Halloween week adventures...

I love Halloween. I've always loved Halloween, but this year absolutely wore me out! I got home last night (Friday) and seriously passed out! I was SO glad to see the week come to and end. I will definitely miss some of the Halloween traditions that we started this year, but there are also a lot of things I won't miss...I will miss the constant excuse to eat as much candy as I want. I won't miss having a two year old that is on a constant sugar high (and not in a good way). I will miss going to the pumpkin patch. I won't miss Tuckers sticky fingers either leaving sticky messes everywhere or getting stuck in my hair. BUT, that being said, since Tucker was able to actually appreciate all the fun things that go along with Halloween this year, I decided to make it a week long celebration. (I had to) I tried to do a fun activity with Tucker (and Ben too, when he could) everyday this week.

Monday: carmeled apples. Anyone who knows Tucker or has read this blog before knows that Tucker LOVES carmeled apples. We decided to make some of our own. Uncle Nathan helped Tucker make his. This is how the decorating went:

One candy for the apple...

One candy for Tucker...

Tucker and Nathan enjoying their apples. Tucker and I shared ours and Angie and Ben didn't make one, so it was just the two apples. Tucker was quite thrilled. Notice how he has to use both hands just to hold it, it was pretty funny watching him eat it! He would bobble it around because it was too heavy. :)

Tuesday: chocolate pretzel rods. YUMMY! My mom gave this kit to make the cutest and yummiest chocolate covered pretzel rods. We made them for our friends and family...and still managed to eat quite a few ourselves! :)

Tucker enjoying his masterpiece...

The finished products: spiders, pumpkins, a finger, a mummy and some bats.

Wednesday we got a special treat from Grandma and Grandpa Pyper in Alabama. Tucker was so excited to have a package and have some treats to open up. Thanks G&G!

Ben's favorite part of the package...

Tuckers favorite part of the package (the candy of course!)...

The end result after Tucker put the entire package of M&M's in his mouth...

Thursday: Cupcakes! Our ward had a Trunk or Treat on Friday, so in preparation, I made these adorable cupcakes. (once again, thanks to my mom who loves to shower us with fun little gifts for EVERY holiday. ie...the cute Halloween cupcake holders and ghost candies!) :) I think they turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself!

Friday: Finally, the big day arrives. Here is what our schedule looked like on Friday:

8:00- Candy for Breakfast

9:00- Trick or Treating at the local High-School, U-Hi (my Alma mater). We went with our friends, Cherie & Carly. We didn't even plan their outfits together, but they were a bee and a spider, and were soooo cute together. (Tucker still had bed head)

We even ran into our favorite U-Hi Cheerleader, Madison! :)

Walking back to the car, Tucker and Carly held hands the whole way....it was so cute! :) If they do ever get married, this is so going in their wedding announcement! :) Right, Cherie???

10:00-Candy for a mid-morning snack

12:00-More candy for lunch

2:00- Get Tucker down for a nap, finish decorating cupcakes, run around like a mad woman getting things together for the ward trunk or treat...give Tucker more candy to keep him occupied while I get the stuff done.
4:00- Drop off Tucker at my moms house so I can get to the church early to help decorate. And so he can do some trick or treating with my mom in their neighborhood to get more candy!

4:30-5:00- Stand outside the church building with other activities committee members waiting for someone to show up with the keys!!!

5:00-6:00-Decorate like a madwoman and start sweating profusely even before the carnival/trunk or treat begins!

6:00-The party starts!

So Ben and I were both recently released from YM/YW and were both called to be on the activities committee. It has been fun so far. This is our first activity that we have been a part of. And boy was it an activity. We had a: Spook Alley (mini-(non) scary haunted house for the little ones), a fishing for candy booth, a pumpkin toss booth, a really cool backdrop where people could get their pictures taken, a doughnut on a string contest booth, a pumpkin carving contest, a chili-cook off, and of course, the trunk or treat to end the night! It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work!

Tucker thoroughly enjoyed the doughnut on a string contest...

I think we have a winner here, people...

Here he is totally entranced by this moving head in the spook alley...

So, Ben was the MC for the night, and I think that everyone was really jealous that I had the best looking, 80's aerobics instructor, husband there! Wouldn't you agree??? The funny thing about that outfit is that he found it all in my parents laundry room. My parents used to be really into working out, and at one point in their lives, like in the late 70's and 80's actually wore all of these clothes (minus the wig). My favorites are the black Reebok high-tops that I can totally remember my dad wearing! :) Oh, and the purple spandex with black paint brush marks on them!

