October Birthdays

We have a lot of birthdays on my side of the family to celebrate in the month of October.  There are 3 of us in our family!  We got together with my extended family and celebrated 7 birthdays in a day!  whoa.

 Ez loved to re-live his 'birfday.'  He was so happy to get to open more presents and eat cake and ice cream again.  Best day ever!

 He wouldn't really just sit back and watch the gift opening after his turn, which was even better.

 My present from my sister was the winner.  We play it at least once a week.  It's called Uno Flash I think.  My kids LOVE it.

 Ez was happy to hand out thank you kisses's to everyone at the party.

 This is a left over from before Ezra's birthday when my parents came for a private party for him because they were leaving town.  He was the happiest kid ever to just get his grandparents all to himself paying complete attention to him.

 Party animals...

 Spen got a birthday pie because I was tired of having cake around.  Mason was very interested in it.  He loved the candles.  Ethan was right on the spot to do the candles.  He loves that he is big enough to get that job. 

 This was for my aunt Pat's birthday.  All the kids had to have their turn blowing out the candles.  It took a while.

 Ezra and his best cousin, Cole.  They are so cute together.  Ezra adores Cole.

 For my birthday Spencer really spoiled me.  He's so great.  He took all of us out to dinner to my favorite Chinese restaurant.  Mase was the only taker to have his picture taken with me.  Man I feel old!  Happy Birthday!

Halloween 2011

For the first time ever Spencer and I attended a 'grown-up' Halloween party.  It was so much fun.  These are our friends in our ward.

 We also attended Spencer's work Halloween party where we had our very first trick-or-treating experience.  This was Victoria's first ever Halloween and she has been talking about it for months.  She has been so excited and was so excited to wear her costume.  We had a great time. 

 A few days before Halloween I hollowed out all of the pumpkins (everyone else is super slow and very whiny about the goo!) and we carved pumpkins.  I got so many huge pumpkins this year I was sure we would get bored, but as always I didn't have enough for them.  Everyone wanted more! 

 Ezra actually hollowed out his own little pumpkin this year.  he even carved it all by himself. (With the pumpkin knife, don't worry.)  He had a great time. 

 I always light our pumpkins with Christmas lights to avoid having to use candles.  That way we could have them lit for a few nights.  This year we had people knock on our door to compliment our pumpkins!  That was a first.  They were fun this year.

 If you couldn't tell we (part of us) went with a theme this year.  Mason was the tin-man, I was the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz.  The kids all wore their costumes to school for the day.  It was a Monday so luckily we had early out so we could get all the pictures and visits done before the kids set out on their trick-or-treating night.

 When I bought the fabric to make Mason's little suit the man at the fabric store was hilarious..  He just kept saying, "that sure is a lot of silver pleather!"  Mason was a great sport.  His costume was nice and toasty.  It was a really warm day for Halloween.  I don't remember not having to wear coats in my lifetime!  Lucky for Victoria to have such a warm night as her first experience. 

 We always drop by my parent's house, my Granny's house, and my Aunt's house before we have our pizza and set out for the night.  Granny was so cute.  She was worn out from all of the great-grandkids visiting all in one day!

 After working up to touching and eventually wearing his lion coat, Ezra really embraced his costume.  He was a very scarey, roaring lion.  He really got into the whole sporit of things when he realized that if he said, "trick-or-treat" and then "roared" really load he got candy.  He was running from house to house with Ethan and Victoria.  I was mostly surprised that he wanted a lion face!

 Victoria was actually here for the hosting experience last year for Halloween.  I can't believe that it was one year ago that we saw her for the first time and knew we had to go and bring her back!  She was hilarious about Halloween.  She started talking about it in August and knew she was going to be a vampire.  She was so thrilled when I wasn't going to make her be a princess or anything lame like that.  She and Ethan ran from house to house singing and laughing all night.  It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.  Ethan was done long before she was and she kept cheering him up and getting him back into it.

 Ethan was also very sure of what he wanted to be this year.  I think that this makes the majority of his Halloween's being a character from Star Wars.  Who can blame him thought, right?  He was so excited to take Ezra and Victoria out for the first time.  (Ezra didn't really go last year because of the rain and bitter cold.)  He was happy to be the expert.  He told them what we do and what to expect.  It was very darling and sweet.  He brought an extra light saber with him so that while they we walking between houses he and Vika could have sword fights in case they got bored.

