Grandma & Grandpa Visit

Grandma & Grandpa from Utah were able to come visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was wonderful to have them here. The kids absolutely loved being around them and enjoying the extra love. We spent one evening roasting marshmellows with them outside again, to Cooper's delight! The boys did lots of arts and crafts with Grandma, did some shopping together, and just spent some good quality time playing with Grandma & Grandpa! Kaylee had no fear of the grandparents she hasn't seen very much. She loved their presence. It was a great visit and we love them so very much!! They were able to stay and help get our house ready for Thanksgiving. We got to decorate, plan the menu, and cook together. What a great time to be together with family! We love you Grandma & Grandpa!

Preschool Thanksgiving Program

Jaxton was in a Preschool Thanksgiving Program at his preschool, Creative Play School. He was able to invite 2 guests to his feast and program. He chose to invite Grandma from Utah and his mom. Grandma and Grandpa from Utah were here visiting for Thanksgiving. So he felt honored to have Grandma come to his program. He knew all his songs and sang proudly on stage with his Indian hat on. What a great Thanksgiving feast!!

Birthday Dragon Training

Jaxton has been into the movie "How to Train Your Dragon" and was set on having a dragon themed party! It turned out quite well and I think everyone had a great time learning how to fight and conquer dragons!!

Jax painted herbal tea over his white invitations to make them look old and feel stiff. When they were dry, we burnt the edges with matches. Then we mailed them off!! On the day of the party, all the kids got their own round shield to paint however they wanted. These were the same shape of shields that the vikings in the movie held. They also each got a viking hat to wear, made out of regular party hats, cardboard, and tin foil. So right off the bat, they were all VIKINGS!!

But, these vikings needed to learn how to fight dragons!! That's what they were here for, right? So they had to go through some extensive training courses. We had an obstacle course they had to conquer, with a balance beam, climbing over, under, and all around to get their energy up!

Then we played "Viking Says," a spoof off of Simon Says. The Viking, also known as Nate, had the dragon warriors copy him in various dragon fighting moves! The last game we played involved the kids' painted shields. We dropped empty plastic eggs (Dragon eggs) at the kids from the balcony and they had to use their shields to protect themselves. They loved it!!

Finally, they were ready to fight a real, green dragon filled with sugary fierceness!! We made a homemade dragon pinata out of a brown grocery paper bag filled with candy and goodies, rolled and stapled shut. More crumpled brown bag pieces were added with duct tape to create the shape of a dragon's body. We covered the body with fringed tissue paper in rows all the way down his body on both sides, then added tissue paper feet, eyes, and mouth with fire coming out. We punched a skewer stick through his sides and made cardboard covered with tissue paper wings for him. The kids got to fight the fierce dragon with a sword! You can see that Jaxton made his wing fall off!!

Next came presents, and then cake! How to make a dragon cake? Any idea in the whole world can be found online!! I found this idea and it worked out great!! Next time though, I'll use something edible so we can eat the dragon!! We just molded a dragon shape out of tin foil and used some hot glue to add feet to him. We covered him with frosting and added cardstock wings. Waalaaa! There we have "Toothless," the main character of the movie "How to Train Your Dragon."

We now have 9 experienced dragon fighters in town. If ever anyone sees a dragon in Fort Wayne, Indiana, they know who to call! Happy Birthday Jax Man!

Happy Birthday Jaxton

Jaxton Turns 5!! Happy Birthday Jax!! I can't believe you are five today! Here are some fun things about Jaxton at 5 years old:

1. Jaxton's favorite cereal is caught between honey cheerios and kix!

2. Jaxton's favorite activity is building with some special snapping blocks. Every day he is building a new spaceship or a city for his little vibrating bugs.

3. Jaxton is learning how to read and is picking it up very fast. He is on lesson number 50 in the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." He amazes me at how fast he is learning how to read!!

4. Jaxton is a white belt in Tae Kwon Do. He loves Tae Kwon Do! He is very good at it as well with strong movements.

5. Jaxton loves babies. I wonder why! His little sister has taught him how to play with and interact with babies and every time he sees another baby, he gravitates towards them and talks baby talk and plays gently with them. He has a soft spot for babies and has told me that we need to have 2 more girl babies and then 2 more boy babies in our family......hmmmm

6. Jaxton is a performer! He loves to make people laugh and loves to be silly. He has no fear of being in front of others, on a stage, or in a classroom, or in a group of friends. He has confidence in performing.

