We got Gabby back!

Gabby and Austin were best friends for 2 years. She was our next door neighbor at the apartments we managed. They moved after we had been there for a year, but I babysat Gabby 3 times a week and Nora watched the kids for me whenever I needed her. They are a great family and we are so glad to still be good friends with the Goeckeritz family.

Cam went and got Gabby early in the morning yesterday for the party. Austin and Gabby hadn't seen each other for over a year, but they instantly became inseparable again. Gabby went to the movie with us and we have another play date planned. We love Gabby!

Birthday Parties Galore!

So Austin had 3 birthday parties and got everything he ever wanted! He was very specific about not getting any toys or clothes. What 6 year old doesn't want toys?!? He only wanted Yu-gi-Oh cards or art stuff. Picky, picky.

Sunday we celebrated his birthday with my family and back on the first week of October we did it with Cameron's. Then yesterday we had his friend party. We had lots of great costumes and played a lot of fun games. Austin loves the game fruit basket, we changed it to be candy bucket and the kids had so much fun playing it, it took a while to get the hang of it, but then we couldn't get them to stop. Cameron and my cousin Lyndsey even played. We did pumpkin bowling, relay games, the limbo, and a game where you feel monster body parts. We had carrots for monster fingers, peeled grapes for their eyes, cooked spaghetti noodles for their brains, and gummy worms for their guts. They had fun guessing what they were.

For lunch we had mummy dogs, monster toes (cheese puffs), and monster ears (apples slices), and a hand floating in the punch. Austin did not want a cake he wanted dirt. We made chocolate pudding with crushed oreos and gummy worms. It was a hit.

After the party we took the kids to see "A Nightmare Before Christmas," they had it at the theater in 3-D and the kids loved it. It was a really fun day!

Happy Birthday Austin!!!

Austin is finally 6, he's been waiting for this day for a year now! We have a tradition in my family that on the morning of your birthday there will be your favorite box of cereal (that you don't have to share), and 1 present to open. Cam and I decided to do the same with our kids and Austin could hardly wait. He woke me up at 4:00am to ask if he could go open his present on the table. He'd already snuck up a few times before that. Finally at 6:00am I let him go up and open it. It was a pack of 41 dinosaur Yu-Gi-Oh cards that he really really wanted. Now he's bugging us to open the rest of his presents, but he'll have to wait until tonight for those!!

Target Practice

On Saturday, Budd, Shane and I went to the Lee Kay Center out towards Magna to do some shooting. We shot a Mouser, a .22, and a shotgun. It had been a while since I had last shot, and I whiffed on my first five tries with the shotgun. But then I got progressivly better and only missed a handful after that.

The Mouser is an old WWII era rifle. It'd be neat if I could say it was an old family heirloom that's been passed down from generation to generation. But it's not. We bought it at Big 5 a few years ago. But it's fun to shoot. I was the first to shoot it at the range, and it's the bottom target in the picture; the bigger holes to the right of the bullseye are from the mouser, the rest are from the .22.

Trick or Treating at the Zoo

While the boys went rifle shooting my cousin Lyndsey and I took the kids to the zoo for trick or treating. There were soooo many people there it was crazy, but fun all at once. Everyone wore costumes, even a lot of the adults. The kids were given tons of candy and they got to see all the animals as well, it was a great day. It was the perfect temperature for a day at the zoo.

Austin really loves tigers, lions and all other big cats. We got a real close up look of a pacing cheetah, the kids were mesmerized. The monkeys were playing and almost all the animals were up and alert, I think there were so many people there they were on guard. We even got to see the famous white alligator, but the kids were disappointed. They thought he'd be bigger.

Alina only cared about one thing.....candy. As long as we kept filling her bag she was happy. The animals were only second to her.

Greta was just happy with everything. She wouldn't let me paint a kitty face on her though, she thought that would be too embarrasing. But she loves her kitty ears. It was a really fun day!

School Treats

Austin will turn 6 on Sunday so today he gets to take treats to his kindergarten class. It's my first kid taking treats to school for his birthday, he's getting so big and I just can't believe it. I had to take a picture. It's a big day for our family.

We wanted to make a homemade treat, but with all the crazies in the world they don't allow that. Austin decided on ghost suckers. We got the carmel apple kind since he doesn't like tootsie rolls. We have a soon-to-be 6 year old....crazy!

Snow!

It snowed Saturday night! It was the first time we saw lightening, loud thunder and then snow falling. It was beautiful!

Sunday we had Regional General Conference which was awesome because we got to hear from the Prophet and Apostles. After that we got home we made a snowman. It was so much fun to actually have snow to play in. We missed it last year because we only got to play in the snow once. The kids had so much fun. Greta and Alina especially had fun eating the snow and Austin just threw snowballs at everyone.

Pumpkins

So we went to a pumpkin patch and I forgot the camera! The kids had so much fun, they even had a free corn maze for them to go through, we got really muddy!

We've been carving pumpkins the last 2 nights and we still aren't done! Greta and Alina love to pull out the "pumkin guts." I was the master carver and Greta requested a princess pumpkin, hence the big lips. Austin wanted a pirate pumpkin and we still need to do Alina's. Camerons pumpkin has the stem for the nose, (it's hard to see that in the picture) it's supposed to be a witch, but we didn't have a hat small enough for it. The big pumpkin has vampire teeth and a little pumpkin in his mouth. It's my favorite. We love Halloween at our house!

Halloween

Sunday the kids got all the costumes out and tried them on. Austin will be Harry Potter, Alina a giraffe, and Greta a kitty cat.

The scary mask that Austin is wearing is used daily to torture his sisters. They are terrified of that mask to the point of tears every time they see it. Austin just can't torture them enough. When I tell him to stop he says, "it's hard not to scare my sisters, that's what brothers do." Boys will be boys.