Carving pumpkins!

It's been really fun to see Halle get into Halloween this year. It's really her first holiday that she has been old enough to really get it and get into it. She loves the decorations, the costumes, and joining in on any holiday activity and gets so excited to do them. She follows whatever Luke says so when he gets excited about carving pumpkins, of course she is too! It's a lot of fun to have them and their excitement for life. They keep our life fun and entertaining!

Go Cougars!

We went to our first BYU game as a family last Saturday. We figured we'd last till about halftime, which is when we did! Luke and Halle loved doing the cougar fight song and cheering. Luke kept his attention a lot longer than Halle, I ended up having to resort to using the phone for entertainment for her.

Gardener Village...again

Halloween cookie making

I love making sugar cookies for holidays. This time we were making them to take around for our neighborhood "Boo". It was a two day process. First night, we made the dough, cut out the cookies, and baked them.The next night, we frosted. The kids had a blast and I'm pretty sure more frosting ended up in their mouths than actually on the cookies. They would frost them, get their hands all sticky, then run to the bathroom and wash them, then come back for more and get them sticky all over again.
Luke figured out the best way to clean up spilled frosting...why not just lick it up?

One of the times Halle went back to wash her hands after a few minutes I realized she was taking a lot longer than usual. So I went back in there to see that she had gotten the soap dispenser and was squirting a ton of hand soap into her hands and rubbing it all over her hair. Her hair was completely matted down and bubbling with soap bubbles. She was so proud that she was washing her hair all by myself. I felt really bad because I had to take her into the tub and rinse the soap out, which I knew was going to hurt if it got in her eyes. I tried to be careful, but it was too hard and some got in her eyes. Poor girl!

We still had a fun night, though. We went and delivered the cookies to neighbors and the kids loved it. I ran the cookie plates up the door and jumped in the car and ran and the kids thought it was great.

Gardener Village

We've been going to Gardener Village a lot this month. The kids love going and looking at all the cute witch displays they have set up. I think this was our third time there! We fed the ducks. I love the picture of Luke standing all by himself because it caught his "thoughtful" look so well. I tried so hard to get a picture of the kids sitting side by side on the bridge, but as you can see, it wasn't easy and I didn't have much success. Halle was into the picture taking this day and Luke kept running from the camera. Finally, at the end, I got a snap of both of them looking at the camera - a small miracle!

Riding bikes

Soon it will be too cold to ride bikes, so we're trying to get in as many days outside as we can!

Halloween at the Dinosaur Museum

Thanksgiving Point has lots of fun things going on through the month of October, so Saturday we took the kids to the dinosaur museum and they got to dress up in their costumes and go through the museum and do some halloween art projects. They loved making these cute witch/wizard hats and wands.

Art projecting

We are really into art projects around here. Stickers, coloring, painting, whatever it is, the kids love it. Luke loves to do art and it keeps him busy, and of course Halle wants to be right in on whatever Luke is doing. But just lately she's actually getting old enough to do a lot of this stuff with him. We used to keep the projects for him to do during Halle's nap time, but lately we can include her on most of the stuff and don't have to worry about her destroying it anymore. It's fun for Luke to have her join in, they make a great little team.

This day we were doing Halloween cards for uncle Jake to send to him on his mission in South Korea. The kids love to make cards. Both of them made some really fun ones.

Midnight snacks

Lately Halle has been waking up a lot at night. Usually, she is crying. So of course I go in to check on her and she says, "Mommy, I hungry. I need snack." And of course I can't resist those big eyes and that cute, high pitched crackly nighttime voice.

So I take her out to the kitchen, and guess what her request is every time - "Crackers and peanut butter, Mommy." So I give her her usual spoonful of peanut butter (yes, she loves eating it out of a spoon) and a handful of fishy crackers. Then, I fill up her bottle with water and a tiny bit of juice and take her back to room and rock her in her rocking chair and sing her her favorite song, The Barney "I Love You" song, and after that she is perfectly content to go back to sleep.

Sometimes in the middle of the night when I am woken up to her crying I am tired and a bit grumpy that I have to get up again, but the second and see her sweet face my heart melts and I am perfectly happy to take her into the kitchen and spend a little extra time with her. So the other night when it happened I decided to grab my camera and document our little nighttime snack time, because I know I'll look back to these memories and love them. I already do.

Taking care of Baby

Halle just loves her baby doll she got last year for Christmas, which she calls Baby. Lately she has been really into taking care of it. She loves to put Baby down for a nap, feed her a bottle or food, and the other day I saw her doing this - changing Baby's diaper. And she went through quite a few wipes doing it, too. Such a cute girl!

Social butterfly

Halle is a little social butterfly and not shy at all. The other night we were at a party at Jo Jo's house (Halle's great Grandma Bagley - we all call her Jo jo) with all the cousins on my side. Some of the girls cousins who are about 10 years old were playing cards and Halle just plopped herself right in the middle of them and wanted to start playing. The girls thought it was great and Halle took the card playing very seriously. What a cutie pie.

She's a smart, talking girl (and I love this picture!)

I just love this picture of Halle. It sort of sums up who is she to me right now...bright eyed, curious, beautiful, with a little mischief. What a doll. I think she took this pic herself. I also probably love this because it is the look she gives me everyday, all day when she is talking to me and telling me something important. She looks at me with those big, pretty eyes and raises her eyebrows and talks and talks and talks.

I have to laugh because I know I probably sound braggy when I talk about my kids, but I really think Halle is so smart! She is so social and started talking so young, and people are so amazed even now when they hear how much she talks and how she can carry on full on conversations. The funny part it, she has been literally talking this much since she was about 18 months old! She cracks me up. It so cute to hear such a little person saying so many things.

Here are a few things she said lately that I jotted down that made me smile:
"I growing every day!"
"That's not fair, Mommy!"

What amazes me is she doesn't just say words or jabber, she talks and actually draws conclusions on her own and says them while she's talking.

Here is a sample conversation we had the other day that shows what I am talking about:
The other morning Luke woke up sick and throwing up. When I went in to get Halle out of her crib and was changing her diaper I told her Luke was sick and had a tummy ache.
She said, "Uh oh, Mommy. Lukey sick?"
I responded, "Yes, he's sick."
She replied back, "Oh, poor Lukey. You better get him some medicine, Mommy, to make him feel better!"
I said, "Okay, that's a good idea to get him some medicine."
Then she replied, "I used my imagination, Mommy!"

(The kids watch Barney a lot and there is lots of talk about imagination on Barney). But from that conversation, I was amazed that she could come up with that Luke needed medicine because he was sick AND that her thinking of that was using her imagination/mind. And she is only just barely two years old! What a smart little thing. Yes, my kids are the smartest! :) You are so smart Halle girl and so talented and Mommy loves you so much!