Halloween Activities, Field Trip, Going Nuts, Dermatology Visit, Etc.

The other day we were in an office and when we walked outside we ran into this ginormous pumpkin.  I have no idea how they got it inside the building let alone how they will get it back outside.  Oh well it was pretty neat to see such a big pumpkin, though.

Since we have hit our family out of pocket max for health care this year (thanks to Sarah's week long hospital stay back in January) we decided to get a few moles off Josh's face from the dermatologist.  Josh has never had a numbing shot before so he didn't know what to expect.  I had told him that it stings, but he didn't realized how bad it would be.  He didn't cry, though.  Afterward as we were heading home we passed by Chick-Fil-A and stopped for their free breakfast.  Every Wednesday morning in October they were giving away a free breakfast.  Josh said it almost made it worth getting the numbing shots just to eat a yummy breakfast.  I can't complain about my fun breakfast companions and you can't beat free.  Don't you love Josh's sweet round bandaids he gets to wear the next two weeks?

 It makes me really sad because they have started developing the land behind our house for a new subdivision.  I really will miss having the cows behind us :(.  The cows made pretty good backyard neighbors even though they were stinky once in a while.  The big machinery has been roughing in the road and digging trenches for pipes to go in to all this week.  Even though we are sad to see the development going in it has been fun to watch the big machines work.

 Last Wednesday evening Matthew's after school program had a Halloween party for the families of their clients.  Wow that was an interesting and a bit chaotic experience!  Matthew was so excited to see all the people he knew that he didn't stay with us at all.  Josh and Daniel had scouts so they didn't come along with us.  We only had Matthew and the two littles--Sarah and Noah.  They had a candy bag decorating station:

 Of course we had to stop and get the treats to eat:

 They also had a face painting station, a picture taking station, a BINGO station, a dance station, and a cake walk station.  We only stayed about an hour, but it was a very busy hour!  We also got to meet some of the other special needs clients Matthew is around in his program.  It was humbling.  Let me just say that even though Matthew can be difficult at times, things could be worse.

Sarah's Rapunzel Halloween costume came with a blond wig.  However, Sarah's hair is almost the same length as the wig so she doesn't need to wear it.  I tried it on for Aaron.  He has been asking me to try going blond for years.  Here you go Aaron, I think this is as close as I will get:

This past weekend we went and enjoyed The Pumpkin Walk in Syracuse.  We have done this free activity every year and the kids love it.  Grandma T was even able to come along with us this year, too.  Grandpa T couldn't come because he was getting a delivery of some medication that evening and had to stay home to receive it.  We missed having him come along with us, but luckily, since G&G T are moving close to us hopefully he can come along with us next year.  It was so warm this year.  It was awesome!

 There are so many talented pumpkin carvers:

Josh talked Grandma T's hind leg off the whole night.  I can't believe he is almost as tall as she is!

 More pumpkins:

 Matthew got really excited to see the train jack-o-lantern station:

 At the end there were some Star Wars actors we got to take our picture with:

 Noah loves Sarah, however, since she loves all things girly, Noah tends to follow her example.  This does not make Aaron too happy.  I just keep telling him that we played dress up with my brother, Bryan, and he turned out ok.  I just figure we have some good black mail pictures for when he gets older.  Noah has been wearing Sarah's pink mouse ears from Disneyland around the house for a while.  He things they are pretty awesome:

He also really likes Sarah's Rapunzel crown that came with her Halloween costume this year.  What a funny kid:

 Sarah's a bit of a ham, but since I took a picture of Noah wearing her crown she needed her picture taken, too:

 Wow beef prices have really gone up these past few months.  So I was excited to find a frozen roast in our freezer that I had forgotten about, but had gotten when things weren't so expensive.  Wahoo!  While it was sitting on the counter defrosting, Daniel decided to do some artwork on the frost.  Glad to know he can spell his name :).

Sunday morning as I was getting the roast prepared in the crock pot I peeled a bunch of  carrots to go inside with it.  Unfortunately, when I tried putting all the carrot peels down the garbage disposal it clogged it up.  Whoops!  I tried and tried to get the sink to drain, but it was stopped up pretty tight.  I walked over to Aaron and smiled at him and then told him what I had done.  He came over and tried to unstop the sink without success, either.  We had a sink plunger somewhere, but neither one of us could find it.  Seeing as we couldn't really go the rest of Sunday without a kitchen sink, Aaron went to the store to buy a sink plunger to try and drain the sink.  Unfortunately, Aaron ran into a few people he knew.  One guy was from work.  Aaron felt super guilty because the guy from work (who is not a member) asked Aaron where his church clothes were because he knew Aaron goes to church every Sunday.  Aaron sheepishly told him that I had really clogged the sink and he needed to get a sink plunger to clear it.  Aaron also ran into another guy from our ward.  That was a little awkward, but Aaron just smiled, said hi and went on his way.  I have now learned my lesson to not try and shove a bunch of peelings down the disposal in the first place, but if I do make sure it is not on a Sunday and that we have a sink plunger handy :).

