Halloween 2016

 Another happy Halloween has come and gone. We started the festivities by carving pumpkins.

 Pulling the pumpkin guts out it always a hit.

 Drew started carving and then little by little Ezra worked his way up onto his lap to watch by coming up under Drew's arm. We were laughing at how much easier that made the carving job. Ezra is our kid that is always interested in how things work and he just had to be in there up close to see how it all went.

 Some friends invited us to a fun amazing race themed Halloween party that was just for adults. We were supposed to dress up as a celebrity couple. I had a hard time coming up with an idea because of my growing belly, so I searched pinterest and thought the Duggars would be perfect. It took the swallowing of my pride to post this picture, because although I really have nothing against the Duggars I was a little bit sad about how much I actually looked like Michelle Duggar. Ha! We are practically twins. I kept looking at myself in the mirror and laughing every time about how much I looked like her. Drew's likeness was pretty darn good too.

  I just bought my kids' costumes this year, which was dreamy. Parks was an astronaut.

 Darcy had been saying she wanted to be Ariel, but I was having a hard time finding an Ariel costume we liked. One day I was in TJMaxx and I stumbled upon this amazing Belle dress for a pretty amazing price and I decided to give it a try. When Darcy got home from school I pulled it out to show her and she gasped. I had been nervous she would be sad that it wasn't Ariel, but she was so thrilled. She wore it a lot before Halloween so it got lots of good use.

 Ezra was a pilot. He wore this a ton before Halloween and is still wearing it often a few weeks after. The other day it was his paleontologist outfit. :)

  With cousins

One of the places we went trick-or-trreating was my grandma's house where my two aunts and cousin were visiting. They threw together some pretty awesome costumes for us. Parks was a little nervous about my grandma's funny costume for some reason, and she couldn't handle that. I talked to her a few days later and she apologized over and over for scaring him. It seems funny that anyone would be scared of her. She is too sweet. I love these ladies!

Pumpkin Patch

 We went to our first pumpkin patch this year with Ezra's preschool class. The boys were so excited about it and they had lots of fun. My favorite part was the chocolates we bought before we left! :)

 Selecting the perfect pumpkin

 Ezra's preschool class

 Checking out the little pigs

Next we took our annual trip with our friends to Bill's Berry farm. I love that place, but once again, it's the goodies that really get me. Those freshly made pumpkin donuts are the real star of the show.

 The best picture I managed of the train ride

  Cute buddies

 Gotta love those donuts!

 The hay ride to the other side of the farm

 These two were cracking me up taking care of their pumpkins like babies.

Marathon

 On October 15th Drew ran his first marathon. He had never run another race in his entire life, but in true Drew form he wasn't going to mess around with anything that wasn't the whole big thing. The race was at White Pass (where we grew up going skiing/snowboarding) and we should have realized that the weather wasn't going to be very pleasant mid-October.

 It had been raining a lot the night before, but the morning of the race we woke up to this! Somehow we hadn't even really considered the possibility of snow.

 The night before we were telling Ezra about snowboarding there, and he said he wished it would snow while we were there. Darcy pointed out to him that his wish had come true and he was certainly thrilled. The other kids were excited but eventually the cold got the better of them. Ezra stayed out in it until we had to leave.

 Luckily the race started a couple miles down the mountain and it hadn't snowed there. The race headed down the mountain so we never saw the snow again. This was around the 6 mile mark where they had the first spectator spot. Drew was doing great at this point.

 Our sister-in-law Sharee was there running the half-marathon so we had fun cheering her on too. I'm so impressed by the incredible distances these runners were running!

 Passing the halfway point. Still doing awesome and feeling good.

 The halfway point was at a little campground place that had a little park with really cute, unique toys. This was the favorite. Originally I tried to steer them away from playing on the toys because they were soaked, but they weren't having it and we didn't have much else going on to keep us busy. 

 Sharee at the finish of her race. She was soo cold but she did it! I think she said she finally warmed up about five hours later.

