Halloween Part 2

For some reason I thought I had many more pictures than this, otherwise I would have done just one Halloween post. Oh well. I was lucky again this year because Clayton is such a peanut my friend Tiffany let me borrow the costume her little girl (who is about 6 months older than Clay) wore last year. I'm so glad she did too because he was sick of it within 10 minutes and was out of it. So here is Clayton as the cutest tootsie roll ever.

Elizabeth and Clayton ... amazing she's holding still.

He liked it for a little while...

You can't see what Lizzi is doing, but there is a drawstring on the bottom of Clay's costume so it looks more like the real deal. Well Elizabeth thought pulling him by that would be funny. Sometimes she's just too fast for me.

And here he is in his Halloween shirt I bought for him last year after he was born. Got to love clearance. Of course I was an idiot and forgot it was in his drawer until after 5 pm. Oh well, he can wear it again.

I actually took Elizabeth to 2 houses to try trick or treating for real. She didn't get the concept so I took her home and she helped me hand out candy, until some scary costumes scared her away. She eventually came back as my helper, but I had to check before I opened the door every time to make sure no scary costumes were on the other side. Me and Mom had a lot of fun with the kids.

Halloween Fun Part 1

Well this year James was suppose to work all day Thursday and open on Halloween so we could take Elizabeth trick or treating. Well James misread his schedule so he arranged that he would work all day on Halloween so we could at least take Elizabeth out on Thursday night.

I was very lucky again this year. Most of you know that I have a very generous sister and brother-in-law who give me tons of cloths for Elizabeth. Well once again this year I also got Ava's old costume too. So as you can see Elizabeth was a very adorable witch for Halloween. And I was fortunate to find some silver tights that made the costume look extra snazzy :) So here are a few pictures of her with her costume. I couldn't get her to hold still long enough to get a good shot.

Mom and I finally bribed her with holding one of the "off limit" pumpkins so that she would hold still.

Once James was off at 5:30 we took Elizabeth to the convention center for Trick or Treat street. It wasn't as good as it use to be when I was a kid, but for Elizabeth it was perfect. It only cost $1 too which was great. She doesn't get the whole trick or treat concept so walking around all the "doors" and just getting handed candy worked out.

We were home in no time (which was a huge surprise for us and my Mom who was watching Clayton for us). So our next activity was to carve pumpkins. Once Clay woke up we put him in his highchair so he could watch. I even lowered it to floor level (just not in this picture).

Lizzi was a little more into it this year. She still didn't like the stuff on the insides thought (just like me). Surprisingly James and I both hate carving pumpkins, but we want to have fun with the kids so we still did it. Even me, although I still refuse to pull the guts out by hand. I have become quite the expert at gutting the pumpkins with ice cream scoopers.

Elizabeth thought an effective way to clean up was one seed at a time, literally.

Our New Chef

Well this week we had to go into Salt Lake for a doctor's appointment for Clayton. While we were there we had a ton of errands to do in our stay. One of our many stops was to the Dollar Tree. I LOVE that store, and the dollar store here in Elko really sucks to put it nicely. Well while we were grabbing a few essentials I saw this cute apron and hat for kids. Elizabeth loves to help Grandma in the kitchen as many of you should know. So I figured for $1 we could get her professionally outfitted. And here she is modeling it for Grandma and Grandpa when we got back.

Fun Fall Festivities

Ah the joys of having an actual yard for Elizabeth to play in. Kristine took some family pictures for us when they came to Elko this month. Since then Elizabeth has been obsessed with the leaves in the yard. So one afternoon Elizabeth and I ventured outside while Clayton was down for a nap and I racked up the leaves for her so she could have a little fun.

This is her getting ready to run and jump. She cracks me up sometimes. She loves to watch Dora the Explorer. Well while she was playing I say, "Jump Lizzi" and she says "Jump, Jump" and then she said the Spanish word for jump that I have no idea how to spell. I was stunned, the things she grasps already blows my mind. This is why I have no problem letting her watch Dora or Blue, because she actually learns from them.