We did have Stake Conference this past Sunday which we went to.  Since they were changing out our stake presidency they held the conference in the Ogden Tabernacle.  When they remodeled the Ogden temple they also remodeled the tabernacle.  It turned out really beautiful.  We sat in the balcony and the kids had fun spotting different people from our ward.  It was a nice meeting and we were glad we went.

Saturday there was a community Halloween party that we went to that was all free.  The kids were excited to dress up in their costumes.  Matthew, or course, was a train conductor.  Sarah is Rapunzel, Noah a shark, Daniel is a Viking, and Josh is a Ninja.

 They had a lot of activities and different stations to see.  Matthew was excited to see the chips and salsa station:

 They had a craft table where you could make pumpkin and leaf hangers:

 Sugar Cookie decorating.  It was so nice that Daniel could actually eat the cookie since he is not allergic anymore.  That was awesome!

 I was trying to help all five kids decorate their sugar cookies and Noah exploited the fact that my attention was not solely on him.  Before I could stop him he dumped almost a whole bottle of black sprinkles on his cookie and then took a bite.  Wow I have never seen so much black spit.  YUCK!!

They had a face painting station with really neat painters.  Daniel chose a dinosaur.  The lady even painted it so the dino's mouth with teeth opened with Daniel's mouth.  It was pretty cool:

 Josh got a half of a skull:

 Noah thought it tickled:

 He chose a shark and the sharks teeth opened whenever Noah's mouth did.  Pretty cool:

 Matthew chose pumpkins:

 Sarah wanted to be a pumpkin princess.  Here's everyone's painted faces:

 There were different games all around:

 Sarah got to meet Cinderella and LOVED it:

 When we got home Noah insisted on eating some of his candy.  He picked out a Warhead gumball.  I tried to tell him he wouldn't like it, but he insisted so I gave it to him.  Here's what happened:

Noah was not a fan of the Warhead gumball.

That evening there was a free haunted house Aaron took Josh and Daniel to.  If you donated a can of food per person for the food bank you got to get in for free.  Daniel didn't want to go, but Aaron talked him into it.  Here they are before it started:

I stayed back home with the three other kids.  When Josh, Aaron and Daniel came back home after the haunted house Daniel was a bit traumatized.  The guy with the chainsaw seemed to scare him the most. I didn't think he would be that scared over it, but he was.  I feel bad.  Josh, no fear boy, loved it, though.

We got the results of Daniel's bloodwork back and it showed his allergenic levels of 5 different tree nuts were low enough he could try doing an oral challenge with them.  This is amazing seeing as the allergist told us the chances of Daniel outgrowing these particular allergens were next to nil.  Wahoo!  In preparation of Daniel's oral challenge I went out a picked up these five nuts--Hazelnut, Almond, Brazil Nut, Walnuts and Pecans.

 The oral challenge allergist visit was this last Monday.  It was an all day appointment.  They would give Daniel an increasing dose of nuts every 15 minutes.  He started out with the Almonds:

 So in between the updosing of the nuts there was a bunch of waiting.  It was a long day (7 hours total), but we got through three nuts--almonds, pecans and walnuts.

 To finish off the others we have to make another all day appointment which I am not looking forward to, but it's worth it if he can eat these nuts.  Daniel did say he didn't really like how the nuts tasted by themselves, but maybe if I can make a dessert with those nuts in it I can change his mind.  I am just excited that he can now eat them.  He has come so far in this past year with his allergies.  It has been awesome!!

For Family Home Evening we went to a Trunk or Treat in West Haven.  It was fun and not very cold which was a plus.

 Noah was so excited to get his shark costume on he put his pants on backwards.  He didn't complain too much so I just left them that way.  To correct it would have been more trouble then it was worth, trust me!  Noah did keep tripping over his backward shark feet/fins, but he made it work because there was candy to be had!

 Yesterday Daniel had a third grade field trip out to Black Island Farms and I was chosen to come along as a parent chaperon.  Wow, being on the bus with a bunch of chatty 3rd graders made for a long and loud drive out to the farm!  However, I was glad I could come along with Daniel.

 We took a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch where along the way they stopped and showed us where they also grew cabbages.  These cabbages were HUGE!

 We made it to the pumpkin patch where everyone got to pick out their pumpkins:

 Since I was a chaperon I was in charge of five kids.  It was a bit chaotic trying to get everyone to all decide on what activities to do, but we made it work.  The two girls in our group really wanted to do the corn maze which we did do.  Here we are on the bridge overlooking the maze.  Daniel is the far one wearing red:

 We only had about an hour to fit in all the activities we wanted, but we used the whole hour staying busy.

