Pumpkins

I let the girls pick their pumpkins out at Cornbelly's this year. Alyssa wanted the biggest one she could find and Ashley wanted the smallest one she could find. I don't know why. Since I knew they were going to want to paint them when we got home, I let Ashley pick out two.

Alyssa named her pumpkin "Facey Pasey" since she drew like 4 different faces on it.  

 I hadn't planned on carving them, but Danny suggested it to the girls when he saw them and then the girls were set on carving them. We carved them on the Saturday before Halloween and cooked the pumpkin seeds for them to try. Alyssa kept saying "this is gross" when I had her scoop out her pumpkin. Once I loosened all of the insides from the sides of the pumpkin, she was pretty good about scooping it out. Ashley didn't want any part of that. Alyssa wanted to carve it herself but after her first attempt with the knife, I decided that was a really bad idea. I took the knife away from her and handed her a smaller carving tool instead. Alyssa didn't like the seeds and Ashley loved them because they were a means of getting large amounts of salt into her(she loves salt). I didn't take a picture while we were carving the pumpkins because I had pumpkin guts covering my arms up to my elbow and Danny wasn't around to take the picture while we were working on them. I did snap this picture of the girls as we were getting ready to leave to go Trick or treating that night. The smaller pumpkin came from the Lehi Rec Center Party. Alyssa designed the faces almost exactly the same.

Trick or treating was a big hit with these girls. We started it off in downtown Provo around 3:30 and then headed home for a quick dinner before going out into our neighborhood. They spent a good amount of time running up and down driveways. We came home pretty worn out and with a large amount of loot. Now to get rid of it without eating it myself and letting them chew too much with their cavity prone teeth.

Costume Activities

During the week leading up to Halloween, the girls had many opportunities to wear their costumes. The first opportunity was to Ashley's preschool on the Wednesday before Halloween. Here is Ashley with her preschool class on that morning.

That same evening, our Ward had a Halloween Party. Both girls got to dress up. The party consisted of dinner, a costume parade, and then a treasure hunt. They had fun, but Ashley and both parents were pretty worn out by the time we got home.

Two nights later, I took them to a Halloween Party at the Lehi Rec Center. They went all out in decorating the place for the night. Three of the pictures below were taken before we even went through the doors.  

 The 4th was taken after we had gotten their faces painted and their balloon creations made. Alyssa chose a purple swan and Ashley chose a yellow and green flower.

They also got to play a few games(the ones that had short lines that I was willing to let them wait in), listen to a story, go trick or treating, pick out a few free pumpkins to take home, and grab a helium balloon to take home as we were leaving. They also offered a spook alley and dinner with a movie playing(one of the Shrek movies). We decided to skip out on those two things as the girls were too scared to go in the spook alley and we had already eaten before we got there. I thought it was a good event for them and super cheap for all of the things they got to do. I was very glad that we got there right at opening though because within an hour of opening, everything had lines that were too long to wait in and I wouldn't have been as willing to let them do all that they got to do.

Witches, Witches, and More Witches

Another thing that we ventured out to do this Halloween season was Witchfest at Gardner Village in West Jordan. It is an outdoor, cutesy shopping area and they put all kinds of witch displays out during the month of October. Shannon talked us into going with her and the girls had more fun than I expected them to have. Alyssa loved trying on the different witch hats.

 They both had fun posing in front of the different witch displays. That hula hooping witch was kind of fun. You can't tell from the picture but she moved to make it look like she was hula hooping.

 There were a couple of non-witch displays too, like this creepy looking one.

 These two witches were playing baseball with a third witch that didn't fit in the picture. The girls loved this one.

 We went during the day, so it wasn't crowded at all. In the evening they have a lot more activities going on so I'm sure it gets a lot more crowded then. It is a fun little shopping area with a lot of unique stores. The girls especially loved the candy store where I let them each pick out a candy. It was a fun afternoon.

