A picnic in NOVEMBER!

You would never know it by looking outside today, but last Saturday was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was 70 degrees and sunny! The BYU game was on and we didn't get the channel on TV so we couldn't watch it, and we were going to have to just listen to it anyway. So Ben decided to take a picnic to the park and listen to it on the car radio. It was one of those days were there was no way we could not be outside.

Only we didn't have any picnic stuff on hand, so we just got kids meals, and called it good!



The girls had so much fun! And so did we! Now it is getting cold...and snowy, so I'm glad we got outside one last time before we get stuck inside.

Trunk or Treat & Aunt Kays

Originally We were supposed to have our ward Trunk or Treat tonight. Everyone was there with trunks open and candy in hand. We had said an opening prayer to get the party started....and it started Raining!!....hard. After about 2 minutes, we all decided to move the party inside. So the adults lined the hallways and rooms and the kids just went down from person to person. It was a combined 3 wards, so there was a ton of people passing out candy. And for the amount of people that we had to organize very last minute, it all ran smoothly, and the kids only had to wait about 5 minutes before they could trick or treat.
Charley was an old pro at the trick or treating. Gabby started out wanting to hold every candy that she got, but she's a quick one. After about 5 minutes she realized that if she put the candy in her bag she could get more...then she was off. She was a very efficient 15 month old. She was all business going from person to person, it was hard to keep up with her!

Ben was Roy (from Siegfried & Roy), and I was the White Tiger that Bit him, Charley was Belle, and Gabby the Goblin!

Our ward activity was really early. It went from 4-6pm. It was actually really perfect timing. After the activity we took the kids to Aunt Kay's house to trick or treat. It has kinda become a tradition of ours. After Kays house we went to a few of her neighbors houses and called it good, and visited for a little bit. We came home and bathed Gabby (she left a black ring in the tub!), and sent them to bed by 8!!!

And now that they are in bed, we got to enjoy the girls loot! All Chocolate is separated and bagged for mom and dad!! My dad always called it the "Dad Tax"....Ben heard about that, and decided to implement that with our kids!

We had a busy and FUN Halloween!! It is always ten times better with kids. They make everything worth it! Even though tomorrow (Sunday) is the real Halloween, we live in Utah, so Halloween was actually tonight. Our festivities are over....now on to Thanksgiving!

Halloween...office and country club

Friday night we went to the Alpine Country Club for their Halloween party! We have a membership through Ben's Firm, they have a corporate membership. We went with some friends from work. The girls love their little girl, Brooklyn. It was really YUMMY! They had a huge Dinner buffet, then they had games and dancing and a spook ally. It was mostly kids dancing, which made it really fun for the girls, they were both out there shaking it! It was so cute! They had little costume parade, and the girls got little goody bags....they tore into them before we even got home!
Even though she was a little Goblin, she was still so stinkin' cute! She ended up being a hit, and everyone loved her!
Earlier that day we took some cupcakes to Ben's office. Plus Charley wanted to show Allison her princess dress, Allison works there, and they have become quite good friends! Since Charley was going to be dressed up I decided to dress Gabby up....Even though Ben wanted to dress Gabby as a goblin. Since I got to dress Charley, Ben said he wanted to dress Gabby. But I wasn't going to dress her up like a monster, so I put a princess dress on her.
I'm pretty proud of Charley's dress! I made it! I think she made the perfect Belle....even down to her brown hair and blue eyes. Plus she is just gorgous!!
My poor little baby...she was playing outside the day before and face planted on the sidewalk. She has little scraps on her forehead and chin.

Halloween Fun

We made yogurt suckers. We put a Popsicle stick on some wax paper, and with a zip lock bag put yogurt in it, and snipped the corner and let the girls squirt it out onto the stick and then froze it. It kinda looked like brains. But my girls LOVE yogurt, so they loved it!
I made cupcakes with spider webs on them out of white chocolate chips. You're supposed to put the spider rings on the, but I couldn't find any anywhere....they were all sold out. But they were yummy! We took a bunch to Ben's office.
Thursday night we carved a pumpkin. Ben carved while Charley colored her little ones.

The girls got to dig out the pumpkin goo.

Our Jack-O-Lantern!

