Witches at Gardner Village

There is a little place near our house called Gardner Village.  It has lots of little shops and a fun pond and a little bakery.  We like to go and walk around and get a little treat at the bakery every once in a while.  But every year at Halloween time they decorate the place with tons of witches.  It is really fun to go look at.  This is the first year we have seen them and I think it will be a tradition every year now!

There is a little bell they can ring.  Here is Sadie helping our friend Austin ring the bell.  

This was one of my favorite witches...she is pushing a frog in a stroller.  ha ha.

Sadie and Zac.  They loved sticking their heads in those holes.  ha ha

The kids loved this witch.  She lifted up her dress and there was a cat chasing a mouse running around her feet.  It was cool.

Friends.  I love this wall...perfect for pictures.  :)

This was right by the water...I am surprised that I got a shot where they were all looking because they were looking right into the sun.  

This was a funny one too...this witch is in the outhouse reading a magazine.  ha ha

This witch was creating a hashtag.  ha ha.  I don't know if you can read the sign.

And Riley slept the whole time. 

We went back the next day with some more friends because it was just so fun.  Here is Zac trying to ring the bell while covering his ears.  ha ha.

This witch is about to do a cannonball into a pond.  But I think it is funny that it looks like she is about to jump on the kids.  

They found a random elephant.

Can't wait to go back next year!

Trip to Idaho

A few weeks ago, we got news that Rob's dad had gotten hit by a car while riding his bike.  He was life flighted to a hospital in Boise (he lives in La Grande Oregon) and has been there since then.  Rob went up to Boise to see his dad right after it happened with two of our kids and two of his brothers.  Then a couple of weeks later, we packed up all of the kids and headed up to Idaho.

The trip started off great with three out of the four kids sleeping for a couple of hours.  Sadie just worked hard on her sticker book.  :) Notice the red spots on Emery's face...On our way out the door, she tripped and face planted down our three cement stairs in the front.  I think I was on the phone with Scott at the time.  I can't remember.  But the poor girl had three bruises on her face. 

We got there around 8:30 pm and stayed with Rob's friend Liz from high school.  Her and her family were such awesome hosts!  We felt so welcome and comfortable...I don't think we can thank them enough for all they did for us! The next day we headed over to the hospital to see Rob's dad.

Zac got to wear this face mask because he had a little bit of a cough.  Let's see how thrilled he was about that...

...not so much.

We went for a walk with Grandma.  There is a path that has symbols on the ground that you follow to different garden areas.  It was pretty fun.  The kids loved finding all of the symbols on the ground.

At one point we heard the helicopter on the roof of the hospital getting ready to take off.  We waited and waited for it to go, then we stood on the bench to see if we could see it.  No such luck.  And then right when we started walking away...

It took off!  It was pretty cool to see, although kinda sad because it means that someone else was hurt and needed a ride in it to the hospital.

We found this lovely waterfall thing and the kids threw pennies in it.  Then we went to eat lunch in the hospital.  Rob had been with his dad the whole time we were walking.  We got all of our food ready and sat down to eat.  And that is when we discovered this:

Oh boy...

Even worse than we thought!

Ew.  Good thing I had another onesie in my purse!  ha ha  Rob was nice and changed this diaper for me.  :)  He is the best.

He was very helpful at naptime as well.  ha ha.

One day while Rob was at the hospital, Liz took us to a fun park.  It was really nice and had lots of fun stuff for the kids to play on!  Here is Emery the pirate.  

Our kids really enjoyed playing with their kids.  They were very good about sharing all of their toys with us.  Can't wait to see them again sometime. 

Before we headed home, we had a picnic with grandma.  Then we took off back home to Utah.

This was one of our rest stops.  The kids are looking longingly at the pool.  ha ha

And this girl got some of her wiggles out.

The kids did pretty well in the car.  There were quite a few tears from Riley, but other than that we made it home in one piece.  We are still praying for Rob's dad as he has a long road to recovery, and we can't wait to drive up there and see him again!

Our ladybugs

This year in our garden we got TONS of ladybugs in our tomato plants.  It was crazy!  First we saw just a few ladybugs and then we started seeing "baby ladybugs".  It was fun to see them turn from little black bugs into pretty ladybugs.  I never knew that ladybug larvae looked like that!

This is a ladybug larvae.

Pretty ladybug.

It was cool to see the transformation.  These are the larvae turning into ladybugs.  I'm not sure exactly how long it takes for the whole process, but it takes a couple weeks i think.

Bright red!

 And we found this really cool black ladybug with red spots.  Pretty cool.

 And we also found these cool orange ones with lots of black spots.  

 So many ladybugs.

This picture is pretty cool because it shows three ladybugs, two larvae turning into ladybugs and one larvae.  It was pretty fun to go out to the garden everyday and check on our ladybug friends!

Random things

 We went out to eat the other day and a lady came by and asked the kids if they wanted her to make them a balloon.  Good business trick...the kids had already said yes and she was halfway done with the first princess before I could object.  Then I read her nametag that said "I work for tips".  grr.  So I checked my purse and had NO cash.  She didn't take cards.  So we got free balloons.  I felt a little bit bad about that, but it serves her right!  She didn't really give us a chance to say no.  ha ha

 This cutie turned three months old last friday.  Can't believe she has been with us for three months!

 Soccer ended.  I think the kids really enjoyed it and we will probably sign them up for soccer in the spring as well.

 Sadie was so excited to get her very first trophy.  

And here is another cute picture of Riley.  She makes us all smile.  She laughed for the first time last week and we managed to catch it on camera.  I posted it on my instagram.  I haven't been able to make her laugh since.  

Fondue

 The photo above is random, but since there aren't many of me on the blog, I figured I would throw it in there.  Rob took it randomly one day.

I borrowed a fondue pot from my friend so we could have fondue as a family one night.  I used this recipe and it was delicious.  We cut up some homemade crusty bread, some broccoli, carrots, green beans from our garden and some apples.  The bread was the most popular choice but Sadie actually ate lots of veggies too.  Zac and Emery weren't very fond of the fondue.  ha ha.  But it was a fun dinner. 

 We used the rule of kissing your neighbor on the cheek if you dropped your food into the pot (from the post where I got the recipe).  Emery did a lot of cheek kissing.  ha ha

 Sadie really enjoyed the fondue.  We will have to try a chocolate one sometime before I return my friend's pot!  :)  

 Zac dipped this piece of bread and then took one bite of it.  I think that is all he ate for dinner.  

Rob especially enjoyed the cheese fondue although he said he would rather just eat the cheese plain instead of melting it.  ha ha.  

Witches Brew Ha Ha

My friend and I ran a 5K!!!  We signed up for a 5k near my house called the "witches brew ha ha".  We were supposed to dress up like witches and run or walk along a fun river trail.  It was pretty disorganized, and the running trail was really skinny so it was hard to pass anyone or let people pass you, but it was tons of fun.  Laurel and I ran the whole way (which was my goal since I had only run up to 2 miles since I had Riley) so I was happy.  My neighbor did some cool face paint on me for fun.  Rob kept telling me "Lindsey I can't take you seriously with that face paint on!"  ha ha  It was funny.  Now we just need to find another 5k to do soon!  :)

 The trees had some pretty purple lights in them.  You can't really see it in the pictures though.  

 They also have fun witch decorations all around.  We only saw a few of them.  We will have to go back in the daylight to see more!

Thanks Laurel for running with me!  Can't wait to do it again!