Halloween fun

Here are a few more fun things we did for Halloween.

Scotty's school has an annual Trunk or Treat and Movie Night at the Drive In.  The boys loved trunk or treating and they also enjoyed watching Ice Age 4.

It was a cold, but beautiful night.

We got together for the annual Lawrence cousin costume picture.  It's always an exciting time getting everyone to cooperate!

Collin made this cute monster mask during his home preschool time.  He loved it!

And here are the boys and Daddy ready to go trick or treating.  They had fun and were very happy with all the candy they received.  They keep saying that they wish everyday could be Halloween!

Preschool parade and pumpkins

We were excited to be able to go to Grant's preschool Halloween parade.  It's so fun to see the adorable little kids in their cute costumes.

They lined up the class and they sang a Halloween song.  Too cute!!

Grant's teacher told Collin to come walk with Grant, but Grant didn't hear her and he didn't think Collin should be walking, so he pushed him back and Collin got mad!  He took off his costume and was mad for the rest of the time there.  It isn't a preschool parade without some kind of drama!!

We had fun carving our pumpkins.  We were excited that we had 3 pumpkins grow in our garden!

Collin really loved doing the pumpkins.  He was the only one that would get in there with his hands.

Collin showing us his alien face to match his alien pumpkin!

This was an oddly shaped pumpkin, but Miles figured out this cool face to carve on it.

This Death Star pumpkin was awesome!  Miles did such a good job!

We got lots of comments about it from kids and parents that came trick or treating.  The funny thing is that a few years ago I would have had no idea what this was!  But thanks to my Star Wars loving son, I now know more about Star Wars than I would have ever dreamed!

Happy Halloween!

We hope that you had a fun Halloween.  We certainly did!

Grant was Mario for the 3rd year in a row!  He knows what he likes!

 Scotty was Darth Maul.  He was pretty excited about this costume and the mask was awesome!

As you can see, Collin loved his Thomas costume!!

Snaggletooth!

I was so happy when Scotty went from this:

to this:

I wanted to grab that dangling tooth and yank it out for a long time, but he wouldn't let me near it.  One morning I convinced him to give it a good yank and he was surprised that it came out so easily.  

I was not surprised!  He's pretty cute with missing front teeth!

Back to school!

The boys went back to school almost two months ago, but better to post pictures late than never, right?

We had our traditional back to school dinners for them.  This was Scotty's and he wanted to do a restaurant dinner with a menu and he wanted to be the waiter.  It was fun.

Very excited to go to 2nd grade!!!  His teacher's name is Ms Vanweerd- a fun name for a teacher!! 

Scotty got a new pair of glasses this year.  He is such a handsome boy!

They have stars on the sides and he loves them.  He had a great first day and has continued to do well.

Grant's back to school dinner was fun.  He wanted to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into puzzle shapes!  Not an everyday dinner but perfect for our awesome Grant.

He had his Daddy help him draw some Mario scenes on the table covering.  He LOVES Mario!

This is what Grant's first day of preschool looked like- lying on the couch sick.  Poor guy!!  He was so disappointed to have to miss his first day.

Luckily he was feeling better by the 2nd day.  It was white day and he was excited he had his white church shirt to wear.  He had a great day at New Beginnings Preschool and was very happy to see his little best friend from last year's class again this year.

These two are best buddies!  And soooo cute!!

Collin and I continued tradition of going to the "donut store" after we dropped Grant off.  

I can't believe how big my boys are getting!  

I love them so much!!!

Camping

After we left Arizona we went camping for a few days.  We had originally planned to camp at the Grand Canyon, but when the weather forecast was predicting low temps in the 20's we decided it might not be such a good idea.  So, we drove and drove and drove and ended up in Kanab, Ut.  We ate dinner and talked to some people who gave us directions to some campsites just outside of town.  We drove and drove and couldn't find those ones, so we drove to a state park hoping we could find a campsite there.  I'm a worry wart and like to have things planned out, so driving around aimlessly was not fun!!  But we found a campsite, set up the tent while the kids explored and then went to bed.  

It wasn't in the 20's, but it was cold during the night.  Well, I was the only one that was cold because I wasn't sleeping.  I had borrowed a huge air mattress from my in laws and the air in it was freezing. So I spent most of the night awake, miserable and shivering.  I'm pretty sure I told Miles I hated him in the morning!  Luckily everyone else slept fine and the boys had a great time in the morning finding fire wood.  They were very proud of the big pile they were able to gather before we left.

We hit the road early and drove to St George.  We had made reservations for a campsite in Snow Canyon.  We love Snow Canyon!  The campsite was beautiful and we were surrounded by gorgeous red rocks.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

The boys loved this campsite.  They spent their days climbing and exploring and playing in the sand.  

The picture above is during the day and the picture below is at night on the same rock.

We went for a hike on one of the trails and the boys had a lot of fun finding different plants to earn their Jr Ranger badge.

They again loved playing with the trucks in the sand.

We had to have some wrestling sessions in the tent!  I slept soooo much better here!  I put a blanket underneath my sleeping bag and that helped, not to mention it was much warmer in Snow Canyon.  It was a bit hot for our liking during the day, but I was very happy at night!

Before we left we hiked on the petrified sand dunes.  We love climbing and exploring there.  

We didn't want to leave St George and I vote that we do all of our camping there!

On the road again!

The boys did really, really well for the long drive to Mesa.  I was worried about it- especially for Collin who is not a good traveller!  But he did pretty well with only a few episodes of screaming.  I packed enough stuff to give them something new to do about every hour.  We ended up not using all of it because they were happy most of the time!

They watched some movies....

....played with sticker books....

....ate snacks and blankets....

....colored....

....and acted silly and goofy!!!

And there were many diaper changes in the car.  I don't know why but we had a hard time finding diaper changing stations on this trip.  So, changes in the car were done and it was annoying!  But overall, the long drive went way, way better than we were expecting.  Yay!!