Me and my friend, Lexie were the grand Marshall's of the costume parade... (I was a witch, but ditched my hat like after 5 minutes into the night.)

And here are all three of us, in all of our Halloween glory! I don't know why we decided to take this picture at the very end of the day before we were going home... we all look so lovely! :)

Our cute little spider... (I'll explain later why he doesn't have his spider eyes hat on in any of the pictures.)

Giving candy out at the trunk or treat, with our friends.... by the way, I think that trunk or treats are like the perfect Halloween evening. You get to spend time with your friends and family and people you trust and still get to get a TON of candy!!! perfection.

Don't be jealous...

By the end of the night, our little spider was ready for bed!!! I took a picture of us right before bed in his cute little Halloween pj's last year, so I had to do it again this year! I think that I might make it a tradition...

OK, so if you're still reading this, Thank-You because you must be a good friend... If not, I totally understand. We had a great Halloween and I hope that you all did too! Can't wait until next year, I've got to start planning....

Pyper & Agurkis 6th Annual Fall/Greenbluff/Pumpkin Carving extravaganza...

We had our fabulous friends, Doug & Sadie (and Buddy too!) in town from Seattle for the weekend for our Annual Fall festivities. Every October we head up to Greenbluff for some pumpkin doughnuts, carmeled apples, hot chocolate, and of course, pumpkin pickin'! We started this tradition way back in October of 2003 when we first met them and they lived here in Spokane. We did it the following year, when they still lived in Spokane. Even when they moved to Seattle in 2005, the tradition continued, and they come to Spokane every year! And we love it! We usually go to Knapps Farm, up in Greenbluff, they have a pumpkin chucker that's pretty cool, and you get to pick your own pumpkins there, like literally cut them off the vine! :) This year we decided to head over to the little country store, where its more of a carnival/festival place to be. We still had a fabulous time, and of course, love anything we do with Doug & Sadie!

I have spent the past 2 days trying to scan all the pictures in from the past 6 years. (some were taken before the digital era...I know, ancient, right!?) But sometimes my scanner scans in the pictures as .Jpeg, which is great, because then I can put them on the blog. But for some reason it scanned them all in as .Tif and then they won't upload. I can't figure out how to change it to scan them in as .Jpeg. It's been really frustrating! Can anyone help me out with this one? Anyway...here are the pictures from this year...

I don't remember what was going on in this picture, but I love it of these two, pretty typical.

Tucker got his like 40 kagillionth carmeled apple of the season. I usually eat the carmeled outside, because he can't reach his little mouth around it, but then he likes to just gnaw on the apple part like all day! Yeah, it works out well for the both of us! :) This is what happened when Sadie tried to sneak a bite...

Tucker was lovin' pumpkin land...

We took those babies home and carved'em right up!

Look at all of these cute boys. (I love this picture!) And the pumpkins look pretty cute on our front steps too!

All of us, this is a classic! Tucker was done with pictures by this time and Buddy's rear-end is facing the camera. It was definitely the end of a long weekend and everyone is picture'd out. (except me, of course!) :)

In order to get that fabulous shot of all of us, Sadie had to drive their car on our front lawn so I could prop the camera on it for the timer-delay. In this picture, I think he is wondering what the heck is going on! :) Anything for a shot, right! :)

And what was Tuckers favorite part of the weekend, you ask?

Well, let me show you...

I think he found his new BFF. And its a good thing we approve of his family! :)

We love you Doug & Sadie and can't wait to see you again, soon!

What we look forward to most in October...

Being able to stay home the first Sunday of the month to watch church on TV while in our PJ's all snuggled up on the couch... getting to listen to the prophets while being with those you love; I don't think it gets much better than that! :)

I think that Tucker and Keyton enjoyed it as much as we did! Ok, not at all, but it was really cute, they pulled this bench up right in front of the TV and were apparently really interested in what this speaker had to say. (or maybe it was the buttons on the TV that they were interested in!?)

Tucker was so happy he found a bottle of tic-tacs to share with Uncle Nathan...

Then he got in trouble because he wouldn't stop eating the afore mentioned tic-tacs, and who does he go to when he's in trouble from mommy???

And in whose arms did he stay for the rest of the day? And who was he mad at for the rest of the day? I'll give you two guesses, Grandma was one of them and I was one of them. And he's obviously not in my arms! :)

It was such a nice lazy day of being uplifted. Although Conference with a two year old makes me really appreciate the Ensign. I can't wait for it to come so I can read the talks that I missed out on by being distracted! :)

We also look forward to:

One word: Greenbluff!

Have I mentioned that I love Greenbluff?

We love bundling up with our friends:

Finding the perfect Pumpkin at the oh so cute pumpkin patch with our friends...