7. Jaxton's favorite sport is still soccer. Since its fall and almost winter, he will wait till springtime to play, and he asks often when soccer will start up again. He really is a great kicker!

8. Jaxton's closest friends these days are Kye Stump and Gabe Gregory.

9. Jaxton loves to eat! He can eat sooo much for 1 meal. He is hardly picky and tries most anything placed in front of him. I can always count on him to eat mom's dinners!!

10. Jaxton is a sweetheart. His heart is just so good. He is always concerned about the feelings of others. When he is at fault, and knows it, he wants to make it right. He is honest and good all around. Just a sweet boy. We love you very very much, Jaxton!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

Daddy is Thirty-One!! Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you!! Daddy has been golfing lately. He decided one day that he wanted to be a golfer and got invited by a friend to go golfing together. Well, he couldn't go golfing empty handed. So he went out and purchased himself his own golfing gear, complete with a stand for his equipment!! Golfing is expensive though, so for his birthday, we got him a gift certificate to go golfing next season! Hopefully that equipment gets put to good use! He also has been wanting "eggies," a little kitchen gadget that cooks eggs so you don't have to peel hard boiled eggs. We'll see if they work as well as they say they do on TV!

Since BYU football has been playing very well this season, with Jimmer of course, we decided to combine a BYU football party and birthday party in one! It was a fun gathering. I think the birthday boy had a good time!! Happy Birthday Nate!

Fun in the Fall

Autumn is by far the most beautiful season of the year in Indiana. It is so colorful! The humidity of the summer is gone, and the weather is fresh and brisk and not too cold yet. It's absolutely perfect! Since we don't have many leaves on our grass, we gathered some from the edges of our backyard that fell from the trees in the woods and made our own pile to jump in, something the boys have been wanting to do, but we haven't since we don't have any trees in our grassy backyard. We had a lot of fun in the leaves, even Kaylee girl!

Halloween Bonfire

After Trick-Or-Treating, we headed back home to start up a bonfire and roast some marshmellows, one of Cooper's most favorite things to do!! We spent the evening with some of the kids best friends, Coby, Kye, and Cameron stump, with their parents Summer & Blair. Cooper had at least 4 or 5 smores and could have eaten even more if we didn't stop him! What a fun Halloween to remember!!

Trick-Or-Treat

"Trick or Treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!!" The boy's learned that little song and thought it was pretty great!! Luckily, they didn't say that at the doorsteps! This was the first year the boys really enjoyed trick-or-treating!! They were running from house to house, so excited!! It was bitter, bitter cold that evening, which made it a little tricky, but look how beautiful fall time in Indiana is? The beautiful multicolored trees with leaves all over the sidewalks made it a perfect evening!! There was 1 house that offered us hot dogs and hot chocolate or hot apple cider for free!! They made their garage into a little snack shop. That was a pleasant treat too!

Look at those leaves!!!

Kaylee & Daddy

Halloween Hooplah

We decided to have a Halloween Party this year, possibly an annual tradition! We had 4 or 5 families come for a fun costume party complete with games for the kids and candy all around. We had a costume contest with 3 winners. We also had a spider search. We hid plastic spider rings, 100 of them all over the entire house. The kids each got a bag and went searching for spiders. The winner got a prize....yes, candy. Last, we played a literal "Trick or Treat" game. Each couple had a bag of candy at a station somewhere in our house. The kids went "trick or treating" to each station. The catch was, though, that they had to do a "trick" before they were allowed to have a treat! So each couple came up with their own "trick" to have the kids do.

Here's our giant spiderweb made out of yarn wrapped around our banister on the loft. The kids loved it of course. Then we adorned it with the fake spiderwebs. It was a hit! This couple used the spiderweb as their "trick" and made the kids try to climb through it without touching the "lazer beams."

At this station, the kids had to win an iPhone game:-)

Here, the kids had to rub their belly and pat their head at the same time in order to get their treat!

Look who is having a great time!!!

Halloween Big Buddy Party

A family in our ward invited the boys to a "Big Buddy Halloween Party." Each younger child at the party would get paired up with an older child at the party. Then, the pairs played games together, read Halloween books together, and had a fun Halloween snack together. Cooper got paired up with Chayla, an 8 year old little girl. He absolutely adored her!! He wanted to be by her the entire party and felt so proud to be her partner in the games and activities. Afterward, at home he would talk about her and when the primary would sing in church for the primary program and at Christmas time, he would search for her face and just grin at her.

