Thanksgiving Break

For Thanksgiving Evan took a week off of work and we headed to southern California to spend at my Grandma's with my family.  The evening we were suppose to leave and stay in Utah the weather was pretty yucky so we turned back home.  The next morning however the roads were closed.  After several hours of waiting we decided to drive through New Mexico instead.  It was a painfully long day especially with such a late start to the day.  That evening I dropped Evan off at a ninja gym to work out and the kids and I went to Evan's sister's house to settle in for dinner and bed.  The next morning we had another long drive to San Diego to stay at my aunt's house. Evan fell asleep while trying to get the kids to bed.  Which proved challenging since I did not bring a crib with me because my grandma has one.  The weather was great in San Diego though.  My aunt had a million errands to run that day in preparations for all her kids coming home for the holiday.  So I spent most of the day outside with the kids in her hot tub and Evan spent most of the day inside order stuff off amazon for our basement remodel. We left later that evening after the traffic died down to head to my grandma's a couple hours away.  

Once we got to grandma's we played a lot in her yard and at the park.  Grandma and my mom did a great job of preparing all the food for Thanksgiving.  I did help with the veggie tray but that was about it.  On black Friday we went to a jump house/trampoline place.  We bought an all day pass so we played all morning.  We back for lunch and naps and then played again that afternoon.  We left early Saturday morning to head to Utah.  We had dinner at JDawgs with my high school buddies then crashed at my other grandparents' house. We left the next morning for Wyoming before my grandparents were even up for the day.

These pictures are not in order

Violet got a huge splinter in her hand.  (From the gate by the garage in case you were wondering Heather).  She of course did not want me to touch or look at it.  I had her soak her hand in a bowl or water and she wanted to hold grandpa Brian's hand.

Lark

Eating poolside in San Diego

Hot Tub swimming

They even took the slide down into the COLD swimming pool

Great-grandma Deon and Maverick

Grandpa likes to read the kids endless stories at bedtime and keep them way past their bedtimes.

The water fountain was broken and I refused to help the kids with it because I wanted to take pictures of them trying to get drinks instead (hehe)

Sharky with her shark shoes

Pals

Cousin Korey brought a make-up and nail polish set with her.  the girls spent hours on the back porch, I mean the beauty salon, giving any willing person a make-over

Sprinklers in the front yard

They insisted on the water wings

Meeting cousin JoJo for the first time

Violet helping with the Thanksgiving cookies

The cousins don't always get along.  This "pretty pretty princess" game ended up being the cause of many fights.  So Violet and I snuck off to the back room to play by ourselves.

Probably the highlight of the week was have Uncle Dustin teach Maverick how to skateboard.  Maverick was quite the natural.

Grandma Deon sewing per usual.  This time it was the insole to Autumn's roller blades.

jump house

After leaving my grandparents place in Utah Evan decided he wanted to drop in on his aging Grandpa.  Less than 24 hours later grandpa passed away.  This is Violet in his WWII hat.

Wolf Pack Ninja Tour

In early November Evan competed in a Ninja Warrior competition hosted by a local group on ninjas who call themselves "Wolfpack Ninjas".  Evan did three runs on the course.  The first run he fell on the second to last obstacle.  The second run he went much faster and fell on the second obstacle.  The third run to took slower and completed the course and hit the buzzer.  It was really fun to watch him compete.  He held his 16 position until a few hours before the finals.

This little girl has her own youtube channel and does ninja obstacles in her backyard.  She is Autumn's favorite ninja.

Evan and Cannon (Who owns a ninja training gym in Cheyenne, where Autumn takes classes)

Violet was uninterested in posing with the ninjas.

Autumn was upset most of the time we were there because we wouldn't let her sit by herself on the other side of the stadium.

After competition lunch with aunt Meagan and g&g Norby

Potty Training

After a few half hearted attempts over the summer to potty train Maverick and Violet I decided I would wait until after their third birthday.  Maverick got the hang of it right away but Violet preferred to just hold it all dang day until I put her in a diaper at night.  I figured that wasn't healthy so I put her back in diapers for time for about a month and then we tried again.  I took a page from my sister-in-law's play book and let Violet pick out a tiny potty (even though they totally gross me out) off Amazon and anxiously waited for it to arrive.  It took a day or so but she enjoyed her tiny potty and hasn't looked back since.

And now Lark thinks she should be allowed to use the potty...Mom's not ready for that.

Halloween

This year Autumn decided they would be characters from the movie Frozen since Violet likes it so much. I thought it was the perfect idea since we already had two costumes.  I did not however want to make the boy characters from the movie so Maverick got to be his current favorite character, Batman.  My mom brought the costume when she came to visit.  She made the costume 20 something years ago for my younger brother.

I bought Lark's Olaf costume...She loved it.

Autumn's school put on an awesome Fall carnival.  They had a game or activity in each classroom.  A few clubs from the high school came and ran most of the games.  I was very impressed with the PTO and the organization of the activity.  Seriously had no complaints-which is saying something coming from me.

I helped the kids are one pumpkin.  Evan was not invited to our party, since messes stress him out too much.

We went to Dad's work party and we all dressed up

I love this one because it looks like Maverick is punching Lark!

"The old lady who lived in a shoe...had too many kids she didn't know what to do"

I took the kids to IHop for free "scary" pancakes after Autumn got out of school.  Lark was having trouble waiting for the food.

Halloween night we went trick-or-treating with Evan's parents in our friends' neighborhood since we don't have many kids in our neighborhood.  It was chilly but we left early enough that it wasn't too bad.  The kids had fun and lasted longer than I expected.  It was really fun watching them run up to each door.