Getting ready for Halloween!

Evie and Zayne had an absolute blade helping Grandma put up the Halloween decorations this year! Next to Christmas this the most decorated time of year :) I have very fond memories of helping with Halloween decorations when I was little! What a fun mom I had and still have :)

For family home evening, at the beginning of the month, we decorated pumpkins. Zayne decorated his with stickers. No mess, and perfect for his little hands :)

I found some adorable Mickey Mouse Halloween stickers at Fred Meyer. They were so fun! Evie kept saying that she wanted princess Halloween stickers. I wasn't sure if they even made them. The thought occurred to me that the Disney Princesses are put on everything, so why not Halloween stickers? And we finally found them! Mission accomplished :)

Evie wanted to paint her pumpkin pink and then put her stickers on after it dried. She wore those bat wings on her head all day!

Grandma bought a HUGE blow up, black cat for her yard! Here are daddy and grandpa getting it all set up!

The kids loved it!

Happy Birthday, daddy!

Owen turned 32 in October. Crazy! We celebrated by going to Famous Dave's for dinner.

We made a cake the next day and opened some presents. Evie was so excited to put sprinkles on the cake :) she picked out blue and orange, which supported the Broncos during their game that night!

This is Owens favorite cake! It's chocolate Texas sheet cake with marshmallow on top and chocolate buttermilk frosting on top of the marshmallow! It is quite delicious and moist :)

 

The kids love their daddy!

He loves reading to them and playing with them!

Daddy was helping out at a farm one day and the kids had their first tractor ride. Zayne loved it and Evie loved it after the fact. She was scared to death. It was tall with lots of glass. She kept saying: "I need to get buckled! Where is my seatbelt?!" I don't think Owen went much faster than 5 mph! She gets her sense of adventure from me ;)

I love you, Owen! You are the best husband I could have ever asked for! Although life hasn't been easy for us, you have stayed so faithful, patient and diligent. You are an amazing father and a great friend to me. We appreciate everything you do for us! Thank you for your great example :)

This is the house Owen grew up in. This picture was taken from his brothers house just down the road. It was a big, beautiful, harvest moon! You can't tell by the picture, but if was amazing. I love nature. When I was in high school I had a bunch of calendar pictures of different landscapes all over one of my walls with a quote that said "Stand as a witness of God." Nothing speaks to me more of the Majesty of God, than the beauty of the World around me. To know he created all things gives me hope to know that, although I am just one person, He loves me and He loves our family and He has good things in store for us. 

Pumpkin patch field trip!

Evie's last preschool pumpkin patch field trip was the first week of October; much better than last year when it was towards the end and it was FREEZING! This year was sunny and a bit chilly, but warmed up by the end!

This was our welcome to the farm :) this nice lady talked to the kids about farms and things they do on farms and what kind of food we get from them.

Evie and Cousin Lilly getting waiting for the hay ride to start!

Evie's cute preschool class! It was a little bright ;)

They all found their perfect pumpkins!

The kids had fun on the big jumping/trampoline thing!

Love this big rocking chair!

A few photo ops :)

The kids loved all of the animals!

Fun cousin friends :)

The kids were doing their "roars!"

We had a really fun time. Evie LOVES preschool and I'm so glad she gets to keep going :)

Lots of moving!

I finally got the blogger app for my ipad. It's pretty nice, except I need a keyboard because I don't care for typing on the ipad for extended writing purposes. So I will be playing catch up the next few days/weeks on my blog posting!

We moved out of hour house the last weekend of September and the beginning of October. I know I said it earlier, but I really hate moving. We really were grateful for all of the people who helped us. My mom and dad and sister watched the kids. My dad, Owens dad, his brother, my sister and her husband, our dear friends Amy and Abe helped us move stuff. My so, so sweet mother in law, sister in-law, my sister, and dear friend Amy helped me clean. Owens brother let us use his truck for a whole week during the process. I know, repeat from a couple of posts ago. But I couldn't have done it with out them. Major stress, people! The house took much longer to clean than I anticipated. It was nice to be able to help this time, though. When we moved from Moses Lake, I had just had Zayne and I couldn't do anything. My mother in law basically cleaned our whole place for us and I was so, so grateful for her! It was nice to be able bodied. 

My sister and her little family moved to Anchorage, Alaska that first weekend in October. We are missing them! We have already talked quite a bit. Moving is hard, especially to a place thousands of miles away. Thank goodness for face time and cell phones!

This picture is of Zayne and his cousin Archie. We watched him one morning while my sister went to the temple. Zayne just woke up - we miss little Archie!

Evie and Zayne were such big helpers during our moving process. Really, though. I'm not being sarcastic! Evie was so excited to pack things in boxes and put them in the trailer. Zayne was pretty insistent on helping too - as documented in the above picture! 

We had a necklace party at my sister in-laws house 2 nights before my sister moved. Here are all the girl cousins! We are missing Ruby already!

Another picture of Archie and Zayner :)

James is my sisters oldest. Missing him, too! Never a dull moment when James is around! 

And Aunt Jo Jo likes to get crazy :) I love how the girls are smiling and the two boys are like "huh?"

Archie going in for a hug. Miss you guys! Hopefully the time in Alakska will fly by quickly. Good luck on your many adventures!

