Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Fall in general

Wow, so it's been a bit since I've blogged.  You'll understand why as I explain what we've been up to.  I'll warn you right now this will be a long post.  :)  Teaching school and still trying to keep up with everything with the kiddos has kept me pretty busy, not to mention finishing up my master's degree.  Here are some pictures to start off with.

Daniel aspiring to be a jib operator.  He loves playing with all of his Daddy's film equipment.

 

 Playing outside in the awesome autumn weather we've had this year.  Daniel loves playing on the slide and generally climbing everything.  Just to explain how unusual this weather is, we have still been able to play outside with just a sweatshirt.  We've only had one real snow storm that stuck to the ground and that lasted about a day since the rain melted it.  I don't have any pictures of that for some reason, but we had a blast playing in the snow.  Spence attempted making a snow ape and I attempted a snow pony.  Neither really worked, but we all enjoyed the snowball walk.  Lizzie said we had to take a snowball walk, which apparently was just a walk where she picked up snow and threw it at us.  :) Daniel loved it for about five minutes.  Then he got mad cause he was cold, but he was also mad cause he wanted to stay outside.  Those two would live outside if we let them.  Hot cocoa was of course a must when we came in.

One of my favorite autumn activities was raking up the leaves at my parents' house and watching the kids play in them.  Daniel didn't like the feel of the leaves getting everywhere, but Lizzie thought it was the best thing ever.  On warm days she tries to sweep (with an old broom) any leaves she can see into a pile.  I know part of the fun for her was jumping in the leaves with cousins.  She would run over and ask Berk to come jump over and over again.

 Lizzie's new obsession is this hat.  Ok it's not that new since she used to wear her other hat around all the time.  No matter what we're doing she would wear this everywhere if I let her.  By the way, it's mine, she stole it. :)

 Halloween Pictures!!  Lizzie was a fairy and only responded to Tinkerbell.  Daniel was a duck, since we already had the right size for him.  He wouldn't let us take too many pictures by the door.  He's always on the go.  Spence is of course Indiana Jones.  He loved being able to spend time with us and do all the holiday things this year.  This was the first year he's really been able to do the whole trick-or-treating thing and carnivals with the kids.  I dressed up in my karate outfit.  Lizzie kept telling her dance teacher that we didn't celebrate Halloween.  This was because she figured if we hadn't put our decorations up then we weren't doing it.  Once we got them up then she thought it would never happen because she didn't understand that we had to wait for a specific day.  She just wanted to dress up every day.  I'm just glad we finally found something she wanted to be.  She kept switching her mind every day about what she wanted to dress up as.  She wanted Daniel to be Sonic, but maybe next year we can come up with a cool Sonic costume.

 Daniel, super excited about our neighbor's dog.  He loves going outside and hearing the dogs bark.  He doesn't says woof instead of dog right now.  He's always jabbering away like crazy!

 

 Lizzie in her costume going out trick-or-treating.  She was crazy, running from house to house!  The only problem was going to her friends' houses cause she just wanted to go in and play. :)  It was so cute watching her try to keep up with all the older kids running around the neighborhood.

 Daniel and Lizzie getting ready to head out.

 Spencer was super tired after carrying this cute little duck around.  Glad I had the camera.

Here's a picture from the back so you can see her wings.  This year our ward did a great Halloween party.  We didn't have a trunk-or-treat which I liked because it always feels like it takes the whole fun out of Halloween.  No one has to work for their candy.  Plus the kids always end up with way too much.  The party was great!  The young men and women set up different carnival games throughout the classrooms of the church where the kids could win small prizes.  Lizzie didn't want to leave and Daniel was mostly just obsessed with the animatronic witch.

No more pictures for November somehow, but we celebrated my 28th birthday.  It was perfect.  I started the day with the best gift ever, my birthday was on a Saturday!  That means I got to spend the whole day with Spencer and the kids.  Spence got up with the kids and made a scavenger hunt for me to find the gifts they got, which were mostly my favorite snacks, cereals, and treats.  Soo yummy!  They gave me Just Dance 3 and we spent the day dancing with the kids.  I love the Just Dance games!  Spence has been trying to convince me to get something to read books digitally, which is funny since I really love having the book right there in my hands.  After talking about it, even though it's more expensive, we both decided the Ipad was better for us because then I could do a lot more than just read books.  We have loved every minute of playing with it.  Lizzie and Daniel have so much fun.  We just have to watch Daniel since he still loves to randomly throw things.  Of course what birthday in our family wouldn't be centered around food?  We ate Gandolfo's for a late breakfast, Tucano's for an early dinner, and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for dessert.  Lizzie and Daniel are obsessed with the cakes at the grocery store so instead of making my own I let them pick one out for me.  I ended up with a delicious chocolate Tinkerbell cake. :)