 Crossing the finish line! We were so proud of our guy! Running for four hours in the pouring rain sounds absolutely impossible to me, but he did it! He told me that around mile 24 he started having a weird pain at the top of his abdomen that was slowing him down a ton. His goal had been to never walk, but he figured he could walk just as fast as he was running and he needed that pain to go away, so he broke down and walked for a while. The pain did go away after about five minutes and he ran the rest of the way.

I thought it looked like he was crossing the finish line with ease but as he got to me his legs were wobbly and he was needing to hold on to things to stay on his feet. He was thoroughly soaked and completely exhausted and very happy to be done.

He says he has no plans of doing another one. :)

New Portraits

Drew's mom has a spot in her house for portraits of all the grandkids. The other day we were there, and I was reminded that the picture of Parks she has is him as a dark haired new born baby. The other two were also a couple years old and I decided it was time to update. I remembered I was wanting to do that all of a sudden on Saturday evening and we threw ourselves together and headed out for a photo shoot. You never know what you're going to get when you're trying to get pictures of little kids, but I was really happy with how they all turned out this time.

 Darcy - 7

 Ezra - 5

Parks - 2 1/2

First Day

 Well school has been going for about a month now, so I guess it's time to post these. :) This year Darcy started 2nd grade and Ezra started an official preschool.

Darcy had a few hard days the first couple weeks, although it wasn't nearly as bad as last year, and by now she is doing pretty well. She has finally started letting me drop her off in the morning instead of having me walk to her line with her while she holds onto me for dear life and we both separate in or nearly in tears. I feel so much better about sending her to school when she seems happy about going! She is going to computer lab this year happily which is new also. She loves art and music the most.

I hadn't really considered sending my kids to any preschool besides just a co-op before, but then I found out my friend, who I think is amazing, was running a preschool out of her home. I have not been feeling awesome and it just sounded so nice not to worry about the co-op this year. I am soo happy about this preschool! Ezra loves going and is always mad on Monday morning that he doesn't get to go to school and Darcy does (he goes Tuesday and Thursday mornings for three hours). I love his teacher and he is learning so much so quickly.

Christensen Camping Trip

For one last summer hoorah we went on a little camping trip with Drew's family. We spent two nights camping. I was really worried about how I would sleep because especially when I'm pregnant I struggle to sleep anywhere besides my own bed. I also tend to be extra nauseous when I'm too tired so all of those things had me a bit worried. In the end I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of sleep I got even despite the crazy wind the first night. It was really hot when we first got there in the middle of the first afternoon, and after a couple hours of that heat I started to feel pretty sick and I wondered if I was dealing with some kind of heat exhaustion, but I laid down for a while a while and drank lots of water and I survived. The rest of the time we were in swimming suits and had more access to the water so I didn't overheat that seriously after that first day.

 The first night after dinner we headed to the water for the kids to play a bit and cool off before bed. The sun had gone down behind the mountain and the water seemed too cold to me, but the kids were not deterred. They did come out shivering like crazy at the end though.

 Misty brought her paddleboard and gave the kids rides.

 The next day we headed to the river for some boating. Misty did her annual dive into the water from the tower.

 The kids took advantage of the breaks in tubing and wakeboarding to do some swimming.

 I don't know if Darcy has ever tubed with anyone driving but Drew and Grandpa Neil was the driver this time. He immediately started out faster than Drew has ever gone for her and she didn't last long at all. We realized we need to increase the intensity of her tube rides.

 I can't remember if this was Brayden's first or second time ever on a tube, but he loved it and was a very enthusiastic rider!

 A couple of handsome guys!

 Sharee and Grandma Becky had a turn.

 Parks and Raylee both fell asleep on the boat for a much needed, but still too short nap.

 Kevin brought this fishing boat and our kids had their first fishing experience. I wish I had been there to watch them because apparently they were pretty excited about it.

 I did some tubing with the boys. Parks cried for the first little while, calmed down for a bit and then fell asleep in my lap. 

 Tricky, tricky

 Parks fell asleep again on Grandma Becky's lap.

 Ezra almost fell asleep sitting up. Isn't camping so fun? :)

 Drew landed a 360.

Grandpa Neil and Parks