Cotten Picking with Uncle Darren

Its that wonderful time of the year in Gila Valley when all the cotton fields get picked. We are lucky to live in the valley for this reason because Ridge gets to see his favorite thing in the whole world -tractors and is lucky enough to even get to ride them. I've stated before Ridge has a special relationship with his Uncle Darren and its partically due to the fact that Uncle Darren drives tractors.

This is Ridge's first time to get to ride on the cotton pickers. The pictures below are when Aunt Sara took Ridge on the tractor for a bit. She was kind enough to document it for me.

Then yesterday I got the opportunity myself to go on one of the tractors along with Cambree and Ridge. Its actually quite a fascinating thing. I made the mistake of bringing Cambree because she was done as soon as we got on. We were on a field that had an awesome crop. It was so tall in parts and so thick.

The kids wouldn't cooperate for nothing in any of these pictures, but still cool to see where they are..

Camera trick :) Darren is tall so according to this picture the cotton would be as tall as his shoulder. While the cotton is tall here, Darren is kneeling a bit to make it appear even taller :) His idea. Its tricked everyone so far but now the cats out the bag.

It was a lot of fun to be apart of that for a bit and thanks to Sara for taking Ridge so many times and for Sara and Pat for watching Brecklynn so I could go ride one time with the kids. It was great visiting with Darren too. Thanks Darren for allowing so many passengers.

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. It was fun having the kids older to understand the whole concept of trick-or-treating. And amazingly, the kids wore their costumes. We did a little bribing but hey it worked right?

Curtis had to work till about 4:30 so we didn't do anything before. But once he got home we started the festivities. Cambree insisted this time round to wear red lipstick. I didn't have any so I mixed face paint with lip gloss. You'll notice that the once lipstick managed to turn her lips into clown lips. Kind of funny. Ridge actually wore his costume after we told him he'd get candy.

Here's our little pumpkin.

We first went to our ward party which was also a trunk or treat deal. The kids were so stink'n cute. They insisted on holding each other's hands as they went from car to car. And Ridge was so cute about saying trick-or-treat. It sounded like 'up a tree' and he would say it loud and proud. They caught on so quickly and loved it. They made out good.

After went to Granny and Grandpa's

Lastly we ended up at Nana and Papa's.

We met up with the rest of the family there. Here's little Darrek as a little hot dog.

Here's all three babies. Grady cracked us all up. His little hat deal made his cheeks so big. It almost looked like a torture device.

Cambree ended up going with Sara and Darren's kids for a bit to do some more trick-or-treating. She got so much candy. Curtis and I then went to a costume party. It was so much fun and great to get out to do something like that. It was a ton of fun!! So it was a great holiday. I cannot believe October is gone!! Thanksgiving here we come....

Brecklynn is 3 months!! (3 new posts too)

This is a bit overdue but Brecklynn is now 3 months old. I cannot believe how fast time is flying....

She is such a great baby. We had to take her to a cardiologist appointment because the Dr. heard a heart murmur and with Curtis' family history with heart problems, wanted to make sure everything was ok. She is thankfully ok but we also got to weigh her since there is no 3 month appointment. She's getting bigger. Now she's 24 inches long and weighs 11 lbs. and 7 oz.

Some fun things about Brecklynn, she now can roll over from her tummy to her back. She does it all the time. She loves to talk to people. She doesn't like to be held close to the body. She likes to be out where she can see and talk to you. She is such a smiley baby and coos and talks all the time. She has the cutest little laugh and gets so excited. Curtis makes this one sound that just gets her going. So cute.

Over the last month she has become and even easier baby. I could probably keep her for preschool more because she is so easy but thankfully my mother-in-law and grandma are so willing to help take her for that bit. Really has helped out a ton. You can leave her down on the chair and she'll sit and talk to herself for a long time. I swear she is teething just like Ridge did at her age. Her front is always soaked and she loves to eat her hands or someone else's. Curtis calls her a shark when she's going for someone's finger. Hilarious. She loves to stand. Probably not the best yet for her but she just likes to be up. Its great seeing her personality come out more and more.

Brecklynn and Darrek. They truly look like twins. I need to post some of the better pictures that depict that but its truly amazing!! We put them in pumpkin outfits and took a few shots just for fun. So neat watching these two grow up together.

Cambree

I'm having fun taking pics of Cambree. She is always asking me to take her picture and poses herself. Here's some fun ones...

Preschool Halloween Party

Yesterday was our Preschool Halloween Party. I always get so stressed over these little things, and I don't know why. It was a lot of fun and thankfully, the weather was absolutely perfect. The only hard thing was Ridge wanting everyone's candy, and all the kids being on an extreme sugar high. Other than that, it was a lot of fun.

This was a picture I took of Cambree before the party and it was the only decent looking one with the exception it was completely blown in the original and so the only way to make it somewhat ok was to change it to this color scheme. Oh well :)

Here's the party set up. There was also two of the preschool tables on the grass.

Ridge obliged and at least wore his shirt and tool belt this time. That's something at least.

Doing cookie decorating, and popcorn monster hands....

I had two mom's come to help with the party and they each put on a game. This one was bowling. Really cute. The other was candy corn relay. Funny to watch the kids try to grasp the concept of the games.

Another terribly lighted picture but I didn't realize it till too late..its all the kids dressed up. Super cute.

We ended the party with the kids singing two Halloween songs to their parents- Dracula Hunt and Mean old Witch. Way cute. I wasn't thinking and didn't take any pictures or take any video. I could kick myself. Hopefully I can get some from another parent that was there. Overall it was a success!!

Family Halloween Party

This past weekend, I headed to the valley to see my Uncle Mark and his family. He is in the military and being transfered to San Diego so he stopped here for a few days. It was great to see him again. We also had our family Halloween Dinner. It's so much fun. All the kids dress up and we have a dinner where they are given a menu with things like witches brew, goblins eyes etc. and they order off of it and are given real food. This has been a tradition since I was a kid. Then they end the evening with a little trick-or-treating inside the house in all the doors down stairs.

I was way excited about finally breaking out the costumes and figured since Cambree couldn't stop talking about hers, that she would be excited as well. I think a lack of sleep added to the drama of the night and just made me extremely frustrated. We put on her costume and then attempted to try and take pictures-my first major mistake. She was being such a diva. These were only a few of the pictures I got of her being a stinker.

This is my sweet, gorgeous 7 year old cousin Olivia. She was so cute with Cambree and Brecklynn.

Here's part of the trick-or-treating. Notice Ridge is without costume....and so goes my luck of the night.

Here's my Uncle Mark with Brecklynn. He was so great with her. She was constantly smiling with him.

Here's the great dinner. This is the youngest kids of the group.

Here are some of the kids of the family. Notice Cambree is MIA along with Ridge.

Ridge did make it into this one.

Brecklynn being a cute pumpkin

Here is what Ridge's costume is supposed to look like. It was a construction worker. He hasn't wanted to put this all on since first getting it. We'll see what Halloween brings but I guess I at least got one picture of him before he took it off.

Fire Station Field Trip

Last Friday, my preschool took a field trip to the local Thatcher Fire Station. The kids had been looking forward to this for a couple weeks. Ridge was so excited when we got there. He had never seen so many fire trucks that close.

Here is most of the group. Of course my kids refused to join in the picture and we're missing two other kids from the class.

Each kid got to ring the bell in one of the fire trucks.

Fire Fighter Mike tried on his uniform for us and then let each kid put on some of the uniform. It took a bit of convincing at first, but eventually most of them tried the boots on.

It was a lot of fun, and the kids loved sharing what they knew about fire safety.