Our October and general update

We started October off with my very first ever 5k.  We've been saying for years that we should do the BYU Homecoming 5k so we finally did.  It was so much fun to be able to do this with my mom, dad, Lisa, and of course the two little munchkins in the picture.  This day was crazy filled with sports, which is unusual for me.  Right after this I ran over to Salem to play in a stake softball tournament.  Then it was on to the BYU football game.  Like I said, the entire day was all sports and was so much fun.  I did get tired lugging the kids everywhere, but as always my mom and dad helped me out with them.  I loved Lizzie's conversation with me about the softball though.
Lizzie:  Done with softball?
Me:  Yep I'm done playing softball.
Lizzie:  Mommy almost.
Me:  (confused) Almost what?
Lizzie:  Almost played (with a consoling look)
Me:  I almost played?
Lizzie:  Yeah, good try.
So apparently she noticed when I'd almost catch it and almost hit the ball. I loved that she thought she was making me feel better about it.

Here are some pictures I took when I felt like he was getting huge.  As always Lizzie is trying to make Daniel hold hands with her in the second one.  She is so obsessed with him.  He's like her play toy.  She's a great help with him most of the time.  Unfortunately she likes yell and startle him to see his reaction, which is almost always crying.  She definitely has attitude, but mostly she tries to do what I ask her.  She really does make me laugh so much of the time, like a few days ago when I was putting her down for her nap and she starting quoting the Wii saying "measuring, measuring, measuring, all done".  Apparently I've been playing Wii Fit Plus quite a bit.

We took a walk with my family up Hobble Creek Canyon and had to take a couple pictures.  It was so gorgeous and so much fun.  We just barely made it back to the cars before the rain came down.

Here's Jackson and Lizzie looking at the river (creek) with all the floating autumn leaves.

It's been so warm we've been able to be outside nearly every day up until now.  It felt crazy to be out in great weather when it was nearing November.  Lizzie loved the extra time outside.

I decided to let Lizzie try painting a pumpkin since she doesn't really get to do a lot of the carving.  She has been asking me ever since to paint more pumpkins.  She did like the carving one too and with that we made roasted pumpkin seeds that were delicious.

Our Halloween pictures.  We started the day with watching my mom finish her second 5k, the Salem Witch Run.  I should have got a picture of her outfit, but I forgot my camera.  Anyways she had an awesome tutu and beat her time from the first 5k by about 5 min.  Way to go Mom!  Then we trick-or-treated at Macey's, had chili and cornbread for lunch, and the kids took naps while I went for a much needed run.  After that we went to the ward trunk-or-treat where Lizzie was shy about the whole thing.  Then we went by my parents, and Spencer's parents.  Of course we had to stop by Grandma Fowles.  She loved seeing the two kids and surprisingly, Lizzie wasn't shy at all.  She was hyper and loved Grandma Fowles couches.  For those of you who don't know, she's not really our grandma, but we grew up just down the street from her so we've always called her that.  Spence was able to at least join us for going up to his family's.  Rory made an amazing 10ft skeleton that scared all the kids.  Lizzie was definitely unsure of the giant skeleton walking around the yard.  She really didn't understand why it sounded like grandpa.  They were of course Jessie and Buzz Lightyear.  Lizzie's new obsession is all things Toy Story.  She goes around the house singing all the songs.  She's especially cute when she sings Jessie's song, When Somebody Loved Me.  I'll see if I can record her and post it.  Daniel just barely fit into his costume.  It's supposed to fit up to 6 months.  Obviously that's wrong, but he still squeezed into it and made the cutest Buzz Lightyear.  He didn't like his hood at all though.

Here is our new van.  We needed to sell one of the cars and ended up deciding to get rid of both and upgrade to a van which we love.  Lizzie loves to just drive around in it since she's so high and can finally see things outside the car.  Spence and I love the space we get with it, not to mention our favorite color.  Lizzie's named it the Big Blue like they call the ocean in Nemo.  Now we get gas even cheaper too because it's a Flexfuel van so we can use the E85 stuff that's about thirty cents cheaper.  By the way, we now love Low Book Sales.  They're great to work with.  Never pressured us or anything.  Plus they do safety and emissions on any of our cars for the rest of our lives.  Yay for not paying for that every year!

Last, but not least it was my birthday last Friday.  Spence took a break from work and we went to the temple.  Then we got cupcakes from the Cocoa Bean.  Oh yum!!  They were oh so delicious!  I'm never disappointed when I go there.  We met my family for dinner and shared the cupcakes since they're huge.  After the kids were in bed Spence got Plants vs. Zombies on the Xbox so we relaxed playing that.  If anyone's looking for a fun game for your computer or Xbox I would definitely recommend it.  It's not gross, mostly just funny cause the plants kill the zombies with seeds and stuff.

 

So that's what we've been up to.  When I say we I mostly mean me and the kids.  Spence has been so crazy busy with the jobs and school that we usually only see him on Sundays.  He keeps Sundays completely free for family time.  Lizzie's always asking to go to school with Daddy.  We'll probably let her next week sometime.  She just got pink-eye so she's not going this week.  Spence loves working for FLT (the website job).  We're all just trying to hang in there until the end of the semester.  I'm lucky to have my family so close.  My Mom, Dad, and Lisa have all been helping me out while I've been on my own.  This November there are so many things to be grateful for and they are definitely a big one.  They even take Daniel, when he's in his super fussy moods.  As for Daniel he's really pretty good other than naps.  He laughs and giggles like crazy.  He loves to be naked.  Sometimes when he's fussy we just strip him down and he's happy.  Really the only reason I think he's so fussy is because he struggles with napping.  Anything wakes him up, except the vacuum and BYU games.  He only naps for about 30 min and then wakes up so we're trying to figure that out right now.  We've now discovered a toy that keeps him on his stomach.  It's a ring stack toy with Mickey at the top.  He loves to just stare at Mickey.  He's great at rolling from his stomach to his back, but doesn't seem to care about rolling on to his stomach.  Not surprising since without Mickey Mouse he doesn't want to be on his stomach.  I'm just enjoying the kids and jogging to keep sane of course.  I've learned to love jogging because it clears my head and keeps my emotions more stable.  Julie and I just finished making caramel/chocolate covered pretzels this weekend and they are delicious!  We had some issues, but it's safe to say we could easily do it again now.  We've figured out all the mistakes we made and will do better next time.