Happy Halloween

Halloween was so fun this year! First Cole needed to attend his Branch halloween party so we turned it into a date. He had absolutely no plans for dressing up. I told him he could not go to a costume party not dressing up. He was a good sport and dressed up with me. My friend and neighbor was telling me about this dress she had so I asked if I could borrow it. It was beautiful and complete with a hoop skirt. Let me tell you-this dress was so fun to wear. Whose says who have to be in Elementary school to dress like a princess?! I am just a girly poofy dress kind of person-always have been and I guess I always will! I made Cole a coordinating costume and we had fun.

 Next was our ward Trunk or Treat-where Cole had to dress up again. I can't stress enough how much dressing up is not his thing. This just shows how much me loves me!! (Not that he had much of a choice...) I had asked Cade what he wanted to be for Halloween. He said a monkey. I told him that was what he was last year so to pick something else. He then automatically said a chameleon. A what? How does he even know what that is? I really like him deciding what he wants to be but was not thrilled with the answer. So I kept asking and he came up with a spider. Whew. I can do that. Then I found super clearanced wings for Rylee. Perfect-they can be bugs together. I made Rylee's antennas and leggings and thought she made a darling butterfly. (A little upgrade to the banana she was last year!)

Cole has been out of town on Halloween day for the last 2 years for different things. We were excited to have him here this year. Then unexpectedly his great grandma passed away. She was 102!! She was a charming lady and died in her sleep. Kind of sweet. So Cole left this morning for the funeral. AND HE TOOK MY BABY!! Cole suggested he take Rylee with him since she can fly free. At first I was like no way. But I slowly consented. Cade and I can have some good one on one and I know Cole's family would love the time with Rylee. So he took her. It has been so weird! Anyway, so Cade and I enjoyed Halloween by ourselves. This morning we went trick or treating at the library.

Then tonight we went out trick or treating. This was a first for me!! To take a child out at night trick or treating in a real neighborhood. And can I just say it really was picture perfect. He went with our friends the Maughans. Carly and Cade are in Sunbeams together. We live in a complex that we really didn't want to trick or treat at so he headed to another neighborhood. So many houses were decorated, there were lots of families out and about, and lots of houses had people on the porch waiting for you. Everyone was so friendly. To say Cade had fun was an understatement. He would sing from house to house about candy. He was so fun to watch and to be with.

I just have to add some of my other family members costumes!
Shanna and Matthew were Greek Gods with Austin being Hercules! And Shan made all their costumes. So cute!

And here is Alyssa as a gypsy. A very cute gypsy at that!

And then here is my mom as Cinderella! As many of you know she collects Cinderella books so this is perfect! What is so funny about this is that she is wearing my prom dress! She said she had some difficulty breathing!

Small Town Manhattan

There are lots of perks to living in a small town. Here are a few:

One of my friends set up a little preschool where we rotate houses and we all take turns giving a lesson on a particular theme every other week. In between those weeks we go on a field trip. We wanted to tour the air port since kids love planes. The closest big airport is over 2 hours away but Manhattan does have a teeny tiny airport. My friend called them up and just asked if we could have a tour. Not only did they say yes but it was free, the director of the airport did the tour, we got up close to some of the planes, they got to watch one take off, and they got a little wooden plane at the end. How awesome is that? You could never do that at a normal airport.

 Cade and his friends flying their wooden airplanes. 

Also there are weekly farmers markets. I love the idea of supporting local farmers. And there are plenty around here!  This particular week there were some extra fun things to enjoy.

 Rylee, of course, loving the pig. 

Cade is loving being inside the fire truck. We walked up to it to go inside and they all of a sudden shut the doors and jumped inside and took off.  They got a call. Kind of cool to see then do their thing. But then they came back.

