Halloween

We went out to a pumpkin patch as a family so Payton and Emma could check out the pumpkins.  They really liked seeing all of them.  Payton loved that fact that they were orange, since that is his favorite color!  Emma loved being able to get down and touch them!

Before Halloween we carved our pumpkins.  Payton loved helping clean out the guts and getting all messy.  He wasn't as hesitant this year.  Emma even got to get in on the action and grab a squishy handful.  Mom and Dad got to do all the face carving though.

Our kids turned into a pirate and a butterfly this year.  Payton really got into his character and would say "Arrr, Matey!"  He also figured out the whole candy thing.  At the trunk-or-treat, he started out walking to the first couple cars and ended up running to the rest!  Very funny!

There is no wrong way to be mobile!

Here is a fun little video of three of the four babies in Megan's Family to show you how they all get around. Each one is different, for now...

Georgia Trip

Megan and the kids took a trip out to Georgia this month to visit Marcus' sister Cheri. Her mom also went with. We had so much fun while we were there and saw so many different things it was too difficult to narrow down the pictures to just few, so you will have to look at the slideshow instead.

While in Georgia we made a visit to Okefenokee Swamp Park. Anything you think of when someone says they went to a swamp - wet, hot, dangerous, alligators - is what it is like. It was so cool, but a little freaky, especially with all the signs posted saying "Stay on path, all animals are real and dangerous." Thankfully we had no fatalities during our visit and we did get to see many alligators up close. We went on a boat tour of the river and later we got to pet some snakes, gators, and even got to have one on our head or face! (Yes, gators do smell funny)

Another day we went to Savannah (a very pretty place) and went to Tybee Beach. Payton and Annie had a TON of fun there. We were just planning to wade in the water a little bit, but of course the kids got soaked. They ran around the whole time we were there. Funny kids!
Also in Savannah we got to experience our first huge rainstorm. When it rains there, it POURS! I have never seen so much rain in my life, it was crazy and awesome to drive in! The roads flooded because there was so much water, but you just keep driving in it because you never know when it is going to stop.
The kids had a lot of fun together, of course we had to get some bath time footage of the three little cousins. They are so funny!

Family Pictures and Payton

So we decided to go up the canyon to Temple Quarry take some pictures of our little family before it got too cold.














Megan's parents took the pictures for us and this is what we got. As many of you know taking pictures with little kids is quite the challenge, but we had a lot of fun and did get some cute ones!


While we were up there we decided to take come pictures of Payton since he is three now. He was so funny to take pictures of. He kept making some funny faces and rolling his eyes. As you can see he also started tilting his head to the side whenever we told him to smile. Not sure where it came from, but he sure is cute!

We also got a cute picture of Megan's mom and Grandma! So fun.

End of Summer Fun

Before the weather got too cold we went to Wheeler Farm again with some of the Saxey's. Payton got to feed the goats.

Emma got to see her ducks!
She was so excited, the video shows how thrilled she is, very cute. The kids were nice enough to pose for some pictures for us on the wagon. We had a blast and always love to go there!

We also went to the Fire Station open house and got to check out the fire truck. The SWAT team was also there and had some of their weapons to show. Since Payton is 110% boy, the second he saw the guns he asked Marcus to take his bag so he could hold one. Scary!

They had a burn demonstration there too. It was pretty awesome for us adults to watch, but it freaked Patyon out. He is now afraid of the fire station and fire.

Emma's Birthday!

Our little baby is now one!! Time flies when you are having fun.

Emma is our super happy and cute little girl, that is smiling all the time. Since she is our little princess we got her a crown to wear for her special day.








We celebrated her birthday with all our family that could come and had a BBQ and some yummy cake. Marcus manned the grill cooking all the chicken.








Megan tried to keep things flowing with the party and keep all the cousins entertained.



We had the kids bob for ducks. The babies got to use their hands and went first, the older kids had to use their mouth. They were trying to get the duck with the star to win the grand prize. It was pretty funny to watch.





Emma was a pro at opening her presents. She loves to pull things out of bags (or purses), so pulling the presents out of the gift bags was a piece of cake for her!



She got a lot of really cute clothes (yep, she's a girl!) and some fun toys and books.







Emma loved her cake and that it was a duck (she became fascinated with ducks when we were at Lake Powell and they were always swimming around the houseboat. Ever since then she was constantly saying and signing duck so that was our inspiration.). She was very dainty in how she ate her cake. She would pinch off little pieces and eat them. She really enjoyed the frosting. Once she was done with her cake she decided to remove it from her tray and dump it on the grass. Skyler was pretty happy about that and decided to clear what was left on the plate. His mom wouldn't let him eat the rest of Emma's cake. Pretty funny!

Not all of Emma's cake ended up in her mouth...I guess she thought the frosting would make her hair grow faster so she wiped it all over the back of her head. She did get pretty messy, but nothing that a bath couldn't fix!

The Making of Emma's Cakes

As we know, I really enjoy the challenge of making creative birthday cakes. Since the theme for Emma's party was ducks, I decided to make two 3-D duck cakes (one for Emma and one for everyone else). I baked two different flavors of cakes, yellow (from a box) and chocolate (from scratch), in different sizes and shapes of pans the day before. After refrigerating them overnight I was able to carve my creation the next day. I had a blast making them. Here is a little slide show of the process I went through.

Hogle Zoo

For Skyler's birthday, Nicole & Megan took all their kids to Hogle Zoo.







It was a lot of fun and the kids really liked looking at all the animals, even the little ones.


The kids seemed to enjoy posing more with the statues of animals than the real thing...it must be more fun when you can actually climb on their back!




Of course Payton absolutely loved being there and seeing everything. He thought it was pretty cool when the bears started wrestling when we were watching them.




Emma really liked seeing all of the different animals, she thought it was pretty cool.

Lake Powell

Here is a little slideshow of some of our pictures from our Lake Powell trip with Megan's Family. It was too hard to narrow them down. We had a blast and the kids loved the water, especially Payton. He was in the water pretty much the whole time we were there.