November 5

On Friday, November 5, we had a busy and fun day.

Dave took the day off so he could go to a reading date with Kimee at school.

It was also Red Ribbon week. At the end of the day, all of the kids got to let go of a red balloon. 

It was really cool (although not environmentally friendly).

But the funnest part of the day was right after school, when we drove down to Ephraim to visit Hadley. We drove past lots of sheep and cows and even llamas on the way. The older girls were so anxious to get there. It was a pretty nice drive, and not too long. You should have seen Maddi's face when we arrived and she saw Hadley waiting for us. She was so excited, saying "Hadley, Hadley!" Everyone was so happy to see one of their most favorite cousins.
Hadley showed us around her apartment, got a quick driving tour of campus, and then we went out to dinner at Roy's Pizza. It was delicious! Afterwards, we went back to Hadley's and met one of her roommates and took this picture.

Finally, we dropped Hadley off at her choir concert and headed for home. Seconds after Hadley got out of the car and she started walking away, Audrey said in the sweetest, saddest voice, "I miss her. I miss Hadley." It was so cute. We had such a fun time, we hope we can go for another visit in the spring.

On a side note, here's a story I don't want to forget. We only brought one movie with us, Night at the Museum 2, from Netflix, for the trip down. The kids didn't get into it that much. So we decided to stop at  Redbox on our way out of Ephraim. We picked up the new Karate Kid. So Dave took out the Netflix movie, put it in it's sleeve, and put it in the side pocket of the diaper bag. He put in the Redbox movie and we were on our way. When we got home, we pulled out the Netflix sleeve, and there was NO DVD inside. We searched the van the next day. A few days later I did an extremely thorough cleaning of the van, including removing all mats, seats, etc. It was no where to be found. A week or so later, I finally just paid for the missing movie. Luckily, they will refund your money if the DVD is found within a year, which I have little hope of happening.

We've got talent!

A few nights ago, Kimee held a talent show in our living room.
She wrote up a program, which she announced very professionally.

Here it is, in Kimee's spelling:
the tleants:
the master of papifres
the Empor of Books and
the qeen of rrefhments.
the Pro of swinging.

 Kimee displayed some art on the window and I think she did some gymnastics (but that may have been the night before.)

Audrey has a great talent for swinging. She even did a few tricks!

At the end, they did a special bow together.

On another note, regarding talents, Kimee entered a photo she took while we were up in Yellowstone into the school's reflection contest. She was so excited to win a trophy!





She was at her cousins' just before the program, so Mariah got her all fancied up. She looked so beautiful!

Pretending

Yesterday and today we have had really nice weather. Kimee decided to create a new house outside. This morning I went for a tour through the new house (made with a bunch of outside toys and some firewood). It even had a blanket to lay on. At the end of the tour, I was given flowers and a fruit snack as a thank you for attending. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the entrance fee was 10 cents.

Whenever Audrey wants to pretend that she did something or really wants to do something, she will say "With my other parents, I . . ." 

I usually say, "Oh, really?"

I think its pretty funny.

Happy Halloween!

We had such a fun Halloween.
It started with the Halloween parade and parties at school on Friday.

On Saturday morning we went for a visit to Grandma P.

The girls immediately wanted to look out at the river.

Later, we had Grandpa and Grandpa K and Jill, Jeremy and Jackson over for dinner.

We had yummy chili, cornbread, and breadsticks.

Then we went up to the church for trunk or treat. It was in the gym this year because it was raining outside. (The kids missed riding up to the church in the back of the van.)

After that, we drove down to Jill's (and our former) neighborhood to go trick or treating. We visited the Smiths, and got to see lots of old friends. Then we went back to Jill's to celebrate her birthday. The kids decorated cupcakes and we sang "Happy Birthday".

What a fun night! When we got home, Dave and I worked on getting Maddi and Audrey in bed while Kimee started sorting her candy. She was really looking forward to this. This morning I found the paper she had written up all on her own. She couldn't believe she had gotten 69 chewy candies. This morning, she was adding the categories together.



Then, of course, Audrey wanted to sort hers too. Here's the paper I made up for Audrey:

Now, let's hope we don't get sick from all this sugar!!!

carving pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins tonight for family night.

Kimee's was first...

Dave has them draw a picture for what they want it to look like.

Audrey wanted a square nose.

Kimee helped Maddi by drawing on her face with Sharpies. Thanks, Kimee! What a great big sister!

Afterwards, we got out the costume boxes and tried to find a costume for everyone. You'll have to wait and see what we found, because it's a surprise!

Maddi was fascinated by the jack-o-lantern's light.

Audrey wanted to be in every picture.

Kimee painted this pumpkin at school last week. Isn't it cute?

Fall Fun!

Kimee and Audrey got to come with us to a BYU football game on Sept. 25. They were so excited to go and were such good sports. They both wore their cheerleading outfits and were adorable.

UNTIL after we had been sitting in the hot sun for over an hour and then they started to loose it. We stayed for half time and watched the marching band, held out for as long as we could, and then I ended up taking them home early. (Dave caught a ride with a friend.) Needless to say, they don't want to go back anytime soon. It's too bad they had a rough time. (Two years ago we took them individually to different games, and they both did really well throughout the entire game. )

On September 21, we had fun picking the pumpkins that we grew in our backyard.

We left them on the back porch until the first of October, when we moved them to the front porch. There they waited until we were ready to carve them, tonight!!!