 Spen bought me a costume for the first year ever.  I loved it.  I'm glad it worked out because I think that is what I will be every year now to make it worth it! 

 This is my family (Spen was still at work - he was the scare crow).  We met at my parent's house and went trick-or-treating together around their neighborhood together for a while.

 Mason wasn't really as into the stopping part of the trick-or-treating.  He loved the walking part though.  It was a huge success for a few of the kid's first time.  Happy Halloween!

Family Reunion in Oregon.

This year we went on our longest road trip ever as a family.  Spencer's family gets together for a reunion every three years.  Lucky for us it was this year so that Victoria could actually meet everyone.  We went to Bella Beach, OR.  Mason is wearing shorts and short sleeves which I can't quite figure because it was August and in the 40's most of the time!  We did have a few spells of warm time. 

We stayed in a really nice beach house and all the kids loved having each other to play with.  Ezra was thrilled that there were trains and toys to play with, but mostly he loved his cousins. 

The kids really had so much fun being together.

My in-laws put together a bunch of games for us all to play one afternoon.

I was still recovering from my back surgery so I wasn't the fastest  partner.  Ethan and I did run a mean 3 legged race though.

Victoria was shy, but she had a great time too.  It took her a while to get comfortable with everyone, but once she did she had a lot of fun.  Ethan was so sweet to help her feel comfortable with the games.  She didn't want to do anything (not really a surprise) but with some gentle encouragement she participated and had fun.  Ethan had a blast with all of the games and all of his cousins.  I don't actually think he even noticed that Spen or I were there.

This is a lot of the family blowing bubblegum bubbles.  Funny.

There was a little park we went to play on.  Spencer had to join in.

The beach was beautiful, freezing, but beautiful.

We went down to the beach to have pictures taken.  Mason and I didn't spend a lot of time at the beach with it being so cold and tricky.

I love this picture of the kids playing around and Spen and Victoria fist bumping!

We look so much warmer than we are!  Ethan and Vika are tickeling each other to get the good smiles on!

I love this picture, I just wish we could see Mason's cute face.

Victoria

Ethan

Spencer and all of his siblings together.

All of the grandkids.

My cute kids.

Ez.

Me and Spen.

One of the mornings they had a big treasure hunt for all of the kids.  It was so cute and fun for them.  they ended up digging up the treasure in the sand.  They found ring pops and gold coins.  It was darling.

The boys playing in the freezing water.

The girls looking for sea glass and agates.

The whole family!

Ezra loved the sand and the water.  He didn't care how cold it was.  He loved hiding in the holes.

Hopefully Victoria liked it more than she let on!  It kind of looks like she enjoyed herself!

Walking around the neighborhood.  It really was a gorgeous place.

The kids digging in the sand.

The kids really like to bury Spencer.

This is the house we stayed in.

Beautiful.

I was there too..  I had to get a picture since normally I just take them all!

One of the days we went on this great hike to a waterfall.  It was amazing.  It was mostly accessible for Mason.  I'm just glad I only had to push him on really wide flat parts.

The really fun part of the hike was the suspended bridge.  Of course Mason loved that Spen had to bounce and shake the bridge so that nobody else could keep their balance.

We went to a science center to pet water animals.

Ethan, Ezra, and Vika couldn't get enough of the touching.  I hate that sort of thing.  Finally just as they were about to close Ethan helped me to be brave and touch them.  He put his little hand over mine and reassured me that it wouldn't hurt.  I'm such a baby.

This is one of the sights we past on our drive. 

We stopped in Portland for dinner.  Ezra loves to have his picture taken.

Because of my back we stopped and made the drive a 2 day deal.  The boys loved the hotel.  I think Victoria did too, but I also think she was a little disappointed.  It was her first experience and was so excited, but when we left she said she didn't want to stay in hotels anymore!  The boys couldn't get enough of the pool and the fun of all sleeping piled together.  We had such a great time on our first road trip as a family of 6.  It made us excited for more.  It was great to see all of Spencer's family too.  We loved it.