Halloween Fun

October was a crazy month filled with lots of Halloween activities! Here's what we have been up to...

Neighborhood "BOO"

Every year our neighborhood passes along a Boo treat where someone ding dong ditches a treat at your door and then you put together a treat and take it to two more neighbors, etc. So for Family Home Evening a few weeks ago the boys had fun making Boo signs and ding dong ditching treats at the neighbor's houses. I don't know how anonymous they were since Nathan wrote all of our names on his Boo sign and Jake was pretty loud when he rang the doorbell and ran away, but it's the thought that counts!

Halloween Party

Jon and I went to a couples Halloween Party and we dressed up as the Ultimate BYU Fans! I didn't want to buy anything so I figured this was perfect since we actually own all of this BYU paraphernalia! (Okay, we did buy the socks, but everything else we had!)

Please notice the BYU scrunchy and BYU letter opener in my hair!

We had to decorate masks for the party- I thought ours turned out okay!

Robyn and Dave were supposed to go as Tabitha and Napoleon from So You Think You Can Dance, but alas Dave opted not to wear the skinny jeans and tight vest so he went as an Angels fan!

Steven and Cortney came as a pumpkin and a pumpkin carver! I thought it was so creative!

Trunk or Treat

We went to our ward's Trunk or Treat which is always a fun time for the kids!

A cop, a fireman and his fire dog!

The fire dog eating a dog!

Haunted House Decorating

For another Family Home Evening this month we decorated a haunted gingerbread house!

Max just sat by and watched while eating the decorations!

The finished product...

Max was excited to see his name on it. Either that, or he was excited about all of the candy we were letting him eat!

Jack-O-Lantern Sandwiches

Jake had the couple days before Halloween off from school so we decided to have 'Halloween Fun Day' and do all sorts of fun Halloween crafts and activities. For lunch the boys made these Jack-O-Lantern sandwiches with bread, melted cheese, raisins and celery.

Halloween Necklaces

We then strung Halloween candy necklaces that the boys had fun eating the rest of the day!

Halloween Sugar Cookies

In following with our tradition, we made and decorated sugar cookies. This time I let the boys do the whole thing and frost all of the cookies. Needless to say I didn't eat any nor did I take them to any friends, but the boys had no problem eating them! Jon was a trooper and ate one when he got home!

Max got in on the fun this year.

Don't those look appetizing?!!!

There's still some frosting left here!

Nathan's Preschool Parade

Nathan's class invited the parents to come watch them parade around in their costumes and then sing some Halloween songs for us. It was so sad when Nathan came out. His costume was a little too small and I didn't get around to fixing it. So his suspenders had come undone during preschool and no one helped him fix them before the parade which meant he had to hold his pants up the whole time. He couldn't even wave! I felt so bad, but he didn't seem to mind.

The class did such a great job with all of the songs. Nathan had a little part and he said it perfectly, though notice that he is still holding his pants up!

Pumpkin Heads

Jon and I went out last Friday night and when we came home we saw these pumpkins all lined up on the table. The babysitter had brought them for the kids to do! She said that they had a lot of fun putting together the different funny faces. What a great babysitter!

Pumpkin Carving

This year we let the boys draw the faces on their pumpkins and then Jon and I did our best to carve exactly what they drew! The boys were pretty happy with the results!

Trick or Treating

The time finally came to actually go Trick or Treating! We went out to my parent's house for the traditional orange dinner and then we went around their neighborhood before heading home and going with some friends around our neighborhood. Needless to say the boys got plenty of candy!

Cousin shot!

Ready to head out the door and get some CANDY!

The Aftermath

After Trick or Treating our friends came back to our house and the kids all surveyed their candy. The adults ate delicious brownies that Cortney brought while the kids ran around on complete sugar highs!

The highlight of the night for Jake and Nathan was passing out candy to the Trick or Treaters that came to our house. Unfortunately we got back so late that there weren't very many left, but they got so excited whenever the doorbell rang. Jake even dumped his own candy into the bowl and was handing it out to everyone!

You can see that we finally fixed Nathan's costume. Jon sewed ribbon onto the suspenders to make them longer. It actually worked out great until he took off his jacket and you could see the ribbon!

And now the daily fight for candy has begun. I'm about ready to throw it all away, but I figure I'll give it a few more days since they worked so hard to get it!

We hope that every one else out there had a

Happy Halloween!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Draper

Jon's parents came down to visit a few weeks ago for a couple days and we packed in all of the fun we could! Monday night they went with us to the Pumpkin Patch which is always a highlight for the boys. It was all the better this year having their grandparents come with them!

Unfortunately this was the best picture we could get. If you look closely you will see the bubble in the air that Jake and Max are looking at!

Just another attempt at a family picture!

I really think Jake's favorite part of the pumpkin patch each year is the awesome bubble machine they have going. He loves to run around and try to pop all of the bubbles!

This is the first picture I've seen where I actually think one of my boys looks like me!

The kids had fun riding all of the little rides they have there.

Love this little chunkers!!!


The next day we were supposed to go to Sea World for the day, but of course it was raining, so instead we went to Pretend City in Irvine. It just opened in August and the boys loved it! You go around to all of the different places and dress up and pretend like you work there. It was really cute!

The Grocery Store

The Construction Site

The Post Office

The Restaurant

The Boat Yard

(FYI- the shields don't work- the kids were soaked after this!)

The Gas Station

The Orchard

The Dentist's Office (Jon's personal favorite!)

The Doctor's Office

And finally... The Theater

Jake was rocking out- it was pretty funny! (Notice the wet clothes from the water station)

After Pretend City we got some Inn-N-Out and then went to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It was such a cute, funny movie- Jon and I were laughing way more than the boys were! A quick stop for ice cream on the way home and we called it a day. The next morning they went to see Jon's office and took him to lunch. They then had to head home.

It's always fun when Grandma and Grandpa come to visit! We hope they come again soon (we promise we'll go to Sea World next time)!!!

Giants, Giraffes and a Field Trip

Nathan is such a funny kid. He is obsessed with giraffes and giants right now. Most of his questions and actions throughout the day revolve around these two subjects. He loves to ride around our path in the backyard and put his arm up in the air and pretend like he is a giraffe. He also wants to be a giraffe for Halloween, but since he is already a head taller than most other 4 year olds I had to put my foot down on that one! And have you seen the huge stuffed giraffe for sale at Costco right now? Let's just say Nathan was more than excited when he saw it and begged to bring it home with him. Fortunately, it costs $500 so I had a good excuse to say no!

Nathan is constantly asking questions about giants such as:

'Why are giants the biggest things in the whole wide world?'

'Who's stronger, Daddy or a giant?'

'What's bigger, a giant or a giraffe?'

Our personal favorite giant comment was when he was saying his prayers one night he said,

"Please help me to be gooder than a giant!" Don't we all wish we could be gooder than giants!

Nathan is such a smart little boy and his mind is always going a mile a minute. He knows how to read, write, spell and his newest trick is addition. He came into our room the other day and proclaimed, "4, 3, 2, 1 makes 10... 5, 3, 2 makes 10... 8,1,1 makes 10... etc." What the heck? He does this all the time- he'll just throw out a series of totally random numbers and he knows that they all add up to 10 or 20. We have no idea how he does it. He never likes to give a direct answer, he usually answers with a clue like, "It's how old cousin Cortney is," if the answer is 13 or "It starts with a 'Y' and rhymes with jello," if the answer is yellow. It's so fun to see what his little mind is going to come up with next!

Monday morning I got to go with Nathan on his field trip to the Tanaka Farms Pumpkin Patch. Nathan definitely has a lot of energy and sort of rallies up the other boys to be crazy with him. He'll usually stop when you tell him to which I'm thankful for, but I just can't figure out why all three of our kids have SO MUCH ENERGY!

We rode the wagon ride over to the petting zoo where they got to pet sheep and goats.

We then walked through the corn maze...

Picked carrots, beans, onions and radishes...

and then Nathan got to pick the 'perfect' pumpkin. He seriously walked up to the most mangled, deformed pumpkin and asked, "What about this one?" I encouraged him to get a rounder one and he finally decided on this beauty!

They took a class picture at the end and Nathan did the best he could to get the rest of the class to scream 'Cheese' as loud as they could. As you can see he was only able to somewhat coax the little boy on his right, the rest of them sat and smiled nicely!

It was fun to spend a morning with just Nathan and see how he interacts with his preschool friends. I think he is definitely going to be a leader as he grows up, I just hope he leads people in the right direction!

Not quite Hawaii, but close

Last weekend we were supposed to be in Hawaii for a dental conference with some of our friends from dental school. The trip fell through, so we decided that the next best thing was to meet in Utah! We met up with our good friends, Andrea and Ryan and had such a fun weekend, especially since it was sans kids!

We flew in Thursday night and Jon and I ate at the Market Street Grill in Salt Lake which has really good seafood. We stayed at Annie and Heidi's apartment and drove their car since they were down here at our house watching our kids! It was nice not to have to worry about renting a car or staying at a hotel. Ryan and Andrea got there around 10:00 and we stayed up until 4:00 just talking and catching up. The nice thing was that we could sleep in as late as we wanted the next morning!

Friday we spent the majority of the day shopping, mainly at Tai Pan, where I bought some Fall and Christmas decorations and other random stuff. I love that store. Getting everything home on the plane was a little challenging, but I managed to fit everything in. A couple things were broken when we got home, but nothing that super glue can't fix!

Friday night we went to the BYU v. Utah State football game and I'm happy to say that BYU actually won a game that we attended!!! Ryan and Andrea are Utah State alumni so they cheered on their Aggies while we rooted for our Cougars. It was a fun game and thankfully it didn't get too cold. After the game we had to make a stop at Iceberg for milkshakes and french fries with fry sauce- no trip to Utah is complete without eating these fine delicacies!

Saturday we got up and stood in line for General Conference. While we were waiting someone walked by and offered us four tickets so we ended up and getting really good seats in the Conference Center.

It was such a good session of Conference. They talked a lot about love- Christ's love for us and our love for our family and friends. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang 'Come, Come, Ye Saints' at the end of the session and it was so powerful- the spirit was really strong. I love opportunities like this that help strengthen my testimony.

After conference we ate at the Lion House restaurant for lunch and it was so good. Their rolls and honey butter are my favorite- I could eat them all day!

After lunch we did a little shopping at The Gateway (not the Gateway Center!) and then headed back over to Temple Square to watch the Joseph Smith movie at the Legacy Theater. The movie made us really appreciate everything Joseph Smith went through to restore the Church.

Ryan and Jon then headed back to the Conference Center for the Priesthood session and Andrea and I headed back to The Gateway to do a little more shopping! We met up for dinner afterwards and then hung out at the apartment until 2:00 in the morning. Sunday morning we got up early and flew home. It was such a good weekend... who needs Hawaii anyway?!!! We love Ryan and Andrea and it's always a good time whenever we get to hang out!

The kids were excited to see us when we got home, but were sad to say goodbye to Jon's sisters, Annie and Heidi who watched them all weekend. They were so nice to take care of everything while we were gone and the kids had a great time with them! We brought home these little ball poppers for the boys and they were so nice to play with them for at least an hour!

We really appreciate them watching the kids and making it such a fun weekend for them. Hopefully they got a good nap in when they got back to Utah before they had to head back to work Monday morning!

It's been fun going on these weekend getaways the past few weeks, but I think we'll be hanging around home for a while now before the kids start wondering who their parents are!!!