Halloween Fun!

Pumpkin Land

We started our Halloween festivities this year by going to Pumpkin Land with a group from our neighborhood. Sydney had a ton of fun being with her friends, going through the corn maze, playing on all sorts of playgrounds, and picking her pumpkin. Zoe did what she always does, and chilled in the stroller without complaining. :)

Costume Party

The next thing we did was the annual costume party with Nick’s family. Everyone did a great job with their costumes, and the food was delicious! Mine and Nick's costumes may be considered “inappropriate” so you may scroll down to the next Halloween function if you’d prefer.

Sydney was “Snow White” and has loved every minute of wearing her costume. I liked the idea of her being a princess because the dress will work for dress-up clothes for the next year or so. Zoe was a “Cow”, and might I just say she was the cutest cow I’ve ever seen. I was an “Outlet” and Nick was the “Plug” ;)

Below is a picture of all the adults at the party,

and one of the kiddies (minus Zoe, she was asleep)

Back row left to right: McKenzie, Liam, and Shona

Front row left to right: Aiden, Connor, Cameron, Kenndle, Sydney, Calum

(I know I probably got some of those names spelled wrong, sorry)

Pumpkin carving

The day after we had a pumpkin carving party with my family and all the grandkids came in their costumes.

Left to right: Caleb ,he’s holding Ava, Sydney, Zoe, Tate, Ashton, and he’s holding Ali.

And here are the families with their creations

Us

Emilie, Matt and Caleb

Michelle, Dad and Mom

Brittany, Eric, Ava, Ali, Tate, and Ashton

Brad and Lauren

Halloween Day

• The girls and I met Nick for lunch.
• I attempted to take the girls to see Wall-E at the dollar movie theater (Whole other story on its own. Needless to say, that is not a movie for 2 1/2 year olds... or me. I wasted $2.50).
• Sydney and Zoe went Trick-or-Treating at Nicks work. They scored big time here.
• That evening we went Trick-or-Treating in the rain for about 20 minutes . Sydney had fun and wanted to knock on more doors, but she had more than enough candy.
• And last... we went to a tasty Fondue party at our friends. The food was a wonderful way to end the day.

Mr. A-Z Himself!!!

Nick and I had the pleasure of seeing Jason Mraz at a private show last night! It was so incredible! Here's how we happen to come upon these tickets. We're all familiar with facebook, right? Well, somehow a friend of Nick's from elementary school found him and added him as a friend a little while back. Earlier this week she saw that Nick "became a fan" of Jason Mraz, and told him that Jason was doing a private show for her work. Of course we were completely jealous. As it turned out, she ended up having two extra tickets yesterday afternoon, and asked Nick if we wanted them. So, Nick and I got to see my most favorite singer with his elementary school friend he hadn't seen in 14+ years. Crazy, huh!

It was an amazing show. You know how some performers just aren't as good live as they are recorded. Not the case with Jason Mraz. He is remarkable with words and his voice is amazing! Here's a video of him just before the batteries died on our camera (I could kick myself for not thinking to bring extra batteries). The sound isn't great, but that's because we were ON THE FRONT ROW, BABY!!! Oh, and a special thanks to my friend Jaimee, who watched our girls at the last minute. What an awesome friend :) I owe her big!

Milestones

Zoe finally got 2 teeth about 2 weeks ago. And it's about time, she's been gumming everything she can get her mouth on. On Sunday she was trying to bite Sydney's legs. Sydney was moving her leg around and Zoe was trying her hardest to grab it. Once she grabbed it, she bit into it like it was a tasty rotisserie chicken leg. Mmmm! (props to my sister Michelle for the great picture showing the two teeth)

Now the most exciting milestone of the month is...

SYDNEY IS POTTY TRAINED!!

It's been a long process. I've been so careful not to push potty training on her that it's taken about 5 months of trying off and on. I didn't want to traumatize her. Looking back, I think I should have been more persistent with it. I tried a few different incentives to get her excited about the whole thing. At first we did a sticker chart. That lasted for about 2 days and then she could care less. She would freak out when I said it was potty time, so we took some time off. Then we tried treats as the "reward". This time she would be okay with going when I said "potty time", but never told us when she needed to go. We had a lot of accidents, and that got us all very frustrated. So we took another break. Then we decided we should try a toy as an incentive. So I took Sydney to the store and we walked up and down the toy aisles at Target. I would show Sydney a toy that I thought she might like and she would get excited and I'd ask. "Can you learn how to go in the potty for this toy?" and she would say "No way." After going down every toy aisle, and threatening to leave without a toy, Sydney decided on an assortment of animals, seen here

The toys worked for a while, but Sydney just wasn't interested in telling us when she needed to go. Finally I took the toys away for a day when she had an accident and we haven't had very many problems since. Whew! I'm so glad it's over and now we can save the $50 a month we would have spent on diapers and wipes for her. Hurray!

