Favorite Fall Activity

It's not fall until you've been to the Pumpkin Patch!



These little bikes were so cool...and good exercise!







They had all kinds of these things to stick your heads in (what do you call those?). Charlotte wanted her picture in all of them.

I love how Brooke is sticking her head out above in this one.

It was such a fun afternoon spent together as a family. I'm ready to go back! What's your favorite fall activity?

Fun at the park (and other random thoughts)

We've been having lots of fun lately. I just keep forgetting to take my camera places. The weather cooled off considerably this weekend so we spent lots of time at the park.
This leads into random thought number 1: Football teams were practicing while we were at the park. The kids were probably elementary school age boys. The coaches were like drill sergeants. They were doing all kinds of drills, running, jumping jacks, tackling. It made me glad I didn't have boys. There's no way I would have my son playing football. All the more reason I dislike the sport.

Another thing I dislike? The Hunger Games trilogy. Sorry die hard fans, I just don't get it. I read them all and didn't really enjoy them. Too violent, too sad, gave me nightmares. Too depressing. I went to the library yesterday searching for something to get me out of my depression since reading them and came home with quite a lot of fluff. Confessions of a Shopaholic, Miss Julia, and more.

One thing I do like? Dancing with the Stars. I thought this season was going to be very lame, but I'm kinda liking SOME of the dancers. I'd have to say my favorites are Jennifer Beal and Kyle Massey. I actually don't mind Audrina Patridge either. Micheal Bolton's voice is sexy, but he's got no dancing skills. Neither does The Situation. Let's go ahead and get rid of them. My fave quote so far, "It's never too late to panic". Couldn't stop laughing!

I loved President Monson's talk on Saturday. But why did he laugh when he said some of us couldn't afford more than one appropriate dress for church? Did anyone else notice that? Why is that funny?

Ok readers, let's hear what you have to say (all three of you). Any of you have these same random thoughts?

Adventures in Roller Skating

We took the kids to the roller skating night hosted by Brooke's school. The last time Brooke went roller skating she was 4. She took one step in the roller skates and she was done. She was still a little hesitant this time around, but the STAR of the night belongs to Charlotte! She had no problems going on out on the floor with Daddy and skated for about 1/2 hour non-stop!


It took Brooke a little bit to warm up. She found some classmates and that helped a bit.
Once she got going, she didn't want to stop!


Charlotte tried to show me some of her moves!
And this is right before she fell down, but at least she looks graceful.
When Charlotte was done skating, she liked "playing" the arcade games. What kid doesn't? Most of the time they don't realize they need money for anything to happen. I wonder how long I can get away with that one...

Walk-a-Thon

Brooke had a walk-a-thon at school to raise money. Charlotte and I went to help out and cheer her and her classmates on. Here they are warming up before the start. That is her teacher on the right, Mrs. Mintman.
Here she comes down the track, with her friend, Ryan.
All in all, she ended up walking about 5 laps in about 25 minutes.

Baby Adam

The girls have a new cousing, Adam Robert Cazee, and Nathan is now officially an Uncle. Brooke loved holding the baby!

Holiday World

As if the weekend wasn't fun enough, we decided to go to Holiday World on Monday. It was my birthday after all ;-) We had so much fun and can't wait to go back! The pictures just don't do justice for the fun we had. We were too busy to take a lot of pics but we did get a few. Charlotte's favorite was the carousel.
Brooke decided she wanted to ride the "mini" rocket launcher. You know, the one that goes straight up and comes down really fast. Nathan rode the real one and they had a mini one in the kids section. This one was perfect for me. I hate the adult one. So here is Brooke before the ride started.
And here she is during. I don't know if you can tell, but she's pretty much crying. Maybe I am too?? It went higher and faster than I expected it to. Needless to say, Brooke NEVER wants to ride that again. I was proud of her for trying though. Charlotte decided later that she wanted to ride it too. So I went with her again. She didn't cry, but I could hear her moaning or whining. Brooke said she had a funny look on her face. No picture this time.

This was more Charlotte's style.
We made it to the water park too and had even more fun there. No pictures though! Didn't want to get the camera wet. They really enjoyed the lazy river and the wave pool.

Full House

Someone finally took me up on their offer to watch their kids while they went to the Temple. Nathan had some aunts, uncles, and cousins in town this weekend and we volunteered to watch the kids so all the adults could go. We had 5 extra kids all 3 and under (including 1 year old twins) and everything went great! The kids had a great time getting to know their cousins better.
Brooke tried to read some books. Lucy only lasted a few minutes.
We played outside on our nice big deck. Nathan enjoyed the twins, Ben and Alex. Although, I can't tell you which is which....Rigel??
Of course, everyone got hungry and we had to have a snack.

Later we had dinner together with everyone at the hotel. Victoria gave the girls mani/pedi's in her room after dinner. I couldn't believe the amount of nail polishes she brought with her! She will be the girls new best friend.

Everyone was trying to decide where/when to go to church on Sunday. We told them they would want to come to our ward because a special visitor was rumored to be there. But, our ward met on the other side of town as they were staying and started at 9 am. So, none of them made it to our ward, but I'm glad we did! Elder Bednar was visiting his son and his family who are in our ward. We didn't get to hear from him during Sacrament Meeting because the testimonies went over. The Bishop announced that he and his wife would be meeting with the Youth and the leaders for the remainder of the meetings. So since Nathan was just called to be Young Men Secretary, I decided to join him in meeting with the youth. It was such a wonderful opportunity to hear him speak. Even though his words were directed to the youth, I felt like some of the things he said applied to me. At the end of the meeting, I went to shake his hand along with his wife. It was such an awesome experience!