Spook-tacular! Fun

We partied it up this Halloween at our family Halloween party. It was great fun with great food & super company. Everyone really got into it making it a spooktacular night for all of us.

The kids had fun decorating with our little haunted house & some icky spiders!

Spooky food included: bat droppings, black spiders, witch fingers, skeleton bones, & fresh picked boogers! :) Quite clever I thought.

Witches brew with skeleton & bat chips.

Bubbling swamp punch

Even the mummy was hungry.





A costume contest. Here are some of the great costumes.

Hot Rod who was the Murder Moffia game host.

The 60's groopies.

It took two hunters to catch this Deer!

The Flintsone family....Yabba Dabba Do!

Scariness....

Craziness....

Help, Pecos Bill!

The witches

And the winner of the costume contest is....

This was really a hilarious costume. We had some really great ones! A super fun family night! This made trick or treating boring for the kids. Although they liked the idea of their own bucket full of candy. Jadie caught on real quick. The first house she came running back with eyes as big as quarters showing me her candy! I know what was going through her mind.... SA-WEET! By the fourth house I noticed her in the back seat with her bucket on her arm & an unwrapped sucker in each hand. I looked back & laughed & she said with a big smile, "trick or treat a FUN, Mom!"

Big News

Brynn lost her first tooth! She also has 5 other loose teeth!! When she was a baby she didn’t have just one tooth come in at a time, she got 6 teeth all at once. She had fun looking at herself in the mirror.

Tori was in her bed, wondering what all the excitement was about so we HAD to go in & share the news with her. She liked holding the little tooth & looking at Brynn’s new smile. We all went upstairs together to show Dad. Of course we had to take pictures!
We put the tooth in a Ziploc bag & she stuck it under her pillow. We talked about the tooth fairy & how she is kind of like Santa Claus. She doesn’t come if we are awake. The next morning, Brynn came upstairs with a little disappointed face, holding up her baggie with the shiny tooth still there. “The tooth fairy didn’t come!” We hugged. Then like a little confession Brynn said, “I think I know why she didn’t come last night. It was because I didn’t go to sleep & she got too tired waiting for me.” We all agreed that was probably the reason. It was okay though because now she could take her tooth to school & show everyone!




This definitely called for a celebration. The next day we had our own family party all day since it was Friday. We went for a bike ride & took some fun pictures.

That night when it got dark we went to the straw maze. We had a blast together. There was a small one for kids & then the big one for adults & families. We made it through! It really was a great night. We ended it with hot chocolate & a Halloween movie all snuggled up in sleeping bags for a slumber party.

Summer Highlights

We have had a wonderful summer & done so many things, simply enjoying every bit of it. We spent HOURS playing on the waterslide, got 4 camping trips in, even camping in our own backyard! Several days a week we took bike rides down to the nature park to feed the ducks, chased water snakes & packed picnic lunches. Floating the Teton river with Grandpa Hoopes was great along with hiking to Pack Saddle Lake & swinging out over the lake on the rope swing. When asking the kids what their favorite things they did this summer, it was those two things on the top list & then it never fails but ends with ..."oh & getting snowcones!" We had a great time with Aunts, Uncles, & cousins at Bear World. The bears really put on a show that day. Even more fun times were traveling, as we made trips to Utah throughout the summer, spending time with friends & family. We spent the 24th of July celebrations with family in Spanish Fork, UT. It was a PAR-TAY! A carnival, parade, rodeo, fireworks, & lots of playing with some super fun cousins. We had fun playing time with family members from Texas & had picnics & birthdays parties together. 4 wheeler rides are one of the kids' FAVORITE things to do. We took some fun rides together with my family. It's always great to go to Grandma's house & making Hollyhock dolls is an anual summertime event when all the Hollyhocks are blooming. If you have never done this, you are missing out! (especially if you are a little girl) My grandma showed us how to do this when I was little & I have such fun memories. Now my girls get to have this memory with their grandma. What a great summer with almost perfect weather; ending each day with a beautiful sunset.


Bear world was fun. These bears were ready for treats! The rides are my kids favorite. Even though they are pretty tame, they still love it. Here they are cracking up with their cousin Kaitlyn.

