Halloween season has started! :)

9/30: The girls both went to dance class that morning, yay!!!  That afternoon, Ashleigh (the former YW of mine from Louisiana who was going to BYU last year) came for a visit last Tues. before going into the MTC the next day!  She is headed to Paris next week!  So proud!  She stayed with her uncle and his family and they dropped her off at our house for a bit, then they came in for a while later.  We had a really nice visit with them.

10/2: We got a babysitter (non-family, paid) for the first time and went on a double-date with our neighbor friends, the Breinholts.  We ate at Rodizio Grill while the girls had fun playing with Courtney.  It was so nice to get out with other adults, ha ha!

10/3-5: We had a great weekend, which ended when we got home just before midnight Sunday night. We went and visited the girls' birthmom; we got a hotel Sat. night in Logan and took the girls swimming, then went and walked around the Logan Temple, then went out to dinner, then went to her house on Sunday, where the girls had fun playing with her. I thought we were headed home and fell asleep as soon as we left. When I awoke an hour or so later, I realized we were not in Utah, but in ID! Jared surprised us with a visit to his sister's house to see her family and new baby. The girls had so much fun playing with their 7 cousins and seeing/petting all their animals (a huge St. Bernard, at least 8 cats/kittens, 2 goats, ~7 bunnies, and several chickens). When we got there, we went to get some stuff out of the trunk and that's when I saw the pet carrier Jared had snuck in there. He had planned all along for us to bring one of their kittens home. I had my eye on this orange one and Makenna took right to it, so that's the one we went with. We asked the girls what we should name it and Avery said, "Whisker!" So we named it Whiskers. It was the runt of the litter and the mom and some of the other kittens had died. It has two living siblings and they are over twice his size--he's over 12 weeks old but barely looks 6 weeks. I THINK it's a boy but I'm not really sure. My existing cat, Chloe, won't have anything to do with it yet, of course--just some hissing and growling. The girls won't leave him alone, though. They love him! He is SO SWEET. I'm so happy we got him, even if I have to spend all day telling the girls to leave him alone for a minute and stop them from fighting over him. We also had our first scratching incident this afternoon. But Makenna still wanted to pet him afterward--she sure did milk it at naptime, though!!! Isn't he a cutie?!

Walking around Logan Temple:

 

 

 Watching conference:

 Petting the goats:

 Playing with Katie:

 Katie found a snake in the backyard!

 And the girls actually touched it!

 

 New nephew:

Avery cuddling with a cousin:

 

Makenna enjoying her time with cousins:

 

 

 

 

 Introducing Whiskers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The scratching incident required 3 bandaids (not really, but it helped her feel better):

 10/8: Our annual visit to the local pumpkin patch:

Petting the pig

Petting a goat

Petting a goat

Riding the barrel train

 

Traditional family photo

 Fall Cuties!:

 

 

We live in such a beautiful area!

The corn pit--two days later, we are still finding corn around the house!

 

 

 

The corn maze!

A witch at a dead end!

Makenna wasn't too sure about the witch

The hay pyramid

 

 

 

 

Hay maze

Picking our pumpkins--we didn't actually go into the pumpkin patch this year--we just picked them from the pile at the front

10/9: The four of us spent a few hours at the Museum of Natural Curiosity, with a snack outside on the picnic table in the middle.

10/10: Timmy came over to say good-bye before heading to Louisiana, where he plans to stay for a while, then come back to Utah.  Jared left for another trip this afternoon.

10/11: A little while ago, Avery was sitting on the potty singing, "She's a good mommy! She's a good mommy!..." She's in a stage lately where she comes and gives us kisses all the time and tells us out of the blue that she loves us. Brightens my day each time I hear, "Mommy, I love you" in the sweet, sincere way she says it. Such a sweetie!

10/11: Spoiled much?

 This one is spoiled, too--must have fresh water straight from faucet.

10/11: Had a great night with a few Louisiana peeps. I really enjoyed the shrimp etoufee, jambalaya, seafood gumbo, and my bread pudding and the girls had fun playing with the other kids. And LSU finally won a SEC game! Awesome night!

Whiskers (kitten) is asking for trouble! She is following Chloe (14yo cat) around and Chloe is having none of it. Whiskers just keeps going near Chloe and even tried to play with her tail, even though Chloe keeps hissing and growling. Doesn't seem to phase Whiskers, ha ha!

10/12: I left the girls upstairs to watch "Chicken Run" while I went downstairs to watch football. I just went upstairs to check on them and this is what I found. I guess they are worn out from getting home at 11 pm last night and waking up in the middle of the night, plus not getting their nap today because of church at 1. Not sure if I should just let them sleep and try to put them in bed in a while or wake them up and put them to bed in a bit. I'm not sure exactly how long they've been out.

 

My cuties before church today.

Not sure what we'll do this week with Jared out of town.  Also, the kids around here are out of school later this week so I won't want to take the girls to any of the museums or anything like that.  Maybe we can hit up a park before it gets too cold to do that.