the boys. Tommy wasn't really interested in participating, so Damon and I helped. Damon cut everything out (except for a few pieces) and whole punched them. I did the tracing with a permanent black marker. Grandma endured...I mean it. She stuck with Damon and put up with him when I would have just packed it all away and sent him to play far away. She has incredible patience with my children. And look at the results...a super cute skeleton guy that can be positioned however the boys want:)

The boys loved having Grandma here. Barrett and I did too. We wish Grandpa could have stayed a little longer also.

Halloween, Halloween

The Wee Sing for Halloween CD is the BEST!! We listen to it all month. Tommy walks around singing, "Halloween, Halloween" from one of the songs.

Our Halloween was a fun one! We ate orange jack-o-lantern faced pancakes for breakfast. Damon went to school, we hung out with Grandpa. We picked up a friend from preschool and had a fun lunch of witches hats (triangle peanut butter sandwiches) and banana ghosts (half a banana with chocolate chip faces), saw adorable ultrasound pictures of our friend's baby, carved pumpkins with Grandma and Grandpa, listened to Halloween music, played, ate mummy dogs, baked beans, and apple mouths for dinner, got in costumes, went trick or treating, and ate candy!




These are the pictures of the costume-creating process...notice how Damon's costume evolved?



These are how they looked on Halloween...it was too cold for some of the pirate's clothing...so evolved again. Looking at these again, Damon kind of looked like a biker dude. Robin Hood looked adorable even without a bow and arrow.

Pumpkin Patch

Grandma and Grandpa flew in Thursday night. On Friday afternoon we took them to Fifer's Orchards to the pumpkin patch. Damon and Grandma would have spent all day looking for the perfect pumpkins, but they finally chose a good one. Tommy was tired and a little grumpy, so didn't fully enjoy it. It was kinda chilly too. We also bought some apple cider and apples. Fun activity!

More Fall Projects

We made ghost pretzels. The boys really had fun and they turned out pretty cute and tasty!



Tommy made this one all by himself and thought it was hilarious.


I had half a bushel of apples sitting in my kitchen for too long just waiting for me to turn them into applesauce. One day I finally tackled the project...first time to can applesauce all by myself (usually Barrett helps me). So, I had Damon wash the apples for me in the sink. He was dying to play in water, so took his shirt off, got in his swimsuit, and started bob-ing for apples. He actually got one! Tommy's was staged:)

Bounce House

We were invited to a friend's Halloween Costume/Birthday Party. It was so fun!! The boys especially loved the bounce houses...yes, there were two! We stayed a little longer then we should have because Damon made a friend. It took him awhile to finally start playing with the only other older boy. They sat on the swing, licking their lollipops, talking about super heroes...then they started causing havoc on the bounce houses. Tommy barely stopped bouncing and flipping and sliding the whole 2 or so hours we were there! Great party!

Our Halloween Wall

Here's our Halloween Wall...we loved every project.