 We even got to see some pig races:

 It was a fun day and I was glad I could spend it with Daniel.

Matthew is taking another art class this year.  He has come home with a few different completed projects.  He made a clay bowl and this cool tree painting:

 We have a desk in our kitchen/family room that seems to be the 'catch all' for everything.  When the piles get to big I end up taking a few hours to clear it off only to have it stack up again.  Oh well that's what you get when you have 5 kids bringing home all kinds of papers from school.  In clearing it off I found this cute handprint of Noah's first day of preschool:

 I also found this cute drawing Sarah made at school describing her and what she is good at.  It says, "I likes to play socer.  I can to kic the ball and jribl the ball."  I love it:

Field Trip, Corn Maze, Pumpkin Patches, Fall Break

We survived our Sunday, but it was close.  Having late church is not very fun for us--especially for me and the sunbeam class.  We only have a few more months until we switch times and we can't wait!  For whatever reason Noah was a little stinker all through Sacrament Meeting yesterday.  Aaron had to take him out multiple times because he was having a hard time sitting still, not fighting with his siblings and being quiet.  When it was time to go to Sunbeams he absolutely refused which is usually not like him.  He crawled up in Aaron's arms and refused to get down when I tried to take him to class with me.  After our sunbeam class got started Aaron texted me this picture from his seat in the foyer and I was not surprised: 

The poor kid was so tired he couldn't see straight and finally gave in and fell asleep in Aaron's arms. He never takes a nap so this was a big thing! Aaron took full advantage and got Bubba snuggles for about an hour until he woke up again.  He even passed the flop test--where the child is so asleep that you can pick up their arms and/or legs and let them flop back down and they don't even move.  Aaron was not complaining because he doesn't get Bubba lubs very often.

Noah's power nap seemed to invigorate him because when we got home from church he was all energy.  Sarah and Noah love playing together (most times anyway).  I have no idea what they were playing, but it sure looked like they were having fun:

My kids like taking 'selfies' and the other day Sarah wanted to do some silly pictures.  I think we nailed it, don't you?:

Another funny thing that happened yesterday is as I was feeding the kids lunch I made them take off their Sunday shirts so they wouldn't get food all over them.  Josh was showing us his belly button which looks just like a wagon wheel with spokes.  Daniel's belly button looked normal.  I then showed the boys my belly button, but in showing them my belly button they also got to see my stretch marks.  They both said, "Ewwwww!"  I just looked at them and said, kiddingly, that it was their fault I have those stretch marks because I got them when I was pregnant with them.  Daniel looked at me and said in a serious voice, "It's not our fault, it's Dad's fault.  He's the one that put us there.  You know that book you read to us a while ago"  Wow, that caught me off guard.  Yes, we did lightly discuss the birds and the bees with Daniel and Josh a while ago with a book.  Neither Aaron or I thought they got too much from it, but it appears more information sank in than what we thought.  Hey at least now I really do have someone to blame for my tummy stretch marks--AARON and the boys agree.  Haha!

We stayed busy this past week.  Last Wednesday Noah had a field trip with his preschool class out to Black Island Farms corn maze and pumpkin patch.  I love that I was able to go with him on his field trip.  He LOVED the one on one attention and I don't think I have ever heard him talk so much.  It was a tad chilly when we got there so he wore his red jacket which ended up being a good thing since it made him easy to spot among all the kids. 

 Here we are on the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins:

 Black Island Farms is a fully functioning farm so along the way they stopped by the carrot and cabbage rows to show us what they grow there.  Noah loved seeing the huge carrot and cabbage the size of a soccer ball.

 They had multiple pumpkin patches and thankfully they took us to the pumpkin patch with smaller pumpkins so it was easier for Noah to carry his own pumpkin.

 After the pumpkin patch visit we headed over to see all the courtyard activities.  Noah is always one who loves to pose for pictures whether I wanted to take a picture or not.  Noah stood at this particular picture place and yelled at me until I took his picture.  He is a little on the spoiled side....

 He rode the cow/horse swing:

 Noah used to be a timid kid, but he must have gotten over all that scaredy cat stuff.  He was game to try out all the slides and climb on all the rope ladders.  He is the one in the red jacket climbing up the rope ladder right in the middle of everyone.  See what I mean about the red jacket and making it easy to spot him?!

 He loved all the slides:

 They had a make shift percussion area set up with a cut out water bucket for drums and hanging pipes for a make shift xylophone.  Noah loved it until he accidentally hit his finger with the hammer and gave himself a nice blood blister.  Ouch!   Not surprisingly after that he was done playing in this area.

