HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Okay, so I'm a little late. But I couldn't miss out on this post because it's just TOO cute and we had just TOO much fun! At first, I didn't give Halloween alot of thought this year. We were SO busy with Christmas rehearsals that I was choreographing and we were feeling a little overwhelmed with life. Then there was that small added stress of what to do about Halloween. If it wasn't for our son, we probably would've written it off this year.

About a week before Halloween I was joking around when I told Cam we should just go as 80's cartoons. Little did I know that it had to have been a purely inspired idea because these were the BEST costumes EVER (in our opinion any way)!! Best of all, I MADE costumes. Never done anything like that before and we had SO much fun. It was really fun teaching Kashton what a Smurf was. I made his costume!

Thank You make-up classes from BYU. Kashton was SO good and held so still. The threat of not going "trick-or-treating" and getting lots of candy was enough for him to hold still.

These pictures are a little out of order but for some reason, Blogger wont let me move them into the correct order. Dumb program. :) Cute little dude trick or treating.
YUP, made THIS FANTASTIC costume as well!!!

Bad picture (my battery was dying)

Kashton the Smurf and Macy the Monarch Butterfly!

Cute little bum!!!

The kids (minus Parker who showed up after we took this picture)! Kashton, Kendal (Tinkerbell), Macy (Butterfly), Talen (Peter Pan), and Heaven (cute Zebra).

Rainbow Bright posing with her little poser!! I didn't make my costume. I actually found it on ebay for $10 and it was SO cute!!! I made my wand and bought the "armbands" at Target (really, they're socks).

Okay, quick FUN story. I looked online for a He-Man costume and they were all WAY too expensive so I thought: I'm making that!!! Because I live in a dumb city :), I had to drive 45 min. to get to a fabric store, so we usually make a family trip when we go there. That ended up being so fun. Cameron normally doesn't care about such things, but I guess because it was HIS costume....HE CARED!!!! He picked out ALL of his own fabric. I was going more for the cheap, silly fabric. OH NO, he wanted the GOOD stuff. He-Man was his hero and he had to look just PERFECT. It was so cute, I loved how much thought and detail he put into it all. We stayed up until 1:30 the night before finishing his costume and he worked along side of me the entire time. I loved it. He went into the craft store and picked out his own medallions to go on his sword, breast plate,arm bands and belt and he was very picky about them too. In fact, he wasn't quite pleased with the medallion for his belt, so on Halloween day he dressed up in his costume and walked into Michaels to get another one and he was SO proud of that costume. He carried that sword like it was his pride and joy. :) He made it out of wood and then spray painted it silver. I wish I could see him get that motivated to fix some things around the house. :) I'm thankful for my performing background because not only did I have the wig stored in all my old costume stuff, but I've worn MANY spats in my day. So I designed his "boots" to be spats that he could pulled over his shoes. They turned out AWESOME!!!

Kelly and Mark were really sick two days earlier (Mark had the flu and Kelly had a bad cold), so they were good sports and sported their hospital scrubs and braved the outdoors with us for a short while before they retired home.

After Trick-or-Treating, we went to a Halloween party! Kashton's getting sleepy!!

I TOLD you he was proud. He put on the "act" the entire day!!

Sad Story: As we were walking the neighborhood so many kids kept asking us what we were. HOW SAD IS THAT????? When we told them: He-Man, Rainbow Bright, and a Smurf. The kids looked at us as if we were nuts. And I'm not talking about young kids, I'm talking about 14-15 year olds. Come on Parents, don't let your kids grow up not knowing the AWESOMEST (yes, it's a word) CARTOONS EVER!!!

The Peter Pan crew!!!

Hope everyone had as wonderful of a Halloween as we did!!!

Pumpkin Carving!!!

Earlier this month (and a previous post), we went to a pumpkin patch and let the kids pick out pumpkins. We decided to let them fingerpaint their pumpkins while the adults carved theirs. I think they had a fantastic time painting them.

I think it's cute that Talen chose such a tiny pumpkin.

He's moving in for....

...the Kiss!!!

So proud of his beautiful pumpkin!!!

I love carving pumpkins!!!! The seeds were YUMMY too!!!

My Little Daredevil!!!

You may or may not have noticed that in the past couple of posts, Kashton's been holding his arm a little funny!! This post is a little over-due....but, better late than never, right?????

About a month ago, Kashton was playing around in the living room with his cousins and they get a little too rowdy sometimes. It was right before bed and they were all jumping off the couch and recliner. This is something that I've CONSTANTLY told him to NOT do.

Side-note: I wasn't too pleased when Cameron taught him to put all the pillows on the floor and then do somersaults off the couch and onto the pillows. I knew this was a very bad idea. But dad is the cool, fun dad and mom just takes away all the fun. So, who does Kashton listen to?? The fun person, or the boring person??? YOU GUESSED IT!!!

Kashton did some kind of Superman flip off of the recliner and I heard him scream in pain and then just lay there on the floor. I immediately knew something was wrong when a half hour later, he was still crying. He usually bounces back fast. We were hoping for a minor little sprain and he'd feel better in the morning. We put him in bed with us and he cried most of the night. So we took him to see the doctor in the morning.

Not sure if you can see this very good, but it's a nice clean break all the way across the bone.

I wanted to cry my eyes out when I saw these x-rays. I can't believe my little boy BROKE HIS ARM!!!! However, he was very cute when he was picking out what color of cast he wanted. He went from yellow, to blue, to green, back to yellow, red, blue, yellow, green. We were going to settle on yellow but he hollered at the doctor as he was on his way out of the room and wanted red. We left it at that!!! Red it is!!!

