Fall Days

I love the fall, and all the leaves around us are changing colors and falling on the ground, and it has also been really warm here, so the kids love playing outside.  We went to get the mail, and there is a big grassy area by the mailboxes, and tons of leave had fallen and the kids had the best time playing in the leaves, they were crying when I made them leave.  Anyway, I happened to have my camera with my, so I took a bunch of pictures and I think they turned out really cute.  Mikelle is at the age now where she will smile if you tell her too, but it is really hard to get a good picture of Jonah, I think if I had someone with me I could have done it, but it is hard by myself.  So to make it a complete fall day, we went and got "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," and watched it after naptime.  Hopefully tonight we can carve pumpkins.  I am so excited for Halloween!

Grandma Cheryl!!!

Fall Family Picture

My BIG BIG girl bed

My first tie

Hanging out on the air mattress

So my mom came for almost a week and just left today, which was so sad, but we had so much fun. We went to the park, made and frosted cookies, went to the zoo, picked out pumpkins, and just had lots of fun with "grandma Cheryl". I bought a queen size air mattress for my mom to sleep on, and after the first night, we put it in the bedroom, but then after that, we left it out all the time and everyone loved it. Mikelle slept in it every night with my mom, so hopefully she will sleep in her new BIG girl bed that she just barely got, (we sold her toddler bed and got her a twin size.) We all snuggled on the air mattress every night and watched Monk, it was so fun. The kids loved making sugar cookies and then frosting them with a lot of frosting and sprinkles. The Denver Zoo happened to have a free day on the Saturday my mom was here, so we went to that. It was so crowed; Matt asked one of the zoo workers how many people were there that day, and he said over 20,000. We had a lot of fun, and ended up staying 4 hours, which was amazing, because I thought the kids would only last for an hour or two. It was also 76 degrees that day, we wore shorts there; it was awesome. Mikelle says her favorite animal at the zoo were the elephants. I thought I was doing okay living away from family, but now I really want to live in Utah; well, actually, I really like Colorado, so I want all my family and friends to move here now, can you do that?

Super Powers

I've been thinking a lot about super powers lately. I have about 5 errands that I have to do, and they are all spread out all over town. It's not that I don't want to do them, I just don't want to do them with kids, they can't drive around that long, not to mention gas expense; so the errands just don't get done. I was thinking how much easier it would be if I could transport myself. This would also be awesome for visiting family and friends. However, it is a toss up because my close second power would be to have the ability to shrink things and return them to normal size again. We live on the third floor, if I could shrink my week's worth of groceries, or the desk or bed we had to get, or sometimes even the kids (just to get them upstairs), that would be awesome. Matt said he wanted the power to freeze time, so he could sleep longer, or finish all his homework, without losing time. I guess that I would just have all three if I was to have super powers.

Updates...

The other day I was driving somewhere and I saw a tiny spider crawling across the dashboard. It freaked me out. He was very tiny, but he was one of those freaky spiders that jump really fast and far. He would jump closer and closer to me in unpredictable movements every second. I really think that if he happened to land on me, I would have crashed the car and died. I didn't drive the next day, I thought I would give him some time to die in the car, and the day after that, I forgot about him and then there he was crawling towards me again. He went right by my hand and then over my head and it took everything I had to remain calm and try not to watch him, but I also wanted to see where he went; he ended up on the passenger door. I am pleased to report that we safely arrived home, and I opened the passenger door, got a really long stick and knocked him outside.

In other news, Matt is having midterms right now, and is pretty busy. I am also staying really busy with the kids. They are doing really well and are very excited for "Grandma Cheryl coming next week". I also am VERY proud of myself for making something. Mikelle is going to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween, and I made (thats right) her minnie mouse skirt. The first thing I ever sewed by myself. I'll post pictures.

Festival Italiano

Fall is the season for festivals I guess.  Just in our area there are probably 50 festivals/craft fairs/Harvest Fests that are going on now though the next month or so and I took the kids to the Festival Italiano today.  It was pretty cool, would have been cooler if we had money to spend, the only thing we bought was a small small cup of gelato and it was $4.00.  However, there was some cool free stuff like children's Italian story time, Italian chef demonstrations, and the Balistreri Vineyards children's grape stomp where kids stomp the grapes that make "Little Feet Merlot."  I totally talked up how cool it would be for Mikelle to step on grapes so she'd be excited.  We barely missed the first stomp by 15 minutes and had to wait 2 long extremely hot in the sun hours for the next one to start but that was fine because it gave us time to walk up and down the festival and get some gelato.  So, here are the kiddos stepping on the grapes.  If we drank wine, I totally would have bought a bottle of the "Little Feet Merlot" that would be ready next year of the juice from the grapes that the kids stomped on today.

Waiting to stomp

The grapes

STOMPING!

Jonah lasted about 10 seconds, Mikelle about 30.

Sunglasses and misc.

After bath time

Ready for the day

Finished!

Mikelle working on it

Jonah's sunglasses

Getting into trouble

After a bath

Giving Jonah a hug

Jonah, Mikelle, and Addie (Mikelle's friend)

Mikelle was obsessed with sunglasses for a week or so, it got really bad for a few days.  She wore them all the time, even in the bath tub.  I  had to beg her to take them off so I could wash her hair, then they had to be right back on again, she even fell asleep with them on, and then I would take them off.  I bought some new ones for her and Jonah that don't have the strap that goes around their heads, and now, she kind of lost interest.  I also, have the finished picture of the dresser.  

I got a nanny job.  I watch Addie (Mikelle's friend in the picture) full time starting next week.  She is such a good little girl and her and Mikelle are best friends now and get along so well.  In fact, everyday that Addie hasn't come over, Mikelle asks "where is Addie?"  So, it will be a good way to have a little income.  Matt also got a job that is every Friday for one hour helping an older guy in our ward with his computer.  Thats all thats new.

Downtown Denver

We spent Labor Day in Downtown Denver.  We thought it would be fun for the kids to ride the light rail, so we rode the "really really fast train" as Mikelle calls it, and went to the 16th street Mall.  We ate dinner at Rockbottom and played games at the ESPN Zone.  It was pretty fun.  It was also nice to have a long weekend with Matt home.  

Mikelle does a new thing now.  If Matt is bugging her (or telling her to stop bugging Jonah in other words) she says "Daddy, go back to school", and if I am 'bugging' her, she says "mommy, go away, go feed Jonah."  I have mixed feelings of whether or not to laugh, or to tell her to be nice.

I have finally finished the dresser I have been trying to paint for a month now, and bought some cool handles for it.  When I get the mirror painted now, I will post a picture of it; but it looks awesome.  

 Jonah can ride Mikelle's power wheel now by himself, so I put on a video of that, and of Jonah walking because most people haven't seen that yet.