Cornbelly's

I love this time of year. I don't know why, but when Halloween comes around I feel the need to take my kids to everything that the city and local area has to offer. The first thing that we ventured out to do this year was a corn maze/ pumpkin patch/ play land called Cornbelly's. Aunt Shannon came along so that we could go during the day and I could have a little bit of help with the girls. I forgot my camera, so I used my phone to snap a few photos. We were there from like 1-5pm and we were all worn out by the time we got home. Here are some of the things that we got to do there. 

 They had a little hayride that went around the outside of the corn maze. We got a little peak from the hayride at the Haunted Corn Maze that they offer in the evening. The ride was bumpy and the girls had fun pulling the hay out of the bale that they were sitting on. In the picture below, I noticed that you can see the big 'ol pile of horse poop that we had to sit by before the tractor started moving. Yuck!

They had an area that they called Princess Play land. They had a stage set up and some princess/prince dress up clothes to put on. Alyssa loved that. Ashley didn't want to put a dress on. Below is Cinderella's carriage to the ball. It is really hard to see the girls in this picture, but they are sitting in the seats inside the carriage. 



This corn crib was also part of the princess play land. Both girls played in it quite a bit. Ashley mostly wanted to throw the corn kernels. Alyssa wanted to bury herself in it. I wish I could have found an angle to take this picture from that didn't have that sun spot in the background.



 They had a few different train rides that the kids could go on. This one was called the cow train. They loved it because I let them go without any adults with they (mostly because there was no way I would have fit into that tiny cow car).

 We also watched pig races, played on numerous play sets, the girls enjoyed the inflatables, we went through the corn maze, but ended up cutting through the corn when Alyssa was done walking through it (we had lost Ashley and Shannon early on in the maze). We also spent a good amount of time in the section that has all of the haunted stuff during the night. I couldn't imagine what it would be like when it actually had scary people inside of it. It was a fun afternoon and well worth the money that I paid for it. Can't wait to take them again next year.

Fall Festival

At the beginning of the month, Alyssa's school had a fundraising event called Fall Festival. It was basically an auction(both silent and live), but they also had dinner and a bake sale. They had kids activities set up also. One of the things they had was free face painting. I had always avoided face painting in the past because I wasn't willing to wait in line or pay for it. I gave in this time, mostly because we had worked our way through everything else and we still had some time to spare. Kids were cutting in line throughout our wait so it ended up taking twice as long as it should have, but the girls were so excited to have butterflies painted on their faces (Alyssa smeared hers less than 10 minutes after getting it painted on).

One of the things that their Grandpa(who works at the school) had told them about was the marshmallow guns that were for sale. By the time we had gotten there that night, they were already gone. So Danny looked up online how to make them and went to work. After they were made, he let them decorate their guns.

And the finished product. Danny and I had as much fun as the girls that afternoon shooting marshmallows at each other.

Up and Running

For anyone who has been checking our blog in the past few weeks for updates, I apologize. However, I have a good excuse for not updating. Our computer got a virus, actually over 2000 viruses as the Geek Squad confirmed for us. Therefore, we have been without Internet and even the use of our computer since the beginning of the month. We are so glad to be up and running again. Bear with me as I try to post updates of what has been happening with us in the past month. It may take a few days or even longer depending on how successful I am at getting some pictures off of my phone.

We are doing well. The girls are so excited for Halloween and all of the fun stuff we have going on leading up to that night. We have already done a couple of fun fall/Halloween outings. Alyssa is loving Kindergarten and all of the new things that she gets to learn. Mostly, she is excited to see her new friends that she has made. Ashley is enjoying her one-day-a-week preschool that I'm doing with some of the other Moms in my neighborhood. Both girls are taking gymnastics at our city Recreation Center and are loving it. We also try to fit in story time at the library once a week. I manage to get some kid-free exercise in almost every day and I volunteer in Alyssa's classroom once a week. With all of those different activities scheduled in, we stay pretty busy and have a pretty solid routine in place. Danny is enjoying his job and hiring new employees each month. He will get more and more busy the closer they get to the Grand Opening in April so we are enjoying the time we get to spend with him before then. We actually just enjoyed a four day break from both work and school. We didn't do anything exciting, but we enjoyed spending those days together. It was hard to see it end and to go back to school and work today.

I will get some pictures posted soon of some of the fun things we have been doing lately.

Our Orlando Trip Day 1: Disney's Magic Kingdom

Danny had a conference in Orlando this past week, so we decided to fly out there a few days before his conference started and have a family vacation. We decided to stay at La Quinta because they offered free breakfast and shuttle service to both Disney and Universal (the theme parks that we decided to go to.) It wasn't the nicest of hotels, but we didn't do much more than sleep in the hotel anyways, so it was sufficient for our needs. The shuttle service, however, could use some improvement but I'll save that story for later. Here the girls are waiting for the shuttle in the morning.
The Magic Kingdom only has two ways into the park from where we were. The monorail or the ferryboat. We decided to do the ferry in the morning and take the monorail back at the end of the day(we ended up doing the ferryboat at the end of the day because we were familiar with it and knew that we could walk onto it without folding our stroller up). Here are the girls on the ferry ready for a fun-filled day. (We have been talking about this trip since March so they were pretty excited to finally be at Disney World.)

Out of all the characters in the park, this was the only one that we actually waited in line to get a picture with. We actually tried to get one with the Little Mermaid too, but the line had closed already when we got there. We did the 45 minute wait to meet three princesses at Disneyland last year, so we didn't even give the girls that option. Danny had an app on his phone that gave us the wait times for all of the lines in the park and that one was consistantly 45 minutes or more. The girls do love the Peter Pan movie so they were excited about meeting him.

The first ride we went on was the cars in Tomorrowland. We ended up riding it twice because there was no wait. Here is Ashley driving her car.

The camera stayed in the bag most of the rest of the day as we were busy having fun. I did pull it out once in the afternoon to get a shot of each of the girls on the teacups.

We were inside of the gates when the park opened and got to watch the little street show that they must do at the beginning of every day. We chose to go on a day that the park was open until 9pm for the main street electrical parade followed with fireworks. The girls enjoyed every minute of the day(except the hot minutes where they had to walk). We did bring a stroller from home, but it was only a single stroller so there was always a fight between them about who go to ride. Danny and I usually ended up trading off carrying the other one. The favorite rides of the day were Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, and the Peter Pan Ride(that was Alyssa's). Our only regret of the day was relying on our Hotel shuttle to pick us up. We were at the shuttle stop 20 minutes before pick up time and were told two different times to wait "10 minutes" for the next shuttle. We didn't end up getting on a shuttle until at least an hour after our pick up time (2 1/2 hours after the park had closed). Oh, and did I mention that both girls were asleep before we even got out of the park. Needless to say, we opted to drive our rental car and pay for parking on the next two days at Universal. The $15 was well worth the convenience of leaving the park when we were ready to leave.

Day 2 - Universal Studios Florida

On Day 2, we went to Universal Studios. We decided to do 2 Universal Parks and 1 Disney Park because it was a lot cheaper. Here the girls are in front of the rotating universal ball. We actually got a good shot on the first try.
Right away, the girls got to meet Dora and Diego.

They also got to meet Spongebob. They don't like Spongebob, but there wasn't a line to get a picture with him so we took advantage.

Universal Studios had a lot of play areas for the kids. One of them was called Feifel's playland. There was this ball pit there.(I haven't seen a ball pit in so long. Most places have gotten rid of them.) Feifel's playland also had a waterslide that you go down in a raft. They loved being able to do that by themselves.

Another playland was Curious George themed. It had this ball room that had hundreds of little foam balls that you could feed into different things and watch them shoot out. The girls both liked this cannon blaster. We spent over an hour of the day in this one room.

The girls were able to go on all but two of the rides. We took advantage of the play areas at the end of the day and let the girls play while we took turns going on the other two rides. Universal had single rider lines which made our wait times really short when we were going by ourselves. That was really nice. The girls had a lot of fun here, but when we asked them whether they liked Disney better or Universal Studios, their reply was Disney. We asked them why and Alyssa said that Disney didn't have any scary rides (like Jaws-where the shark attacks the boat we are sitting in and Disaster-where they made it seem like we were in a subway during an earthquake.)