Fall is Finally Here!!!

I am so excited for Fall. It's such a fun time of the year. The weather is fantastic, the food is delicious and there are so many fun activities for families.

We kicked off fall with a "talk like a pirate" day at Krispy Kreme. If you came to Krispy Kreme and said something along the lines for "Ahoy matey, give me a donut" then you got a free donut. But if you came in full costume you got a dozen free donuts.

So we threw together these costumes .
Tanner loved having a hook. It was so funny to watch him.

Bailey actually wore a costume I got on clearance last year. She loved the way she looked and kept looking down and checking herself out.

My adorable scurvy pirates.

Then Bailey stole Tanner's hook and took off. She was pretty proud of herself. I was just cracking up. She's probably the cutest pirate I've ever seen.

So we got there and the kids each got their free donut - SO YUMMY!

Then they brought EACH of my kids their own box of donuts. WHAT???
Yep- so many donuts. The kids were thrilled.

The following weekend we went to Mtn. Home for my nephew Clark's bday party. We also managed to squeeze in some football time with Papa.
Love my family in Razorback red.

We've been spending a lot of time at the park too. The weather is so nice that we just don't want to come inside. After swim lessons one day we found a park with a huge tunnel curvy slide- which made Tanner so happy.

The kids also enjoy playing in our backyard. The will play back there for hours. I just leave the windows open so I can hear them and let them play. I LOVE HAVING A FENCED IN BACKYARD!

 

One night we made mini caramel apples on sticks. These were a huge hit with the kids. We let them dip their own apples in the caramel. It was so funny to watch them eat these. Also there was hardly any mess since they were bite-sized apple balls.

On the days we are home and have time, we like to eat in our backyard. Backyard picnics are becoming a regular thing, especially with the wonderful weather!!!

I also get to wake up to these two sweethearts in my bed most mornings. Chris will wake up to get ready before and when he gets in the shower, the kids sneak into my bed and snuggle me. I love it. It's such a sweet way to wake up (most of the time)

Another favorite fall activity was making these fun little apple pies. Tanner helped me mix the apples and sugar and then we filled the crusts. He couldn't wait to eat his little pie. Bailey just held hers for a while. She thought it was too cute to eat. (Don't worry, that didn't last long. She devoured hers too)

 

One day we had some friends over and made some fall leaf cookies.
I made the sugar cookie dough the night before dyed it different fall colors.

The next morning we mixed the dough together and made these cool fall looking leaves.

Bailey loved it. She would hold the cookie leaf and say "It's so cute, Mom."

The kids really enjoyed rolling the dough flat and using the cookie cutters to made cookies.

 

I think they turned out so pretty. It was so fun.

We also attempted going to the Bentonville aerobatics show. But it was so cold, rainy and windy that the planes didn't leave the ground. We loved looking at the planes and the kids even got to climb inside one of them.

We loved this razorback plane

Tanner was in heaven inside this plane. He knew just what to do and started trying to steer the plane. The instructor was quite impressed.

Bailey was an ideal co-pilot

pretty soon we got too cold and decided to head back to the car to eat the picnic lunch we'd packed. 

Tanner loved carrying our umbrella around. lol. I love this little man.

 

Most recently we enjoyed a quiet weekend at home watching general conference.

Nothing better than a yummy breakfast, pajama snuggles and listening to the prophets and apostles.

 

Oh and we finally got to go meet Chris at work and eat at work with him. SAM's has an awesome cafeteria and the kids each got to pick out what they wanted for lunch. The food was so yummy and the kids were thrilled to finally get to go inside Daddy's work.

 

So fat it's been a fantastic first month of fall. I can hardly believe it's October already. We have lots more fun stuff planned and I'm getting really excited for Halloween. Spoiler- we are doing pirates because the kids loved their pirate costumes for Krispy Kreme so much.

I hope everyone is enjoying their fall as well!

Fun in Kansas City

We left Friday evening and drove up to Kansas City. We've been trying to visit the temple for about a month now, and something always comes up. So FINALLY, we got to go and it was such a great weekend. The kids did great on the drive and we arrived in KC around 9 pm Friday night.

Here are my cool kids on our drive to Kansas City.

My cousin Aaron and his little family drove up to KC too so we could swap babysitting for the temple and do some other fun stuff.

 We checked into our hotel and immediately took the kids for a quick swim. They were wide awake anyways, because staying at a hotel is soooo exciting. We swam until the pool closed at 10 pm and then went back to our hotel room.

Tanner loved showing his Dad all the cool things he's been learning in swim lessons.

Bailey spent a lot of time climbing in and out of the pool and sitting on the edge of the pool.

Or she was in her Daddy's arms. She's quite the "Daddy's Girl" when she wants to be.

The kids had so much fun swimming and they weren't the least bit tired when we got back to our room. At 10:30 pm they were still wide awake. It took us a while to get everyone calmed down and sleeping.

