Halloween Parade and Program

I have the cutest and most adorable boy ever!!! This morning we headed to Ian's preschool for the Halloween parade and program. All the kids in his class came out dancing to the ghost busters song. Ian was just a moving and groving along!
He would walk by us, smile, then gives us a thumbs up and dance along. He is Captain Hook this year for Halloween. It was quite the process to decided at first he just wanted to be a bad guy. Since his little brother is going to be Peter Pan he decided on Captain Hook.

Lately every day he has wanted to be something different. Last week it was Harry Potter. Ian doesn't even know who Harry Potter is. I asked him "Who is Harry Potter?" Ian's response, "Kimbell." Kimbell is Ian's friend at school. We also know that Kimbell has five superman shirts, upon where Ian reminds us that he doesn't even have one. This morning it was he wanted to be a vampire. Again, Ian doesn't know what a vampire is. After a little convincing he decided to go to school in his pirate outfit. We did not let him take his hook, sword, jewelry, etc to school in fear of what might happen to the other children, and that he might lose it. Although he has informed me that he wants to go to school on Friday dressed up as Megamind. He is pretty determine about this too! Oh dear -looks like I may need to plan ahead for the soon to come tantrum on Friday morning when he realizes he is not going to be megamind.

Ian with his preschool class. He sang every song and knew all of the actions. As you can see he was just about the only one doing the actions of a witches hat. (Insert Video -yes I videotaped the whole program he was just too cute!)

His friend Kimbell is missing (he was sad and sitting with his parents) as well as Preston and Kyle. Well time to get to work on a Megamind costume????

Halloween Activities

We have been having a blast with the Halloween season around our house. I was never a big fan of Halloween but I am now! This past Thursday Ian and I attended a play at the Scera Theater in Orem called "How I Became A Pirate." A lady in our ward put together a group of 20 of us so we were able to get tickets for $2 dollars (instead of $6). Ian loved it for the first 20 minutes, then the captain took of his jacket and hat which Ian found annoying. He still enjoyed the play and loved the snack they provided for all the little kids. At the end of the play the actors and actresses came out to answer questions from the audience. Ian was so determined to ask a question but unfortunately he did not get picked. I guess he just wanted to wear the captain's pirate hat.

After returning home for some lunch we headed to the Hogle Zoo with the Thompson's. Ian and Ellie had a blast running around and looking at all of the animals. They both were excited and anxious to see the crocodiles. They saw them (they were just laying in the water doing nothing) then decided it was boring and ran off to see other animals. We always love going to the zoo and even more when we are in good company! Thanks for calling!!!

Friday my family came to visit for the weekend. The kids are always super excited when they find out everyone is coming. My grandparents were in Park City that week and stayed with us before heading back home.

This just goes to prove that you are never to old to play with blocks... I think we were all entertained watching Andrew build this tower!
That night my mom, grandma, Hunter, my neighbor Sytske, and I headed to the late showing of Footloose! Even grandma headed to the late show! It was quite the event getting to the movies, considering the theater had the wrong show times posted on their website. The nice thing about being in Utah Valley is a 10 minute drive and we were at another theater.

The next day we all picked out pumpkins. Let the carving begin! Ian was very excited. When we were heading to pick out pumpkins Ian wanted one that was taller than him. By some miracle he ended up deciding he wanted a little sugar pumpkin!
Aaron liked looking in all the pumpkins and playing with the pumpkin goo.Hunter did great and cleaned out his whole pumpkin -even with Ian tossing extra goo in it.Ian was our pumpkin cleaner. We would loosen all of the goo then Ian would scoop it all into the bucket. He was excellent! He wouldn't leave one pumpkin seed behind. The final product! Tim decided to carve Megamind this year since Ian absolutely loves Megamind. I carved Minion (megamind's sidekick), Hunter carved a death eater, and Ian wanted to make a one-eyed monster. Megamind a little closer.On Sunday everyone headed out early in the morning. We decided to make some haunted gingerbread houses (My parents gave Ian and Aaron the kit for halloween)! Ian loved decorating them and enjoyed doing the frosting all by himself on the one house that I let him. The rest of the homes I frosted and he decorated. Notice the black frosting on the corners of Ian's mouth? It was gross frosting but he still thought it was fun to eat a little here and there.Our Haunted Houses!

Then on Tuesday we headed to the Provo River Halloween Cruise. I had got tickets half off back in September for all of us. Ian loved it! Aaron enjoyed it more than we thought he would. The weather has dropped this week into the high 40's so we pulled out all of our winter gear and headed out. Aaron stayed nice and toasty warm in his new snowsuit Papa and Nana found him.
I decided that we would go early in order to beat the crowd and hopefully it would be a little warmer :) What should have been a 15 minutes drive turned into an hour drive with all of the lame construction, road closures, and detours. Have I mentioned I hate Utah Valley! Thankfully the kids slept the whole time. Plus we still beat the rush! Picture I tried to snap really quick of us on the boat.

I think we have done all of the possible Halloween activities that there is to do! Next Halloween!!!

