Carving Pumpkins

Carving pumpkins is such a fun tradition! Eden and Bentley were very excited to get to do this. I was excited to see how Olive would do with it since this was basically the first year she would remember what this was all about. It took quite a bit of convincing before she would stick her hand into the pumpkin, but eventually she did.  I think it was only one handful of slime before she decided she was done and her's was ready for carving.  :)

Bentley was a very focused worker. He cleaned his out nicely and then asked daddy for the carving help. He was a great director and made sure that the face was carved exactly as he was describing.

Eden found a picture of an owl in a carving kit and decided she was going to try to carve it on her own. She did such a great job! It was a pretty tricky pattern, but she very patiently took her time to carve it really well.

Karly was very entertained just watching all the action. Then she became quality control, and inspected each pumpkin before they could be considered complete.

Olive also insisted that she carve her pumpkin all by herself. He little knife poke marks turned out very cute.  :)

Eden's final work: a cute pumpkin face and the owl! Nice work Eden! 

I love this family of mine. So much happiness.

Picnic in Corrales

The weather has been so beautiful and we are trying to soak it up as much as possible before winter comes!  Erin's in-laws live on a farm in Corrales so she invited us all out for the day for a picnic and to see the animals.  We had so much fun, and the kids really LOVED feeding the alpacas. It was a beautiful day. 

And I took the opportunity to snag some pictures of all the cute kids. Everyone was so happy!

Babysitting Co-Op

The ward babysitting co-op group has been so awesome! Once a month, I host at our house and we get a large group of kids to come play. For as many small children as there are, it always surprises me how low chaos it is, and how well they all play together. It's so much fun. Olive really gets excited about co-op days and has learned some great social skills through this group.

Perks for me?  Lots of helpers in the kitchen.... and I get some time to get projects/shopping done while Olive is at co-op playing with her friends. Win-win!

More Soccer Fun!

Having this little guy in soccer has been so much fun.  He LOVES it and gets so excited when it's game day. We all have tons of fun cheering him on.  He is the cutest.

It's the best when he scores a goal and immediately looks to where we are sitting with his two thumbs way up and a huge grin on his face.

Go #2!

Karly gets a little bored, but at least she's not trying to crawl out onto the field..... yet!! 

Siblings....

I was all alone in the kitchen making dinner one night (which is very rare) so I had to stop what I was doing and see what the kids were up to.  Eden was teaching Bentley some piano notes, and Olive was playing toys with Karly. It was a moment of reflection for me as I sat and watched them. My heart is so full and so happy with these four cuties.  I love that they have each other, and that (for the most part) they are very good to each other.

Siblings are the best.....

Botanical Gardens

The weather has been so beautiful lately! We made plans with the Pickett's and Haslam's to have a picnic and walk around the botanical gardens. It was such a fun day. The kids really loved the trains, and the new bug exhibit area. It was so nice to relax and visit with friends while the kids ran around and played. Everyone was just happy and loving life. I couldn't help but get my camera out and snap some pictures of all the cute kids.  I feel very blessed to have friends that feel like family to me. It's like these kids are cousins growing up together and it's so fun!