Punkies!

A few days before Halloween, we decided it was high time we go out and get us some pumpkins! So we headed out to a pumpkin patch in Orem to scout some out! 

 

^^Most of my photos didn't turn out. Partly because it was starting to get dark, and partly because trying to take a photo of Deagan is equivalent to attempting to take a photo of The Flash.^^

As soon as we arrived, the kids went NUTS! I don't know what it is, but both my kids are fascinated by pumpkins. They both just took off and ran their little hearts out! Deagan was adorable, shouting "Pumpkins! Pumpkins! Punkiiiissss!" It was like he had discovered gold! 

There was a teepee made out of corn stalks, which lead into a tunnel. Savannah went through probably a dozen times, but Deagan crawled in and camped out in the middle of the tunnel, which was far too small for Bryant or I to climb in after him. We basically had to ask the other kids to go in and shove him out for us. 

^^This was the best photo I could get of both of them together, and it still came out blurry!^^

It's always fun to do little things, like go pick out pumpkins, with the kids, because it's a really big thing to them!

Frightmares!

Remember my last post where I committed to writing more often? Yeah I'm still working on that. But I've been crazy busy (which I'll write ALL about in it's own separate post. Someday.)

So last week, my brother Sawyer and my sister-in-law Kenna invited Bryant and I to Lagoon for Frightmares!

 

For those not from Utah, Lagoon is an amusement park, and every October, they hold an event called Frightmares. Basically, they have a few haunted house walk-throughs and have people dressed up in scary costumes running around scaring people (the chainsaw people are the worst! Ack!)

 ^^This is one ride I refused to go on.^^

Now, there are two things in this world I am more scared of than earthquakes, and that is big roller coasters, and being chased by creepy people. And Frightmares has both. But I still really wanted to have a night out, sans kids, with Bryant, Sawyer and Kenna, so I agreed to go along. 

I had not been to Lagoon in probably 6-7 years, and I had never done Frightmares, and Bryant had never been to Lagoon, so it was an adventure for both of us!

 

^^They had a few different performances going on throughout the park.^^

 

^^It was freezing, by the way... And yes, both of us are wearing Savannah's hats.^

We were kind of disappointed in the fact that the park was only open from 5-10 (and yet, you still had to pay full admission AND basically the entire back half of the park is closed.) but thankfully, the park was pretty empty. We walked right onto every ride. And yes, I even rode some of the roller coasters! Including colossus, which has TWO loops, thank you very much! The boys rode everything several times. I was good with one. I only did one of the haunted walk throughs, and I didn't even see much of it. Bryant wrapped his arms around me and I buried my face into his arms. One thing I didn't know about myself, but that happened several times that night: I get the hiccups when I get scared. 

Once we rode everything, we walked around and played some of the carnival type games, and we even won a few things!

I will say this about Lagoon, most of the people who work there are high school aged kids, and every single one of them was extremely friendly and nice (I'm sure the chainsaw people were lovely as well, I just didn't stick around to find out!). Lagoon seems to hire some really great kids! I just thought I'd throw that out there because they really made an impression on me!

We really had SO much fun! It was really great to go out on a double date, somewhere other than dinner or a movie, and get to spend time with Sawyer and Kenna. Bryant was extra flirty too, which was probably my favorite thing about the whole trip :-)

It's the Great Pumpkin Savannah Jane!

Halloween was a hit this year!

Of course, if you remember Savannah from last year, then you know that Halloween is one of her favorite holidays. She talked all month long about Halloween and ghosts and witches. She would come running into whatever room I was in and dramatically stammering "Mom! Th-th-theres a g-g-g-GHOST!" Like shaggy from Scooby Doo, and then just laugh hysterically. And she enjoyed taking the fake spiders her aunt gave her and scaring everyone with them.

 ^Bryant has this thing where hollowing out pumpkins grosses him out. That must be a trait that's passed on because Savannah, despite loving pumpkins more than probably any person likes any kind of vegetable, thought the insides were disgusting and refused to touch it.^

 ^Yeah, she's kissing the pumpkins. I'll never understand 2 year old logic.^

 ^Those of you who know how cold it was, don't worry, Savannah actually had about 3 layers on underneath her costume, and I kept asking her if she wanted her coat but she refused.^

This year, we decided that Savannah would be Tinkerbell, Deagan would be Peter Pan, and I would be Captain Hook. Bryant found a captain America sweatshirt at Wal Mart at the last minute and threw on his captain America swim shorts and called it good.

