Fall is keeping us busy

We love living in a mature neighborhood with big pine trees everywhere. The downside to that is having to clean up pine needles.

 Lyza and Kim spent several hours one day raking up needles

 For a family home evening activity we bagged them all up. 18 bags, not including the front yard!

 Here he comes!

 At a recent library activity they had a drum for the kids to play with. Lyza really enjoyed it

 Here is Nixon with his female twin from another family

 Cute bunny sighting. Kim and Lyza were doing some shopping together one evening and Lyza insisted that she wear these bunny ears to every store.

 Kim is AMAZING!

Kim has always loved to run, but has had a knee that has bothered her. This year she decided that she wanted to run a race and she trained really hard for a half marathon. She was really dedicated and took her training very seriously. She ran the Hayden Half Marathon and did a great job. There were lots of people running the half. It had more hills than she was expecting, but she was able to push through and still keep the same pace she reached while training on much flatter ground. Here she is before the race with her training partner Bessie. Kim was lucky to have such a good friend train with her and they were able to support and motivate each other.

Here she is at the starting line (there is a stutter in the video because my phone is awesome)

While they were running I got to walk around the lake and the surrounding neighborhoods with the kids 

 Here she is crossing the finish line

If that was me I would have been crawling
So proud of her!

 Nixon thought she deserved a leaf after all of her hard work

 They are both pretty hungry after that long run

There has been plenty of opportunity to clean up around the yard this fall. One joy of having pine trees everywhere is that I get to go up on the roof and remove all of the pine needles. 

While I was up there I got this shot of our backyard. 

We have enjoyed doing some fall decorating. Nixon loves this scarecrow outside of our front door

Kim and I had a bonfire for a date night after the kids went to bed.

Fire is so mesmerizing...and mallows and s'mores are pretty awesome too!

What a cute pair! All ready before church last week.

Lyza learining about the letter H

Our manly little boy (an owl with an eye patch wearing a tutu and white gloves?)

I guess he was just trying to keep up with his princess sister

Talking to grandma Bullock on the phone

Couch cushions are the building blocks of fun

Nixon helpin his mom vacuum

I guess Costco has realized that not every girl can get a real pony for Christmas, so they have filled the gap with these giant pony toys

Hard to reach light bulb = Kim thinking I was going to fall 8 feet to my death

This little girl got treated to some spooky nail polish

He likes playing with this little pom-pom toy

Cool hat

This has been a hit this week. A container with various dried beans and toys inside

We always check the kids before we go to bed just in case they don't have their covers on. Sometimes this is what we find

The elders quorum had a service project yesterday building a roof over a deck and stairs that the high priests built a couple of months ago (yes those are young men and not elders in the picture). We have really awesome youth in our ward...

Bedtime stories are best with Mama!

Take care

Autumn Family Fun

These two make a pretty fun pair when they're not at each other's throats. Thanks Lyza for letting Nixon wear your hat.

 This girl's preschool is going well. She loves to learn and create

 "I'm going to go down head first"

 "Me too"

Nixon took what he learned from Lyza and went down the twirly slide head first. It was a little bit of a fail

 What a handsome little man!

Here is Lyza and a friend building with blocks

Lyza loved playing with this thing (a piece of contact paper taped to the window)

We enjoyed watching General Conference as a family a couple of weekends ago. The kids were pretty good

Lately when Kim takes the kids to a park she spends most of her time chasing Nixon. He likes to run away and explore

This is the road to our house with the leaves changing colors

For a family home evening activity we all played with play dough. Lyza thought it was pretty fun that we made spiders

Kim has been getting crafty. She made these pumpkins at a Relief Society activity

The Halloween felt board shapes have kept the kids busy

The typical results of a wrestling match between these two

This Saturday we took our annual trip out to do some apple picking and enjoy the harvest festival at Greenbluff farms. Nixon ate an apple like a big boy on the drive out to get prepared

A nice group of girls offered to take a picture for us and of course we didn't turn that down

"How much for the two cute ones?"

So sweet

The kids enjoyed tromping around through the pumpkins

They were heavier than Nixon expected

It's so nice to get out and do something different

Strike a pose

The kids LOVED feeding the sheep!

My favorite part is the mini pumpkin donuts!

The tractor ride is fun too

We didn't choose the best farm for apple picking. It was pretty picked over, but we still had a good time looking for apples

I shared this video on Facebook already, but it is too funny not to share here as well. Lyza thinks knock-knock jokes are really funny!

Nixon figured out how to move around while strapped in his high chair

That's all for now. Take care.