True to form, the kids were up around 6:30 the next morning and ready to go for the day.

We went to the lobby for breakfast, only to discover it was POURING rain.

Our original plan was to meet Stephanie and Aaron at the "Penguin Park" and we would babysit Blake for them so they could do an early session at the temple. Unfortunately, the rain changed those plans and we ended up just keeping Blake at our hotel room while they went to the temple.

The kids didn't mind. They loved being at the hotel.

When Aaron and Steph got back we drove over to the Crown Center and explored for a bit. We decided to eat lunch there as well. The Crown Center has tons of cool stuff. I wish we would have had more time because we could have spent all day there.
We ate at the "Crayola Café" and it was a cool little restaurant.

The kid's got to color on their place mats and eat yummy snack mix while we waited for our food.

 

 

Even the big kids enjoyed coloring on their placemats.

The also got these cool souvenir crayon cups with their meals. These were a big hit.

The food was good. The entrees were all very colorful and healthy.

After lunch we went to a toy store to look around and then we headed back to the temple.
The plan was for the kids to nap in the car while Chris and I went and did some temple work.

For once, everything went according to plan. The kids fell asleep on the way to the temple and woke up about 5 mins before we got back to our car. Aaron and Stephanie just waited in the parking lot while all three kids napped.

Chris and I ended up doing sealings together because we arrived in between endowment sessions. We had such a sweet experience in the temple. I love doing sealings with my husband. Not only does it remind me of our wedding day and the promises we made but it helps me refocus on what's really important in our lives and marriage. We got to be sealed for a family while we were there. Two of the children's names had recently been found and they were finally able to be sealed to their parents.

I was so touched by this experience. The siblings were an older brother and a younger sister. With us having two kids, a big brother and a little sister, I was able to imagine what a sweet reunion in heaven they were finally having. Those parent's were finally being reunited with their babies and that thought alone had me in tears. Temple work is so amazing. I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of it and to have been able to share that experience with my sweet husband.

Isn't the Kansas City Temple gorgeous? Well ok, most temples are gorgeous, but we were excited to FINALLY get to see this temple.

 

After the temple we headed back to the Crown center to go to LEGOLAND. Tanner had been waiting to go to LEGOLAND for about two weeks. He was beyond excited and this place did not disappoint.

First they gave us the tour and told us how Legos are made. Then we got to roam and play.

 

Checking out some different Lego displays.

Tanner's weight in Lego Blocks. He was around 1500 Legos. And he was a little over 100 Legos tall.

They had random Lego pits stashed all around the place.

We rode this cool ride where you got to shot Lego bad guys and save the princess. It was so fun. Tanner actually rode it again with Stephanie and Aaron after we finished. He was a pretty happy kid. 

Tanner enjoyed all the Lego statues throughout the building.

This was the Lego wizard. We rode the ride that went along with this guy.

We had to pedal to make our little car go high and Tanner loved it!

 

After the ride (which Bailey was too small to do) we went over and let Tanner do the jungle gym area while Bailey played with the girlie Legos.

Bailey and I built Lego cupcakes and she pretended to blow out the candles. And she befriended the Lego girl statue. Here she is trying to hold her hand. (My daughter is so weird)

The last thing we did before leaving was hit the safari Lego part of the building. This was Bailey's favorite part and we spent a while here. They had these huge Lego animals that Bailey fell in love with.

Tanner and Bailey both enjoyed the little doggy.

They also had a huge Lego pit with big soft Legos. It was so fun to build with these.

Here's Tanner inside the Lego fort.

And here he is helping Stephanie build a Lego house for Blake.

Bailey played on the slide a lot. She probably went down that slide at least 3 dozen times. She was in heaven!

We walked through the "MiniLand" on our way out. It was pretty cool. All these cool scenes built entirely out of Legos.

Kansas City Skyline.

Then we snagged a family picture on our way out, before hitting the gift shop.

LEGOLAND was way fun and I'm so glad we went. The kids enjoyed it and I think it made all Tanner's dreams come true. Well that and the Star Wars Lego toy he went home with afterwards. He was a pretty happy kid. Bailey got a set up Lego Duplo safari animals that she adores.

 

After LEGOLAND we loaded back into our car and started on the 3 1/2 hour drive home. It was around 6 pm when we finally got everyone into the car and changed into their pj's. We stopped for dinner on the way and arrived home around 9:45 pm last night.

It was such a quick trip, but it was packed with fun and we are all exhausted.

On the drive home Chris and I talked about making this a quarterly thing. Trying to go to the temple every 3 months seems like a good goal. Now that we are closer than we've ever been, it should be easier. (Yes, 3 1/2 hours is as close to a temple as we've been since college)

We're excited. It will give us a chance to go to the House of the Lord more often and spend some family time together.

We had a blast in Kansas City and look forward to exploring the area more and finding more fun things to do.