Things have been pretty busy around here. I am not sure how or why but after looking through the pictures we have taken the last couple of weeks it has become very clear. My children do not sit still -at all!

Ian has not wanted to take naps anymore. I have somewhat accepted the fact that naps will not happen. It has become more of a stress to get him to take a nap, then to just have fun playing all day. However, if he does not take a nap I have to be sure to get him to bed no later than 6:45 or the moment he sits down this is what happens.
He was out cold for two and a half hours like this

As for Aaron it still baffles me that he is in the 17th percentile for weight. All this boy does is eat, eat, and eat. He even licks his plate clean.
This past week he started taking multiple steps -and thinks it is hilarious to walk. His personality is shining through as well. I know that the picture is blurry but do you see the expression! He is saying, "Get out of my way or I'll get you."
He has become quite the little trouble maker and can throw a loud tantrum when he does not get his way. It only last for a minute then he realizes we don't care that he has thrown himself to the floor screaming, and he moves on. With each wipe he pulled out he would giggle and reach in for another.Aaron believes you should climb into or on top of everything (I blame the slide for this). When I give him the "what are you doing look" he giggles and runs away.
He is getting very smart. I am seeing more and more of Ian coming through in his personality and actions. His vocabulary is expanding...mama, dada, eeeee (for Ian), iiiiiiii (for pike), ba ba (bottle), bye bye, nigh nigh, hi. ank u (thank you), um pa (grandpa), and um ma (grandma). He thinks it is funny to try and mimic you. When reading books to Ian and Aaron, Aaron will hold the book against his face and babble as loud as possible. He does the same thing with our phones. He has also finally started to pick up sign language and knows the signs for more, finished, and ba ba (which we also use for drink in general).

Ian was out playing in the neighbors giant sandbox while I was cleaning up dinner the other night. I had Aaron inside with me and he enjoyed trying to watch Ian from the window with Pike.While washing the dishes I notice him walk over to the chair. He then slid the chair over to the window and climbed up to see better. Honestly???? Smart little bugger. I would like to say maybe he saw his brother doing this but Ian doesn't need chairs to see out the windows. He did this one all on his own.The weather the last couple of weeks has been perfect. We have been able to enjoy going to the different parks around here and cannot decide which is our favorite. Ian and Aaron loves what we call the spinning park in Alpine. It has ton's of various playground equipment that all spins. This one is Ian's favorite! It spins extremely fast, I am not sure how he stays on it so well.
Ian has come to really love swinging too. I had never put Aaron on the swings before but as you can see from the picture he too loved it! Ian wanted to help push him and did a great job. He even was able to give him a couple underdog pushes (Ian's favorite).
Video of Ian pushing Aaron in the swing.


We have been trying to soak up all the time that we can outside because we know that it will soon end. Hopefully we can get in a few more trips to the park before it snows!

Fall Leaves

The first week of October the leaves had started changing. They were not in full fall colors yet but it was supposed to snow later that week (which it did -thankfully it melted fairly quick) so we decided to hurry up the canyon for a picnic.

We headed up Timpanogos Canyon (since it is a few minutes from our house) and enjoyed one another company and the beautiful scenery. The leaves just starting the change.
Ian had fun spotting the red and orange trees. A few of them had changed but most were just starting.

We then enjoyed a nice picnic.

Love this picture of Aaron -sorry not so much of Tim :) Aaron was having fun sneaking chips while daddy wasn't looking.
A camper that was fishing found this caterpillar and thought Ian would like to see it.
Ian had fun throwing rocks in the river (don't worry it was after the fisherman had left -we did not see any fish).We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful area and be so close to literally everything. Hopefully we will be able to go up the canyon again soon when the leaves have turned all orange and red. Although based on the weather we have been having I think they will go from yellow straight to the ground. We'll see.

Halloween and Projects

At your request I posted links to all of my silly Halloween crafts around my house. Enjoy!

Ian has been loving getting ready for his Halloween program at school. He has been asking where all of our Halloween things are (his school is decorated darling). Our Halloween decorations are non existent and did not want to spend money to decorate my house. So I started searching. I looked through some of my favorite crafty blogs (because I am not crafty myself) to find some great Halloween ideas.

