Cousins

I realized that we had all of the kid cousins from my side of the family in town, so I grabbed them all up for a quick photo. Man, it is hard to get that many kids to look and smile at the camera all at the same time. Here is the best one! What a good lookin' bunch of kids.

Happy Thanksgiving

We got the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with both sides of our family this year, one dinner with my family on Wednesday and the another with Aaron's family on Thursday. We also had my dad and Kelly over on Friday...but since we were all sick of Turkey, we barbequed. :) It was wonderful to spend so much time with everyone and be reminded of how thankful we are to have such a wonderful family and to have a lot family live near by. This year, the top three things that I am most grateful for are:

-My beautiful girls: They light up my life and I love that they get along so well together.

-My handsome husband: He is such a strength in my life and is a wonderful father to our children.

-The Gospel: It is so nice to know who I am, why I am here and to have constant direction in my life.

My life is truly blessed and I am so thankful for that! Here are some of the pictures I took on Wednesday. I forgot to get the camera out on Thursday!

The kid's table

The Dollahites, Huntingtons and Ackermans

The Ehats and Hurds

The Huntingtons

The Allens and us

Yep, Abby totally fell asleep right during dinner.

Check out my little dancing queens. Chloe is wearing her favorite dancing outfit and dancing to her favorite song "Barbie Girl". Love these two!

She Stands!

Abby has actually been standing on her own for a week or two now, but she is really getting the hang of it now. She can stand independently for about 20-30 seconds without falling.

Abby will pull herself up to anything and everything, and from there let go and stand up. It is fun, but at the same time that means that walking is the next step, and I don't know if I'm ready for that yet!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I made the girls pumpkin-shaped (and colored) pancakes for breakfast and Chloe thought that was pretty cool. Abby, on the other hand, didn't care about the shape or color, she just wanted to eat it.
That afternoon, we headed over to Aaron's work for cubical trick-or-treating. Chloe won the cutest costume award and got a pumpkin lantern as her prize. This year, Abby was a bunny and Chloe was Rapunzel. She was just going to be a princess, but then decided she wanted to be Rapunzel. So, I got some yarn and made her a wig. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Then we went to the Cummings' house for trick-or-treating. It is always more fun to go trick or treating with other kids...and adults for that matter =). Chloe and Abby got a boat load of candy that should last us at least until next Halloween. Just seeing it all makes me sick!

Carving Pumpkins

On Sunday night we broke out the knives and carved our pumpkins. However, after starting on one and realizing that Aaron does it all anyways, we decided to just carve one and let Chloe color the other pumpkin. Her pumpkin turned out adorable; she is such a little artist. Abby, on the other hand, kept trying to eat the pumpkin, so we had to strap her into the high chair and give her some real food while we proceeded with the festivities.

Me and Chloe

Abby eating the pumpkin

Chloe and Daddy

Chloe drawing on her pumpkin

The finished products

Trunk-or-Treat

We started the Halloween events off this past Saturday at our ward's Trunk-or-Treat. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's where people decorate their trunks up and the kids go trick or treating to everyone's cars instead of their doors. Kinda random, but still fun. This year was hectic because there were two wards having trunk-or-treats at the same time and in the same church parking lot, but Chloe had fun and we got to see all of our neighbors in their adorable costumes.

Bentley and Chloe

(I have a picture of these two from last year, check it out from last Octobers post)

Chloe and Paden

Me and my girls

Lake Tahoe

Our last stop on our trip was Lake Tahoe. We really didn't have anything specific planned for while we were there, just drive and stop whenever we want. This was my first time in Tahoe and it was beautiful. I don't know how I grew up in California and was never taken there.

We stopped and took a short two mile (round trip) hike to the Vikingsholm Castle. It was closed for the season so we couldn't go in, but we could peek in a few windows and walk around the grounds. We were so proud of Chloe because she walked almost the whole way! What a little trooper. We kept her walking by letting her find acorns to fill her pockets with.

Aaron's favorite part of the trip was driving to the beginning of the famous Rubicon Jeep trail head. He is planning a trip for next Labor day to go on it with is dad and brother-in-law. Just seeing it got him excite. Now he just has to figure out how to get everyone's Jeeps there without having to drive them 10 hours there and back.

After driving around the lake, we got to our hotel and played in the pool/hot tub until bed. The next morning we packed up and headed home. We packed a lot into our vacation and drove over 2,500 miles, but we had a great time and got in a much needed vacation.

San Francisco

In San Francisco, we spent the day walking around on the waterfront and the piers. We also took a boat ride around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. We ended the day driving down Lombard street.

At Pier 39, we stopped to see the sea lions and Abby was fascinated with them. She kept grabbing at the railing trying to reach them. We also found a little beach and stopped to play for a minute. Chloe liked putting her feet in the cold water and waiting for the next wave to come in. It was her first time in the ocean. in fact, it was also the first time seeing the ocean....she wasn't all that impressed. :)

The boat ride was fun because I had never been before. We went all around Alcatraz and under the bridge. It w a tour boat, so they shared fun facts the whole time as well. Did you know the Golden Gate Bridge did not get that name because of its color, but because the passage of water it spans was named the Golden Gate long before the bridge was ever even built? The kids thought it was fun, but by the end of a 90 minute ride around teh bay, they had both fallen asleep.



By the time we got to Lombard Street it was too dark to get great pictures but it was still fun to say that we drove down it...I don't know how people stand actually living on it with all the tourists constantly driving down it.

Muir Woods

I have always loved going to Muir Woods National Monument because it is sooo beautiful. I thought Chloe would get a kick out of seeing all the big Redwood trees, so we made this one of our stops. Chloe told me that she liked them because, "They were so huge!" Our pictures are not great from here because we changed the setting on the camera and it made them a little blurry...oh well!

I think this tree is kinda big, don't you?

Aaron with the kids

At the entrance

Chloe and Daddy

This tree started growing in 90 A.D. and fell in the 1930's

The trees

Chloe showing off the big leaf she found