When did this happen??

I was going through my recent pictures and found this cuteness...

Seriously, when did my baby become this big boy? He's growing up too fast! Struttin' around in his big boy clothes and sneakers... talking?!

Climbing up the slide (or ladder, whatever strikes his fancy at the moment) up to the clubhouse... all by himself...

Then of course acting so proud of himself, strutting around, then sliding back down- backwards, forwards, or even head first (Superman style)....

Then I saw this one... look at that face, he's such a little angel.

Even though I'm not sure I want him to get any bigger, I absolutely love this age. He is so sweet and funny. He loves to laugh with us and be silly, he loves to say words, he's very good at communicating what he wants! He is an awesome dancer, you should see him boogie! He is all over trying to do anything and everything, but in the midst of it, he will still run to me and give me hugs and kisses and I still get cuddle time.

And that smile... he dazzles people everywhere we go. They look at him, then he catches them off guard when his face just lights up and those dimples show up....

Sigh.

Trick or treat!

Well, here they are- Indiana, Indiana, and Yoda.

Yoda was not very happy, his naptime was severely disrupted today, and it took him a little while to decide that he was going to be a happy camper tonight.

Ben had a lot of costume ideas, but kept coming back to Indiana Jones. He loves to play Lego Indiana Jones on the xBox 360 with Dave, and loves to run around the backyard humming the theme song and having adventures. He wears Dave's "Indiana" hat pretty much every day. We found these awesome (faux) leather jackets at Target and got one for each of them. Besides being able to play Indiana to their hearts' content, they can also wear them to keep warm. Bonus :)

Of course, since Ben wanted to be Indiana, Chris wanted to be Indiana. It's like this a lot. In the mornings, I'll ask what cereal they want and Chris will either wait until Ben answers and then pick the same, or he'll change his mind after Ben has answered. Sometimes he varied his choice- he wanted to be "the son" which is his usual role when they are playing Indiana Jones. We found a hat and whip set for each of them, so now Chris doesn't have to just be the son (since Ben always had the hat), he can be Indiana too if he wants.

We bought the little dude a jacket too (couldn't leave him out, they're just too cute!) but not a hat and whip (those adult sized props don't actually fit well on the bigger boys) and when the day rolled around, we pulled out Ben's first Halloween costume instead, and it was too cute. He loved wearing it, even the hat!

And here is the whole candy crew- all the cousins went together.

The babies were too cute! Just had to share these fun shots...

Jacob


Ethan

Peter

This one is not necessarily one of the "babies" but still, look at that face! He is so good to say cheese for me too, I don't even have to ask!

Oliver

And a few from our adventures earlier in the day at the ward "Trunk or Treat"! I forgot my camera, but Dave got a few with his iPhone.

I love how Jon is just taking off with his little pumpkin.

He was loving just walking around everywhere in his cool costume! The older boys were way excited for the candy. They were so cute. They can be slightly horrendous when it comes to us limiting their treats, but they were pretty great today.

Jon held this sucker in his other hand forever. Sometimes he would stick it in his mouth (wrapper and all) but mostly would just carry it around, it made him happy :)

Pumpkins!

We went to our local pumpkin farm a couple of weeks ago and had a great time. It was a lot colder than we thought it would be (colder than at our house when we left) but the boys still had a blast.

Most people around here go to Tate Farms, which has been around forever I guess, and it's big and crazy packed on Saturdays. Last year, we tried this one- Lyon Family Farms- and loved it. It's got everything the other one has, except the big trailer full of cotton to jump in but I thought that one was gross anyway. The beauty of this one is that it's a bit more spread out and not as crowded, but every bit as fun. The people that run it are really sweet too.

Ben loved this huge tube slide, he kept going up over and over.

And of course they loved this tire swing, they didn't want to get off...

These smarties used planks across the bottom to make it safer for the kids to sit in, so even Jon could go.

We enticed them away from the tire swing finally because next was the CORN.

Jon wasn't sure about it when Dave first put him in the wagon, but he loved it.

These always crack me up...

And then of course, the ride out to the pumpkin patch...

We hadn't brought winter gear, but Jon was getting cold, so I got Ben's hat and mittens from the car for him (we had just bought them that morning or we wouldn't have had anything), he looked kind of funny, but it kept him warm (even though we couldn't keep the mittens on him!)

They loved running around to find the perfect pumpkin, and each picked their favorite.

I wanted one of all of them standing, but we had a shoe mishap in the pumpkin field, but that's a story for another day...

Happy Fall everyone!!!

Arches!

How can you even put into words how amazing it is to see natural wonders like these? We were able to spend a morning in Arches on a whim. We hadn't really planned out our traveling days very well, but we had left time each day to find somewhere fun to stop. We ended up getting through Kansas and Colorado faster than we thought so we did a little extra driving and stayed overnight in Moab, visiting Arches National Park for a few hours the next morning.

We hiked up towards this arch, which was a little tricky, but the boys had a great time trying. I was telling Ben about how all this stuff was created by Heavenly Father, and we were talking about how very cool it all was.

I kind of wasn't thinking about potty breaks and suddenly we had an emergency on our hands and we weren't close to the bathrooms. Well, I hurried down to the car with Ben, having to carefully make our way down these huge rocks, when Ben decided it was quite a hassle when you have to go, and told me, "Heavenly Father shouldn't have made these so big!"

Jon was happy as can be in his backpack. One of the definite blessings on this trip that I was very grateful for was that despite his lack of sleep before the trip (and some nights on the trip) and a some strenuous activity, Dave didn't mess up his knee once, and for the most part kept awake, so he was able to do 99.9% of the driving, which was good. He prefers to drive, and I prefer him to drive too!

A friend of Dave's told us about Sand Arch, which he said not to miss, our kids would love it. He was totally right. It was a big sandbox to play in! They didn't want to leave!

Under the arch, I didn't get a good shot of the arch itself. (Dear Santa, I need a new zoom lens).

It just makes you want to dance!

It's always fun when someone offers to take a picture of all of you :)

And this one with my iPhone. I wish the kind person had been able to get the shot with my SLR (she tried, bless her heart for even offering!), because it turned out cuter but it's terrible quality!

We watched a documentary last week about the National Parks that made us want (even more) to see lots more of them with our kids. And also made me wish I knew I put that cool NP passport that we bought in the Grand Canyon.... I'll have to find it before our next trip so we don't miss out on any more stamps!