ordinary day

Winter is sometimes tough on me.

I get bored staying indoors but I'm also a baby in the cold.

Who would have thought I grew up in Idaho...

It was nice and mild with no rain one day so we decided to take advantage of it. Until we ran into mud. White carpet and mud don't mix.

What is it with boys and their sticks and rocks.

Logan is holding his container full of acorns. He sure loves his little treasures.

thanksgiving

Both our boys were sick over Thanksgiving. 

We had planned on going to my uncle's for Thanksgiving dinner, but didn't want to get a house full of people sick, so we stayed home and had our own low-key holiday.

Darrin wanted to make turkey pancakes, so he did that while I got our Thanksgiving chicken cooking.

WAIT! That's the one the president pardoned....oh, too late

(Joke compliments of Darrin)

Didn't he do a good job?!

Logan and his bed head and Bennett in the background. Waiting for their turkey pancakes.

Our full Thanksgiving table. It was fun cooking Thanksgiving all myself (with some help from Darrin, of course), but I'm glad it was just for us so it wasn't stressful at all.

Logan pleased with his jello. 

When he woke up on Thanksgiving, he said: "It's Thanksgiving today! I'm going to eat jello all day!"

Bennett seems pretty happy with his first Thanksgiving meal.

This year I'm especially grateful for my family. I realize more and more each year how much each one of them means to me.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! 

halloween II

Actual Halloween night:

We went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. 

Yay, a good picture! 

Bennett the monster. 

People kept calling him a her when we were out. Hmm...a blue monster?

Logan loved all the attention and that everyone could tell he was a cowboy. 

He did great in his 3-sizes-too-big cowboy boots! :)

Waving hi!

Also on Halloween night, we did another tradition--making homemade rootbeer. This year we couldn't find rootbeer extract so we made licorice and vanilla nut sodas. Delicious!

halloween

I've gotten really behind...

Before Halloween, we carved a pumpkin.
Our tradition has been to get one of the biggest pumpkins we can.

Logan was really into helping this year, which made it more fun!

Here is his concentration face-always his tongue stuck out.

We did this on a Sunday afternoon, so he's wearing his church pants, undershirt and rain boots :)

Bennett gets into way too many things these days, so we had to stick him in the toy to watch or the pumpkin would never have gotten carved.

The finished product.

That same night, we did caramel apples. This year we cut the apples up and did a caramel apple nachos type thing. It worked really well and we didn't waste as many ingredients as usual.

Bennett sure loved his apples!

The next Saturday, we had our ward Halloween party. Here the boys are all dressed up. I was lame and didn't dress up.

Darrin as Bob Ross

Logan the cowboy

Bennett the unhappy monster (he is not a fan of pictures lately)

pumpkin patch

Not far from downtown, there is an island on the Willamette River that has farms all over it. Over the summer we went to the U-Pick farms for berry picking and a few weeks ago we went for the pumpkin patch.

They had water pumps that you could have rubber duck races with. Logan liked pumping the water down the pipes.

We went on the hayride to get to the pumpkin patch.

Logan was very happy with our caramel corn purchase.

The pumpkin patch seemed to go on forever!

Bennett didn't cooperate very well for a cute pumpkin picture. He kept eating things and wiggling too much.

Definitely a new family tradition for the fall!

idaho

After Utah, and a great family reunion on the Bronson side, we headed up to Idaho Falls to visit my family. Both my sisters made the trip too, which made the trip extra fun. 

The only pictures I got were when we went to Reed's Dairy, a local dairy that has an ice cream store. I know my boys loved it!

Lincoln, Matthew, and Rose checking out the chickens and pigs.

Bennett waving at a duck. Logan, Rose, and Matthew watching the pig.

Logan by the calf. It was so cute! Maybe because it was so clean :)

I can't believe how young Bennett looks in this picture! 

Logan and Matthew watching the dairy cows.

Of course we had to stop at the ice cream shop! Rosie eating her bubblegum ice cream. She didn't care one bit that it was dripping everywhere.

Logan didn't know how to eat it fast enough before it melted, so Darrin had to help out a little.

Lincoln threw a pretty big tantrum because he was so stressed out about the mess it was making. I was impressed that my sister, Mindy, was able to just laugh it off.

We also made it to the zoo.  Here the cousins are posing at the tiger cage. 

Parker, Logan, Rose, Matthew, Lincoln

Lincoln, Rosie, Logan, Parker

more Utah

We took a short trip to Spring Lake to feed the ducks and get out into the beautiful day.

Uncle Kurtis with Logan

I think it was too bright for Bennett. 

We also got family pictures since Kurtis and our family were in Utah. We are missing Shane (our brother-in-law), who was at Air Force Basic Training.

We thought they turned out really well, especially that first one!

Just our little family...this was toward the end and the kids had had enough!

I thought this was cute--it caught Logan sticking his tongue out, him holding hands with Lilly, and Bennett clapping.

I hadn't gotten pictures done of the kids for their birthdays, so I decided to be lazy and call these their birthday pictures.

Logan, 3 years

Bennett, 1 year