Fall Reds

I walked out back this afternoon a saw the bright red leaves on our Japanesse Maple's tree and I had to grab the camera and take some pictures. The leaves were brillant and beautiful. I loved the contrast between the blue sky and the bright red leaves.




I love fall and all the colors on the leaves. I love to see all the beauty that Heavenly Father places all around us.

Halloween 2011

Halloween this year the kids all dressed up in costumes that fit perfectly with their personalities.

Simeon was a BYU football player.


He still lives, eats, breathes and lives for sports, especially BYU and the Chargers.


Corrine was a cowgirl in PINK boots and hat.



Corrine is in LOVE with horses, and asks every week if we can get a horse, or hamster or guinea pig or rabbit or dog. She wants to live on a farm and have horses.


Ammon was Peter the Knight from Narnia.




Ammon could wear this outfit everyday. He loves to imagine he's got dragons and he's the brave knight with his homemade sword. His noble steed stayed home from this journey.


Rebecca was a cuddly yet fierce lion.





Rebecca is such a sweet little girl that is starting to get an independent streak. Her costume was soft and cuddly like her most of the the time, but watch out-there's a fierce roar in there that can come out at any time!

Tomatoes

Our cherry tomato plant is STILL covered in tomatoes of all shades from dark green to bright red.

Today I picked a whole bowl full of them and there is probably another 2 bowls full of tomatoes still on the plant.

Rebecca thinks these little tomatoes are candy. She pops them one after the other!




I love the bright red against the green leaves and vines.

Cousin Halloween

The kids had a great time playing with thier Smith cousins this weekend. They had forgotten thier halloween costumes at home, so they borrow some of ours for the Halloween party at the church.

We had a BYU football player, A cowgirl in pink, a red dragon, Peter the Knight, Edmund the Knight, a cuddly lion and a flying unicorn.


Corrine was having such a great time with her vampire teeth.



Audrey and Rebecca were taking turns sitting on Grandma's lap, then they both climbed on at the same time.

WE DID IT!!!

Today Corrine and I ran a practice 5K with her Girls on the Run group. My goal going into the run was to run half the race and to finish in under 45 minutes.



The route was a 1 mile loop with a killer hill right before the end. The 1st lap I ran the entire time watching Corrine a couple of houses in front of me. I finished in 11 minutes. The 2nd lap I was gaining on Corrine, but she was still out of reach. I finished the 2nd lap at 22 minutes, another 11 minute mile. The 3rd mile I finally caught up with Corrine halfway through the lap. I got her and Sophia to run with me at a steady pace. We went up the hill slowly, but we ran the whole thing. When we got to the corner and could see the finish line we sprinted to the finish line. We came in at 33:41.
I blew my goal of 45 minutes out of the water!!!

What an amazing experience this was. Corrine and I are planning to run another 5K at the beginning of November before our final race on November 19th.

Jack-O-Lanterns

Tonight was our annual carving of our Jack-o-Lanterns. Grandma & Grandpa Smith had the kids over for a sleepover a few weekends back and they took them to get their pumpkins.


Rebecca picked out what shapes she wanted for her eyes, nose and mouth. She was alright with reaching in and pulling some gunk out from her pumpkin. She was super excited to see her jack-o-lantern come to life.



Ammon had his heart set on carving a tree and grave stone with a hand and RIP written on it. We aren't that great at carving pumpkins, so we went for a tombstone with RIP and a hand on it.
Corrine wanted to also go the traditional face way like Rebecca. Dad helped her carve her pumpkin.
Simeon had an idea in his head and he started cutting before realizing that he was cutting too much out and it was going to be a big open hole in the side of his pumpkin. We had to improvise and ended up with a face which he decided to have it eat Ammon's baby bear pumpkin.
The kids were so excited and loud when we lit our jack-o-lantern outside. We love pumpkin carving time!!

Pink Boots

Corrine has been asking for cowgirl boots for a few years now. Last year we got her some boots that she ended up wearing holes in, so we decided to get her some real cowgirl boots this year.


At the store Corrine spotted light pink ones that she wanted right away. After the store we went to Panera for a snack. She decided that she HAD to wear her boots and not her tennis shoes she had on.









These boots look so cute on her! She was made for pink cowgirl boots.

Broken Record

On the way home from Ammon's soccer game this afternoon Rebecca asked Ammon about a dozen times over and over "What are you doing?" We told her he was opening a sucker, but she still kept asking. After hearing this same question so many times I told her she was a broken record. She was quiet for a few seconds then said "I'm not a broken record! I'm not a broken record!" I LOVE how much she talks and what her sweet mind thinks up.