I'm amazed at how resilient these little kids are. Kashton has been right-handed and with this cast on his right arm, he hasn't acted phased by it at all. He still climbs up on everything using his left arm, jumps around, falls ALOT, eats with his left hand, etc. It's amazing to me!!! Such a strong, brave little boy. Everyone at the doctor's office was amazed at what a good little boy he was when he got his cast on. He held SO still and thought it was SO cool. Typical Boy!!!

Yesterday, he got the cast off!!! I'm also amazed that he only had to have it on for three weeks. Wierd!!! I guess little bodies heal much faster than big bodies!!

Again, everyone was amazed at what a good boy he was. He wasn't a bit afraid of the saw. He called it a vacuum.

He held his arm straight out in front of him like this for a few hours before he forgot all about it and started using it as if nothing ever happened. Hopefully he'll be more careful around the furniture!!!

Dogwood Canyon

We had a couple of days off of work because the Showboat was being decorated for Christmas. We also had a RARE day of sunshine considering it has rained almost every day all month long. So we decided to make a little drive down to Dogwood Canyon in Arkansas and enjoy nature. We had alot of fun!! I love that place, it's beautiful!! We missed the really pretty fall colors by about a week, but it was still beautiful! It was so peaceful and quiet. I would've loved to have spent the whole day there.

We found this little buddy hanging out in Kashton's hair!! Walking Sticks are SO cool. There are a ton of them out here.

Our model pose!!!

Ah!! Nature is AWESOME!! (As long as there are no spiders around)

Cool Mushrooms!!

Every once in a while we found this random little fairy frolicking in the woods!! She was weird!!

What a fun, and much needed day!!!

Our Visit To The Pumpkin Patch!!!

We found a local pumpkin patch here in Branson (the McKenna Farm) and I wasn't expecting much of it, but I was pleasantly surprised!!! Maybe because it's not too difficult to please a two year old. :)

Sadly, Cameron had to work and we REALLY missed having our daddy around to share such a fun experience with.

Kashton picked his pumpkin out very quickly. Probably because he could pick it up. :)

There were these fun little tricycles to ride around a little track. He's still TOO short to do anything like this but he sure did try hard. It was nearly impossible to pull him away from them. I threatened him with time-outs and bribed him with treats to come away from the cycles and he still wouldn't come with me. So I dragged him away literally kicking and screaming. He LOVED them!!!

Not quite tall enough!!!

There were these large industrial tubes on the farm that they had turned into little slides. Kashton loved them. This farm definitely catered more towards younger kids which was PERFECT for us. We had a blast!!!

We had so much fun running through a "Hay Maze." The maze was very small, but again, we had alot of fun and it was perfect for little legs. I kept running ahead of him and snapping pictures. He thought it was hilarious!!

So precious!!!

There were baby pigs that Kashton thought were SUPER cool!!!

MUAH!!!

What a silly boy!!!

We walked through the corn fields!!!

Being silly in the pumpkin patch!!!

Picking out a pumpkin!!!

All three kids were so cute!! I love this picture!!!

We went on a little hay ride that was pulled by tractor!!! The kids loved it!!

There was a corn kennel pit that Kashton LOVED to jump into. He was entertained for such a long time just climbing out of the pit and jumping back into it. It was so cute to watch him have such a blast!!!!

A VERY steep slide!! I was a little nervous but he wasn't even phased!!! My little dare-devil!!!

We found our pumpkins!!! YAY!!! What a great afternoon!!!

We'll have to go back next year and we'll make sure we take Daddy with us then!!! We had a blast but sure missed him!!!

First Haircut!!!

Well, I guess that time had to come!!! It took forever for his hair to even grow. He was bald for over a year of his life. We've been so proud of his HAIR!!! The longer Kashton's hair grew, the curlier it would get and I just loved those little curls. Neither Cameron or myself were too enthused about cutting it. However, after MULTIPLE times a day of receiving compliments about our darling "little girl", we decided that either we choose to give our little boy a complex, or we cut the curls!!!

So, we said goodbye to the curls!!!

We found this place in Springfield!! I tried to get a "before" picture but he just wouldn't hold still long enough.
He got to choose his own station and his own video. He chose to ride in the blue airplane and watch a Little Einsteins.

Okay, many of you know it's impossible to get a two year old to hold still. But he was SO incredibily good. I've never seen him sit so still before.

Looking "down at the penguin" on his cape while she cut the back of his hair!!

Almost done!!!

Such a handsome boy with his new haircut!!!

In his airplane!!! What a GREAT place!!!

Such a sweet boy!! This haircut has made him look SO grown up. He doesn't look like my little baby anymore. He's my little man!!!

Swinging with Dad!!!

Recently my brother Joe came to Branson to visit . He was attending some conferences for work up in St. Louis and once his conferences were over, he came down to Branson and spent a day and a half with us before he returned to Utah. I LOVED having him with us even if it was for only a short time. It was fun to show him this crazy town that we call home. Silly Siblings!!! We were told to pull a goofy face. It's funny that we both stuck our tongues way out, we're both beveling our foot...however, I don't know what is up with my random jazz hand. Once a dancer, always a dancer!!
Joe attended church with us and then we drove him up to Springfield and dropped him off at the airport. We drove to a near-by park while we waited to see if Joe got on his flight okay. Kashton LOVES to ride "spider" on the swings with mommy and daddy!

Silly Boys!!!

More sillys!!!

My sweet baby with his long, crazy hair!!!

Random picture Cameron took of me trying to get some sun on my pasty, pale body!!! I can't believe how WHITE I am!!! Wow!!! Well, at least my shoes are FABULOUS!!! That's all that matters, right?