The Tip Junkie has tons of different inexpensive Halloween ideas. Many posted various words they had spelled out of letter and so on. I used these cardboard like letters that Hobby Lobby sells. I had the paper already, and the black paint. Painted them black, glued the paper on, then sanded the edges. Tada 15 minute project done, under $10 dollars. Then I added a stick we found on a walk, spray painted it black, and put it in a vase I already had. Plus added Ian's fun dollar store spiders.
This one was way too easy, but it took about an hour to do. I already had the black card stock, then I purchased the frames at the dollar store. I found a picture of a bat that I like online (type bat template or stencil into google images). The made 3 images different sizes. Traced on black cardstock, folded the wings, and made the bats fly up the wall! Many of the crafty blogs on my site did something similar to this. I did the same concept with the cat, witch, and broom and got the templates and idea from Ucreate.This was the first project I came to when searching. For the crafty person it might be inexpensive because you might have all the materials. I did not have the materials but loved the candy corns. It cost me under $20. The lame Styrofoam cones were kinds of pricey. It was really easy though if you love it click here on the Thrify Decor Chick website.
My last project was super easy and I can't find where I got the idea from :( It is just a cereal box and other random boxes I had. Wrap in black wrapping paper , create the eyes with yellow paper, then glue it on. Ian made the pumpkin at school so we added it to our table. Speaking of table to did you notice our new table! I love it and we finally found chairs. Yes I still have to refinish the brown chairs but hurray (Found the chairs at the DI for $15 dollars a chair -can't beat that)!This is what it looked like before -a door. It is a solid wood door that we got at the Star Mill Antique Store for $27 dollars. Our idea originally came from the Nate Show. So we started searching the web and found the idea for our table here. We loved the table so we tried to create the exact same table but a little bit sturdier for our rough boys. We bought a single panel door (the five panel ones tend to go quickly) and Tim did the rest! He built it into a five panel door and put legs on it to turn it into a table. We then purchased the glass top at a local glass shop.
Then I added scrapbook paper for another unique touch (the site above used wrapping paper). You could actually change out the paper for various holidays as well.

Other than our fun Halloween projects I have actually had time to get some organizing done and finish unpacking the last few boxes we have left to unpack. I call that being productive, Tim calls that hyperthyroidism. At least the job gets done :)

First task: organized the linen closet (below), and the bathrooms, and the medicine cabinet.

Second: The laundry room, aka the place were everything goes. Yes I took a picture of before. I know it is horrible. When we moved in this is the place were all random things would go. Shear Madness.
Of course I did not want to spend any money, but I did want it to look nice and organized. I took boxes I had (we have lots of those from moving), then butcher paper (my mom gave a huge roll for Ian when we moved), wrapped the boxes with the paper, printed labels on the computer and mounted it on scrapbook paper I already had. Tada, way better!
Third: The office room. It was filled with boxes of decor, teaching materials, hundreds of books, games, electronics, everything. Ok, we had two junk rooms in our home where everything goes. It took about a week but is all organized and looks beautiful. I still need Tim to hang a few things so I will post picture of that room later. Plus, all of our picture and art work is in that room until I can figure out where to put them. So, it has been a busy and very productive few weeks and nothing better to do than enjoy some pumpkin chocolate chip bread! Delicious! And maybe go to bed :) One loaf is missing because we already ate it. Did I mention Tim was at work, at least we still have two more.

One year old

Weight 20.5 lbs 17th percentile
Height 29 inches 26th percentile
Head 18.5 69th percentile

We had a small celebration for Aaron's first birthday this Saturday. My parents and brother had just returned from Florida, Andrew drove down, and our neighbors also joined us for the event. We all had a nice chicken and rice dinner (Aaron's favorite) then opened a few presents and ate some cake. If you are not aware Tim's family has the tradition of the one year old getting a cake shaped like a baby lamb for their first birthday. My family has the tradition of putting a sheet on the floor with their cake and letting them go for it. So we compromise and combine the two traditions -lamb cake on the floor. Although I would still like to know, why a lamb?

Aaron was super chill about the whole situation. He just slowly ate little bites and pieces of the cake. All of the kids wanted him to just rip into it but he just took his dear sweet time and enjoyed licking the frosting off his fingers.
Eventually he knocked head off - but that was to be expected since it broke when making the cake.
Then it was time for the rest of us to have some birthday cake. We are now costco members instead of Sam's Club members which I love, however there is a downside. Cake! Costco's cake was absolutely disgusting not even the children would finish a small piece of cake it was really that gross. I am still craving a chocolate cake smothered in butter cream frosting. Not to mention the costco workers thought I was crazy asking for a chocolate cake with white butter cream frosting. Apparently they only make chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and white cake with white frosting. Anyone else see a problem with that???
Ian received just as many presents as Aaron did. He thought Aaron's birthday was a blast. Not to mention Monday morning when I received a call from the principle double checking to make sure Ian's birthday wasn't yesterday. He informed everyone at school that his birthday was yesterday and all of the presents he got (which they really were the presents he got -he just left out the ones Aaron received as well). The principal felt bad because they make a big deal out of birthday's at the school and they had Ian's birthday as May 29. I could not help but laugh on the phone when I informed the principle that his brothers birthday was yesterday. She too chuckled and mentioned that normally she would go by the paperwork but Ian was very persistent that yesterday was his birthday. When he got in the car I mentioned the conversation that I had with the principal. He got a big grin and said that he was now 5 years old. Nice try buddy but you are still my sweet and not so innocent 3 year old.We also received a package from Grandma and Grandpa MacNair that week with lots of other fun birthday surprises. Aaron is still getting used to idea of ripping the paper.


Later that day him and Ian enjoyed playing on the slide (again). Thanks everyone for coming and the wonderful birthday gifts. Aaron has been playing with flap books for days and loving it!