Snow and Halloween

We had our first snow of the year the week before Halloween.

Here are the girls all ready for school in their snow stuff.

They LOVE to play in the snow. If they're bundled up enough they will stay out there as long as I will let them.

Kayla was a ninja for Halloween. I tried, but I just couldn't make her look intimidating. She's just too cute!

Aly dressed up as her favorite puppy, Penny from 101 Dalmatians.

I volunteered in both of the girl's classrooms for their Fall parties.

Kayla drew this picture on the paper at her desk while I was there and wanted to keep it. I thought of just taking a picture because I knew it wouldn't last long because they ate breakfast on that paper. It only took a few minutes before orange juice was spilled all over it so it was a good thing I got a picture before.

Kayla's class

Kayla was trying to look intimidating. Check out the mustache on the kid next to her. It cracked me up!

Aly with her friend Sammy at their party.

Feelin' Crafty

Kayla had to do a book report. She had to decorate a pumpkin to look like the main character in her book. She read the book, "Queen Clarion's Secret." Here is how her fairy pumpkin turned out.

Our ward has a craft group that gets together once a month. Here are some of the projects that I did there and at our Super Saturday.

Turkey's made out of 2 x 4's.

A wreath made out of yarn.

Pumpkins (I didn't make the welcome. I bought that.)

The girls painted these for Halloween.

Labor Day Camping

We took our annual camping trip to Cumbres. Beside the few thunder storms the weather was great and we had a great time.

Aly and Kayla waiting for the train.

All the cousins that were there. (More showed up right after that picture)

The kids got to play in the dam down by the lake. Even though they got soaked they had a blast.

The beautiful scenery.

Playing baseball.

Kayla learned how to shoot a BB gun. That's my girl!

Corn

Our stake has a huge welfare farm that they grown corn, beans, etc. Every year they announce that the members of the stake can go and pick as much corn as we want as long as we don't sell it. We eat corn every week so I figured it would be worth my time to go and pick a bunch and freeze it. Here is the fruit of my labors!

I ended up with 14 bags of corn so it should last us a while.

Kayla's Karate

Kayla is moving right along with her Karate. (It's actually Tae Kwon Do.) She now has her high Gold Belt. Since it's been a while since I've posted she has since tested and earned her Orange Belt. She will get that next Monday so I will be sure to post pictures then too.

This is Kayla's instructor, Quanjinm Scott.

More Summer Fun

Summer vacation is over now. It was a busy one, that's for sure. Here are some more of the fun things we got to do this summer.

We had rain almost every night during June and July. As a result of the moisture we had tons of frogs and toads all over our yard. Kayla kept catching them and keeping them until we could convince her to let them go. And then she would just find more. Joe and I lost count of how many we killed with the lawn mower.

As you can see, they were all different sizes. I have no idea how the larger ones even got into our yard. Their favorite place to hide was our window well.

The last week in July we stopped in Manassa to visit with Joe's family before heading down to Farmington.

We went to the carnival.

I was being goofy on this ride because I was trying not to puke. :-)

We were supposed to go to the Demolition Derby but when we got there it was so packed we couldn't even find standing room anywhere. So we made up for it with the girls by letting them ride the ponies back at the carnival.

Kayla has decided she wants to be a cowgirl like her Great-Grandma.

I just love this picture!

In Farmington we did a lot of swimming at Grandma and Grandpa Churchill's house.

We went and saw Hop with the Stradling cousins (and Jaylee).

The girls had a slumber party with Jaylee while Joe and I went and saw Harry Potter.

And.... the girls got to go and ride Cricket at Aunt Deena's.

It was a good trip. We didn't end up taking very many pictures though.

Once we got back the girls still had Karate. We went to the movies and the park.

On August 12th I got to cross off one of my top things on my bucket list.

Joe took me to see Josh Groban in concert and it was AMAZING!!!!

I didn't have my camera because there were signs every where and our tickets said NO CAMERAS. I was ticked when everyone had their cameras anyway.

Josh Groban was very funny and entertaining. The music was amazing. The whole experience was amazing. Joe definitely earned some brownie points by taking me!

When we were leaving the concert we were sitting in line in the car. There was a bunch of people lined up waiting for Josh Groban to come out. I didn't think he'd actually show up. I turned my head and he was 10 feet away from me! Unfortunatly my reaction was too slow and I didn't get our camera out of the glove box quick enough to get a picture.

I stole this picture off of the internet though just so you can see what he looked like at the concert. :-)

This last Saturday we took the girls to the park to ride bikes.

Kayla FINALLY learned to ride without training wheels!!!

She caught on quickly to the fact that she could catch herself to keep from falling down.

She's getting really good already.

For Kayla's birthday back in May Grandma Churchill sent some colored bubbles for the kids to play with. I had set them on top of the fridge and forgot they were there. I found them on Saturday and thought they'd be fun so I let them play with them. Don't ever buy the Crayola color bubbles! They are a huge mess!

See the spots on the concrete? Those spots are now permanent.

They ended up dumping the bubbles into the pool. Luckily once they took a shower the color came off of their skin, but unfortunately our towels,the swim suits, and the concrete still have evidence of the fun afternoon.

Remember the pictures I posted of Joe's little plants he had growing down in our basement?

They have turned into monsters!

We have so many tomatoes and cucumbers. I've been doing a batch of canning every weekend to try and preserve them before it all goes bad.

Joe has had to cut back all of the tomato bushes multiple times because they are just so out of control. It's nice to have fresh vegetable though so I can't complain.

Today was the first day of school. Kayla started 2nd grade. She has the same teacher, Mrs. Rich, and the same class room that she did last year. About 75% of the other kids in her class were with her last year too.

Alyssa started Kindergarten. She goes everyday half day. Most of the kids that were in Pre-K with her are in her Kinder class too so it made the transition easy for her.

Now the question is what am I going to do with myself?