Japan

Shane spent 11 days in Okinawa, Japan visiting his brother Justin and family.  He went with his Dad and Rebecca and they had a great time.  Shane loves anything ocean or beach and especially anything that provides a new adventure.  Japan was all of that and more.  He loved it there.  They went deep sea fishing, snorkeling, hiking, and saw the sites.  Pretty sure his favorite things were the Sushi-go-round, and the aquarium.  He also loved the bathrooms that are on the floor and bidets on the toilets (the things that squirt water). He brought home some shoes from Japan for all the boys that have a separation between the big toe and the other 4 toes.  The boys love them.  We missed him a lot but it was over Halloween and since that time of year is crazy, it went by fast.

Church in flip, flops.  Forgot his other shoes :)

End of October, Start of November

 Counting up the loot.  Braxton went to Skyler Beeson's Birthday party and went trick-or-treating afterward.  Dakota weighed his and it is 15 LBS of candy.  That is way too much if you ask me, but he had a great time.

 Dakota got his spacers to start Phase 1 of his braces.  He has to have some braces now to help with his crowding, and then more when he is about 13 after some of the teeth have room to grow in.  He says the spacers hurt.  I remember that being the worst part for me.

Braxton modeling his hew Wahlquist hoodie.  He got it from Grandma Julie for his Birthday.

 My sweet little boy turned 8 years old.  I cant believe I am about to have all of my family baptized.  I love this little boy so much.  He brings so much light into our home with his smiles and silly personality.  He is a feisty one I tell you.  He has more anger in there then I know what to do with half the time, but when he is sweet he is really really sweet.  Birthday post to come.  I love you Cameron and am happy I got to go to Bella's our tradition with you during school. 

 Just needed to make sure I got these in for my book.  We ran completely out of pumpkins on October 12th.  We had 3 more groups scheduled so we bought some from a farmer in West Weber.  We litterally re-stocked the pumpkin patch.  We feel so lucky to have such great support and love from everyone that it only took 2 weeks to sell out.  Time to expand I guess :)  Kiley, Carrera, James, and Denim came and helped restock.

Halloween Week

Shane went to Japan for 11 days to visit Justin and Bernice who live there for a few years.  That means I got to tackle Halloween Week alone.  It started Monday and did not end until Saturday late.  It was fun and tiring at the same time.  Cameron chose to be a bat and Dakota chose to be a Ghost.  Braxton chose to be a teenager and participated in about half of the festivities, in whatever costume he could round up.  

 5th Grade always does Spider Cakes.  When Braxton did them I was at another child's field trip so I only caught the tail end.  It was really fun to be there this time.  Dakota had a great time sitting by his buddies Gavin and Ryder.  One teacher told me she got a nasty note asking "what does this have to do with education", so much of our education is spent watching movies, that I for one was happy for them to do something fun that had to do with a real life skill, baking.  They had to make the cakes and frost their own.  The teacher said she spent the two days before teaching about fractions, real practical uses of them.  Life skills I tell you.

 For mutual, which I am now a part of (Miamaid Advisor), we played minute to win it.  It was a really fun night, Braxton was a mummy and he fell on the ground.  Silly boy.

 School Party donut eating contest.

 Ward Party costume parade.

 The one thing I wasn't sure I wanted to tackle alone was the pumpkin carving, but we had a great time.  No fuss, just gutted them and carved faces.  They always pick the largest ones in the patch, and so we drug them in instead of lifting them.  

 We had to measure and take a picture because the flesh of Dakotas was 5 inches.  It was so hard to get a knife through and was full of these strange Witch fingers (below).

 Final product.  I think they turned out very cute and we had a great time together.