On Friday we took the kids to a Kid Carnival that the college was doing for all the munchkins. Grandma came along too. Elizabeth had fun (although I think she was a little too young for a lot of it). As soon as she walked in she saw someone in a werewolf getup (I'm pretty sure it was my friend Richie) and instantly said, "Go Home" and started whimpering. But once we got her to some games she was happy.

Here she is showing off her "face painting" that was instead put on her hand. She was so proud of that pumpkin and I was impressed she stayed still long enough to get it.

James looking thrilled

They had a cake walk that Elizabeth really enjoyed. I walked for a while, but then Elizabeth decided that she wanted to go around with Grandma. She kept Grandma up and walking in circles for so long Mom started to get dizzy.

Here she is waving at us with her whistle. She won that whistle in a game where you had to throw the bean bag into a paper ring on the floor. I tried to show her a few times what to do. She finally took the bean bag and just walked over and dropped the bag into the ring. And to that James said, "She's doing it the smart way."

Clayton fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep the entire time. Poor boy was so tired. He looks adorable when he's sleeping though. And look at those cute shoes! I finally bought him some shoes because the weather here is cold a lot. He's still in size 2 shoes, but we bought him size 3 to grow into. He's my little peanut.

Clay is mad because I took a cheerio out of his mouth that had been on the floor for who know how long with my kids.

Elizabeth

I love that as Elizabeth gets older her personality becomes more pronounced. This girl is so funny and smart. She puts some things together faster than us sometimes. She has become my little ham for the camera and as soon as she saw my camera this day wanted her picture taken.

She is also very adamant about helping, especially with Grandma. And Grandma always lets her (usually). So Elizabeth got her chance to help load the dishwasher.

Grandma and Grandpa are her two new favorite people. They are always the first people she asks for in the morning. She's SO excited whenever they come home, and she constantly follows them throughout the house once they are home.

I think she will be sad when we get our own place because she won't get to see them everyday. But I'm also hoping she'll realize we actually live her now. Sometimes when we go to leave the house she says, "Go Home" I think she thinks we're still on vacation.

Picking A Pumpkin

So now that Elizabeth is getting older I am missing the options a bigger area offered. Mostly I wish we still lived close to a pumpkin patch. Next year I think we will go into Utah to go to a pumpkin patch with the kids. In the meantime we made due with what Elko has to offer. So we took Elizabeth to Albertsons to pick a pumpkin out. Without hesitation she picked out her pumpkin. The small one in her hand...

We bought her that small pumpkin, but told her she needed to pick a bigger one out so we could carve it later.



We finally just picked one out for her. Once she had her small one she didn't really care about picking another one. She just kept pointing at different ones. And of course here is James showing off the winning pumpkin.

Family Update

I thought I would do a quick update for everyone while I was online. We made it through our first month in Elko. We've all really enjoyed the move and small town atmosphere. I miss the shopping really bad, but it also has helped me see how much money I spent on stuff we didn't really need.

James loves the store he's at and fits in perfectly. His manager thinks he's awesome because he's always willing to go above and beyond for the job. We've also enjoyed the fact that James gets Sunday off, so I don't have to try to go by myself with the kids (although I do have my parents for some help if I need it).

Elizabeth and Clayton are enjoying it here. Elizabeth loves having a lot of little buddies to play with here. And they both love having Grandma and Grandpa around. They both light up everyday when they come home from work. Elizabeth is so smart and is learning everyday it seems. She brings stuff up out the blue all the time. I can't wait for her to start preschool next year because I think she will thrive in that atmosphere (and no it's not because I want to get rid of her for a few hours like James suggested to me the other day). Clayton is on the verge of walking. I won't be surprised if he's walking before his birthday.

We are probably going to begin potty training with Elizabeth at the end of the month. She's showing a lot of interested and likes to sit on her own potty. She is usually the one who wants to go sit on the potty to begin with. She actually used it for the first time yesterday. She was so excited and of course I praised her big time for doing it. So that will be our next adventure to take on.

Family Visits

Kristine and Derek came up with the kids for a family visit for his family and ours. Elizabeth really enjoyed having her cousins around to play with.

Elizabeth got a hold of someone's shoes (Allison's I think) and put them on. She did really well walking around in them.
Elizabeth and Ava
Elizabeth and Ava eating Fruit Loops