Eating yummy pumpkin doughnuts with our friends...

And last, but certainly not least, we love eating the yummy Carmel'd apples at Greenbluff...

I think this face pretty much sums up how we feel about the delicious treats offered at Greenbluff:

We had to finally bust out the Winter clothes and went outside to clean up the summer toys and get our back yard winterized. I had to clean out my garden and get all of the toys into our shed before the snow comes. Tucker looked too cute all bundled up, so I had to get a few shots before the work began.

Thank goodness for that Hot Tub behind Tucker, we will be spending many a night in that over these next few months! :)

I'm Baaaaaaack...

Seriously, where have the past few weeks gone? I can NOT believe that it is now TWO weeks later! We have been busy busy busy and I have to apologize to you blogging world for my lack of as of late.! :) I know you all have been DYING to know just what the Pyper household has been up to! I started to add pictures to this post and there were so many, I have just put together some photo collages instead! You can click on them to make them larger if you so desire! So we got back from Seattle, and the very next week we went up to the Wagstaff's to watch their kids while they went on a cruise. They have two 15 year old twin boys, and two girls, 9 & 11. Needless to say, it was an eventful week! Tucker loved having 'older siblings' for a week and we actually had a really great time! The kids were excellent, and I spent my days shuttling kids, listening to the piano (and cello, and violin) being practiced and making BIG delicious homemade dinners! I know, can you believe it! My Betty Crocker skills were put to the test! Including...homemade ice-cream, Italian sodas, the best darn waffles you will ever eat and even did some grillin' (ok that was Ben).

1. Ben challenged Tucker to an arm wrestling match and as you can see he wasn't exactly too sure about it! 2. Tucker loved to get right up there with the girls on the piano. 3. Making Italian Sodas, the girls getting crazy with the whip cream. 4. The Beautiful and delicious berries we picked at Greenbluff to go in the Yummy home made ice-cream we made. And Tucker loving every minute of it!

We also went to Greenbluff one afternoon to pick Blackberries, Raspberries and Peaches! It was so much fun and our goods were SO delicious! We munched on them all week, adding them to the ice-cream, the waffles and even the Italian sodas!

We had so much fun at Greenbluff with the Wagstaffs, we went back the next week with my parents and did it all over again! (minus the peaches) Tuckers shoe broke once we had gotten up there, so he had to stay in his stroller the whole time this time. Poor guy! Luckily he took advantage of being with his grandma (which means he always gets his way) and some how got himself down to chase a cat he found!

We also somehow fit in a REALLY CLASSY dinner party! :) We were actually suspects in the death of Bubba, the local town bar owner! All of his friends were there, and we still couldn't figure out who killed 'im.

1.Ryan 'the town preacher' who we later found out was the REAL murder! 2. The whole classy gang! 3. I was the town sheriff and Heather, the town beautician. 4. No, those aren't Jevon's real teeth, or his real hair! 5. Jason was the town crazy who had been abducted by aliens a few times (hence the tin-foil on his head). 5. That IS Gary's real hair! (ok, its not either). 6. All of the girls. 7. Makes me REALLY happy that Ben isn't a woman and doesn't have hair! 8. Heather and Jevon (post-teeth and hat hair!)

Also, in going through my pictures over the past few weeks, I had to put in some of what Tucker's been up to and ALL of his new faces. Here's what Tuckers world consists of right now:

Hanging out with his two favorite Lady friends, Brookelyn and Carly, Finding and playing with bugs, Eating lots and lots(especially enjoys crawling up on the table while mom isn't looking and finding candy and eating it while watching Dora), And taking baths and giving me dirty looks when I want him to smile for the camera. It really is a hard life for him right now!

Oh, and I've managed to squeeze in a few photo sessions, which has been SO much fun!

I did his Senior Pictures:

(which I think turned out GREAT)

And I also did her Senior pictures:

(which I am still working on, but here's a little preview)

Oh, and I found this fun little thing where you can type in your blog address and it takes the most common words on the blog and puts it together in a little collage. The bigger the word, the more it is used on your blog. (Ok, so its a total time waster, but its kind of fun to see) So, I did this awhile ago after the Moncrief ladies were here visiting and you will notice that Cookie and Olivia's names are BOTH bigger than Ben's! oops-sorry Ben! :) (I don't know why its so small!)

OK, that's all for my mammoth post, and you're all caught up on the Pypers! :) Lucky you! Now that we're home and back to our routine, I'll be back more often, I promise! :) Hope everyone else's Fall is starting out just as wonderful! I LOVE this time of year! :)