A Weekend with Cousins!!

For my kids, a weekend with cousins is the best ever! We live near some of our cousins and over the weekend, Kelli and her family came to visit us from Utah so there were even more cousins! We had a bon fire on the beach, a Santa Maria BBQ, and saw the monarch butterfly park. It was a lot of fun and it was so good to see Kelli and her kids. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Happy Halloween!

First on our Halloween agenda was to meet DeAnne and her kids and Steve and his kids at the Village for some trick or treating. The Village is in old town Arroyo Grande and is full of little shops and restaraunts. All the owners sit in front of their shops while the kids trick of treat. There are tons of kids and it is lots of fun.

Doesn't Velma look like she is having a blast.

Belle is always ready to pose for the camera. Isn't she a beautiful princess!
The whole group...almost. Steve and his group had to leave before we got our act together to get a picture and Megan was passing out candy in front of Brisco's.

Reaping the rewards. And yes, Mackinsie's mouth is full of an entire Reese's peanut butter cup that she just stuck in her mouth.

Next we flew over to our ward party for some games and Trunk or Treating.

Here is our Supergirl!

Now she is trying to steal some candy from her sister's jack-o-lantern. Very sneaky!

Dorothy ran into the Wicked Witch at the Party!

Here is Mackinsie the next morning and yes she is still wearing her constume. Even as I am writing this she has yet to take it off.

"Special Halloween Family Home Evening Party"

Last night we had our "Special Halloween Family Home Evening Party" and it was lots of fun. Our girls love to have parties and this one was especially spooky! We started the evening with everyone dipping their own carmel apples. Then we moved on to carving our pumpkins. We were going to do them all but in the end only had time to do the "daddy pumpkin". Then we turned off all the lights in the house and turned on just our jack-o-lantern and one string of festive pumpkin lights and told scary stories while we ate our carmel apples. It was lots of fun. Things like this are getting so fun the older my girls get. They get so excited. I loved hearing LeOra's scary story about a little girl who got stuck in a jack-o-lantern. RJ told a story about 2 little girls in a spooky forest looking at all the spooky trees and seeing what was in them. LeOra loved it but Mackinsie got a little nervous even though in the end it was just a fluffy bunny making all the noise. (Daddy added that part as he saw Mackinsie snuggle in my lap more and more.)

I love how are girls are looking up to their dad. So cute!

Mackinsie couldn't wait to take a bite out of hers, whether it had carmel on it or not!
And don't ask her to put down her chocolate peanut butter ball while dipping her apple. After all she is a girl and can to many things at the same time.

Looks delicious! This was a picture RJ took of he and Kirstin. Not bad for holding a baby and snapping a picture.

Next came carving the pumpkins. Daddies are the best at that. Here are RJ and the girls planning out what our jack-o-lantern would look like. LeOra took much more interest in it than Mackinsie.

My poor husband is so out numbered and I will illustrate why (besides the obvious). He built such anticipation prior to removing the top of the pumpkin and being able to get out all the "gunk" to only hear "gross" and "don't make me put my hand in there" and "you do that daddy". LeOra finally stuck her had in once and pulled out a tiny bit of gunk and then said, "I don't think I want to do that again." We couldn't talk Mackinsie into putting her hand in there at all. So poor daddy had to take out all the seeds himself. I did help him scrape it at the very end. Not all the girls in this family are to prissy.


I think LeOra is making the same face at the jack-o-lantern.

If any of you have spent any time around Mackinsie lately you know how obsessed she is with lip gloss. She carries it around everywhere and sleeps with it next to her bed. She always has glossy moist lips and apparently she thought that our pumpkin needed to also. Here she is putting her lip gloss that she got from her cousins this weekend on the pumpkin. Doesn't he look better now!

See I told you I help take out the seeds. And no I did not eat it.

The final product. I love the heart shaped ears. This is definitely a house of girls!

Pumpkin Patch

I know that I have been posting a lot lately but we have been doing fun things and I can't help myself. On Friday, RJ had the day off so we decided to go to Avila Valley Barn. They are a Farmer's Market that also has lots of animals to feed and yummy treats to buy. Also during October they have a hayride out to thier pumpkin patch to pick your very own pumpkins. Here we are on the hayride out to the patch. The girls loved it.

When we got to the patch we all got to pick a pumpkin. Some of us had a hard time getting the one we wanted.

But with a little help from Daddy,

Victory was ours!!

RJ, of course, tried to find the biggest one. I think he did pretty good.

I was looking for the prettiest one.

Mackinsie just picked up the first one she saw and carried it around until she was tired.

Kirstin got the littlest one!

Next we fed the animals. If you ask someone who works there, they will give you a bag of food to feed the animals for free. Our girls love to do this. Even Kirstin got in on the action!

LeOra loves the baby goats. She says they are so cute. She makes it her personal crusade to ensure they have all had enough to eat.