I never know what to blog about after I haven't written in a while. So here's a few random things that I have pictures of on my phone. 

1. Kate's evil laugh. It all started around Halloween time, I made an evil laugh and ever Kate copied me. She throws her head back and squints her eyes and does a funny laugh. It's the best. 

2. Halloween was fun! Ellie was actually excited to wear her costume and that made me extremely happy! Last year she refused and ended up wearing her pajamas. 

Ellie picked out a Sofia the first costume and loved her amulet and crown and Kate wore the Snow White costume we got last year that never got used. On Wednesday night we went to a church Halloween party where we ate amazing soups and cinnamon rolls and the girls got to play all sorts of different games. After dinner we headed out to the parking lot for trunk or treating. Ellie loved saying "trick or treat" and was so cute to say thank you to everyone. 

Friday, Halloween day, we headed to te library for story time and treat! We also had a play date with some of our best friends and the girls did not want to leave. 

Halloween ended with a family Halloween party. Ellie loved being able to wear her costume everywhere and play with her cousin Halloween night. We even got Cody to dress up, first time since we've been married!! 

3. A few days before Halloween we had a few errands to run in Twin. Ellie said the only thing she wanted for dinner was quesadillas and that meant we had to head to cafe rio! I didn't even encourage it at all and I am so proud of her choice, it's also my favorite place. 

Being at target is sometimes better at bed time. It was empty and the girls had a blast running back and forth from the candy to the costumes screaming for joy! 

4. Storytime has gotten a lot more difficult now that Kate can run straight for the front door. But when we do get to sit through the entire thing the crafts are fun. 

5. Holding hands during our daily dance parties. It's the cutest thing ever and I love hearing the laughs from these two when they get along. 

6. We finally made it to the pumpkin patch a few weekends ago. Cody and his mom had never been to one before so it was fun to have them come along on what has become one of my favorite fall traditions!

In the picture Kate is wearing Ellie's underwear. It's become a new thing and its hilarious. It took me a few days to understand what she wanted when se would carry around a few pairs of Ellie's undies and wave them at me. She also does it with socks, Cody got her dressed this morning and showed up at church with Minnie Mouse socks over her tights. 

Today is my ideal fall day, minus the wind. It's cloudy and cool but not cold. Perfect layering weather without having to pull out the parkas. We haven't done anything very fall like lately. No pumpkin patch yet or straw maze. No apple picking (with the girls) or fall hikes. Just a lot of cooking and baking and it's not good for my waistline. 

Yesterday was beautiful outside. Mid sixties with a slight breeze. I've been watching kids before afternoon kindergarten and after school during harvest and yesterday before we dropped our friend off for school we went and hunted for a good leaf pile to play in. 

Old buildings with big draping old trees are perfect! We kicked leaves and listened to them crunch under our feet. Made leaf angels and buried our legs. Kate may have eaten more than I would love to admit. But it was a perfect ten minutes. Things have seemed to be moving very fast lately between keeping up with keeping the house in working order with three extra sets of hands and just with harvest in general. I feel like a mouse getting its burrow ready for winter. Which is silly because I'm not hibernating, I just feel like because its fall there's so much more to do and prepare for. But it was nice to pause for a few minutes. Not worry about the 45 minute drive to Costco and other errands and how my kids would act missing their naps. Not worrying about what else I could or should be doing.

Pauses are good. Breaks are necessary. And playing in the leaves was a perfect break from being a mom. I didn't have to worry or continuously ask for something to be done. I got to just play and throw leaves and roll around on the ground to. And it was marvelous. 

We celebrated our anniversary over labor day this year and it was great! We couldn't decide between dinner and a movie or doing something adventurous. So we did both! 

We dropped the girls off with my brother and sister in law in Logan and headed out for a night without kids. 

We decided to go rock climbing first. I am afraid of heights but having a controlled environment is a lot more comforting. I was nervous about not making it to the top of the wall but I over cane my fear and it was fun to trust Cody and have him encourage me along. 

We stayed at a hotel in brigham city just because it had a jacuzzi tub in the room! We went to dinner at the Maddox and went to a movie. We saw the Giver and although I enjoyed it, it wasn't the movie to see when you won't see your kids at night to give them hugs and kisses. 

We headed up Logan canyon for a hike on Saturday morning. The trail head we were looking for was only a few minutes from the mouth of the canyon. It was a good thing it was a pretty morning because we got lost and ended up driving a good 30 minutes into the canyon looking for it. It was a lot tougher hike than I thought. But what was hard was keeping up with Cody on the way down! That boy knows how to book it! I was literally running down the hills to keep up. And then I got in front of him and he laughed the rest of the way because he said I was flapping my arms like a bird. I was just trying to stay on my feet. 

We came home on Monday and the girls did not want to leave. Ellie screamed when it was time to go, telling us to leave and that she would just stay. 

It was a great weekend and much needed time away from kids. I'm so grateful to have such a great husband and for the opportunity that we get to be reminded of why we like each other. Even if we are making fun of each other half the time! 

Motherhood is a rollercoaster. You can be going along nice and smoothly  ut within a couple of seconds are plummeting down a 100 foot drop to your death. Or just the death of your current sanity! 

