Family Fun at Jungle Jims!

These two cuties have so much fun together! I love Benson's smile! 

 Hold on tight!

Christmas Morning!

We had a great Christmas! We woke up early and discovered that Santa had been to our house and that our elf, Timothy, had gone with Santa back to the North Pole. We then went to spend time with our families. Benson was in truck heaven and Allison loved the jammies Labu Phillips made and the Sleeping Beauty dress from the Spongberg's.

Frosty the Snowman

Allison had her winter dance performance a few week ago. Her dance studio performed at The Utah Family Gift Show.

She did a wonderful job and was the cutest sparkle snowman ever. 

 They had to be there and ready by 4:15 with curls so she wore her rollers to school that day. She thought that was great fun! I went early to pick her up and she was the star of the class. Everyone wanted to give her hugs and wish her good luck for her "dancing show". They also were thrilled to have Benson visit their class. She was loving every minute of it. 

Her class before their performance. 

Brooke, Grace, Magdalena, Allison, Lily, Mya

 They did a tap dance to Frosty the Snowman. It was adorable!

Great job Allison! 

The Rest of October...

Allison's dance studio had a "Bring a Friend Day". She invited her friend Keira. Precious little ballerinas.

 We had a sick little fella. Vapor bubble baths at 5am sure help baby boys feel better though. Is there anything we won't do for our little ones? Nope!

 During our weekend get away to Park City Benson stood up (by himself, over and over again) for the first time and Alli loved going swimming in the great hot tubs (all 6 of them, constantly changing, um, it was cold always getting out!). I should remember to write a post about our whole adventure up there. Later.

 The kids had their pictures taken at an apple orchard in Alpine. I was beyond excited to go to this location. It's kind of been a dream of mine for a while and lucky me, I won a photo session at a Relief Society "talent" auction. All the sisters either made something(like bows, jewelry, cookies), auctioned skills(computer training, tutoring, making homemade pizza), or bought something to be auctioned(goody baskets, Great Harvest bread)....shopping is a talent after all, and many other items. I love that I won this session because we will be able to have these treasures forever! Thanks to our fabulous photographer. How cute are these two kids?! We love them SO much!

Halloween Hullabaloo

Our Halloween Hullabaloo started the Saturday before Halloween with our ward Halloween party. 

 They had a children's parade. The costumes were all adorable! Allison and her friend Stephanie walked together holding hands. It is wonderful to have nice friends at church and these girls are so dang cute together!

 My {maybe} favorite part of Alli's costume was the little heart on her bum. Love it. Made me smile every time I saw that tooshie.

 They did a fabulous job putting on this activity. Plenty of games, candy, and even some magic.

Not to mention, some pretty awesome decorations!

 The next day we had a Halloween party with Dave's family. Costumes included Giants fans, care bears, witches, studs, and the casuals. The girls brought desserts/treats and Papa made chili. We chatted, watched baseball, carved pumpkins, and ate and ate.
We love spending time with our family and we all love Halloween!

 Finally, it was actually Halloween! And you know what that means......Trick or Treat! The kiddos were all ready to go; so off we went, enjoying the 70 degree temperature. They had a blast. Allison was a champ at ringing doorbells. Kim and Lacy came down to see the kids so they went around with us for a bit. We went out early so we could be back to pass out candy at our house. We made pizza, watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman, and passed out a lot of candy. Both kids loved going to the door to give out candy. It was so exciting and Allison loved choosing which candy pieces to give out. She is so funny.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and we had a fantastic Happy Halloween! Hope you did too!

Cookies!

Last night after Benson was in bed we let Alli stay up and decorate Halloween cookies. She is so creative and knows exactly how she wants things to be. She was great at giving us directions about what to do and then taking over from there. Truthfully, we pray that she can always remain the little leader that she is. 

Cornbelly's

We were amazed at all the fun October/Harvest/Halloween fun they had there. 100% though the winner was Pumpkin Princess Playland. We spent a lot of time there. Allison loved that they had a sparkling horse drawn pumpkin carriage, princess dresses for all the little girls (and more costumes for the boys), a stage to dance on, a little market, a castle bounce house, and more. She was in little girl heaven! There were so many other fun things to see and activities to do, too. Benson loved all the slides and horse swings. If it hadn't turned so cold and if Allison was not terrified of the giant scarecrow wandering around we could have stayed for hours more. 

Pretty sure we have a new tradition to add to our list. 

Pumpkin Patch

 Alli was quite nervous when we had her sit by these scarecrows. It didn't help that we started walking away and told her they were her new parents. Mean, maybe too mean, she is afraid of scarecrows now. We are sorry little love. 

Love them.

Basket o' Fun

September

 

 Every year the State Fair happens in September and every year we love to go. I am a believer in keeping traditions and this is one of our favorites. It is fun to see lots of animals, eat "fair food", ride ponies and, our favorite, the big yellow slide.

 Allison loves taking pictures. This day she asked to take my picture and wanted me to make funny faces. We took turns taking pictures and made funny faces, kissy faces, sad faces. This photo shoot ended with her request of a picture of her dancing. She is a beautiful girl. I love playing with my best friend.

 We had a Labor Day/end of Summer party at my mom and dad's house. It was a great day full of new toys, lawn games, swimming, water fights, and yummy barbecue. Oh, and the highlight may have been my 6 foot 5 inch brother climbing in and hanging out in the wading pool with his little girl Eva. It was quite the sight!

 The kids and I asked Labu Phillips to go on a date with us to the children's museum Discovery Gateway. This was Benson's first time there and there was a lot of exploring and playing to do, for both kids. It seemed Allison's favorite thing to do was to pick up the mail from all the different mail boxes and then re-deliver them. She did this over and over. But she said her favorite thing was playing in the house. You know, the house she spent the least amount of time in. :) Guess we can't read minds. Benson loved the helicopter and both of them loved the Chinese Dragon that came through while we were there. Alli just needed a little reassurance and an explanation from Labu.

At Thanksgiving Point they had The Harvest Festival or as we like the call it, The Pumpkin Party. We watched a bit of the giant pumpkin weigh off, met the Pumpkin Princess, ate lunch, got faces and legs painted, and took a lot of pumpkin pictures before heading through the rose garden and over to The Barn. We visited with the cows, horses, goats, llamas, turkeys, and ducks. Then we went on a pony ride and a wagon ride. It was a very fun day. I consider this to be our official kick-off to Fall and to the holidays. I don't know about you but I include Halloween in the "holiday seasons" because, well, it is my favorite. This is my favorite time of year!