Fall Ball

This fall was the 1st year of Boys Baseball's Fall league. We signed both the boys up. Ammon would get his first experience with the pitching machine and Simeon could get some practice in between Little Hawk's baseball.


There were more glitches in the season then we would have liked, but once things got rolling the boys enjoyed their practice and games and the girls LOVED going too. Because the days were getting shorter each week the times of games kept getting adjusted. We went from playing games on both Tuesday and Thursday, to playing double headers on Thursday, then back again to Tuesday and Thursday games and starting earlier. Hopefully with the 1st season under their belt, next season will go smoother.
Corrine met a sweet Cocker Spaniel Dog Echo that she fell head of heels in love with. Echo belonged to Parker's family who was on Ammon's team, which meant that Echo came to most of the games. Corrine would get so excited when she saw Echo coming into the park. Laura (Parkers) mom would let Corrine take Echo's leash and walk her around the diamonds. They'd always go find spilt popcorn since Echo LOVED popcorn!


Ammon was one of the youngest (if not the youngest) on his team. He was actually too young to play, but we knew kids younger then him who played last spring, so we decided to see if they'd let him play. There were kids on his team 3 years and 3 grades higher, and some kids were almost 2 heads taller!! We had 4 kids from Lemme and a friend from Mom's club on the team. It was nice for Ammon to know some friends on the team, but if he hadn't known them when the season started, they were friends by the end! The pitching machine was hard for Ammon to hit off of. At the end of the season he was finally figuring it out and getting more hits. Ammon's team took 1st place in their division.




Simeon played with the 2 others coaches boys from Little Hawks, but none of the dads coached the team. They all took a break and watched from the bleachers. The beginning of the season was a no hitter for Simeon, but towards the end of the season he started hitting more often. This league has very different rules, like starting the count at 1 strike and 1 ball and you can't walk. If you get 4 balls, then the coach under hand tosses you the ball. Simeon's team also took 1st place in their division with a 10-1-1 record.




Rebecca is so much like her big siblings in that she can play and have a great time at the ball park for hours without a single toy! She made friends along the way, played with Echo the dog, ran around, played in the dirt, swung on the swings behind Ammon's field and ran around some more.

Look what we found!

Remember back at the beginning of the summer when my sweet Ammon wanted to plant a pumpkin for Halloween. He picked out a baby bear pumpkin plant and planted it, watered it, weeded (somewhat willingly) and checked on it so lovingly.




All summer long we have been watching the vine grow, orange flowers bloom, and a little green pumpkin start to grow, then watched it fall off and turn brown. The vine grew and grew all summer and the flowers were coming by the handfuls, but no little pumpkins.

Then came Sept 30th. I was talking to my sister Lisa in Idaho on the phone. It was a beautiful warm fall day, so I was sitting outside talking to her. She was telling me about their pumpkins that her kids grew this summer. I thought I should go check on ours to see if the vine had made it to the front of the house.

That was when I saw this...


Just weeks earlier we had looked all over the vine, but hadn't seen any pumpkins. But there it was hidden underneath some hostas that had started to die back from the cooler nights.

That afternoon when Ammon got home from school I told him I had a surprise for him after he got his chores done. He hurried and got everything done so that he could find out the surprise. He was so excited to see that he had indeed grown a pumpkin. It was mostly orange with some green streaks on it.

The vine took off this summer. We had to keep pushing it back into the planter box so we could mow around it. It wound it's way around the fireplace and started heading towards the front yard, but stopped just short of turning the front corner of the house. The other end went towards the back yard. It caught hold of the bush on that side of the yard and grew up into the bush. It's really pretty to see the orange pumpkin flowers blooming amid the leaves in the bush.




Today we checked on it and it was completely orange and ready to be cut off the vine. Ammon finished up his raking real quick so that he could cut it off. What excitement there was for Ammon to be holding his very 1st homegrown pumpkin!!




He set it with the pumpkins they picked out last week. It looks so small compared to the others, but to him it's the greatest thing!

Webelos Badge

Tonight Simeon was awarded his Webelos Badge at Pack Meeting. He worked all summer to get all the requirements done. We're so proud of all the hard work he's done to earn this award.


Cameron Penfold, Jonathon Brown and Simeon all earned thier awards tonight.