Jaxton got paired with Chayla's older brother, Dainen, who was about 10 years old. And similarly, Jaxton adored his partner and wanted to do things with and play with him all the time.

The party started out with a costume parade as the kids got to know their big buddies. Then they read Halloween books to their younger partner. Next, they played partner games with beanbags and then ended the fun afternoon with a fun Halloween snack! What a fun day!

Halloween Costumes

This Halloween was a lot of fun trying to put together costumes for the kids. Cooper changed his mind a lot, until he settled on being Iron Man. Jaxton was dead set on being a spider. And Kaylee, I thought she would make an adorable black kitty.

There are not very many spider costumes out there to purchase, so I set about to make one at home. It really was pretty simple. We found black sweat pants, a black turtleneck, and a black beanie hat. We got 2 pairs of tall black socks, and stuffed them with newspaper. We got them sewed onto the sides of the turtleneck, then we attached each spider leg together using fishing wire up to Jaxton's wrist. He wore an elastic bracelet on his wrist that had the fishing wire attached to it. Then, when he lifted his arms, it looks as if the spider's legs are all walking together!! Jaxton painted some styrofoam balls that we glued onto his beanie with some antennas made from pipe cleaners. Of course he made sure that he was a black widow with the red hourglass shape on his belly. He was very very proud of that costume!! And it was a lot of fun for mommy to create it!! :-)

Cooper chose Iron Man. I would have loved to have made his costume, but I figured that my inexpensive creation of the Iron Man costume probably would not even come close to looking like the real Iron Man. So I gave up on that and took Cooper to Target to find an Iron Man costume. I did hem it for him on the arms and legs since it was a bit big for his little body. His costume was complete with the Iron Man mask, glove, and shooter. And another perk, his costume glows in the dark!! He was pretty excited about that!!

Kaylee was a little black kitty cat! She already has a costume for next Halloween when she is 1, thanks to Grandma Hutchinson, and when she is 2 almost 3 I figure she will have an idea of what she wants to be by then. So I decided that this may be the only time I can pick out what she should be for Halloween before she wants to decide for herself. So I found this darling kitty tutu outfit online and I recreated it, making a tutu for the first time in my life!! It was definitely a fun project! She has some boa feather ribbon around her waist that continues out to be her tail, and I found the cute kitty ears at Target. After lots of attempts to get her to hold still for her first ever experience with cosmetics, her costume was complete with her kitten nose and whiskers! What a fun Halloween!

Two Front Teeth

Kaylee's front bottom teeth are popping through her gums!! Hooray!! She has been a bit fussy lately, so they may be hurting her a bit. But for the most part, she is still a happy girl. One day I went to get her after her nap and found that all along the front and side rail of her crib, there were tiny double teeth marks where she would practice using her new found sharp teeth on the wood while she waited for me!

Pumpkins!!!

Grandma & Grandpa Hutchinson sent a package full of fun Halloween stuff to do. She even sent some pumpkin face stickers so the kids could decorate a pumpkin (rather than use a sharp knife). So here is the final products of the boys' pumpkins! Such creative kids!!

Autumn in the Country

Jaxton's PreK preschool class had a field trip to a place in Garrett, IN called Autumn in the Country. It was a farm that opens up to the public at fall time for hay rides, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, apple cider, and tours to see the animals. It was a lot of fun, again, being able to come be with Jaxton, just him and me.

Here they are watching how apple cider is made. The lady took about 25 apples and squeezed them in this old fashioned squeezer. 25 apples only made a small amount of cider. It was a lot of fun to see the apples actually drip into cider. There were bees everywhere that apparently liked apple cider!!

We took a hayride through the cornfields and around the pumpkin patch. Then, Mrs. Kruse got to pick out one pumpkin to take back to her classroom. The kids helped her by pointing out the biggest, roundest, ripest, orangest pumpkins they could find!! Then the owner of the farm cut the pumpkin off the vine and sent it home with us!

They had a real live corn maze. It was fun walking in the tall corn and getting lost for a while in it. Jaxton was just loving every minute being with his school friends. Afterward, they even created a corn maze out of hay bales inside a barn. So the kids got to run around inside there to figure out the way out. It was really a lot of fun!!