Walters Pumpkin Patch

We had such a fun day today! We were able to squeeze in a family outing to Walters Pumkin Patch in Burns, KS. I don't think I can stress to you enough how in-the-middle-of-nowhere this was. It was about an hour and a half away. There were so many fun things to do. This place had so many creative ideas. There were even more things to do that were closed since it was a weekday but, nonetheless we had a blast. The weather was perfect, the kids had fun, the parents had fun, and we brought home a pumpkin.  I know I may have posted too many pictures so maybe at least enjoy the beautiful scenery.

 Cade loved the boat. The whole time he was on the boat he kept saying, "I've never been on a boat before! I've never been on a boat before!"

 Way awesome slides!

 A big blob to jump on. What could be more fun than a big blob to jump on?! Cade is in the air on the second picture.

 Rylee and her animals. She just loves them. She is doing the cow sign in the second picture. She also just recently learned to say moo. It is so adorable.

 Fun bikes. Love that they also had child seats. (I think Rylee's hair resembles Doc from Back To The Future)

Super fun teeter toter. It was fun having the whole family on it. 

This was so hilarious to us. We tried to teach Cade to take a picture and he didn't do too bad! Cade was ecstatic to take this picture.

 On the way home, Cade was falling asleep as he was eating. It was so funny. Needless to say he had an exhaustingly good time.

Books

I have been so busy lately I almost completely forgot about the idea of blogging. It just has not even crossed my mind lately. So now I am back.

This is simple but I wanted to document. I love of how my kids love books. As rambunctious and crazy and hyper Cade can be, he will jump at the chance to sit and listen to a story. Thank goodness. And I find Rylee all the time looking through books by herself. I love it when she will lug a book over to me and then crawl into my lap and wait for me to read it to her. They love going to the library. And we have the best library. It is so good and catering so well to kids. There is always something going on at the library.

Partying!....I mean Babysitting!

My parents had the awesome opportunity to visit some friends who were serving a mission in Russia. So I had the awesome opportunity to go home to watch Alyssa and the house. Which basically meant I was pretty much on vacation since it was more like hanging out with Alyssa, having a house full of food, and plenty of fun things for the kids. Best of all Shanna also got to come for the latter half of it! So fun!! We had quality cousin time, sewing time, seeing old friends time, and then got to hear all the cool stories about Russia. I would say that is a pretty good time. Here are way too many pictures at random.

 Rylee making the 'cat' sign. To say she loved the cat would be an understatement. 

 Playing in the sand.

 Cade made me and him a party with the play food. Complete with chairs, a cake, and pizza with candy on it.

Rylee got rides in the dump truck. I am not sure who had more fun- Rylee, Cade or Cole! (Cole was there for a few days because of a conference in Ft Worth.)

 At Alyssa football game. She was a darling cheerleader. Oddly enough 8th grade cheerleading is the only activity all 5 Black sister have done that is the same. Cade was really enjoying actually watching the football game and being able to see, somewhat up close, the players get tackled or throw the ball.

 Cousins! We loved sporting dad's car all week!

 

Gathering eggs at the Matheney's house. The kids loved it. Cade was continuously concerned that we were hurting the chicks inside. How do you argue that? I told him some eggs were for eating and some were for chicks to grow. I'll figure out how to tell the truth later.

 Making cookies with Alyssa

 This typified these two the whole week. They would drive these things all over the house together.

 Trying to get a decent grandchildren shot.

 Playing dolls with Aunt Shan

 Rylee loves ducks. Mainly because she knows the sign, can somewhat say the word and loves them in her bath.

 At the park with Julia and Aria. Weird that now we are all moms. We have 8 1/2 kids between all of us!! Crazy!

 Getting Russia from Mimi.

 Cade and Austin looking over their Cars gifts.

 Cade and Austin watching Cars together. They were really excited about it. That is about the only thing similar about these two boys- their love for cars.

If you made it to the end of the post basically we had a blast. Glad mom and dad were safe in their travels. They brought us back nesting dolls (mom used to collect them so all the sisters have fond memories of playing with them) and best of all Cole got a BYU one. Each smaller doll inside is a different football player with his name on the back. I should have a picture up-it is too funny.