Fall Walk

One of my FAVORITE things about living in Utah in the fall is the Provo Canyon! It is so full of such beauty!

My friend Ashley and I, have been visiting the canyon for years now, in our single days we would rollerblade down the long trail on the warm fall nights, or go up and study in the parks. That's right I said ROLLERBLADE. :)

Now we have babies and we still love going up there each fall to enjoy all the colors of the trees, and to appreciate nature one last time before it takes a long winters nap. We love teaching our little ones about the changing leaves. There really is NO better place to witness this but the Provo Canyon.


I will admit, it was a LONG walk for me. My ankle was still sore from my sprang from our trip, and it was hotter than we anticipated that day, so we were all dressed warmly...Bad planning on my part.

My kids fought the whole way up. We had to take A LOT of breaks to look at leaves, and to let the boys walk. So that added to our time exponentially! And it took us a LONG time to get to the falls. 

Me and my kiddos

But the kids LOVED getting to Bridal Veil Falls 

We let the kids play in the dirty stream along the side of the trail. By we, I mean I did, and so Ashley's kids wanted to too. Such bad examples, sorry again ash :(

 But they sure had fun! 

Nixon and Dani were sorta matching in there striped shirts. 

This is HALLOWEEN....

After September hit, October hit, Soccer ended and it got a tad bit cooler, I wanted to do something fun with my kids this October to transition from playing outside everyday all day, to being inside.

Kory and I both LOVE Halloween, so he was fully supportive in this pursuit.

So for each day of October we did something Halloweeny... teehee

My kids LOVED it, so much so that they still play Halloween on a regular if not daily basis. Poor Thanksgiving, didn't stand a chance.

The first thing I did was make an advent Calendar for each day, to count down to Halloween. Each day They would pull out the sign and it had either a treat or an activity to do on it.

To make the advent cal, I cut a bunch of pockets with my Cricut, glued eyeballs, and wrote numbers on them




Then I placed the tags I designed. You can download the file from my printable blog here.



We made giant spiders...



To go on our Giant web

And other decor...

We watched movies and ate spooky treats...

We painted Monster Rocks for FHE

We made a Giant Skeleton out of paper plates, and of course we dressed as them too... For history's sake, I bought those Skeleton Jammies for Axel when he was a year, and we pulled them out to put on Dani, but he insisted on wearing them. He has now worn them so much that they are so stretched out that they actually fit him. I am still confused with how that has happened, but maybe we don't need to buy our kids new clothes after all??

We bowled for ghosts for FHE, but it turned into T-ball instead...

We set up a tent in the kids bedroom and read spooky stories, all day, then all night, then all day the next day and the next. They couldn't get enough of our spooky camp out.  So glad we held on to this tiny tent even though it is too small for our whole family. Axel even slept in it at night too. 

Reading spooky stories...

We made skeletons out of play dough, below is Axel's creation

This was my FAVORITE of all, I tried to save games for Sunday and Monday nights for family time. Well this one we went on a "Ghost hunt" We turned off all the lights gave the kids a flashlight, and Kory went and hid somewhere with a sheet over his head. The kids had no idea he was hiding, or what to expect, but they totally were into our "Ghost hunt" Well, when we opened the door to where Kory was hiding and he was standing there with the sheet, MAN I wish I had my camera on Axel's face. He was SO SCARED and surprised, and like hopped backwards, it was great. I laughed so hard, because I 'm a mean mom, but then we took turns being the ghost and hiding throughout the house. BEST ACTIVITY EVER.

We had play dates with friends and made "Haunted Houses" The dollar store rocks at having halloween candy.

These boys LOVED making their houses

Axel was pretty proud of how his, and it sat on our kitchen table for weeks, and he would slowly eat the candy. 

Ashdon and his house :) 

We also made our traditional Mummy Dogs, and as my kids get older these get more and more fun to make! 

These babies were there too....

We had some of our FAVORITE cousins over and we made spiderwebs! 

We made spooky cookies and delivered them to neighbors and friends nearby.

We dressed up as mummies:) 

We made a CANDY catapult 

We found these sick eyeballs at the dollar store, and once they were up on our ceiling they stayed for the rest of the month.

We dressed up as a vampire...

again...and again...and again

We played in leaves with friends...

Made luminares with friends....

For Halloween Axel really wanted to be OPTIMUS PRIME, mostly because his best friend and cousin Ashdon, was going to be bumble bee. But Ashdon got hurt at the Anderson Party before we were able to get pictures of them together. But here he is with "Batgirl" 

Bugs. Dani was "The Itsy Bitsy spider" for halloween. Or a Blackwidow :) 

We put a bloody foot in the jar to watch it grow....but ended up throwing it out because it took too long.

We of course went to the "Nightmare Express"  Axel LOVED it this year, Dani, not so much.

We even went to story time in our Halloween Costumes again this year! 

Then came home and did a mini photoshoot...The older they get the harder this is getting.

Luckily for me, I have an amazing friend who got some GREAT shots of them in their costumes! Thanks again Jessica!

We went to loads of Halloween parties on Halloween. Where they ate yummy treats and made more spooky crafts.  I think my kids consumed more sugar that day than the whole year combined!

TRICK OR TREAT! We attended our ward Carnival, and trunk or treat. Then headed over to my sisters for Hot dogs and Hot chocolate to end the night. 

She was a spider, and I was her web! 

A couple days after Halloween, we were able to get these to Transformers together for a picture together finally :) 

And that my folks is how we did Halloween!