Giddy-up Horsey!

Today I was lying down on the floor next to Zoe. Any time someone is laying on the floor, Sydney decides there's no better time to play horsey. So Sydney comes running over and sits on my back and yells "Ride horsey?" I really wasn't in the mood so I continued laying there and told Sydney we could play later. Then it happened... with two swift heels to my ribs Sydney yells "GIDDY-UP horsey!!..... Harder?!?" And then another couple of solid kicks to my ribs. It was all I could to hold in my laughter. The last thing I want is for Sydney to think its okay to kick me. But then I couldn't hold it in any longer and busted out laughing, and Sydney started kicking me again and again. Oh it was too funny. It's amazing to me how these little kids can pick up on so many things.

A few weeks ago we were in Vernal visiting some of Nick's family. While we were there Nick's Uncle, Aunt and Cousin were nice enough to let us ride their horses. Well one of the horses was just being extremely stubborn and would NOT move an inch. They kept telling us to kick him hard with our heels to get him to go. Obviously Sydney was paying close attention, as I experienced today. Here are some photos of us riding the "real" horses and the kids playing horses...

Yum Yum!

Zoe has been eating baby food for a little while now, but it was only until this week that she truely has liked it.  I think she's gotten over the texture thing.

The Office

We did it!!!!! We stayed up til midnight and went and got "The Office" Season 4! Oh, I'm so freakin' excited! Now all I need to do is get my hours in for work and find a babysitter. Then I'll be ready to watch the many hours of our favorite show undisturbed. I'm so giddy:) Thanks Nick for staying up so late to make me so very HAPPY! (Yes. We were the only ones waiting for the Wal-Mart employee to remove the DVD from the box. It's not that lame... ok, maybe a little. But at least I know we're the most devoted fans in Sandy City)

**Side note... if you are planning to purchase this wonderful, amazing, hilarious DVD... it's $10 cheaper at Costco. DOH!!!

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'...

Baby Zoe's Rollin'!!! Zoe officially rolled over last night! And she did it more than once too :) WAHOO!

Commit to be fit

I've been trying (more like somewhat trying) to go walking everyday to balance out my eating habits. A group of us moms load up the kids and walk about 2 miles in the morning. Sydney tends to like the walks because she'll get to eat crackers and snacks I usually wouldn't let her eat before 10am. After the walk we go to the park and let the kids play on the playground while the moms stretch. I never noticed Sydney paying attention to us stretching, but apparently she was.

Yesterday, she was sitting on the floor grabbing her ankle, saying "Mommy, My schatching!" I responded with "Oh? Did you get an owie? Does it itch?" "No! My SCHATCHING!" and again she reached for her ankle while groaning. Then it dawned on me. She was STRETCHING. So I ran and grabbed the camera and asked her to do all the stretches that Mommy does. I've posted both Sydney's stretching poses and some images of the correct stretch she is trying to imitate. FYI, I don't groan while I stretch. She must have picked that part up from one of the other moms ;) ENJOY!

Pretty good form, don't you think?

Cabin trip continued...

Saturday after breakfast we went and saddled up a couple horses, Stormy and Meg. Sydney just loved riding the horses. She truly is a 'Cowgirl' at heart. While we were riding Sydney sang over and over, "I love horsey; she loves me. I love other horsey, yes sirree; He loves us, and so you see... we are a happy family." It was just so cute. She would also tell Stormy "Good Tormys" and lean over and pat her on the neck.

That afternoon, Grandpa took us fishing at a Fish Farm in Kamas. It was hilarious to see the Dad's try and fish with their kids, because the kids would reel in the line before the fish had a chance to bite the hook. Sydney caught her fish in record time and it turned out to be the biggest catch of the day, but she didn't stick around to find out ...

Here are some more photos of the trip:

The fishing was a lot of fun, and it tasted great for dinner (or so I'm told. I really wasn't interested). Sunday we rode horses more, played more games, danced to the player piano, cleaned up, and headed home. I just love vacations at our cabin. It's inexpensive, fun, and close by :)

Wilkinson Family Vacation 2008

This last weekend we headed to our family cabin. And man did we have a blast! We got there Thursday night in time for Sydney to play with her cousins for a little while and then straight to bed, so the adults could play some games without the little ones getting in the way :)

Here's my brother Eric and me rockin' out on Guitar Hero! Check out how focused we are. FYI... I've advanced to the medium level, WAHOO! I know that's not all that good but I'm very excited.