White Tigers...Vegas Ragnar 2010

We had all of our faces photo-shopped into old pictures of Siegfried and Roy and printed into posters all over our car!
White Tiger Girls...Van 1
After 24 hours of running....we are done!....we are at the check point for the guys to take over and finish their last legs.
At the finish line....195 miles.....we are still alive!
This was at the Lowe's resort in Henderson. It was at the second major exchange where we would meet up with the guys again, and we would start running. We were able to lay on pool chairs and sleep for the few hours they were running!


This past weekend I ran another Ragnar Race...this time it was from the Valley of Fire National Park to Las Vegas. I was asked to run it a month ago with some people from our ward. They wanted Ben to run, but it was too hard for him to get off work. Van 1 was all girls, and Van 2 was all the guys....so it was a party in each van!

One of the girls parents lived in St. George, so we all crashed on their floor the first night, then drove an hour in the morning to the starting line. We ran, ate, slept, then repeated it 2 more times....through the night! When we finished, we went to the hotel to shower....b/c we hadn't in a few days of running! (we stunk!!) We stayed at the Vinetian, and their rooms were HUGE! (b/c we were an out of state team, the race gave us 2 free rooms....so we split it boys and girls again...it all worked out....even the couples that were there slept in separate rooms) We went to dinner, and our original intention was to go shopping....but we soon realized we couldn't move, and we were so tired!!!

We drove home Sunday morning. It was a nice welcome home....the girls, and Ben were excited to see me! Thanks to Courtney and Lexi who watched the girls for us on Friday while Ben went to work! It was really nice knowing that the girls were well taken care of...I didn't have to worry at all!

Charley

Charley is hilarious!! She is 3, and will be 4 in January! We will never have a dull day in our house with her!

Normally we check on the girls a few times before we go to bed. They just look so peaceful and cute! We've actually found Charley doing this before. She just sits up in bed and looks around. We think she is still sleeping though. One night Ben found her under Gabby's crib. (we think sleep walk/talking) Ben asked her what she was doing under there, she said she was trying to find her shoe that blew away. ***We live in an area that is super windy. One night the wind was crazy, so Ben took her outside for fun. As he was carrying her in, her sandal blew off, never to be seen again. But she loved those shoes, and even though it was last year, she will still randomly talk about how the wind blew her shoe away. I guess it was a traumatic experience for her!



Today Charley wanted to put on a show on a stage. She pulled out the folding chairs and set them up, then flipped her table upside down for her stage! This girl was set to perform! I got the pleasure of hearing many of her "songs", this is just one of them. Charley's new thing is making up songs....on the spot. Some she remembers and will sing over and over again....one of her more popular ones is "Old Mcdonald had some pants, Okie okie okie".....or "Twinkle Twinkle little star, how i wonder what you eat for Breakfast?"....she literally sings these songs over and over, and thinks they are hilarious! gotta love her!

I'm not quite sure what the theme of this song was....she starts by saying grandpas and grandmas are nice, then the stars and moon spin in the sky, then it ends with her saying she is a child of God, and he sent me here.....It is quite the song!

the girls...

So after getting dressed Gabby thought that her overalls had pockets. She somehow got her arm in there, and it got stuck! She didn't really complain, she just kept it there and walked around. I had my laugh, then helped her out of it!

My little readers!

Every time Gabby hears music she dances. ....even if it is only for 5 seconds!

The end of summer....

Our friend Micah, who coaches for Fresno St., got us tickets to the Utah state game. It was a fun game to go to. And it was great to see him afterward. However, I would like to make sure everyone knows that it was Fresno Red, not Utah red. I couldn't believe I was wearing Red in Utah on a game day. But I did it for a friend!
We've been taking advantage of the final summer days as much as we can. We've gone to Thanksgiving Point a few times, and make many trips to Trafalga. Gabby recently discovered ponies, and is pretty much in love with them. Every time she sees them, she gets so excited, she can't breathe....literally. It is quite hilarious! We went to Trafalga one day last week, and some company was there, and they brought in ponies. And it took me forever to get the girl away from them! It was cute.
Charley is a pro now. She is getting so dang big! She'll be 4 in three months....I just can't believe it! She wont let me call her baby anymore....she is a "big girl"...

