Pre-Halloween

On Thursday we woke up to SNOW.  We were all up by 7 Am (when it is still really dark. I hate waking up to darkness) and I told Lucy I had a surprise for her. I opened the blinds and turned on the porch light and Lucy gasped, "but it isn't January-its October!"  Nonetheless she was very excited. By 7:20 in the dawn light we were all decked out and ready to play in the snow. The babies enjoyed their first sled ride and Lucy made multiple snow angles before our ceremonial snowball fight. It was awesome.

 Today I threw a Halloween party for Lucy's friends. She thought of the idea at the beginning of the month and I surprised myself by saying okay. Halloween parties usually seem like they require a lot, so I called it a Halloween play-date and felt a lot better:) We had nine little girls come in their costumes for crafts, snack and play. This is Lucy wearing her Merida costume for the first time with her best friend Elle (yes, Lucy had curlers in last night so she'd look more like Merida:)

 We made Halloween bracelets and then decorated some foam pumpkins.

 After our crafts we had snacks. Thanks for the ideas Pinterest! I made mummy juice boxes, spider fruit kebabs and cheese and Lucy and I drew jack-o-lanterns on cups for our crackers.

After our snack I sent the kids to the basement to play for 30 minutes before our next activity.  I expected them just to play-but almost immediately heard loud happy screams- Danny had invented a fun game on the lovesack. When I went down with my video camera I found all nine girls clinging to the side of the sack while the "rock" tried to throw them off. Then they played a game where Danny held out the hoola hoop and each girl took a turn jumping thorough it onto the love sack. It got pretty intense with the hoola hoop moving around quickly and in circles. Its a miracle no one got hurt or ripped their dress-thank heavens! Afterward Danny told them a ghost story and they acted it out. I had no clue five year olds could act out such good mummies/zombies/ ghosts! Each girl wanted to tell a story afterward so we had quite an extended story time in the dark in our basement.

My little duck woke up from her nap  during all the screaming and wanted to join the party.

 After every girl had a chance to tell a story (all of which were variation of Danny's original ghost story) we went upstairs to decorate cupcakes. I used a cinnamon cream cheese frosting recipe that was AMAZING. I sent everyone home with a goody bag, crafts, a cupcake and some push pin art we didn't have time to do. It was a success. Hallelujah!

Whirlwind Denver Trip

On Saturday night Danny reminded me of upcoming Urban Land Institute conference that he had mentioned some months before and we had vaguely decided to skip.  With this *tricky* job market Danny was reconsidering that decision because there would be many networking opportunities there. He didn't really want to go alone, and I didn't want to stay home alone and it happened to be UEA (Utah has a fall break-crazy huh?!) so we quickly planned a road trip.  

We left on Tuesday. I had no idea how long it took to get to Denver-it is just the next capital over! Becca graciously let us borrow her double-screened DVD player so it was a pretty easy trip. I enjoyed  road trip seeing different sights, I am too used to Nevada.

 We arrived at our hotel just in time for the debate. Danny got take out from the restaurant downstairs and babies had a pureed squeeze dinner.  We stayed at an Embassy Suites way out of town. (There were 6000 attendees to the conference, so there were NO rooms downtown to be had). The suite was awesome because the babies had their own room and weren't distracted by our presence.

 The conference lasted two days, so each morning we piled into the car and drove into downtown Denver and dropped Danny off at the cvnention center. The first day I went all the way home and took the babies to the complimentary breakfast. The breakfast was great-feeding all three kids was not. Lucy spilled a whole glass of orange juice and trying to get food while looking back to make sure the babies were okay and not falling out of their high chairs was tricky. The staff was super nice nd helped me a lot though. After breakfast and one cartoon we headed to the Denver Chidlren's Museum. The kids loved it. The whole downstairs is for babies and toddlers and the girls loved exploring and playing.

Upstairs they had a really cool bubble room, puppet theater, grocery, train room and tap dancing floor.

  After several hours at the museum we went back to the hotel for naps. That first day the babies didn't nap very long, which was a shame because I was exhausted! This trip was characterized by the huge amount of driving we did because then we got back in the car and drove to meet Dad for dinner. We went to a fun Chicago style pizzaria and it was great. We really missed Dad that day.

