Happy Halloween from the Flintstones

Happy Halloween!  We had a great time getting ready for and celebrating Halloween this year.  

Our costumes turned out awesome but more on that later.  First, we spent a night carving pumpkins.  A few weeks ago, Tyler and Ashley moved up to Smithfield.  It is nice to have some family close to us again.  We invited them over to carve pumpkins together so it was a fun get together.

Everyone carved their own pumpkins this year including Brooklyn.  Okay she just scraped all of the guts out and we carved it.  Charlotte also scraped the guts but let us carve for her.  Each of the kids designed their own pumpkin and each was very creative in their own way.  Brooklyn loved pulling out all of the pumpkin guts and didn't want us to take the pumpkin away from her.  Mavis also loved playing in the pumpkin guts.  Both of them were happy and messy babies.

All of the pumpkins turned out so creepy cool!  For as long as we have been carving pumpkins in our family, we have never used a carving kit.  We have always just used a knife and spoons.  Tyler and Ashley brought over their carving kit with little saws and scrapers and it was soooo much easier to carve our pumpkins with the kit.  I am definitely going to buy one of these carving kits after Halloween when everything goes on sale.  That way we will have one for next year's pumpkins.

I also made Brooklyn her own Trick-or-Treating bag.  I have made one of these for each kid and it only took me a year and a half to make Brooklyn's.  

She seems to like the black kitty bag I made and points to it and says, "Kitty, Meow!"

As we were getting out our Halloween decorations, we found our old Flintstones costumes from when Emily was a baby.  We knew the Pebbles costume would only fit Brooklyn this year so Emily wanted to be the Flintstones again this year.  Because we have double the amount of people in our family this time around, we had to make a few more costumes for the other kids so we could all match. 

Because of this, we had to create the Rubble's costumes as well as one for Dino.   I think the costumes turned our pretty great.  It was nice to do family themed costumes this year because it has been a while since we have done this.  First, meet the Flintstones and their pet dinosaur Dino:

Next we have the Rubble's, Betty, Barney and Bamm Bamm.  

The Dino costume was the one everyone wanted to be.  Originally the Dino costume was planned for Logan.  Then Colby wanted to be Dino instead, then I thought Charlotte should be the dinosaur because Bamm Bamm is a boy.  Finally after much debate and arguing, we went back to the original plan and had Logan be the dinosaur.  He was pretty happy about that.  When Colby learned that he could have a club with his costume, he was happy about that too.

Russell and I were of course Fred and Wilma Flintstone with Brooklyn as our baby Pebbles.  Then Emily and Colby were Betty and Barney Rubble with Charlotte as Bamm Bamm.  

We have never tried the blow up costumes until now and the dinosaur was pretty fun.  Logan loved running around chasing everyone and pretending to eat them.

But then Bamm Bamm turned on Dino and started chasing him with her club.  That made the dinosaur run away.  They had a good time chasing each other.

The blow up costume was fun but by the end of the night of Halloween, the batteries in the air blower were shot so the costume kept deflating.  By the end, Logan just took it off and finished trick-or-treating in his regular clothes.  He did say that the costume was pretty warm though.

On Halloween, the elementary school had their annual Halloween parade.  The weather was perfect and we didn't even need a jacket.  It was nice to be in the sun.

As the kids walked by with their classes, they waved to us.  It was nice that the weather was warmer than usual because Flintstone costumes are not really winter outfits.  We had to get creative with the layering but it worked out.

To top off our ensemble, we had to make the Flintstone car.

We knew we needed something to haul the baby in so we rigged the wagon to look like the Flintstone car.  It turned out perfectly.  We planned to use the wagon while Trick-or-Treating but Brooklyn refused to sit in it very long and preferred to walk so that she could go to the doors to get candy.  So basically we pulled the wagon around the neighborhood for no reason other than it matched our costumes.  Oh well, Brooklyn had  a blast getting candy with the older kids.  She thought she was so cool walking to every house like her siblings.  This kind of made Trick-or Treating slow going be we had a good time.  Our neighborhood has the best set up for trick-or-treating.  Emily's friend Hahna came along with us too.  By the end of the night, we had walked two miles.  I had a goal to reach three miles that day so while everyone was home counting their candy, I walked around the block a few more times to get one more mile in.  When I got home, it looked like a candy bomb had gone off.  There was candy everywhere!  As part of the parent tax, Russell and I confiscated all of the Reese's and other good candy.  The night was a success.

Speaking of awesome costumes, ours were pretty great but I think Jess and Josh are the winners this year.  For their costumes, they were Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber.  Josh even built the dog van to complete the costume!