They hollyhock dolls we made. Aren't they beautiful? We made some of them with parasols & double decker dresses. The girls had a blast. We sat on the lawn & made them together with cousins for over 2 hours.

Brynn is laughing so hard & saying, "Mom! They won't stop following me!"

Jadie: "Right der! Eat it!"

Tori learned how to hold the bread up high or else they would come & snatch it right out of her hand.

Packsaddle Lake rope swing. The kids had a blast.

Jadie & cousin Eva had fun throwing rocks in the water & stiring the mud with sticks.

Jadie & Eva having fun at their birthday party. They are 4 days apart.

And....we recently celebrated Justin's birthday. Happy Birthday to the best Dad & husband ever. Jadie kept saying, "Happy boatday Dad!" all day long. The girls loved making his pudding cake.

The beautiful sunset we see from our back deck each night. I love it.

School Days Begin

Tori was very excited to start Pre-school in the "big" class. They actually get to learn things instead of just play. She wants to have homework & books & learn to read & all of that. Although they still do alot of playing at Pre-school, she enjoys the fact that she "goes to school." She had to wait for an extra two weeks after Brynn started & when the day finally arrived, that first day of school excitement was back in the air that morning. I love how her smile shows that!

Brynn started Kindergarten. I'm not sure who had the least amount of sleep the night before the first day of school, Brynn or me. I was so excited for her. When I did fall asleep I kept dreaming that I would forget that she has school each day & I would wake up in a panic. She looked so cute. I volunteer in her classroom for an hour each Monday & it is so much fun to see her in that setting. I love that she loves to learn. She has a wonderful teacher. I am amazed to watch & listen to her. She is very soft spoken & very positive. The children respond well to that environment. There is such a good feeling there. I am grateful to teachers like that.

A very excited girl!

" It was great, I think I'll go back tomorrow. "

Jadie got ready for school that day too. She went & got ready with her backpack & a hat. Then came around to tell all of us, "Bye guys, goin' a school..." hugs & kisses just like we did to Brynn & Tori when they left. She REALLY wants to ride the bus. For the first few weeks of school she would cry every morning when Brynn left because she wanted to go too. Her favorite thing in the morning is to watch out the front window for the bus. She is our bus watcher!

Mountains....our favorite place to be

We have had a blast camping this summer. These are some pictures of our Sermon family reunion. The wild flowers were beautiful & the girls picked bouquet after bouquets. As soon as we got there all the little ones went on a flower hunt. The littlest camper.

Campfires are my kids' favorite: #1: They love roasting smores. #2: They get to stay up until it's dark & see the beautiful stars. #3: They are the entertainment most of the time. They were playing Simon Says & cracking us all up by trying to trick the uncles.

Can't you just see how much these kids love the mountains. I love that they love it.

Awe, Jadie loves Daddy. Justin was gone for a week prior & she followed him around & wanted to ride with him every time we went for 4 wheeler rides.

The family rides are so fun. We had over 30 people on the ride. The kids will ride for hours & then after being back a half hour they say they are ready to go on another family ride.

The scenery was breath taking. Ahhh, the mountains are so refreshing & truely feeds my soul.

We always have to save time for froggin'. They were hard to catch.

Jadie's favorite game was Red Rover. She would get soooo excited when you called her name. She ran so fast! Here she comes.

Red rover, red rover, send Uncle Roy right over!

Brynn would giggle the entire time she ran! It was hilarious. She would back up & get all fired up like she was going to run with such power & by the time she got to you she was laughing so hard that she barely could make it. That's Brynn!

The Mountain golf tournament is a tradition. Of course, Justin is the course designer. Wow, he made it hard this year....but I got a hole in one! That saved my team & we won with that. :)

These are truely the best family memories one can have. Such togetherness comes from camping & being away from the business of life & life's comforts that we take for granted. I love the quiet mountains where all you may hear is a creek, squirells, birds, & conversations with lots of laughing. Everyone shares what they have. We all came back tired but filled. The very next day the kids were asking if we were going camping again "tomorrow."