A November Weekend

The very first weekend in November Josh went to Utah to meet and give a special blessing to his new nephew, Mason (Jessie's son).  Turns out the timing was great so he also got to be in the circle to name and bless his new niece Sara (Mike's daughter).

It was a quick trip for him, but he needed the break.  The time spent with the family there was priceless.

 

I was bound and determined to have a fun time with the boys, even if daddy was gone for the whole weekend.

 

Friday night was pizza night, so we headed to Papa Murphy's to pick up our little tradition and enjoy.  Cohen makes sure I never forget to order a cup of "maronaro" sauce to go with our pizza.

 

This picture was taken at his request at the pizza place after he pointed out to me how cute he and his brother looked.

Hmmm.  Ok. 

Might as well document our fun weekend.

 

 

Saturday we headed to the Clackamas Mall. (Yes, the one that had the shooting in December... and we were there the day before the shooting.... but that's another story)

They have this train ride to entertain with. 

I let our family be entertained.  It's only our second time, but the kids loved it!

 

It goes all around the mall several times, plays kid music, and all.

 

Sunday was stake conference, and I decided I wouldn't be able to handle sitting through a 2 hour meeting alone with my 2 kids, while they felt a little under the weather.

 

I took them to the temple instead.

The Portland temple has a lovely little new visitor's center.



 

It wasn't raining when we were done with the visitor's center, so we were able to walk around the temple grounds a bit.

 

I mostly love the picture below because you can see the personalities of these 2 cuties in action!

 

Oh, and by the way........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later in the morning, after I dropped Josh off at the airport, I took a little test.  :)

Super Halloween

 

I was all geared up to make costumes for my family again this year, but when Debbie visited in September, she offered to buy Cohen a spider man costume that he was eye-balling, and then lovingly offered to make sure our whole family was outfitted for Halloween.

It was such a nice gift.

 

Josh and I actually got a sitter and went to a costume party on a date.

What fun!

 

 

 

The next day we had a ward party, dinner, and trick-or-treat inside the building.

 Cohen's friend Linken was also dressed as Spider man, they thought that was pretty cool.

 

We carved the pumpkins on the Sunday before Halloween.

You just can't do it more than a couple days early around here.  The mold takes over!!!

 

Cohen got to go to school dressed as Spider man. 

This was trilling. 

He's shooting his web in the picture to the right.

Nana sent Halloween cards to the kids.

Parker thought his Halloween kitty was adorable and sang to him, and loved him, and even put him to bed.

 

Then finally, the awaited time came for trick-or-treating.

By some miracle, the rain stopped in the nick of time.

 Cohen's good friend Makenna was dressed as a "Spider Princess" she said.

Cohen thought that was about the best costume ever for a girl, seeing how he was "Spider man."

 

 

It seems like there were way less than half of the homes participating in trick-or-treating.

Is this normal now a days?

 

Parker got tired of walking, so Josh and he headed to the little party we were attending with most of the group. 

Cohen, on the other hand, could have continued until 10:00 I bet.

I stayed out a little longer with him before we joined everyone else at our friends home.

My cute boys

 

These are from October.... still working on catching up.  :)

Parker and I saw a rainbow one day.  He was pretty fascinated.

 

 

My Parker is a train boy.

He just drives them around the house, and on the train tracks too sometimes.

Cohen never got into them like this.

 

I was cleaning up dinner one night, and realized Cohen was singing and dancing and pretending to be a robot with cups on his hands.

I just had to catch it on video.

He later told me this song is from "Little Einsteins," the TV show.

 

I had the Activity Days Girls over to my house for a little party they earned and we had root beer floats among other things.

In the morning the kids were sucking down the tiny drops of root beer that were left out of these 2 liters.

The bottles were bone dry before they gave up.

My Birthday!

I had a very nice birthday this year.

My family treated me well, and even took me out to a fancy restaurant (a little daring with 2 little boys, but they miraculously behaved well!)

Cohen "secretly" bought me a glow-in-the-dark necklace and bracelet bead set that I got to wear out.

I just closed my eyes when he put it in the cart a couple days before, but he really did pick it.

After we went out to dinner, we stopped by the grocery store, and picked up a piece of chocolate cake for our family to share.

It was perfect.

 

 

While we were getting the cake out and getting it ready with candles, the boys started to sing happy birthday.  I tried to catch it on video, but the moment was over too soon.

 

On the morning of my birthday, this is what it looked like outside my kitchen window.

 

As a gift (I'm sure of it, because it's ALWAYS overcast) it changed to this by the afternoon.

 

The view from my deck.

 

A few days later some of my friends took me and another friend out to celebrate our birthdays at the Cheesecake factory for dinner!  What a treat!

 

I can't deny it. 

I like my birthday, but simply because my friends and family make it a great day for me.

Thanks everyone!