I could not stop laughing when I saw the pictures of their costumes.  The best part is that the costumes totally fit their personalities.  This movie has always been their favorite and they can both quote every line.  I think the dog van is amazing.  Josh built it out an old golf cart or something so it actually drives.  They both had a blast cruising around in that thing for weeks leading up to Halloween.  Nice work you two!

Happy Halloween 2022!

October Activities

Like September, October is another busy month for us. Here are a few of the things that have been happening in our lives this month.

First, Emily was named the Student of the Month for South Cache Middle School. 

This is a pretty big deal because only one boy and one girl are selected for this award each month. Emily was nominated by her teacher and then the rest of the faculty voted for her to win. She was recognized for her hard work, and dedication to the school. She totally deserves this award! Nice work Emily!

Next, for activity days this month, we took the boys to the Corn Maze.  This is a crazy and fun group of boys so they were all over running through some corn.  Russell and I were way too slow for the boys because they just took off running through the maze. They beat us out by a long shot. Russell and I may or may not have had to cut through the corn to find the exit...

Once everyone was out of the maze, some of the boys played yard games like Connect Four, and Nine Square while some of the other boys ran back into the corn to try and beat their own records in the maze.  This was a fun activity.

Brooklyn turned 18 months old in October. She is really getting a spunky personality and she's so funny to listen to.

She loved the bouncy horse at the Corn Maze so much that we had to get her one of her own.  I found this horse at the Divvy Up consignment sale for $4 and had to have it.  Brooklyn has been loving it! 

For an 18 month old, Brooklyn is quite smart. She is a talker and says many words and is learning to say new words each day. Sometimes we have to interpret the words but when we get it right she says "Uh Huh!" I should really think about potty training her because she knows when she needs a new diaper and will tell me but I just haven't gotten up the motivation to do it yet.  Her one crutch is her binky. She will not let that thing go. She is also smart enough to keep track of it so we can't even hide it from her. She may be sucking a binky until she's 30...  Brooklyn likes playing Barbies, riding her horsie, being outside, and playing with Truly. She hates going to Nursery unless I go with her.  Hopefully that will change soon.  She likes her "juice," binky, and blankie to go to bed with but refuses to go to sleep on her own in her bed. She has to be "Rock a bye, Don't you cry" in the rocking chair with Mom in order to go to sleep. Once she is asleep though, I can put her in her bed and she will sleep all night. She is a good little girl and we love her so much!

October is also the month of Red Ribbon Week. Russell and I were in charge of Red Ribbon Week at Canyon Elementary again this year.  We did some fun activities throughout the week starting with an aerial photo of the entire student body and staff.

We also had each student pledge to be drug free by taping their hand print to the pledge wall. We also did a pumpkin painting contest again. The aerial photo we also entered into the Red Ribbon Photo Contest put on by the National Red Ribbon Campaign. We were selected as finalists in the contest so now we have to wait until December to find out if we win $1,000 for the school.

We also had the crazy dress up days for Red Ribbon Week.  Here the kids are showing off their crazy hair and crazy socks. We are happy with how the week turned out but also glad it is done. We are debating on doing it next year or letting someone else have a turn.

The next fun thing was watching Emily's band performances.

At the Bridgerland Band Festival, Emily and the 8th grade band was part of the opening number on the USU field. They played the National Anthem to start off the Band Competition.  During this Festival, high school bands from all over the state performed their field shows for judges. We stayed and watched a few bands and were so impressed by their performances.  Emily cannot wait to join marching band next year.

Finally Emily had her Halloween Band concert.

She is doing so well in Band.  She really likes the instruments she plays. For the most part she plays the bells but occasionally she has a drum or auxiliary part. Emily did really well in this concert as long as the other percussionist's Unicorn costume didn't get in the way.  

Another thing Emily has been doing is turning into a Zombie every weekend for the last month.  We don't really know what is happening to her...

The strange thing is that it happened to Russell and Colby once too! Emily has been helping in the Haunted Hollow at the American West Heritage Center on the weekends. This is like an outdoor haunted house and she has been one of the spooks that jumps out at you to scare you. She plays a dead Rapunzel and loves it. Russell and Colby went one weekend to help out and they had a blast too. 

There you have our October Activities!

Fun Fall Traditions

Cache Valley really knows how to do Fall.  There are always fun things to do here in the Fall.  Here are a couple of our favorite Fall Traditions.  First is the North Logan Pumpkin Walk.

This has always been one of our favorite activities to do in October.  The Pumpkin Walk is an awesome display of scenes made entirely out of pumpkins.  This year the theme was "Out of this World."  There were definitely some out of this world displays.  I am always in awe at the talent of the people that build the displays.  Above are some of our favorite scenes from this year.  The best had to be the Peter Pan scene complete with a full scene of London, Neverland, and the Jolly Roger.  It even had a flying Peter Pan.  Other favorite scenes were the Space Jam and Encanto scenes.  There was also a huge scene from Avatar that was really cool too.

