Halloween!

We were a little slow with our Halloween prep this year. We went to the pumpkin patch last Sunday, the kids painted their small pumpkins that day but they weren't carved until Halloween day. The kids LOVED painting the pumpkins! Can you figure out which plate belonged to which child?


The top one was Kayda's and the bottom one was Dillon's. I thought it was funny that the older child had the plate with the paints mixed together the most.

Kayda and Dillon both enjoyed pumpkin carving. They weren't very keen on the goo inside. It's funny for Kayda because her first Halloween she was orange because she was playing with it so much. Dillon was never into it. When Daddy was cutting the face, Kayda decided she should have a knife too, she went and got a butterknife out of the drawer and tried to cut the lid of the pumpkin. They helped us choose what the pumpkins should look like and even helped carve a little by putting their hands on top of ours and "helping" us cut.

After we finished carving they got to paint all the pumpkins some more.

Time to go trick or treating! Kayda would NOT take off her pretty dress at the end of the day. Dillon had fun with the "paws" but got tired of it after a while.

First stop Grandma and Grandpa G's.

They weren't answering the door fast enough to Kayda tried to open it, it was locked.

Each kid took one candy, Grandpa told them that they could have another one. It was pretty funny because each of them grabbed another one and then immediately reached for a third and so on.

Next we headed to Baba's. Baba is their great grandma. She recently had back surgery and is having a hard time moving around but NOTHING could stop her from seeing her great grandbabies. She adores them and they adore her, Kayda always gets excited when we're going to see Baba.

Third stop, Grandma and Grandpa H's. Unfortunately I realized that in the chaos that is the cousins' reunion we forgot to get a picture with Grandma and Grandpa H. But here are the pictures of the cousins that were at their house. Peyton and Mikey are missing because they hadn't come over yet.

They were having a great time spinning the chair around.

Finally we went to Jamie's and then headed home. Sadly, by that time Kayda just wanted to be home. We tried to take her trick or treating in our cul-de-sac, she rode her trike and Dillon rode his little car. She did fine until they were going to cross the cul-de-sac, she kept saying "car coming" and she KNOWS she is NOT to be in the street if a car comes, she bring her trike to the side and waits. Dillon is still learning but he does very well also. There wasn't actually a car coming so Daddy took them across the street and she fell apart, she got SO upset that we had to go home. As soon as we walked in the door she was fine. It was sad that it was cut short but I must say I am extremely happy that she knows that "car coming" means she better not be in the road.

Kayda's First Dentist Appointment

Kayda went with me to the dentist for the first time today, we went to Dr. Dawson because I've gone there since I was little. I was surprised. I thought she would sit with me while they cleaned my teeth and then they would have her do the chair ride and such. Instead they took her to her own chair and did her first appointment WHILE I was at mine. I was kind of disappointed. Fortunately I could still hear her talking to the dental assistant. She was not nervous or shy in the slightest. She dove right in! She got to spray the water into a cup and suck it out with that straw thing (no clue what it's called), then they did that in her mouth, she got to play with the sunglasses, and ride the chair. She was very excited because she got TWO toothbrushes, one had Ariel (her favorite princess) but it is for ages 5-6 so they also gave her a pooh bear toothbrush that was smaller. The dentist came in and counted her teeth (she has 20). After they were done she walked right past me to go choose a toy then came back and sat perfectly on my lap while they finished up. Dr. Dawson said "If all my patients were that good I would be a happy man." He also told me that apparently her teeth and bite look exactly as they should for her age. She is excited to go to the dentist with me again.

Pumpkin Patch!

We went to the Spooner Farm pumpkin patch this year.  It's out near Sumner and it was worth the drive out there. The set up they had was really neat; they have hay bale spiders and cow benchs and LOTS of places set up for pictures. It was nice that everything wasn't really spread out as well. We watched some people sling pumpkins, the kids discovered that rubber boots are excellent for walking through puddles, we all got our pumpkins and we went through the corn maze. I think next year we'll go down planning to spend more time there. It looked like they had a few other things that we didn't get to do. It was good that we left when we did though because it started raining just after we left.

Check out Kayda's Jump! The first puddle she came across she was trying to go around and couldn't. I told her "It's okay to go in the puddles, that's why we wore our boots." After that there was no stopping either of them. I think they would've just run from puddle to puddle if we let them. Kayda did manage to find one that was a little too big and ended up stuck in the mud. We had to pry her out, thank goodness for the little handles on their boots!

Poor Cousin

Aileena, Kayda's second oldest cousin (7 years old), has been having quite an ordeal over the last couple of days. Unfortunately it will be a while until it is completely over. Thursday she had severe head and neck pain and numbness in her arm. She was airlifted to harborview where she was given steroids and a CAT scan. There was a large mass in her brain, fortunately the steroids helped with the numbness which is a good sign that permanent damage wasn't inflicted. She had an MRI and they found that it was a tumor. Yesterday she went in to surgery to have it removed. The doctors are very optimistic. It is a rare, aggressive type of cancer but it responds well to treatment and doesn't spread to other parts of the body. She will be having an MRI to make sure that they removed all of the tumor, she will have som radiation therapy and then regular MRI's to be sure it doesn't relapse. While she has been in the hospital the other cousins have been spending a lot of time together. They spent the first night with Aunt Anna and Uncle Scott (Jarrett, Nathan and Ella). Then Friday all the cousins played in the morning before Dillon, Kayda and Ella came home with me for Dillon's nap. Ella ended up wanting to have a sleep over here so she slept next to Kayda, sideways in the bed. They had a great time and Ella went to sleep more easily than Kayda and Dillon did (they were so excited that Ella was staying the night). Jarrett, Chase and Nathan stayed with Grandma Peggy. Here are the kiddos in Kayda's bed. Hopefully Aileena will recovery quickly because her siblings miss her VERY much. Ella doesn't understand exactly what's going on but she asks "Where is Aileena going to sleep?"

In the morning I heard Kayda moving around so I got up real quick to get her. She was in there saying "Ella...Ella". She wanted Ella to wake up and play. She didn't have to wait long. Ella was walking down the hall in just a couple of minutes. They were settled in to watch morning cartoons when Dillon woke up and wanted to sit by Ella too. So here they are all snuggled in together.

Puyallup Fair!

We went to the Puyallup Fair this evening for a couple of hours. It's the first time Daddy and I have been there since back when we were dating...7 years ago. We had a great time, spent more money than we probably should have (spoiling our children of course) but is was quite relaxing and a great change of pace. The kids had a great time on the rides. I was pleasantly surprised that after they went on the carousel (which Kayda insisted was first) the kids were HAPPY to try more rides. They couldn't go on many because they just aren't big enough yet but they loved the ones they got to go on. They also went on a pony ride! Dillon rode Honey and was perfectly happy to do it all by himself. Kayda was excited at first, riding Cinnamon, but after a while she remembered that she wanted to ride the WHITE horse and got upset. These are pictures of pictures that we bought so they're not real clear but they were adorable.

The carousel... It was going really fast so it was hard to get pictures but the kids loved it!

A train ride!

Pony ride!

It had to be a GREEN car. A family in front of us was nice enough to trade so that Kayda could have the green one instead of a pink one.

The canoe ride. This one was nice because we got to walk right next to them the whole way around.

"Riding" an elephant while we were waiting for an elephant ear!

The petting zoo.