Utah continued . . .

The rest of our trip to Utah was mostly spent with cousins and enjoying the last bit of fall. Spencer loves his cousins, especially Russell & Austin. They had so much fun with Grandma's leaves and our trip to Wheeler Farm.

Spencer and Brooks went on an outing to get away from all the girls for a while and to spend some quality time together.

They rode the train up to Salt Lake and got some ice cream. I couldn't tell which one he enjoyed the most, he was so excited about it all when they got back.

And because of our very gracious home teachers we were able to go to the BYU football game with Kaitlin and Jordan!

Spencer loved it! :)

Off to Neverland!

Halloween this year was awesome! I had more fun with it this year than I have in a long time. Spencer was Captain Hook (from the movie Peter Pan) for Halloween this year. I do have to say, I think he was adorable. He did an awesome job playing his character too! If you asked him who he was he would tell you: "I'm Hook, Aaarrrrrr!" It was cute!

Brooks was Peter Pan, I was Peter's shadow and Benson was Nana (the dog that catches Peter's shadow). At the ward party we found Tiger Lilly and saved her from Hook and his evilness! We also won "Most Creative" pumpkin!

We just happened to fly to Utah in time for the Halloween festivities there, and oh what fun we had! It was a fun night, especially because we got to spend it with both the Turnbows and Tingeys.

Let me tell you how it started. A few months before I was talking to my sister and she mentioned that her girls were going to be Tinkerbell and I mentioned that I was planning on Spencer being Peter Pan (at that point he hadn't discovered his love for the pirate life!) So we started planning all the other nieces and nephews as other characters, and then other family members as well . . . and they can be this, and you can be this, and Dad can be this . . ." You know how sisters can go on! Well after a while we had the whole family talking about what character they would be from the movie Peter Pan and we threw the finest party Neverland has ever seen! I saw Peter Pan, Wendy, Hook and many of his crew - including Smee, Big Redman Chief and his Indians - including Sqaw & TigerLilly, Tinkerbell, Wendy, Mr. Darling, the crocodile, nana, some lost boys (or maybe just one I think), and you can't forget the Mermaids (who were my personal favorites!).

I had a blast and I think we brought out the child in everyone (at least for a little while)!

Won't you stay?

We are thoroughly enjoying the cool autumn weather and the beauty everywhere! This is what fall is all about:

Fresh apple cider

Pumpkins

Mums . . . I've never seen so many mums!

Perfect sweater weather

Falling leaves

and more fun with pumpkins

Oh how we love this time of year. I just wish it would stay forever!

Birthday Boy!

Let's all give this boy a big Texas Roadhouse Yeeeehaw for his birthday! Older and wiser for sure!

The best part about having your birthday on the weekend is that you get to celebrate it for several days! We had our neighbors over to sing happy birthday to Brooks and enjoy some yummy apple crisp, and had a delicious dinner with Morgan.

This is Jack, Spencer's buddy. Those two have so much fun together.

Morgan was in Philly so we got to meet up with him and catch up. We love how his company keeps sending him out to see us

East Coast Adventures II

We took another trip down to D.C. at the beginning of the month.

We enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL temple and grounds then headed out to see more of the city.

We checked out the tomb of the unknown soldier, Had a picnic and enjoyed the beautiful fall day,

Wandered around Theordore Roosevelt Island, and gawked at these stunning falls. The picture doesn't do it justice, but they were pretty cool. I LOVE waterfalls and it has been a while since we've seen any.

Spencer enjoyed the day outdoors.

Belaying rock climbers,

Kayaking,

and doing some rock climbing himself.

Last weekend we enjoyed the amazing fall colors of Lancaster County. We learned how to make pretzels, saw quite a few interesting animals, fed lots of ducks (note: don't tease the geese by dangling food, it will take your finger instead), and visited Wilbur's Chocolate Factory!

This one is for Mom and Melissa!

Yehaaaaw!

We not only survived, we CONQUERED!

Over a week ago we decided to go a week without TV in our home. It has become too much of a crutch for me with Spencer. It is an easy distraction to use so I can nurse without him climbing all over me. I'll turn it on thinking - okay, five minutes while I nurse. However, nursing never takes five minutes and then the TV ends up staying on for way more than five minutes. Spencer loves to pull out the DVDs and look at the covers and then wants to watch one when he's done looking, of course. The other time I often use it is in the evening so I can focus on fixing dinner. This always seems to be a stressful time of our day.

It may have been a drastic measure to cut it off completely, I know, but I was ready for the challenge, and that's exactly what I was expecting it to be - a challenge. I unplugged the TV and put all the DVDs up in a closet (out of sight). I thought for sure Spencer would try to turn on the TV or question where all the movies went. He never once asked about the movies, and maybe once a day he would walk up to the TV push the button and say "It's broken, it needs batteries". With the DVDs out of sight he spent a lot more time playing with the toys right next to the TV - because the DVDs weren't there to distract. I realized how much of the problem was me using it as a crutch as opposed to Spencer actually wanting it.

Surprisingly enough, we had an incredible week. Spencer was not nearly as emotional as he has been and I accomplished twice as much as I usually do - because Spencer was such an angel. It turns out that it is just as easy to pull down some books off the shelf for Spencer to look at while I feed Benson as it is to flip on the television. I thought for sure we'd all be a mess the first night by dinner time, but somehow we were all smiling and less stressed at dinner than we usually are. Don't get me wrong, it was a lot more work to find things to fill that time, but it was well worth the effort. I was very pleased with our efforts, but Brooks was excited to finally watch a little football by the end of the week! The DVDs are still up in the closet and we've cut back drastically on our television consumption because life is so much better without it.

East Coast Adventures

BEACH BUMS

The past few weekends we have had fun exploring the east coast. A few weeks ago we went to the beach or shore - depending on where you are from! It was a beautiful day. We staked a spot on the ocean side of the peninsula we were on. Spencer had fun with the sand and sea shells, but wouldn't set foot in the water because of the big waves Do you like where this bird decides to land right as I'm taking the picture?

And that's the end of the good pictures we got before the camera battery died! My fault for not charging it. The rest of the pictures were taken with Brooks' phone - hence the quality, or lack of. After a few hours we wandered over to the other side of the peninsula and found a great place for Spencer to swim. He would have swam all the way out to the boats if we let him!

If you look closely you can see New York across the water. It was a beautiful day, but pretty windy which made it quite the task to keep Benson out of the sun and wind and not get him too hot all covered up.

WASHINGTON D.C.

Last weekend we ventured down to D.C. We started out at the Air and Space Museum. He loved it. You could spend days in just one of the museums, but we took it Spencer speed and saw it in an hour of two.

After that we made the trek down to the memorials and the white house. I wish we could have spent more time at each one. Spencer was determined to climb all of the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial by himself. He wouldn't let me help him, and he did it, but you could tell he was getting tired by the time he got to the last few steps! Most of us even got in a midday nap. I had all three boys asleep! This picture may look fake with Spencer on his knees like that, but they both are really asleep. Once we were all rested we ventured into the National Museum of Natural History. Spencer and Brooks buzzed around looking at all the amazing exhibits while Benson and I tried to find a quite corner so Benson could finish his nap, he was not ready to wake up to a crowd.

We stopped by the D.C. temple. Spencer and I explored the grounds and the visitors center while we waited for Brooks.

The best part about the east coast is that we've had almost as many visitors in the last month as we had the whole time we were in Omaha. We've loved having these fabulous people stay with us.Benson's favorite aunt & uncle! At least until he meets everyone else, then they'll have to put up a fight to keep the title! :)

Thanks for coming! Come back soon!