For Thanksgiving we had a lot of family in town.  It was great to visit and spend time with everyone, not to mention spend time with Spence and the kids.  Jen and Larry came in from Colorado and we were able to play games with them a little bit Thursday and Saturday nights, then visit Sunday morning before they left.  It's always great to have them over and play games.  Lizzie loved playing with Edana.  Daniel and Eddie didn't really care too much for each other, but that's kind of their age since they're both just over a year.  On my side we had Lisa and Chris from California, Julie and Colby from Monument Valley, and Joshua and Natalie from Rexburg.  We played Just Dance and mostly just spent time together.  Of course with Lisa and Chris getting married all of the girls went wedding dress shopping.  She found the perfect dress!  Pictures to come in March, but seriously she looked amazing!  The little girls had a blast trying on princess dresses.  The boys had a great time Thursday playing football while we helped get the lunch going.  Thanksgiving dinner is always my favorite meal of the whole year.  The yams, stuffing, and pumpkin pie are my favorite!  I know it's probably cause I grew up with it, but I love the recipes my mom and dad use.  Lizzie ate two full platefuls!  Then we headed up to Spencer's family for yummy soups.  I was still way too full, but Spence never turns down food.  The rest of the weekend was spent with more games, Spencer doing engagement photos for Lisa and Chris (which turned out amazing!), and David's fun reptile show birthday party.  Daniel was obsessed and got to ride on a giant turtle named Twinkletoes.  Lizzie's so opposite, she still doesn't care for reptiles, but she did touch the huge boa, which is a huge accomplishment for our timid little girl.  Lizzie even helped Grandma Jackson tackle some of her own fears, although I'm pretty sure she still hates snakes she did touch and put the snake around her neck to show Lizzie she could.  Of course Lizzie's evil grin was hilarious.  She knew exactly what she had asked Grandma to do.  So much fun with cousins and family!  We can't wait til Christmas when we get see some more of them.

Just for a general update, Spencer's Disney internship got extended through March.  He has applied for grad school at Columbia, USC, and Florida State.  We won't find out if he's accepted until April so as of April we have no idea if he'll be working up at Avalanche still or if we're going to be looking at moving.  Mostly he's working with Jamison and Skyler to get Indie Pictures going and improve their film skills.  He also spends time playing with us and learning new programs on his computer. As for me, I just finished my master's degree!  Yay!!!  I'm done with all the work and just heard from my professor that I passed so we're just waiting for my diploma in the mail.  Now I'm focusing on teaching, being a mom, and making sub plans for my maternity leave in April and May.  There are so many questions I have, but luckily I've got several friends who have done the same thing so they can help me out.  Lizzie's doing great in preschool and dance.  She's getting so excited about Christmas.  I love driving around town hearing her in the back say "Oh those lights are sooo beautiful!"  She cracks me up with all the funny things she says.  One of my favorites is at bedtime when we sings songs.  She has just started asking us what songs we want to sing, but every time we say one she lifts her hands up and says "Oh I'm sorry.  We can't sing that one."  Then she busts up laughing.  When I told her we were going to have another little boy, which is all she wants, I asked her what we should name him.  She starts laughing hysterically and when I finally get her to tell me what she's laughing about she says "We should name him Bingo cause then I could sing the song at him every day and laugh!"  We have dancing parties all the time with Daniel and Lizzie.  They both love music and bouncing around to it.  Daniel is always into things.  He climbs on everything.  He pulls everything out of cupboards.  He's constantly eating, but never satisfied with one thing.  He seriously has a sixth sense for food.  Even if it's in an odd container that no one would think would be food, he knows and comes running.  The other night we went in for McDonald's.  He didn't have a nap so he had fallen asleep and stayed asleep on my dad's shoulder even as we went in.  I ordered the food and he was still asleep.  Right as they give us the food he bolts upright in my dad's arms and starts yelling because we didn't give it to him fast enough.  He has such attitude, but we love it.  The look on his face when you do say something he doesn't like is priceless.  I thought Lizzie had crazy attitude and facial expressions, which she does, but Daniel is definitely his own little person already sure of what he likes and doesn't like.  Watch out when you're around him.  He is constantly throwing or hitting things.  When we were so tired after Black Friday and tried to relax and nap, he went around the room with a plastic bowling pin hitting everybody awake. He thinks it's hilarious.  Needless to say, we're working on the throwing and hitting.  In the process we're also improving our ninja dodging skills so there's always an upside. :)