 ^He also threw on some football gloves. Those sticky kind that are made for catching the ball better? Yeah, I'm not sure why...^

We started the night off by attending my parent's wards trunk-or-treat. Say what you will about trunk-or-treats, but I'm a believer. They are so nice for those tiny tots whose legs are too small to trudge up big hills in the dark. Savannah had more fun handing out candy than going around and getting it. Kids would come up and take a piece, and then Savannah would grab another piece and chase the kid down and put it in their bag for them. She was loving every minute of it.

 ^Her wings are upside down because she kept complaining that they were bugging her ears^

 ^My parent's are hilarious! My dad is the Ylvis "what does the fox say" guys, and my mom is one of the Duck Dynasty guys. The best part, was that my parent's ward is a much, much older ward and so when people asked who my dad was supposed to be, they looked at him like they wanted to ask "What's a youtube?" And some people thought my mom was being my dad for Halloween. But when they came over to our house, every person who came by knew exactly who my parents were supposed to be.^


Once it began to get dark, we headed home, where Bryant stayed home to hand out candy with Deagan and I took Savannah up and down our street trick-or-treating. She was so excited, but it took a couple of houses to understand proper trick-or-treating protocol for her. The first house we went to was our next door neighbors, and once they answered the door, Savannah let herself in, grabbed a giant handful of candy, and then proceeded to walk into their living room and play with the toys that were there.

 ^Sage was Peter Pan too!^

But after a couple more houses, she got the hang of it.

 She had a blast seeing all of the kids dressed up. One little boy was dressed like Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates (her favorite) and he was walking past us, and Savannah yelled "Hey! Hey kid! Follow me, Pirates! Follow me to Neverland!" She was a little bummed when they just kept walking.

She liked running up to all the houses and knocking on the doors herself. She kept telling me to  wait at the bottom of people's porches, but I followed her (a few steps behind) because most of the time, she wasn't knocking hard enough for people to hear. But one house freaked her out pretty badly. They had a motion sensor fog machine, and it made a loud spitting noise and she panicked and jumped into my arms. I've never actually SEEN a person jump into someone's arms because they were sacared except in cartoons, but Savannah ran off the porch and leaped into my arms saying "No! I don't like the smoke! I don't like it!" After that, she was too scared to go knock on doors, and would wait at the bottom of porches saying "You go mom, you go knock and get candy ok?" So we only hit a few more houses after that.

At one point, we were coming back down the street and were heading to the house across from mine, when I looked over and saw someone dressed in all black with a black hoodie pulled over their head hiding under the window, and looking into my house. I was really creeped out and was ready to call Bryant and tell him someone was creepin' out the window.  But then he turned around and yelled "It's the Knicks and the Bulls!" And a guy behind me yelled back "What's the score?"


Aha, I got it then. He was just a guy trying to see what game was playing on my TV... Which is still creepy.

My parents and my brother and his wife, my sister and my grandparents all came over to visit that night and we ordered pizza and watched Beetlejuice. It was really great to have everyone there!

 

^The next morning, she marched into my room, crawled in bed next to me, and we ate candy for breakfast. Are you jealous?^

 ^I think I have a good start on Movember^

I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!

Past Halloween posts:

2012  When Savannah was the cutest Pumpkin Ever

2011 When Savy was a princess and Bryant was an old man

2010 Halloween pre-children

2009 Our first Halloween as a married couple. And when I was waaaaayyy skinnier. And, I was also Peter Pan that year.

The Heber Creeper

Last week, I took the kids and met my family up in Heber to take a ride on the Heber Valley Railroad. A.K.A. the Heber Creeper. Savannah LOVES trains (and firetrucks, and garbage trucks, and airplanes...) and so I was really looking forward to taking her on it.

She thought the best part was getting a train ticket, and seeing all the horses and cows along the way.

Savannah would not sit down and hold still and she ended up hitting her head on the seat during the last few minutes of the ride and gave herself a bloody nose. That wasn't fun, but it didn't last long thank goodness!

^^So Sawyer and Kenna were standing in front of the train to get a picture of themselves, and Savannah runs up, and poses right next to them. But when I try go get a picture of myself with my kids, this is what happens...

 

 ^^Yeah, I'm hanging onto her coat's hood to try and at least keep her next to me. It didn't work.^^

They had a small pumpkin patch at the station that we were able to go and pick out a couple of pumpkins for the kids. And if you remember from last Halloween, Savannah is kind of obsessed with pumpkins and Halloween in general. 

And of course, we spent a little time taking more photos around the train yard.

 

It was a really short ride, Maybe only 30-45 minutes round trip and I wish it had been a lot longer. It was really fun and it was so pretty along the way. Bryant wasn't able to come because he was at work, but Savannah told him all about it for the next few days. Specifically, about how neat it was that she got a train ticket.