Halloween, take 2

Since Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, we decided to celebrate it on Saturday. We took part in a 5K run in the morning and went to the Trunk or Treat activity at the church ballpark at night. And just like last week, we were all decked out in our U of O gear.


We used our jack-o-lanterns to deck out our ride for handing out treats.


Aria made a haul gathering candy, and ran into some of her friends. Here she is with Eden, who was also dressed up as a cheer leader, but for Arizona.


In other news this week, we finally dropped the bomb. Yes, we bug bombed our house. Tara started getting tons of little bug bites at night that swelled up like crazy, so we took matters into our own hands and fumigated those little blood suckers!

Aria and Zade also visited Old Pueblo Gymnastics and had a blast running around.



And here's a random shot of Aria blowing bubbles and trying to catch them on the bubble wand. The bubble makes her eye look cool.

Halloween at the Zoo

We went to the Tucson Zoo for their annual Halloween event. Our little family dressed up as Oregon Duck fans, which elicited plenty of comments from all around us. :) At the time we bought our costumes we had no idea that the Ducks would be ranked #1 in college football when Halloween came around. So it was fun.


The zoo had people dressed up in all sorts of great costumes. My favorites were the Star Wars crew and the Ghostbusters. The Darth Vader costume was so realistic that Aria would not get near him for a picture. See her crying below (and my amusement).


Here's Aria giving Zade a bear hug.


MESA TEMPLE
The next day we headed to Mesa to visit the temple. Aria and Zade didn't get their regular afternoon naps in, so when we went out to Soup & Salad for dinner afterwards, they both began breaking down. Aria refused to eat anything except fishy crackers and ice cream and Zade kept letting out these ear piercing screeches if he didn't have something he could put in his mouth. So we began crushing peas and macaroni for him to eat, which he used to create a gigantic mess, and when we gave him oranges slices, he'd accidentally push them off his tray as he attempted to put them in his mouth, which would make him so mad, that he'd start screeching again. I could hardly eat anything cause I was constantly fishing those stupid orange slices off the lower deck of his tray. Then Aria would scream when he'd scream, to get him to stop screaming, and a vicious cycle ensued. Worst meal of my life. I lack the words to describe how awful it was. So bad. So very very bad. (Tara somehow found humor in my suffering, which didn't help.)

ARIA & NURSERY
The following day, we went to church, and Aria continued her recent trend of protesting going to nursery by screaming. Tara decided to use the "love and logic" approach and offered Aria 2 choices: she could either go to nursery or be locked in the car in the parking lot. Aria consistently chose to be locked in the car. What made it worse, is that she actually likes being locked in the car, so the punishment backfired. Parenting, oh parenting....

Here comes Halloween

CORN MAZE
We try to make it an annual tradition to go out to a local farm and do a corn maze together as a family. This year we went to Buckelew Farms with our friend Kyli Grenier and her family. We enjoyed wandering around the petting zoo and the pumpkin patch before embarking on the mighty corn maze. This years maze was the designed to be the face of the Arizona Wildcat. All the curves made it a pretty tricky maze, but we had a good time. Zade's favorite part was chomping down on the stalks.







PARK
Here area few other fun pics from the week. Here are the kids at McCormick park (Arizona winters rule!):



OLD CLOTHES
Tara decided to pack up a lot of the clothes Aria had outgrown. However, Aria doesn't think they're too small yet, so she got into them and spent the better part of a day just trying on some of her old favorites. If you look carefully at the picture below, you'll also notice she got a big gash on her nose. That's the result of her climbing up the high chair and falling off and landing on the high chair's tray. We're so grateful she only cut her nose instead of her eye.


STRANGE SLEEPER
When we went to check in on Aria after we put her to bed, we found her sleeping in this odd position. Looks like she's taking after our cat Azure and sleeps as if she's a piece of roadkill.

Oktoberfest

We went up to Mount Lemmon (9125 feet) to enjoy Oktoberfest and some cool weather. They had live German music, bratwurst, and other delicious food, and of course, the chair lift to the top of the mountain.


Aria's favorite part was the dancing. Here she is joining in on the chicken dance:




Here we are at the top:





Here's Zade showing his Beaver spirit. Though were Wildcat fans now, we always root for the Beavs! :)


In other news, the weather has finally cooled down here in the valley (it's only upper 80's now), so we've been going on family walks again to the park. Zade loves playing on the swings:

Conference

General Conference is so relaxing, since we can just watch church from the comfort of our own home. However, just like at church, once the services begin, the children transform. We've noticed that once we turn on General Conference, Aria immediately becomes "needy" and demands our attention. As soon as it ends, she once again becomes an independent little girl, playing all by herself. Why is that!?!

Oh well, here's a nice pic of Tara attempting to watch conference and singing during a hymn (we stream it over the internet from lds.org). Don't let this picture fool you. The calmness of the children in this picture is NOT representative of their usual church behavior.

Crazy?

Which of the children is crazier? That's easy:




Aside from letting Aria provide his entertainment, Zade has now gotten into piggy back rides too.