Bad hair day? Never ;)

I've mentioned before how Evie and I get compliments on our hair, pretty much where ever we go. It's very rare when someone doesn't say something. Evie probably gets way more than me because hers is so darn cute! This is usually how the conversation goes: "WOW! Your hair is so cute/ beautiful/gorgeous/pretty! Then they look at me and say: "someone got mom's hair, or I wonder where she gets it from (insert wink)!" Sometimes people will just make a statement like: "your hair is so curly." We just say "thank you!" To all of it. Even the awkward, no-duh, good observation comments, like the last one. Really? What are you supposed to say to that? "My hair is curly? I had no idea!" Evie spews "thank you" wherever she goes. Glad I taught her that when she was young!

I remember thinking in high school that I wanted a blue eyed, blonde, curly haired girl. And here you have it - with as much cuteness as it comes!

 

This hair can turn crazy pretty quickly! This is a picture of her hair after she wakes up - it's usually crazier than this! This picture is pretty tame compared to other mornings! 

I decided to go natural just after we moved to Moses Lake, so March of 2011. I have NEVER regretted it! I wish I would have had the confidence, knowledge, and tools years ago. Just glad i have learned so I really take care of Evie's hair. With that being said - Zayne has very straight hair, so you never know how the next one will turn out! 

Disney on Ice

We went to Disney on Ice last year and when my sister heard it was coming this year, she offered to pay for Evie and my ticket. We have been watched over so kindly by family and friends during our financially stressful time. We went with our other cousins and missed Ruby and James and my sister who just moved to Alaska a couple of weeks earlier :( 

We went to Mcdonalds before the show!

These girls had fun going down the slide together. I couldn't see Evie's face, so I was trying to get her to move her head to the side and this is the next picture:

Felicity's face makes me laugh. There was a little boy headed down the slide and she was the one in the back. She looks terrified! Ha!

We were lucky enough to catch a little charter bus from the parking lot to the front entrance!

I found Evie's tangled dress at the kids consignment sale for $8.50 and those sequence Minnie ears at a second hand kids store for $2.50! The Minnie ears had the original Disney parks tag on them for $18.95! Guess if we go to Disneyland we will just pack those right along!

This year they did 4 different princesses: The Little Mermaid, Tangled, Brave, and Beauty and the Beast.

The Little Mermaid was my favorite! You can't tell in the above picture, but they had jelly fish and crabs and all sorts of things skating around in glow in the dark colors during "Under the Sea" SO FUN!

Evie's favorite was Tangled, although I don't think it was as good as last years!

Beauty and the Beast was really fun too! That was my favorite Disney Movie when I was little. I remember one Christmas I got EVERYTHING Beauty and the Beast; Bed set, poster, nightgown, backpack, underwear, and soundtrack. Probably even more stuff, but that is what I remember off the top of my head!

I LOVE having a little girl! She is my little side kick:) *side story: lately Evie has been telling me that she wants to be just like me. So darn cute. Today when I picked her up from preschool, I was running late and didn't have time to put my makeup on. I had my sunglasses on and was helping her get her shoes on. I explained that we were going to go to Aunt Charity's first before running our errands because I needed to put my makeup on - pushing my sunglasses up so she could see my eyes. She looked right into my eyes and said: " oh, mommy. You are still so pretty." What a sweet little girl :) made me tear up a bit. Love her to pieces!

Here is Evie waving to Tangled! She would just love DisneyLand! Someday, Evie! I promise! Thank you Aunt Charity! We had a blast :)

A little update :)

We are all moved into my parents house. Our desktop computer isn't set up yet and I haven't figured out how to upload pictures to my blog from my ipad, so no pictures in this post. We are settling in really well. We have been blessed with so many family and friends that helped us in our move! We couldn't have done it with out them! I really hate moving, and the worst part is, we know we will be moving at least one more time - out if my parents house, hopefully some day! We started moving 9 days before we had to be out of our house. It was kind of unexpected - Owen was helping his brother and dad on their farm and it had been very rainy, so there wasn't much that could be done out there. They decided it would be best to start moving some of the big stuff from our place to the storage unit since they would have time to help. His other brother let us use his truck and his dad let us use their big horse trailer. The next couple of days, ok, maybe weeks, were a blur. We started moving stuff on a Monday and then Tuesday, out of the blue, Owen received a phone call from a seed company in Oregon. We had applied for a fieldman job with them a couple of weeks before. They set up a phone interview for later that day. Owen said the guy seemed to really like him. He told Owen that his resume was really impressive and that his experience was great. It turns out that they are looking to hire a fieldman whom they could also train to take over the present managers position in 5 years. It would be an awesome opportunity. So, they are flying him out tomorrow for an in person interview. It's in the Salem area, which we have been to several times when Owen was working his first job, which was a few years ago, but from what I remember it was beautiful! It's in the Willammette Valley. An hour drive to the Oregon coast, and an hour drive from Portland. It's also 8 hours from Boise :( BUT, I think we would like living there over Moses Lake (sorry guys!) hands down. We are hoping to hear a yes, but we have heard a lot of "no", so whatever happens, happens. I feel very peaceful. It's interesting to note that several people I have talked to about our situation have mentioned that they get a feeling of peacefulness from me - while they have discussed my circumstance with me. People will say, you must be so stressed. In a sense, yes. We are playing catch up, financially, since we moved out of our rental, but the whole situation has been an eye opening and eternal perspective type of experience. Putting our total trust in The Lord has given me that gift of peace. Owen also had a phone interview with a different company this last Friday. The guy told Owen that he received 50 resumes and only picked 7 to have phone interviews with - this job would not be Owens ideal job - lots of travel, but he isn't thinking he will get an in person interview, we will see! We are just waiting for that perfect job :) We want to thank those who have fasted in our behalf , prayed in our behalf and those who have kept us in your thoughts. We appreciate it so, so much! Here's to hoping tomorrow goes well!