Throwback.. Friday :)

Today at the Pumpkin Patch I was thinking about all the family pictures we've taken there and I wanted to line them all up to see how our family has grown. 

2009

2010

2011

 2013

2014

I love my little family! 

"Punkin Patch"

I can't believe it was already time for the pumpkin patch again! The Miller's welcomed a new baby girl named Emma into their family so it was just us and the Larson's this year. Lisa was brillant and suggested doing the family pictures before we went venturing for pumpkins and it worked out so much better. The kids are always restless and not into photo taking at the end and were much better this time.

It was such a gorgeous autumn day. It was a little chilly at first and overcast, which was perfect light for pictures. I got some super cute ones of Mollie and Bentley, but my girls were being little stinkers. Macy and London pretty much had a scowl on their faces the whole time. In their defense, they were so excited to go on the little kiddie train and it was broken down. Macy even earned some money by helping with Grandma's apples to go on the train. Poor kids. Even finding their perfect pumpkins didn't help them put on smiles.

Lisa and I have decided we need to arrange this little marriage- how cute are these two?!

Toward the end we got some what of some smiles.

They might not have smiled a lot but they were pretty good little wagon pushers. That thing was heavy! There was probably at least 75 pounds of pumpkin in that wagon, Lorin and Lisa had 1 single pumpkin that weighed in at 45!

I got a -little- smile by some tickling, but not much.

Bentley was pretty happy for the first little while but started getting pretty tired at the end. He wanted me to hold him the whole time, but that adorable little boy is getting heavy! He ended up finding his little pumpkin as we were leaving. Him and Mollie loved the little gourd pumpkins.

After the patch we finished up with yummy hamburgers and amazing pie from Trappers. When we got home Bentley was one crabby little guy. Kyle put him down for a nap and all he did was cry. I went in there to see if I could help at all and ended up just picking him up. I stood there a hugged him for a minute and realized the poor guy went to sleep. He had too much fun and was exhausted. It made me miss his baby years- he hasn't fallen asleep on my shoulder in ages. Sweet kid!

Fall Break

Since Derek was speaking on Sunday we headed down to Buckeye to hear him and meet up with all the family. It was the beginning of Fall Break so we decided to make it a little vacation and stay down for a few extra days. Kyle had to ref some games on Saturday night in Snowflake so we went down to Buckeye at about 8 o'clock that night and got there a little before midnight. It was a pretty uneventful ride and the kids practically slept the whole time. My parents ward meets at 8:30am so we were up nice and early to go to church. Derek spoke about being a member missionary and how easy it really is. He talked a lot about just giving out the invite and to love those you invite, even if they turn you down. He did a great job and I'm glad we got to go down to listen to him. We were all set to stay the whole 3 hour block, but their ward's primary kids were practicing in the chapel and our kids would've been bored out of their little minds, so we went home. We got some family pictures in, let the kids play outside, and then we got lunch started. All the Carbonneau kids were there with the families, Aunt Steph and Uncle David, Amber and Rainer, Grandma and Grandpa Bochat, Sarah Randall, Two families from Derek's mission, Seth and Tara Carroll and their kids, and Stormy and Spenser all game to hang out.

On Monday we had reservations to go inside and tour to newly built Phoenix Arizona Temple. The kids got to go to the Gilbert Temple Open House and loved it so we tried to make it a point to go to the Phoenix one. Macy was so excited to go, I'm not sure if she was more excited to go into the temple or to ride on the purple tour bus that shuttle people from the parking lot to the temple, but we'll call it a tie.

 The kids did amazing inside. The girls didn't talk hardly at all and Bentley only tried to run away a few times, we'll take what we can get.

 After the dedication we had a few errands to run and then we stopped by In N' Out and got some yummy hamburgers. I got London and Bentley both grilled cheese (the buns with just cheese) and they weren't fans. They loved their fries so much that we had to bribe them to eat their sandwich- two bites of a sandwich got you 1 french fry.

 There is a lady in Marie's ward that always needs help with her iPad and leaves us gift cards as a Thank You. We still had one to Cold Stone so we treated the girls to some yummy ice cream after their lunch. Okay- maybe it was really a treat for me, but they were excited too :)

 My Mom and I drug Kyle and the kids around Joann's while we found all the right pieces for the kids Halloween costumes and then finally made it back home in time for Kyle and I to jet out the door to a movie with Stormy and Spenser while my Mom watched the kiddos. Meet the Mormons, a documentary about the daily life of Mormons, was playing and we really wanted to see it- so we did! Stormy and Spenser had to go pick up Stormy's brother Noah at the airport right afterward so they had to bail pretty quick after the movie, but Kyle and I took our time going home. It was so nice to be out with just him and have others places to go then Safeway or Alco. We headed to a strip mall by the movie theatre and walked around, hit up Home Goods, Walmart, and finished up the night with a quiet dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

 The next day the kiddo's were being super nice and let us sleep in till 7:00! Crazy talk huh? They had a pretty lazy day while my Mom made their Halloween costumes and I canned some apple pie filling. Everyone talks about how easy and fun canning is and let's just say I did not have that experience. I never want to do it again. Our syrup for the pie filling wasn't setting and then half the jars I "canned" never sealed. I had to take them to Marie's house and she even had to do them twice. Not cool.

Every time the girls come down to "the far away Grandma's house" they insist on doing a craft-  so while we were on our date the kids made Halloween countdown chains with Grandma. On Tuesday night their made some pretty yummy chocolate Frozen cupcakes and even got a story in with Grandpa before we had to head back to Holbrook.

 We made one last stop on our way out of town at Sport Chalet to check and see if they had a specific whistle for Kyle and a football. I guess Kyle's a little rusty on his football throwing skills, we needed to get him one to practice on the off season. I tried to be the very best supportive wife and tell him I'm sure he throws the football great. Apparently I never heard about when he was trying to throw the ball and hit one of the players in the back of the head... I guess my "best supportive wife" will now be playing catch. The kids were all dressed in their jammies in the store- that's how we roll.

Apples, Apples, Apples

Marie (Kyle's Mom) has 7-8 apple trees in her yard and she had an extremely plentiful year! We try and help her around the house when we can and this year she really needed help with these apples. We went over a few weeks ago and helped her dehydrate some and went over again before we left for the valley. To take some of the apples of her hands we picked about 10 boxes for Kati, Meghan, and my Mom in the valley. Between the dehydrating and picking apples for the valley folk- we were picked out! The girls did awesome though and were such big helpers. It was a little overwhelming at first to look at the trees and see the quite possibly thousands of apples but slowly and surely they are getting harvested. Yesterday a few ladies from the ward came with the missionaries to pick up all the wind falls. It took them 5-6 HOURS to pick up about 15 garbage bags of wind falls! They didn't even touch the trees! 

After Marie and I would use up all the apples we had inside, the girls would go and get a bucket full more. They were such good helpers. I'm not sure if they were good helpers because they are just plain ol "good helpers" or if they knew they could "help" with the apples- and by helping I mean eat.