Christmas is coming! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the holidays! It is hard not to when you have three kids who get SO excited over every detail. It is pretty obvious when it snows, as you can always hear someone screaming as they look out the window. We have done a lot to get ready for Christmas. We hit the temple lights early this year before the biting cold kicked in.

I love going to see the lights at Christmas. It is always so beautiful.

Grandma and Grandpa usually make the trip with us, riding the "train" and all.

This was an interesting year seeing Santa. Cooper was really excited to see him while we were waiting in line, but as soon as he realized that he was about to touch him, he started screaming! We really wanted him in the picture so we just took it anyway, tears and all. As soon as we took him off, he was fine.

Carson was very excited to tell him about the Batman castle that he wanted and something about a Transformer.(he really wanted to make sure Santa was listening)

Abby surprised us all when she asked Santa for a coloring book. Seriously! (I wish I would have realized her low expectations sooner.)

Cooper loved Santa from a distance.

Abby's first grade decorated a Christmas tree at a local bank, so they had a little performance and sang some songs. Cute Girls!

Ok, I had to add this picture of Carson the other morning. Is it just me? Kate Gosslin anyone?

I also had to add this video. Cooper always makes us laugh (try to ignore the hiccups). He actually talks really good, but for some reason he has a hard time saying Frosty the Snowman. It becomes more like "soccer moon man". It has been making us laugh all week, especially because he LOVES Frosty. He asks me to sing the song at night, he loves the movie, and he loves ANY time he sees a snowman, so lets just say he talks about the moon man a lot!

  Happy Halloween!  I am just going to start this month backwards.  We had a great Halloween.  We kept up with all of our old traditions and added some new ones too.  As you can see, Cooper was a Dragon this year.  He was not a huge fan of his costume and usually complained when we put it on him, but on Halloween night. . . we had a hard time getting it off him!  I think he finally realized that if he just put it on and smiled, people would give him candy.

He also had a pretty sweet ride.

Carson was a King this year, and as he noticed all of the other kids, he was pretty disappointed that he wasn't Optimus Prime (he didn't realize that was an option).  We had to bundle him up so he wouldn't get cold and by the end of the night he had taken off his costume and just had his sweats, beanie, and gloves on, and was telling people he was a hip-hop dancer. ( I think I heard him say "whats up?" a couple of times)

Abby was a fairy, of course she was good with everything.  We had to bundle her up too and she didn't mind as long as her hair looked pretty.

We were lucky to have the Finnertys here for Halloween.  My kids loved having more kids to run around with.  Can you guess which kids are theirs (scary, scary, scary, scary, cutesy, cutesy, cutesy).

We did all of the required pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and pumpkin carvings to get ready for the holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

Abby was very thoughtful about her carving, (which of course included the biggest pumpkin with heart eyes)

Carson was very focused.  I saw him sticking his tongue out with pure concentration more than once. ( he made his own version of Dracula)

Cooper just stabbed at it, as we expected.

We also had our annual FHE Halloween party.

Chad and I even dressed up like idiots to party with our friends (he is such a good sport)

We had our usual Clam Chowder and breadsticks on Halloween night, and Chad even went all out and made some "witch's brew" (homemade rootbeer/ dry ice) the kids thought it was "totally awesome".  It was a great Halloween.

Back a couple of weeks. . .  We went on a road trip to Las Vegas.  I know, who goes to Las Vegas for 11 days?  Yep, us.  Chad had a training there for work most of the time (which was paid for, yeah:).  Plus Amy, Justin and Kamryn live there, so we were able to spend time with them too.  We had tons of fun, although it felt a little weird going swimming in October. (here is baby Kamryn and her dad)

 Abby hit the wave pool with Kaitlyn (her and Ethan also made the trip).

 Cooper would just put on his floaties and coast around the lazy river, which was not so lazy, it was actually pretty fast.

 We had a lot of fun swimming and laying around in the room. We also took the kids to Circus Circus, and for a family friendly walk on the strip (um, not so much, we just kept telling them to look up and don't look directly at the little fliers on the ground.)

 Of course we had to take Carson to the Shark Reef.  He is such a sea animal junky its crazy!  The funnest part was that when we checked into our next hotel, a lady came over and handed all three kids a backpack thing with a safari hat and a map and some postcards and crayons.  It was so cute!  The Carson became obsessed with his hat and insisted on wearing it to the reef.  I didn't realize it matched so well, and he ended up looking like a little explorer.  People were commenting the whole time.

 

His newest fascination is with the big Komoto Dragon they had there.

But he LOVED EVERYTHING!  He and Abby were so funny because they had to listen to EVERY single word the information thing was saying.  I kept telling them they didn't have to listen to the whole thing, but they were in a zone.  Let's just say, it made for a long visit.

Despite the picture, Abby loved it too.  She is just focusing.

We  had a lot of fun, I love vacationing with my kids, but 11 days and 5 different hotel rooms is exhausting.

Of course he had to get a Komoto Dragon for the road.

7 years old! Can you believe it! It is so crazy to me that it has been seven years since Abby was born, but at the same time, she seems like she is a 10 year old sometimes.

She had a great birthday and was so excited when she unexpectedly got her DS.

She is so funny, she wanted us to take pictures of her posing with some of her presents. She just makes me laugh.

She wanted to go bowling for her birthday and we all had a blast. They had a section all decorated for her, and she felt like the star of the show.


Oh, she wanted me to add this picture, because she has never had curlers in her hair, and we put some in last week and she thought it was the coolest thing ever. She asks to do it everyday. If id have known she would be so excited, she might have got curlers over the DS.


On the same day as Abby's party, Carson's good friend also had a birthday party and they had someone bring in live snakes and lizards. He was so excited all week for it, and it definitely lived up to his expectations. He loves all things animals.

Well, soccer season has come and gone. Aren't these the cutest little soccer players EVER.

Abby had a great time this season, especially playing with her girl friends.




She was also so excited because her cousin Kyli was able to play with her this year. I didn't know how things would go with all of these girls on the team, and playing with the boys, but I have to say that they were very impressive. They were just as tough as all the boys and so fun to watch.

Carson did much better this year (meaning he was an active participant) he scored three goals, two in one game, and he was thrilled. He is still funny to watch, and he usually gives me at least one "thumbs up" while he is running past. Abby reminds me at least once a day, that Carson's team does not play with goalies and maybe that is why he got three goals. Jealousy is such a good motivator.



Cooper, Cooper, Cooper. . . He has so much individual personality now, its crazy! He has this new thing where he walks around the house all day with a bucket on his head. He gets mad at me when I try to take it off. He definitely makes us laugh.




Some days, it continues on until night time. . .