 Fortunately he was able to go home with us that night and after a quick swim at the hotel pool we all threw ourselves in bed. The next day was a little easier becase Danny didn't have to be in quite as early. He went to breakfast with us and then we were able to go out for the day. We dropped Dad off and went to the zoo. It was a really cute zoo and the babies are just getting to the age where they are fascinated by the animals.

There was a tropical snake and fish building that I almost didn't go into because it didn't allow strollers. I'm so glad I did because it was our favorite stop. Joyce LOVED the fish. She giggled, laughed and yelled "fish" (sounded more like feesh). All the tanks were on their level so we could walk around and she could see everything-the kids just loved it. 

 

 

 We were at the zoo about two and a half hours.  I don't know about you, but that is much longer than I've ever been able to stand a zoo. The last half hour we all got tired. I was determined to eat something other than fast food for lunch so when I saw a Panera I stopped excitedly and determined we were going in for a nice, sit down lunch. I managed to carry both babies in (Lydia was only in a diaper because she had managed to wet through her diaper and pants at the zoo) and find a more secluded area. I put Lucy in charge while I RAN to get two highchairs. I get back to the table to discover that neither have working buckles so I couldn't snap them in. How was I supposed to go stand in line? At this moment Lucy tells me she has to go potty and eating only fast food for a couple days had done a number on her GI tract so when she had to go potty-she HAD to go potty. I gave up. Took Lucy to the bathroom-made sure she was the only person in there and stood in the hallway with the babies.  While in the hallway I called Panera to go and ordered our lunch. After a crazy long time in the hallway I finally got us all out of there and left the kids in the car while I grabbed my food to go. I know that was a long unnecessary paragraph about my lunch-but it just explains a bit about this trip for me:)

Lucy LOVED being in a hotel. She wanted to stay forever. She loved watching cartoons from bed and her favorite thing in the world was to unlock the door with our keycard.

Driving home was not a picnic. Lydia was exhauseted but refused to sleep. She fought it with all her willpower.

 About an hour and a half from home we came upon the Little America which Becca had told us about.  We stopped and enjoyed giant 50 cent ice cream cones and played on their playground-it saved everyone's sanity.

 It was kind of a wild trip, but it was also really fun to get away and explore a new place. I drove all over Denver and have a good feel for it now. I'm glad I didn't just stay home and miss Danny, instead I missed him in Denver:)

October in a nutshell ( or 30 pics)

I haven't blogged in so long, but after posting about the pumpkin patch I hated to forget about the rest of the month-and it was quite eventful!

The first week of October I took Lydia on a roadtrip to CA to celebrate Grandma Joyce's 87th birthday.  We had a huge party with lots of family who came from all over to celebrate with her.  We drove with becca and Ruby and had a fun trip. We left super early-at 4AM- and set a record by making it home by 2 PM.  It was incredible.

 

I wish we had taken pictures of the decorations! Becca and I were in charge and we cut out hundreds of circles for circle banners and had pictures of Grandma everywhere. The house looked VERY festive:)  We spent all of Saturday eating, playing and chatting-it was a great party.

 That night I hosted a Minute to Win it group with everyone present. It turned out to be really fun and got the whole group laughing and cheering. Being Andersons, the rest of the night was spent singing and playing music.

 This was Ruby's party dress. Scandalous!

 I had fun spending the weekend with one girl. Lydia thrived with all the attention from me, Aunt Katy and her grandparents.

 I got a bunch of cute pictures of her because Aunt Katy was playing and making this face with her.

 After taking these pics I realized her mullet really was out of control. Between conference sessions Katy and I threw her in the tub and chopped off the mullet! she looks so grown up now:)

 

Lydia and I flew home on Monday. We had a great time exploring the airport and went on this revolving sidewalk about fifty times. She thought it was hilarious.

 Reunited at last! Joyce seemed to miss Lydia a lot. She hugged her and kept touching her hair and face as we waited for our bags. I missed Danny and my girls and was so happy to see them again.

 A couple days later Katy drove to Salt Lake with Becca and stayed with us while she attended a conference.  My kids were ecstatic and loved hanging out with Aunt Katy. One afternoon we went to Cornbelly's and had a great time playing in mazes, jumping and looking at pumpkins.

 On Becca's birthday we went down to Springville and Joyce had her first close encounter with a horse. She loves them now.

 Random Lydia.

 Lucy used sponge curlers for the first time! She looks so cute.

 Finally pulled out my real camera at the park the other day. We love having a park across the street and go over almost every evening after dinner. I just need to get my camera out more often.