The story of my life...

I swear all I do all day is follow these two around cleaning up after them! It is the story of my life.

And I wouldn't have it any other way! I am so lucky! :)

KJ comes home...

My cute little cousin, Kjersti got home from her mission to Brazil. She got home the Friday before Halloween, so we were able to have a fun filled family weekend with aunts, uncles, cousins and grandma.

We all went to the airport on Friday to welcome her home! It was quite the spectacle, and so much fun to be there with family whom I love!

My cute cousins with their missionary sister...

Tucker snapped this picture of Taylor and I at the airport...

Me & KJ...

The next day we had a family get together to celebrate her homecoming and also the birthday of my other cousin, Alena and Alena's daughter Adalynn's 1st birthday. My grandma came up for the day/night as did my mom, my aunt and uncle and another cousin from Portland, and 4 of Kjersti's siblings. It was so much fun to be together as a family. We are kind of overloaded with girls on my moms side of the family. Like my uncle said, ' There are only 6 testicles here and a whole lot of ovaries!' :)

My cute cousins, and cute little Adalynn enjoying her first cake...

Taylor playing with Auntie Darryn...

My Wori & grandma...

Taylor being her crazy Taylor self...

Tucker had been eyeing the cake the whole night, until finally it was time to eat it! :)

I am so proud of Kjersti and her missionary service. It was so much fun watching a slideshow of her mission and hearing her stories, it made me think of Chicago! She is so cute, I love how she would unknowingly add Portuguese words in the middle of all her sentences. Her homecoming on Sunday was so great, she really has grown a lot as a person! We love you Kjersti and are happy to have you home!

Day after Halloween...

And in true post-Halloween fashion, Taylor is eating purple nerds out of a bowl with a kit-kat stick as her spoon. :) Life doesn't get much better than this!

We've been eating WAY too much candy around here these past few days.

Halloween...

Somehow Halloween lasted all weekend for us, as I'm sure it did for many! :) I do love Halloween, but by the time Monday rolled around I was kind of ready to be done. :) But we did have a fun time. :)

So, for the past two months all Tucker has talked about is how he wanted to be a pirate for Halloween. So, I have been picking up pieces here and there over the past few weeks. I thought he was so cute for his little Pre-school party last Thursday. I don't think that he liked having so many things on his head and just on him in general! :)

Here he is before school on Thursday:

Friday night we had our ward Trunk or Treat/Chili cook-off. We couldn't get enough of this guy:

Here he is with his rocker mom, Gem...

SO...after months of prepping for a pirate on Halloween day, Tucker refused to wear his pirate costume and decided he wanted to be a ninja. A costume we have had for the past year in our basement. Which would have required NO prep! :) (and didn't)

Some of my friends even showed up and did a zombie flashmob to Thriller after the cook-off. :)

Monday morning we headed to the high school to get some more candy. Once again Tucker had to be the ninja. It was fun seeing all the high-school kids we know and in like a half hour the kids got more candy than they needed for their whole lifetime.

Of course, we spent most of the day on Monday digging through their stashes!

Monday evening we took the kids up to Kathryn's house. After, of course, the pictures by the pumpkins.

The only door Taylor knocked on...

After getting our treats from Kathryn, Tucker and Ben headed out to trick or treat around this great neighborhood that throws a party every year. While Taylor and I went home and made our annual dinner, taco soup. The boys came home, we ate dinner, ate more candy and all tried to go to bed with sugar pumping through our veins. It was a great Halloween day but I took the decorations down as soon as I could the very next day. :)

Carving...

A few days later, we finally got around to carving them. Ben rented Sponge Bob Square pants-Halloween, and we watched that while we carved. Sponge bob is not my favorite, but I thought it wouldn't hurt just this once. :)

Taylor was only allowed to color on her pumpkin, which made her happy since she loves to draw!

A very concentrated Tucker...

Ben being Ben...

Love that cute face...

Taylor was very excited about her pumpkin. I loved it! :)

Halloween Prep...

We do love to celebrate holiday's around here. Halloween is no exception. Here are some things we've been doing this month to get ready for the big holiday! :)

Making a gingerbread haunted house...

Decorating the mantle...

and the rest of the house...

Ben's mom sent us the awesome haunted house to put together. I love it! We had so much fun putting it together. We will for sure be keeping it for next year! :)

Tucker wanted to make all of his classmates little treats for Halloween. I decided it would be simple, so we put a tissue over a lollipop, tied it tight and Tucker drew on a scary face to make lollipop ghosts. :)

They turned out super cute!

And of course Tucker had so add some Halloween to his bedroom. I don't know where we got these lights, but they are his now! :) (during one of our daily dance parties that happen on Tuckers bed.)

The Pumpkin Patch...

This year has been a little different from years past. We didn't make it out to greenbluff, even once. We usually go multiple times during this fall season. I just wasn't having it energy wise, or desire wise, to make a trip. And the Agurkis' didn't come into town this year for our annual Halloween bash. I almost gave up completely on getting out to a pumpkin patch, when the heavens opened and Dave, Ben's boss, invited us over to his house to pick out pumpkins in their awesome patch. They had so many great pumpkins! I was so grateful that our kids didn't have to miss out on getting their own pumpkins this year.

I love this picture of both boys with their hands in their pockets. I swear, Tucker is such a little mini-me of Ben sometimes.

All of us...

My mom was in town for a few days, she had gone to Las Vegas to visit my brother and flew in and out of Spokane. So, on her way home, she stayed for a few days. The kids were, of course, thrilled to have grandma here for a few days.

I'm so glad we still got the pumpkin patch experience this year, it just wouldn't be Halloween without it!