Halloween In November!

Once again I have been completely slacking on blog posting so I'm trying to catch up! I guess I will start with the traditional pumpkin carving. Our ward had a trunk or treat on Friday night so we decided to carve them later that night. Madi decided it was way more cool to hang out with her friends so it was just the 4 of us! Last year we thought we would be real nice and clean out all the pumpkins for the kids before we started carving them, boy did we learn our lesson, the kids were so mad that we had done the fun part without them. This time we decided to let them do it all by themselves, and they were thrilled!So here are our finished pumpkins! Abby carved a peace sign, Darrin carved Skelvis, Kaiden carved a spooky Pac~man, and I carved a haunted house inside a moon!

Madi carved her pumpkin Halloween morning and this is how it turned out! It's a disco dancer with its head as the disco ball! This is a close up of Darrin's Skelvis. He carved it because Madi's friends {Kenzie} used to call him Elvis because of his huge sideburns!One of my favorite memories as a kid was the fun Halloween parade they would do at school. Since my kids are going to a new school they do one every year, and I was very excited to go! When I got there I quickly learned that I wasn't the only parent excited. I was so crowded but I did manage to get an ok picture of the kids!
Darrin really likes this one cause it reminds him of the book "Where's Waldo?"

Madi decide to hang out with her friends on Halloween and we were going to Tammy and Preston's house, so I snapped a few quick pictures of the kids before we left.

The kids wanted to go before it got to cold so we headed out early!

Brooke and Abby having fun Trick or Treating!

The kids bags were so full and it was getting cold so we headed back to Tammy and Preston's house for dinner! Nate and Kaiden stayed out longer, and when they came back they were ready to check out their goods!Kaiden sorting out some of his favorites!Abby all smiles before letting us know she wont be sharing ANY of her candy! We had a lot of fun! And by the end of the night we were all soo full, we couldn't even finish the yummy suckers the kids have given us!

Madi's Volleyball Tournament

Madi's volleyball tournament started Friday night. They won the first team they played so they had to stay and play another team. They also won the second team they played which meant they had to come back Saturday morning to play some more! On Saturday they got to keep playing until they lost two games. The very first game they played was against the "undefeated" black team, they won the first round and then lost the last two. It was such a close game and they played so good, they just couldn't pull out a win. They went on to play two other teams, and won both games!

Madi and her team showing us their skills!
It was now down to Madi's team, the red team, and the black team. Madi's team played the red team first and then the winner of that game would go on to play the black team. They played so good all day, but after about 3 hours of volleyball they were starting to wear down. They tried their hardest and Madi was playing awesome but they just couldn't do it! The red team won, so Madi's team took 3rd place out of twelve teams!!

{Hayley, Madi, & Madi}

Madi and her team receiving their awards from their coaches!

Madi's Team and coaches!

Even though it was such a competitive sport, it was so fun to watch! Madi we are so proud of how much you have improved, and think you did a great job! Keep it up we cant wait till next year!

CooKiEs!

One of our favorite things to do every Halloween is make yummy sugar cookies! Monday was family night, of course I didn't have any thing planned so I figured this would be perfect. We frosted them, and no we didn't do anything fancy we were just going to be eating them, so as long as they had lots of frosting they were perfect for me!

The kids had fun and couldn't care less what their cookies looked like either they just wanted to be sure and figure out a way they could put lots of chocolate chips on, yuck! So here is a picture of some of our favorites!The best part of making the cookies, has to be eating them! And let me tell you, we did plenty of that!

Random!

So once again it has been forever since my last post. I have lots of pictures that we took that I want to post so this might be a little bit random.

Abby took summer dance classes again this year. Of course she loved every minute of it and was excited for the little performance at the end of the summer. They did a performance outside and danced a jazz routine to the song "I'm a Believer" from the Shrek soundtrack, and a ballet routine to the song "April Showers" from Bambi. This is my best attempt at taking pictures outside in the sun.

Getting Ready for the Ballet performance!

Having fun dancing the Jazz routine!

We had heard about a hiking trail up Payson Canyon called the Grotto Trail so we decided to go and check it out. I would have to say it's more of a fun little walk across wood bridges and a dirt trail, but it was fun to take the kids some where different. At the end of a trail is a waterfall and a little pond that you can get in and swim. The water was freezing but the kids still enjoyed it and got wet!

Kaiden walking across one of the wood bridges.

The waterfall at the end!The kids trying to see how close they can actually get to the waterfall.

Madi was the first to go under the waterfall!

And of course Kaiden had to follow!
It was a little bit deep by the actual waterfall but Abby wanted to get her hair wet too so she decided just to deep her head in the water! BrAiN FrEeZe!

Us being Cheezy!
Darrin jumping down the mountain trying not to fall in his flip~flops

We decided to take advantage of living so close to the mountains and take our four wheelers out for the day. It was so much fun! We drove them all the way up to the towers by our house and then back down to goof around on some trails and hills!

Gotta love the hair?
Abby posing! {of course}

So I haven't been to Cascade Springs in forever. We were bored one day and our kids have never been their so we decided to take a drive through the canyon and head on up! I have to admit the last time I went as kid I just thought it was really boring, and I was hoping maybe it had gotten better, but nope, still the same! We tried to just make the best of it and take some pictures so it looked like we were having lots of fun!

Notice Kaiden trying to contain his excitement! He was so mad that all the trails you hike were paved. He wanted to do some real hiking!

Finally a smile!

Darrin and Abby enjoying the shade!
At the end of the school year we had noticed Kaiden squinting a lot to see the TV and other things. We knew he was gonna be just like the rest of the family and need glasses, but we wanted to wait until summer was over so he wouldn't have to worry about losing or breaking them. As soon as school started we took him in and sure enough he is blind just like the rest of us! He was excited to get glasses and it took him forever to choose just the right pair. We ended up getting him two different pairs. He said he picked out the ones that looked like Danny Gokey's from American Idol. I think the look really good on him, and you should have seen how excited he was when he put them on and could actually see!
Madi finally got her braces off the day before school pictures! She was very excited to finally have them off and I think even more excited to get top and bottom retainers! They weren't able to completely fix her under bite and straighten up the alignment of her teeth, so she is still going to need to have jaw surgery when she gets older and her jaw quits growing. We were hoping to just do it all at once but he says its to soon so that means she will have to have braces again when she is ready for surgery. So for now she has to wear top and bottom retainers to keep everything in place. Madi is gonna kill me for this picture I just snapped it really quick in the car with my cell phone so it's a bit close up but the only one she would let me take.I have been working hard trying to get my kids rooms finished, and I'm really close! Madi and Kaiden's are pretty much done and Abby's is a work in progress. I'm really happy with how they are coming along and I will post some pictures soon!