Sunday, October 31, 2010

Trick or Treating

We were really busy all day Friday collecting a lot of candy! Easton went to preschool and had a Halloween party. The last 20 minutes they went trick or treating to about 5 houses in our neighborhood. We actually handed out candy the day before to Ms. Valerie's and Ms. Laurie's other classes and Easton wasn't very happy that he wasn't trick or treating with them. Anyways, the parents were allowed to come and take pictures and even Blair was able to participate and go trick or treating with the class. She had a blast and got it down rather quickly!



Easton doing his famous roar! He loved being a dragon.


Our sweet little angel.
Everyone loved Blair's costume.


Most of Easton's class trick or treating.

Video of the kids:



Easton's whole class with his teachers Ms. Laurie and Ms. Valerie. Blair and Spencer (siblings) got in on the picture too.

After preschool we ate lunch and I put Blair down for a quick nap before we headed over to the hospital for some more trick or treating. Nathan met us there and went around with us. They had a little kid and big kid route. We only did about half the hospital but the kids still got a lot of candy.

Dad and Blair

Blair was so funny. She would not let go of her bag for anything. I tried to carry it for her once because it was starting to get heavy but she wouldn't have it. I guess she was afraid she would have to share her candy. There was even one part where she let go of Nathan and started running to catch up to me and Easton and almost fell over because her bag was weighing her down so much. That didn't stop her from carrying it though she just kept switching off from one arm to the other when her arm got tired. Such a silly girl!

Easton wanted to trick or treat some more so we headed downtown. They have a bunch of small little shops downtown that give out candy every year. For some reason I wasn't expecting it to be that big but I was wrong. There were so many people and I think almost every shop gave out candy. We skipped several stores because it seemed like the kids were getting tired even though they wouldn't admit it. Plus they already had tons of candy.

This was the only picture I got. It was so crowded that I couldn't get a very good picture.

Easton with all his candy. One very happy kid!

Blair with all her candy!



I was glad that I took some pictures of the kids before preschool because about 10 minutes before we went to join Easton and his class, Blair tripped and fell right into the corner of the wall. She got a nice mark on her lip and cheek that eventually led to a bruise and a little black eye. The picture above was Friday night and the picture below was Sunday morning.



Blair's black eye.
If you look at her forehead you can see that she is just healing from her last incident she had with the kitchen floor and chair. She was climbing on the back of one of the kitchen chairs when it got too heavy and tipped over. It makes me think of Jack and Jill..."Blair fell down and hit her crown and the chair came tumbling after." She fell smack on her back hitting her head on the floor and then the chair came down on top of her hitting her forehead. I swear Blair has had a bruise on her forehead for at least the last month if not the last two months. When it starts healing she bangs it again and another appears. Sometimes I wonder if people think I abuse her because I probably would start to question it if I wasn't present to know what really happened. I just hope that she doesn't decide to copy her brother and get stitches next month. The dreadful month of November starts tomorrow...Wish us luck that no one gets stitches this year.

Last night we went to our Ward's harvest festival. I brought my camera but left it in the car and didn't think about it until we were about to leave so I didn't get any pictures. It was a nice party full of games for the kids but I think my kids were a little too small to really enjoy the games. I think they would have had more fun trunk or treating.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

carving pumpkins and making jam

Last night we finally got around to carving/designing the pumpkins the kids brought home from the pumpkin patch. We decided to make a dragon with Easton's pumpkin which is fitting since Easton is going to be a dragon this year (not a purple dinosaur like Barney). Just so you are all forewarned...you will be on my bad side if you say that Easton is or looks like Barney.


Nathan carved the dragon while I baked pumpkin seeds. Easton and Blair colored and played with Mr. Potato Head. There job was to pick out which Mr. Potato pieces we would use for Blair's pumpkin. Blair's pumpkin was too small to carve so we decided to decorated it instead. Easton thought Blair's pumpkin needed some color to it so he added some black to the pumpkin. He's a smart kid to know that orange and black are Halloween colors. After the pumpkin seeds were done I finally got around to helping the kids decorate Mr. Pumpkin Head.

Easton and Blair playing with Mr. Potato Head.




Easton with finished Mr. Pumpkin Head.