Friday morning we started up the good ol' three-wheelers and took the kids for a ride in the trailer. They all got a kick out of this and didn't want to stop.

Then some of us played horse shoes on this awesome horse shoe pit the guys in my family built a few years ago.

We then headed to a park in Oakley for the kids to play at. The giant slide at this park wasn't designed very well. We sent two of the kids down, both of which face planted it at the end. The problem with the slide was at the bottom there was an abrupt turn and the kids would flip over head first and land on their heads at the end of the slide. OUCH! Sydney wouldn't go near the slide after that. We also had some races on the grass, which were a lot of fun. Afterwards, we all ate a refreshing popsicle from Oakley's little convenient store. Here's some photos of the fun...

That's enough for now. I'll post more about our trip soon.

Mill Hollow Weekend

The weekend of July 24th we went on our annual camping trip to Mill Hollow with Nick's extended family. On our way up we stopped at the"Train" restaurant in Heber with Grandma Janet, Aunt Jen and her kids, and Nick's Uncle Dee and Aunt Betty. Sydney loved the train that was going around the rooms in the restarant and also loved the cool train outside that you can sit on. I had to bribe her with hot tamales to get her to down and get in the car. She's a sucker for hot tamales, aka "Hot stuff" :)

Only about 1/2 of the family was able to make it to Mill Hollow this year, so we didn't have the intense dodge ball games that we've had in the past :( But we did have a good time talking, hanging out by the fire and playing horse shoes. Sydney mostly loved following around Roger and Andrea's dog, Mack.

Above is Sydney and her second cousin Aiden giving hugs to Mack. The poor dog had Sydney hanging on him all weekend long.

Okay, so it really wasn't "camping"... We stayed in a cabin and had a cafateria for our meals, but we did have a camp fire. Below is Nick and Sydney on one of the bunk-beds in the cabin.

Here we have the whole group. Starting at the top left on the stairs: Betty, Calum, Dee, Grandma Janet, and Ed. Going down the stairs is: Coral, Mckenzie, Shona, Andrea, and Aiden. Then Gavin, Jen, Sydney, Maggie, Conner, Julienne, and Emma on the very bottom of the steps. To the left of the steps is Rob w/ the football, Nick's brother Jason, and Roger with his dog Mack. And of course on the right is Nick, Zoe and me.

I had to post the goofy picture we did. Usually I think these kinds of pictures turn out dorky, but this one made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd share it with all of you :)

A Birthday Trip to the Zoo

July 23rd was my sister Michelle's Birthday and we continued the tradition of celebrating it at the Hogle Zoo! This is a tradition I look forward to every year. As many of us that can skip out on work and household responsibilities and all head to the Zoo for the day.

Here is Michelle with the kids next to her ginormous tomato plants to the right.

All the cousins were able to make it and even their second cousin Luke and his mom Emily were there, along with Grandma Wilkinson, Aunt Emily and Uncle Brad. We had such a good time and only wished we could have spent more time there and had the rest of the family with us. Some of Sydney's favorite animals this year were the white alligator/crocodile (I can never remember which one has the rounder snout), the "big" owl, the elephant, the "little" bear, the giraffe, and the "sad" monkey. I'm sure she loved all the animals, because Sydney's just that way, but those are the ones she continues to talk about.

I couldn't believe the bird show. It was so-o cool! The birds would fly right over our heads and I don't just mean above our heads. I mean if you sat up as straight as you possible could, right as the bird few by, the bird would have hit you. It really was amazing. Some of the birds at the front of the little theater were so cute. One would dance to the music and then they would hand it a water bottle and it acted like it was drinking from it. Very fun! At the end of the show we all went to the front and had each of the kids hand one of the birds a dollar bill. Who would then walk over to the donation box and drop the dollar in. What a great way to get people to donate! They got $6 out of us, and had we had more dollar bills they would have gotten even more :) I recommend taking the time to watch this show the next time you're at Hogle Zoo. It was fun.

My girls are so lucky to have an Aunt like my sister Michelle. She's always planning some fun adventure for the nieces and nephews, and they just love it. Sydney loves Michelle so much she calls her "Mommy Michelle" and is always by Michelle's side whenever we're with her. Thanks Michelle for such a great Birthday Celebration, and thanks Grandma for paying for the fun rides. We had a wonderful time!