Happy Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween!

From: A Pirate, Minnie Mouse, and Anakin Skywalker.

This is Halloween!

We decided to carve our pumpkins last night for a family activity. The kids were VERY excited. They had a great time cleaning out the guts. (the reason for no shirts). I think we ended up with some great pumpkins to display on our stairs this year! We also frosted Halloween cookies last night. We had to pack things in because Nate will be gone most of the week and before we know it Halloween will be here!

Gutting the pumpkins.

The finished products.

Ashlyn with her little pumpkin that she picked out herself!

Pumpkins with the lights out!

Not a great picture, but whatever.

Gavin with his "Batman" cookie.

Decorating (and eating) sugar cookies.

Our pumpkin display.

Hiking

Nate and the boys went hiking on Saturday up Adam's Canyon to the waterfall. It was a beautiful day and they saw lots of creatures (lizards, snakes, bugs) and fall colors. Here are some pictures of their hike. (Ashlyn and I were shopping and running errands, so we missed out on all the fun!)

The Park

I feel like I have been a blog slacker lately. I guess there just isn't much exciting going on at our house. We are staying very busy with school and all the germs that come with it. Gavin and Liam both love school. They both seem to have great teachers and are learning so much. We had parent teacher conferences a couple weeks ago. Gavin's language art teacher said that from his test scores they had him down as reading at a 6th grade level. Not a surprise. He is such a great reader. Liam also is testing high in reading. His teacher gave us a list of words that he should know next year in first grade, but he can already read them all! I feel so blessed that my boys are able to learn so quickly and retain what they learn. Ashlyn keeps busy by keeping me busy. She is my little shadow. Lately she has had bad separation anxiety when I leave somewhere without her. (even if I am leaving her home with Nate). I am hoping she will grow out of it soon, but I do enjoy the close bond that me and my girl have.

With school in we have had every sickness lately. Last week Liam and Ashlyn had some stomach thing going on. I was quite tired of changing nasty diapers! For now we are all healthy. (knock on wood) Nate has been traveling quite often as of late. It is hard when he is gone, but we are thankful for technology like Skype that lets us see and talk to him while he is away.

We are looking forward to the upcoming holiday season. The kids keep talking about Christmas so I have to keep reminding them that we still have Halloween and Thanksgiving first. I'm sure with the upcoming holidays I will actually have more to blog about. Until then here are some pictures I took last week when we went to the park. It was probably the last 80 degree weather day this year so we took advantage of it. Enjoy!

Ashlyn made herself a bed the other day while watching a cartoon. What a goof!

Football

We took Gavin and Liam to their first BYU football game last Friday. It was perfect weather and we had pretty good seats. We thought the game was not going to go our way, but BYU pulled of a great last minute win against Utah State. We had a great time! Here's some pics!

Gavin, Liam and their cousin Bryce (we were so glad he came along because he LOVES football and helped the boys to be excited about the game)

Eating yummy BYU creamery ice cream at the game.

We also had my parents with us, so here is a pic of Grandpa Hess with the boys!