After walking through all of the displays, we had to say hello to the Pumpkin Walk Witch and get our doughnut hole.  The kids couldn't leave without getting a few pictures in the photo ops.  These are the same every year but they are still fun.  We love the Pumpkin Walk!

Our next fun tradition of Fall is the Fall Harvest Festival at the American West Heritage Center.  This festival is always fun because it's like we are stepping back in time with some of the activities we get to do.

Here we are learning about candle making and we actually got to dip our own candles.  We also learned how to make yarn dolls like pioneer kids used to play with.  These little dolls turned out really cute.  Logan and Charlotte helped me prepare for this activity by helping me cut lots and lots of bundles of yarn for the dolls.  

No trip to the Heritage Center is complete without a pony ride or a train ride.

Charlotte and Logan are the only ones that can ride the ponies right now.  They love it!  They both waved to me as they rode passed on the ponies' merry-go-round.  The train is something we can all do.  We basically take up a whole car but it's worth it.  We took this picture of us on the train and later we realized that our friend, AnnMarie, had totally photo bombed us in the back.  Oh well we'll always remember her.

The Fall Festival always includes the Corn Maze!

Corn Mazes are definitely a tradition of ours.  I like going during the day because then I can see where I'm going.  I am not really a fan of Corn Mazes in the dark. 

This year, Colby was set on not getting lost.  He wanted to navigate us through the maze using the map as a guide.  He did a really good job too.  I don't think we got lost at all.

We all followed along having a great time. Once we had made it all the way through to the exit, the big kids wanted to go back through without the map.  They even timed each other to see who could do it the fastest.  I think it took our family about 45 minutes to go through the maze but it only took the kids about 13 minutes to run through by themselves.  They went through about 2-3 more times after that as well.

In the meantime, Charlotte and Brooklyn had fun playing on all of the yard toys.

Brooklyn especially liked riding on the bouncy horses.  She boinged  and boinged around the whole place just having a great time.  She did get bucked off a few times but got right back on to ride again.

This was the perfect day to visit the Heritage Center and the corn maze.  We had a great time.  We love all of the fun Fall activities in our community.

Football Season

Fall means football season for the boys. Colby and Logan love playing flag football and it is pretty fun to watch them play as well. Thankfully this season was not as cold as past seasons so the games were pleasant to watch and play. 

Logan played for the Broncos this year. This was his second year playing football and is getting better and better.

Logan's favorite position while on offense is Center. He likes to hike the ball to the quarterback and then get in position to catch.  His coaches also had him play quarterback a few times. He did really well at this position but he didn't like all of the pressure to throw to the right players.

Logan's all time favorite position though is the defensive position of Safety. He was awesome at this position because he could grab every flag. As the safety, you can't let anyone get passed you. Well Logan never did. He was the best at grabbing flags and chasing kids down. His only goal was to get the flag no matter what and sometimes he dove for them. It was cool to watch him sprint.

In the end, the Broncos and Logan had a great season. These 3-4th graders learned a lot throughout the season and got better each game. Go Broncos!

Colby also had a great season. This is Colby's fourth year playing flag football and Russell's fourth year coaching his team. This year they were the Packers again.

This year Colby played a variety of positions on both offense and defense. They really wanted all of the players to experience each position. Colby did play quarterback a few times but his main position was running back. He was more confident in catching passes this year which was good when the QB actually threw to him.  

Colby was also good at pulling flags and helping out his team.  His position on defense was guarding the quarterback. He stood there and counted the 7 seconds before sacking the quarterback. This made a lot of the coaches mad but as long as Colby counted out loud to 7, the refs said it was legal. 

During one game, Colby made an awesome play that really got the other team's coach fired up.  The other team was on the 99 yard line so right next to our touchdown zone. As they hiked the ball, the quarterback pitched it to another player and the ball bounced off his arm. Colby was at the right place at the right time and caught the half caught half fumbled ball before it hit the ground and he ran two steps into our endzone for a touchdown! The other team's coach tried to say that Colby rushed but the ref said he saw the whole thing and it was good. It was so cool and so fast that we blinked and missed it! 

This was another fun coaching season for Russell as well. He coached with his cousin Earl Farnsworth again this year and they had a blast. Russell really gets into the games and sometimes has to be reminded that they are just kids. Then he backs off and has fun. It's funny but when he backs off or relaxes, the kids do much better than when they are feeling the stress from a coach. 

Their season also ended well. They won quite a few of their games and got better with each one. Go Packers!