Today I had one of those downhill fast moments. Now that its over I can laugh at it but in the moment I was furious. And completely disgusted. 

Ellie has done great with potty training, except that she uses the excuse of needing to use the bathroom to delay sleeping. Today was no exception. 

I had laid Ellie down for a nap and checked a few minutes later to see if she was still in her room. I was playing with Kate in the living room when Ellie came running in declaring that she needed to go potty. I told her to run in there and climb up on the toilet and I would be in in just a minute to help her finish. That was until she said she had pooped in her underwear. 

I ran in there and she was not lying. Her underwear was full, it was smeared down her leg and all over the front of the toilet. She knew I wasn't happy but said she still needed to go so as she was scooting back onto her seat she kicked the poopy underwear at the wall. There was poop everywhere! It was awful and absolutely disgusting. I felt like I was having an out of body experience watching in disbelief as everything unfolded but unfortunately knowing what was going to happen next without time to stop it. 

Now that its all cleaned up and she is taking a nap, it's funny. Absolutely disgusting but funny. 

No I didn't take a picture. But here is these cute girls helping clean the tub in the bathroom. Close enough right? 

Five things making me happy tonight and 5 random pictures . 

+the relationship these girls have with their dad. Love it. Cody came home for lunch today and gave both girls a cone filled with chocolate ice cream. He gave me a kiss goodbye and threw in a "oh by the way both girls have ice cream." Our kitchen floor is covered in chocolate lot Kate prints. These girls can get their dad to do just about anything. 

+ the fact that Cody has been working in Burley lately and comes have for lunch quite often. Especially when the girls are asleep and we are able to have an adult conversation.👌

+ having two kids is awesome because they play together. And don't whine to me as much, a definite bonus.

+ Ellie being potty trained for 3 weeks now. It's amazing how awesome only changing one kids diaper is. Is 14 months too young to potty train?! 

+ living in the country. I can run and not even be passed on the roa by a car. And we can get rid of birds and not have neighbors complain about gun shots. 

And a whole bunch. But definitely number one thing making me happy at the moment is snugly phased with these girls. They both love to snuggle at night and watch a show before bed and there isn't any better way to spend the evening than snuggling the two sweetest girls ever. 

Miss Kate has been teething lately and that mixed with weening from nursing makes for extremely long nights. But she is at least happy during the day and will take decent naps still. 

She loves cold things on her teeth. Popsicles and ice packs have been her favorites. We ran to the store to get ice cream the other night because I bribed Cody to get some for having me mow the lawn. We picked out two containers because you'd be dumb to pass up a good deal on ice cream! On the lid was a picture of a spoon with ice cream on it. I put one container of ice cream by Kate in the cart and she immediately picked it up and started licking the lid trying to get some. She would lick it and pull it away to give it a good inspection and then lick it again. She was very determined to get some ice cream out of it!!! 

We had family pictures taken last week at a lake and Ellie begged to go fishing so we loaded up on Saturday and went back to that same lake. We took our niece and nephew with us and had a blast! Both of our girls have a soft spot for their cousin Colton and the entire time Ellie wanted Colton to throw rocks with her and she had to go everywhere he went. It was sweet. And miss Hallye and Cody fished a lot. Once she learned how to cast out she was practically a pro and could just about do it better than me! 

Growing up in Alaska has definitely made a difference in my adult years, I can't handle a lot of heat! I am pretty pathetic in the summer. 

 But we've been trying to stay busy and keep our mind off the heat. A lot of time indoors but also playing with the water table, swimming, and playing at the splash pad with friends.

 

It wouldn't be summer without Popsicles and a lot of afternoons spend in the nude. Only the kids of course!

We've been getting the girls to sleep in the same room again and it was going well until I decided to completely ween Kate from nursing. We have all gotten little sleep over the past few nights and she is learning how to take naps in the living room when her schedule gets messed up and Ellie is already asleep in their room.

Ellie constantly begs to go to the park. She used to love going down the slide but now she wont go near them. She climb to the top of a tall slide at the park a few weeks ago but didn't want to go down. A kid behind her tried pushing her and I think it scared her. We are going to have to work on it.

Not running the past few weeks means I've had to find a new outlet and unfortunately it has been through baking. Cody hasn't complained but my waistline sure has. The girls devoured brownies like they were air!

Last Saturday was the Spudman Triathlon and the biking portion goes right by our house! We put up a sign that said "Smile if your peed on the swim course" and cheered people on as they rode by. We got a few funny looks but mostly people just smiling and laughing. A few people told us that they either had or wished they had gone to the bathroom in the river. 

I took the girls swimming with some friends a few weeks ago. It was Kate's first time and she didn't seem to mind it at all. Ellie loved that the pool was so empty that she could swim around all over with her friends. I love the pool because they have a part roped off that is 1 1/2 feet deep for little kids. Perfect!

One other thing we have been doing a lot of this summer is reading! The library had a summer reading program that if you went in every week you could be entered into a drawing to win a bike and everyweek they gave away free coupons to places like Little Caesars and McDonalds. We got a call from the library this morning saying Ellie won the bike!!!!