Story time started again at the library, they took the summer off, so now we're back, and the girls love it. We are also waiting for basketball to start for Charley. Right now they are doing Itty Bitty Football. I was thinking of signing her up, but I decided to wait and just do basketball.

We are having fun everyday, the girls keep us on our toes. But I'm trying to do as much as we can before we get stuck in the house in the winter....then I'll have to be more creative on ways to get out of the house.

Summer Projects

My parents gave us this dresser when we got married. It was a lighter wood with a mirror on top. (I still have the mirror if anyone wants it) I sanded it down, stained the top a mahogany color, and painted the body black. The handles are what was on it....I just cleaned them with Braso and now they are sparkling new!

I found the headboard on KSL for cheap. It was white, I just painted it black. There are some detail to it, but it's hard to see in the picture. I also painted the little side table. It is just a cheap Ikea table, that was originally the light brown color. But after re-doing the dresser, it didn't match. Instead of buying a new one, I just sanded it down a bit for the paint to stick and painted it black. Since it was a table, I put a coat of polyurethane on it so the paint wouldn't come off. There is another one just like it on the other side.
I found this dresser on KSL for $20!! It was a great find! I sanded it down and did a 2-tone paint job on it! It matched the girls "Tinkerbell" room. The lamp shade was one I already had, I just primed and panted it as well. And the curtains are left over table clothes from Char's wedding.
These frames were originally white. Char bought them for me years ago at a neighbors garage sale in GA. I was prego with Charley at the time, and they had some cute little pictures in them for the nursery. Now that we don't have a nursery, and the girls room is Tinkerbell, I didn't want these nice big frames to go to waste. So I stripped and stained them. These were actually a lot harder then I first thought. Getting paint off stinks! And these had like 20 layers of paint. But now they match in my living room! And the girls pictures look so pretty in them!
My first project was this dresser/table. It is kinda like our little entry table. It replaced a bookshelf we had. I found this on KSL and was previously in a little boys room, and it was a disaster! I had to sand this down....fill all the scoffs with wood filler....stain, and bought new handles for it.

I wanted to decorate our house this summer, but the things I actually wanted was WAY out of our price range. Then I decided that if I just re-did furniture myself, I could do it the way I wanted for a fraction of the price. Plus it is actually really fun!

Next summer I want to find an armiore for our room, and re-do it to match our dresser, and I want to find something to do with our table. I need to figure out if I want to re-do it, or just get a new one! ....but that is for later. I'm done with my big projects for the summer. This winter I am going to work on stuff for my walls!

Park City & Blessing

Our view from the back balcony

a busy weekend....with some tired girls!

with their grandbabies!

Ryan Jr.'s blessing day! My mom made his cute outfit!

Breakfast before my family left at Burger King....the girls loved the hats!

This past weekend my family came in-town for Ryan's blessing. My parents were bringing Bella, Jordan and Ruben, and Lexi was going to be coming up from BYU. So instead of all squeezing into our little apartment, PCG (Private Capital Group) Ben's client, let us use Little Belle, their condo in Park City. But this isn't any condo, it's a huge 4,000 square foot condo with beds for everyone, and 5 bathrooms!!! We LOVE PCG!! they are so nice to us! (this was the same place Ben and I stayed for a night for our anniversary last month)

....Add in the BYU football game with at win!....and you got yourself a perfect weekend!

7Peaks, J-Dawgs, & Trafalga....

On Friday we did the ultimate Utah experience!....we went to 7 Peaks, then ate at J-Dawgs, then went to Trafalga! It was a fun day, and the girls were knocked out by the end!

We bought these passes where we get unlimited access to 7 Peaks, Trafalga Orem & Lehi, Orem Owls games, and Utah Flash games!!! So we went with some friends who also bought passes! We are gonna have a fun year!

Dino's with RyRy...

This past week my sister and her family were up here to bless their new baby Ryan Jr. We wanted to hang out, and we let Charley pick, and of course she wanted to show ryry the dino museum! He was probably a little too small to enjoy it, but my girls loved it.

Soccer Party

Soccer ended a week or so ago, but here are some pictures of Charley's last day of soccer.
This is her coach! She was a really nice lady that worked well with the kids.
The kids played some games, got a certificate, balloon and sucker.
Charley with a few of her friends she did soccer with. Itty Bitty Basketball is coming up....we'll have to sign up!