Blair and Easton with Pumpkin Head.



Finished glowing dragon.


As some of you know we have a couple fruit trees in our backyard (plum, pomegranate, and lemon). We thought about making plum jam when we had plums but never got around to it and instead experimented and tried making some cobblers (we always picked them too early so our cobblers were way too sour. Maybe next year we will get it down). Anyways, we decided we would make jam with our pomegranates. We bought all the supplies and made about 9 jars. It tastes really good but it was more of a syrup consistency than jam. Nathan tried to fix it the next night and improved the consistency but it still isn't quite what we were hoping for. We still have tons of pomegranates left so I guess we will do what we do best, which is experiment, and hope that next time it turns out a little better.


Finished jam/syrup!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Corn Maze

Thursday we went to a huge corn maze. It took us about 2 hours to finish it. Good thing they gave us a map of the corn maze before we went in because I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have found our way out without it. Well, that's not entirely true because I guess we could have used Nathan's phone as a GPS to find our way out if we needed to. That would have been a lot easier I'm sure than trying to read the map.



Easton at the beginning of the corn maze. He was pretty excited to run around and pick the way we should go in the beginning but about half way through he got tired and insisted that either mom or dad hold him.



This is how Blair rode most of the way. It wasn't until the very end that I finally took Blair out and put Easton in her place.


Easton pretty excited to hitch a ride.
2 hours of walking is hard for a little boy. He did better than I thought he would though.


Dad carrying Blair while I carry Easton. Isn't that a cute picture of the two of them?

We got out of the corn maze just in time because it was starting to get dark and as soon as we got in the car to leave it started to rain a little.

Video of Easton, Blair and Dad finishing the corn maze:

Easton: "I win!"
Blair sounds like she is crying but she is actually pretty happy that she finally got to get down and walk for a little while.

These next pictures are mainly for Gramma Sue:
Before we went in we walked around the pumpkin patch to see what other things they had there. We came across the same rocking horses they had at nut tree but some were painted green so I decided to take some pictures of the kids on the green ones for Gramma Sue in case she wanted each of her grandchildren on different colors.

The kids really wouldn't smile or look at the camera so these were the best I got:



I forgot to include this picture of Blair at nut tree since I took it on my phone. Its not very good quality but at least she is kind of looking towards the camera.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Pumpkin Patch

On Wednesday Easton's preschool class had a field trip to the pumpkin patch. All the parents were invited so Blair and I got to join. We had so much fun! We almost didn't stay because Easton threw up in the car about 2 minutes before we got there. I decided we would just go and tell his teacher that we weren't going to stay because he was sick. I figured Easton just got car sick but because he probably had the chicken pox and I didn't know for sure if it was car sickness I didn't want to take any chances and get others sick too. Easton started bawling when I told him we weren't staying. I probably would have cried too if I saw all my friends, animals, and lots of fun things to do. I felt bad and his teacher felt bad and told me to just stay especially since I thought it was just car sickness. Besides Easton's shirt being wet from his throw up and smelling bad (I didn't have an extra shirt to change him into) he was his normal self and was as happy as could be (except one part but we'll explain that later).

The top picture was of Easton and Blair climbing and playing on a bunch of hay stacks. Blair was pretty proud of herself that she climbed to the top all by herself.


Riding on the tractor to get to the pumpkin patch. Easton was a little cold since his shirt was all wet.


Blair finding the perfect pumpkin! I didn't have a chance to get a picture of Easton with his pumpkin because he found it, gave it to his teacher and ran off to the hay stack fort way too fast!


Easton on top of the hay stack fort. It had a bunch of tunnels and a ladder to climb up to the top.


Easton brushing the horse.


Easton petting the sheep.
If you look closely you will see that Easton's face seems a little unsure about this. I actually made him pet them because I didn't want him to be afraid of them.

Story: Easton had just walked in to see the sheep. Right when he got in there a sheep suddenly became out of control running all over the place. I'm guessing one of the kids startled it. The sheep managed to dodge all the kids with it's first pass but when the sheep turned around and ran back to where it came from it ran right into Easton and Easton went flying. After a couple minutes of crying Easton calmed down and was able to enjoy the rest of his day.

Blair loved the baby goats. She would smile and laugh with glee anytime she got close enough to pet one.

They had a bunch of baby animals they could hold if they were sitting down.

Easton with a kitten.

Blair with the same kitten. She absolutely loved the kitten. She would hold it and squeeze it (probably a little too rough). Blair definitely wasn't the gentlest but she just loved it to pieces. It almost reminded me of Elmyra off of Tiny toons adventure. "I'm gonna hug you and kiss you and love you forever."


Easton holding a baby duck.


Easton holding a baby bunny.

Easton and Blair had a great time and didn't want to leave!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

chicken pox?

I noticed yesterday as we were walking to the park that Easton was getting a rash around his neck. Nathan was just about to leave for work so I brought us back home so he could take a look at it. He didn't think anything of it and said he would take a look at it when he was home the next day. Because Nathan didn't seem all that concerned about it we went to the park.

This morning since Nathan had been working all night I decided to stay out of the house so he could get some much needed sleep. We went to the fabric store to get some samples for curtains I hope to make with Sue for the living room and then we came home and walked about a mile to a park we haven't been to before.

As we were eating dinner tonight Easton was itching his rash like crazy. Nathan looked at it again and now thinks he might have chicken pox. Yes, Easton has gotten his chicken pox vaccination but it is still possible to get chicken pox even after your vaccinated. It is generally more mild. I guess we will find out in a few days if they start blistering.

I just feel bad because I have taken him out all over the place possibly infecting others. I guess it is contagious 1-2 days before the rash appears so everyone in pre-school has been exposed. I'm not too worried about the kids in his class since they probably have been vaccinated but some of the kids have younger siblings (one of which was born about a month ago and the mom brought the baby in the classroom yesterday). And if that isn't bad enough I brought Easton to Wal-Mart tonight to get him an antihistamine and calamine lotion because he was so miserable. I would have left him home with Nathan but Nathan had to get to work so I had to take him.

Hopefully Easton gets better before Wednesday because his class is having a field trip to the pumpkin patch that day and it would be really sad if he had to miss it.



Sunday, October 10, 2010

Glimpse of what Easton's learning

Video of Easton saying the days of the week:



Video of Easton saying what sound each letter makes:

Nut Tree

I finally got around to taking the kids down to Nut Tree to play and to take some pictures for Gramma Sue! Sorry it took so long... I didn't realize that the train and carousel closed at 6:00 so we didn't get to ride those since we got there about 10 minutes before 6. Easton was a little bummed about that but I guess it was okay since I didn't have to pay $2/person/ride. $2 isn't a lot but when I know Easton would want to ride more than once and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to ride by himself, it can add up fast with 3 people. We still had fun with the rocking horses, merry-go-round, teeter totter, and animal cut out board.


While we were playing at the animal cut out board there were some really mean girls that were blocking one of the doors. Easton asked them really nice if they would move so that he could go through the door. One of the girls said, "No!, it's my door and I'm not moving!" I figured if I stepped in with some adult authority that she would for sure let Easton through the door. Boy was I wrong. She looked at me with attitude and told me No! I was pretty shocked especially since #1 I asked her nicely and #2 I was an adult. I told Easton that they weren't being very nice and that he should try the other door. Easton went through the other door but then went back to the door the mean girls were (just on the other side) and pushed it open. I guess the really mean girl was standing away from the door so when Easton pushed it open it hit her pretty hard in the face. She started screaming and her dad came and got her. I had Easton say sorry because it was the right thing to do but does it make me a bad person that I didn't feel all that much sympathy for that girl? I mean she wasn't being nice to my baby boy!




Earlier this week Nathan had a few days off so we decided to go to San Francisco to the Exploritorium. I forgot my camera but I did take a few pictures on Nathan's phone. Nathan's back to working long hours so I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to get those pictures and post them. We all had fun though!

Also this week we bought a new recliner for our living room. Easton and Blair were standing up leaning over the back of the chair. I was about to tell them to sit down (because we don't stand on furniture) but I was too late! They leaned too far over and they both did a front flip before hitting the floor (Easton managed to hit part of the wall). I felt bad that they hurt themselves (I think they were more scared than anything) but at the same time it was kind of funny how synchronized they were. I'm just glad they didn't find it very fun and want to try it again and again.