 Of course he had to go on the train ride:

 Playing in the corn kernel box:

 Jumping on the cow bounce house:

 I had a lot of fun with just me and Noah that day.  The next day was the start of Fall Break.  All the kids had Thursday and Friday off from school.  Thursday we decided to go and see the dollar movie How to Train Your Dragon 2.  It was fun even though Aaron couldn't go with us because he had to work.  Since it was the dollar movie I let the kids pick out one treat to enjoy during the movie, too.  Daniel got his very first taste of the buttery dairy laden movie theater popcorn and loved it.

 Noah and I were going to share some licorice, but Noah gave me one and refused to share anymore--the little stinker!

 The next day, Friday, we all had gotten a deal on some Black Island Farm passes so we could go as a family.  It was Aaron's Friday off see he came along with us as well as my niece Miriya, and G&G T.  We got there a few minutes before they officially opened so we wandered around the outdoor market they had.  The kids were all fascinated with the HUGE chicken wandering around the area and just kept watching it the whole time we were waiting.

 After they opened we headed over to get in line for the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch.  Sarah decided to snuggle with Grandpa T while we were waiting.

 Here we all are on our way out to the pumpkin patch:

Now Matthew is quite the chatty Cathy.  He kept trying to talk to the driver while the driver was giving us the instructions and rules.  He asked the driver multiple times if he needed to borrow Matthew's sunglasses while the driver was trying to talk.  We kept telling Matthew the driver was fine, but Matthew wouldn't stop offering.  At least he was trying to be helpful....

Noah was Miriya's buddy the whole day.

An interesting side note is the vest Noah was wearing is a hand me down from Miriya's brother Taylor that has gone through all my boys and still wearable.  Miriya said she even remembered when Taylor wore it.  It's amazing that it is still wearable even going through all my boys!:

This time we went to the pumpkin patch with big pumpkins in it.  It was hard to find pumpkins small enough for the kids to carry their own, but it was fun picking them out.

 After taking the tractor ride back and putting the pumpkins in our cars we headed over to the courtyard activities.  Of course we couldn't pass by the photo op without taking pictures:

 They had a roping station where the kids tried their hand at roping a make shift cow.  None of us were very good, but it was fun to try:

 Oh we all tried out all the slides.  It was fun.  They had a ginormous slide that all the kids loved going on--even Noah.  He's not a timid kiddo anymore and would sneak off and go down it all by himself which he did do a few times.

 Here's Josh coming out of the tall slide:

 Then we headed over to do the corn maze.  They had three different phases of the corn maze.  The first phase all of us did it except Grandpa T who rested while we went through the first phase.  We let Noah be our guide--which led to some interesting twists and turns.  Luckily we made our way out OK.

 After a while Noah got tired and needed lubs.  Good thing Aaron was willing to carry him.

 After the first phase, everyone dropped out except Grandma T, Miriya, Josh and me.  We went through phase two and phase three.  Josh made us stop at the top of the bridge to take a selfie:

 After getting through the whole maze we headed over and rode the train.  Matthew was beside himself with excitement.  Noah refused to share a car with me so I watched from the sideline.  Miriya was nice enough to ride with Sarah.

 They had a box full of dried corn kernels you could play in.  The kids tried to bury their legs and arms in it.

 We then headed back over and did some more slides.  I rode down with the kids a few times.

 So did Miriya:

 Sarah batted her big blue eyes at Aaron and got him to go down the slide with her a few times as well.  She has Aaron wrapped around her little finger for sure!

 Here we all are taking a rest for a few minutes:

 It was a fun day and we were glad Miriya, and G&G T could come with us!

Later on that evening Sarah let Aaron pull out her other front tooth.  Now all she wants for Christmas are her two front teeth!  She was so excited she made sure to show everyone at church the next day.

 Saturday Aaron got up early and did a session at the Ogden temple.  He says it is so beautiful inside.  I can't wait for my turn to go.  After he got home we headed out and visited J&J Nursery's pumpkin hayride.  We have been going to this every year for nine years.  It is something all the kids look forward to each fall--that and going to a corn maze.  While we were waiting for our turn we walked around and looked at the huge pumpkin:

 If you guessed it's weight correctly you won a prize.  Josh and Daniel guessed.  We will see if they win in a few days.  They also had photo ops you could take pictures of:

 Of course Sarah had to get a picture with the princess one!

 It was finally our turn to take the hayride out to the pumpkin patch.  You never know what the weather will be like at this time of year.  Luckily, it was still warm and sunny and we didn't need jackets:

 Everyone got to choose a pumpkin.  Here's Aaron's:

 Matthew's:

 Sarah's:

 Noah's:

 Josh went for the biggest one he could find:

 Daniel's:

 Mine:

 Despite this weekend being the last weekend they were offering the hay ride there were still quite a few pumpkins left:

 On our way back to the car: