Halloween

Our 3 younger kids are a bit obsessed with this computer game called Baldi's Basics. The setting of the game is an empty school. The goal is to find 7 notebooks in the school and answer the 3 math problems in the notebook and then escape from the school before Baldi, the math teacher(in the green shirt), gets you. The catch: some of the math problems are impossible to solve...as in they use symbols like $%^^$## instead of actual numbers. Oh, and when you get the math problem wrong, Baldi gets angry and chases you faster. And he gets more angry with each problem you miss. Oh, and as you go through the halls, you sometimes face obstacles like the girl in the red shirt that makes you stop and jump rope with her, or the principle(in black) who sends you to detention. The robot thing with big hands pushes you back if you run into it in the hallway. The broom pushes you out of a room if you open the wrong door. I'm not quite sure what the other things do, but the kids thought they were important and included them in their costume theme. If you look closely at their group picture, all of the things they are holding represents a character. 

Their cousins are in the picture and not part of the theme, just their to have fun trick or treating.

Ashley was Baldi

Tyler was the Bully - He steals your candy(which I think is supposed to stop Baldi from getting you).

And Camden was Principal. 

Alyssa did all of their make up. We didn't get a picture of Alyssa, but she dressed up with her friends in an 80's theme.

the kids had fun carving their pumpkins this year, too.

I made jack-o-lantern pizza's on the 30th before the kids went out trick or treating.

The kids got a lot of candy and were sad when the fun was over. 

More Puppy Pictures

Lula's puppies are getting big and are almost ready to go to their new homes. It is bittersweet for most of us. It will be nice to have Lula home full time after next week, but it has been fun to go and play with her puppies. Fortunately, we are friends with the breeders and they will continue to breed their dogs and have puppies at their house to play with(2 litters are due in about 6 weeks). But it will still be different not having them be Lula's puppies. Not that we have any plans to breed her after this. 

We wore the pups out when we went over to play with them one day. The one next to Lula's paw is the funniest. Not sure why he found that position comfortable. He is kind of a crazy, energetic puppy though so I guess it makes sense.

We are looking forward to having Lula home again and to have Ashley around a little more than she has been over the past 2 months.

Zoo Field Trip

I got to chaperone Camden's field trip to the zoo. This was my first time going as a chaperone at the public school. It was a different experience since we had to ride on the bus with the kids, instead of driving them in our cars. And the bus was crowded(3 to a seat) with very little leg room. It was a long 45 minutes there because I was by the window. On the way back, I snagged an aisle seat and it was slightly more comfortable. The weather was cool, but not to bad with a coat and hat on. We were just happy that we didn't get rained on since it was pretty stormy looking that day.

Here is a picture of Camden's class. His teacher is quite short but he seems to really like her.

We got a nice close look at the lions as they napped near the glass.

And the polar bear was pretty close, too, lounging on the rocks near the glass. These were the 3 boys that I was in charge of for the day. They were well behaved and pretty easy to keep track of. The boy in the hat has become a good friend to Camden this year since they are in the same class and they are also on the same basketball team. Plus, they only live a few streets over from us in our neighborhood.

The only disappointment of the day was not being able to find the penguins, that one of the boys said they have at the zoo. I don't know where They would have been since we went in every section and building in the zoo. 
 

Soccer and Basketball

Camden finished up his soccer season towards the end of September and went straight into his basketball season. He had fun playing soccer. He wasn't the most talented player on his team. but he got in there and had some good kicks in every game. 

He is enjoying basketball, as well. We try to get him to practice shooting outside, but he hasn't quite picked up the habit of doing it on his own. He will go out with Danny and shoot. I pointed out to him the other day when I was picking him up from a play date how his friend was practicing shooting the basketball all by himself. this friend is one of the best shooters on their team. I tried to explain to Camden that practicing a skill is what makes you get better at doing stuff. He has done well with basketball, though. He makes a shot or two in each of his games. It is nice that the kids aren't allowed to steal the ball while dribbling at this age. It gives him a chance to shoot the ball occasionally.

 

Fall Break

For Fall Break, we rented this really big house near Tooele, Utah. It appealed to us because it had an indoor pool and we thought the kids would love that as it is starting to get to cold outside to swim outdoors. The house was AMAZING! Not only was it huge, but it also sat on 5 acres of land, so there were no neighbors anywhere near us. We invited some friends to go with us to help with the cost and to give our kids some friends to play with.

When we got there, we learned that the indoor pool was actually in it's own separate pool house. It is the house with the green roof in the back of this picture.

The view was also amazing. This is out the front of the house with the Great Salt Lake in the background.

And out the back, you could see these mountains.

The pool was so much fun. It had a diving board, a slide, a basketball hoop, and a rope swing from the diving board. There were also all kinds of water toys, including flippers, balls, pool noodles, water squirters, goggles, and water weights for exercise. 

The bigger kids and dad's played a lot of water basketball.

And the younger kids did a lot of swinging on the robe swing.

After arriving and exploring the house, we discovered the coolest thing about it. There was an underground tunnel that connected from the basement of the house to the pool house. We thought we were just going to have to walk back to the house in the freezing cold night air.

Besides the pool, the house also had a theater room where the kids watched some movies and a game room, including a pool table, ping pong, air hockey, and foosball. There was also an exercise room with a sauna/shower that the kids all took turns in after swimming.

Outside, there was a playground and a sport court. It was painted for tennis, but it was too small for a tennis court. We tried pickleball on it, but the ball did not bounce very well on the court surface. So it was mostly good for basketball. 

Everyone had so much fun and we were all a little sad when we had to leave. We may go back again in the future. Another thing we loved about this trip was that it was only an hour away. So much fun with very little travel time.

Fall Colors

Ashley had a Friday off of school this month so we had planned to go on a hike in the mountains. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with that plan. We woke up to a rainy morning. We decided to to and drive the Alpine loop, instead. The colors were amazing!

We even got out of the car a couple of a times for a quick selfie, but ended up pretty wet afterwards.

It was a fun morning and as Ashley said, "much better than spending the day in school."
 

Cornbelly's and the Children's Museum

We love Thanksgiving Point. We have been members for years. Towards the end of summer, I was trying to fit in last minute outings and took the 3 younger kids to the children's museum at thanksgiving point. They had a lot of fun and asked me to take them back more often. They had a lot of fun with these soft building blocks on this visit. 

They even took turns walking up these stairs.

Ashley discovered the animation machine and made a little movie.

Tyler built a small fort out of these legos. We would have made it bigger, but some kids decided to do the same thing as us and stole half of the legos in the room.

We also got passes to Cornbelly's this year, which is a massive pumpkin patch on Thanksgiving Point property. We have gone multiple times and still haven't done everything there is to do there. Although, some of the things we do every time we go. The kids were excited to see that they got a new scary creature for their nighttime scary area.

They love this crooked house. There are a few of these in different parts of the pumpkin patch.

Ashley still thinks she is little sometimes, even though she isn't. She had a really hard time getting out of this car after I took her picture. 

We have gone to their scary part once, so far. They only have it open 3 of the nights of the week. I thought the boys would be scared of it, but they actually had a lot of fun going through it and have asked to go again.