Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween this year.  We were thrilled to be able to decorate our house, go trick or treating in our (new!) neighborhood, and have lots of fun celebrating!

Lydia as Jasmine

Sam as Pikachu

Abby as Rey

Andrew as a dinosaur (or as he calls it "a raaar")

The kids had school off the Friday before Halloween so we went to Raleigh to one of our favorite museums, Marbles.  Andrew played with the trains while the big kids created Frankentoys with old broken art supplies and toys.  They LOVED it!

They were super excited to get a Halloween box from Grandma and Baba Z with fun shirts and a kit to make a haunted mansion.

Oh, the fun we have at Target exploring the Halloween decor and costumes!

A community just south of ours has a Halloween Village the weekend before Halloween.  They display really awesome jack-o-lanterns, have a spooky storytime, and set up a few extra Pokemon lures...so everyone was happy :)

I got to help Sam's class celebrate Fall holidays from around the world.  They made diyas from India, Day of the Dead pictures, ate some fun treats, read some stories, and played Halloween bingo.  It was so fun to meet some of the kids that I hear stories about :)

Fun Catch-up

I had to take this picture of this independent cute kiddo. He did the styling himself 😀

We went to Watermelon Day at the Durham Museum and enjoyed playing and seeing the pigs eat frozen watermelon. 

When I was at BYU I took classes from and worked for an awesome professor, Dr. Eula Monroe, who is retiring the end of the month. I was invited to write a tribute to her and send a picture showing how I am using my education degree today. Dr. Monroe is a big believer in ice cream and would occasionally send me running to the Wilk to pick up a couple scoops for each of us. I had to take a picture of my kids eating ice cream for her tribute. 

This crazy kid wants a picture with the Target dog every time

School Started

School started last week which means our house is quieter, Lydia and Andrew get more attention, and we miss Abby and Sam all day. They both got fabulous teachers and love being back to school. Those of us left behind had to drown our sorrows with a day at Marbles Museum and played to distract ourselves. But how could we be too sad with the excitement of my big kids?  Look at those excited smiles!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a super fun Labor Day weekend with lots of time outside. The humidity of NC disappeared for the moment and we spent hours outside. We went to a really fun Pokemon party with friends, hiked along 2 of the Eno River trails, had fun sibling play time at home and the park, and got to see our house!

A Weekend with the Zs

We spent a fun weekend celebrating Andrew's birthday with Grandma and Baba Z. We explored one of our favorite places here--the Durham Life and Science Museum. It's so much fun and has a great variety of hands-on learning and playing opportunities. 

Thanks for coming and spoiling our sweet, crazy, one in a million Andrew!

Building a House

We are building a house in Chatham County, NC. It means all kinds of things to us right now--patience with temporary housing, excitement in seeing it go from dirt to what you see below, frustration that it is taking way to long, flexibility with planning, joy in envisioning what we will do. That only names a handful of the feelings of the last 2 months. So far we love NC. We have been impressed with friendly people, less traffic, fun activities, and new friends. We went and saw the house this morning and it looks great!  Our general contractor even let the kids add something a little extra to make this house their home: