Happy Halloween! Pardner.

I'm not very good at having family photos taken. Like most moms I like to snap shots of the kids and leave it at that. Well all my dad wants for Christmas is a family portrait of each of his kids and their families, which honestly is one of the most difficult gifts I could give! Mainly because my kids seem to be anti-camera when I want them to be cooperative.
Aspen loves to be in front of the camera, yes siree. But I guess she's at that age where 1. putting your hands on your lap, 2. looking at the camera, and 3. smiling, are hard to do all at the same time. Anyway, last weekend my awesome pal Celeste took some photos for us. Because she's so awesome.
Her husband Derek came too, with their little Maylee (who's one) in tow. And they were so great about helping us with the kids. Derek even had sparklers for Aspen to oooh and aaah at. And bribe her with :)
Anyway I know I should be better about family photos. I just kept telling Eric how one day we will be so glad we did this! When our kids are grown and we have these beautiful lasting photos to stare at while they're gone.

Eric was a great sport. He's not a fan of getting his picture taken, but he was so good about doing silly shots with me. And I loved how these piggy back ones turned out. We had some of these taken for our engagement photos but we chose different ones and I've always regretted it. Anyway the sad part is we didn't get a family photo of us all smiling so I may have to try it again sometime when the grandparents are around, but I think Celeste did an awesome job with these. And I'm glad that my dad asked for family photos for Christmas!

The last 2 years the Boise Police Department has hosted an evening at the Farmstead (which costs a pretty penny for admission). Eric's dad is a Captain so we've been able to take advantage of a free night there and go with his parents, which is a lot of fun.
Eric and I were remembering the first year we took Aspen to a petting zoo, and she cried. Oakley was fascinated with the goats and ponies, and also terrified. He did this sort of laugh/cry thing whenever an animal got close.

We watched some pig races, which I'd never seen before, anywhere.

The second time around Aspen was chosen to watch the race up close, and since the pig she was chosen to watch won, she got a pig nose, along with some free mini donuts. Score!

It's so hard for us to get a good family picture these days! My friend Celeste is shooting some family photos of us this weekend so I've got my fingers cross that Aspen and Oakley are happy!

Pete and Ami took the kids for a bit so Eric and I could go through the corn maze. When I lived in Provo and was going to school there were corn mazes and haunted houses/rivers/forests all over the place! I miss that, so we made sure we checked out the maze while we were there. Well we were in and out in about 7 minutes! We really tried to get lost, but just couldn't find our way deep into the maze. When we came out we looked at a map of the maze and it was huge! I can't believe we didn't get completely lost in the thing.
I love Oakley's sweet little face and cheeks. I just love having a little boy. By the way, I heard on the news the other day about a family out east that got lost in a corn maze. The owners had no idea the family was still there, and they closed up the maze and went home. The parents ended up calling the cops for help, and when they reached the family it turned out they were only 25 feet away from the entrance!
These turned out a little fuzzy since it was getting dark when I took these, but how cute are they? I had to include them in this post.

The last couple weeks we've been home - a lot. Oakley's been sick for about 6 weeks now (cold, cough, some sort of bug), and I've been desparately trying to finish my canning so I can get on with my life! :) I don't think I've gotten out for one good, social block of time for what seems like forever and I miss my girlfriend interaction.
This is what my kitchen has looked like for the last 10 days. I'm actually very proud of myself that I can put the mess aside and just work through it day by day. There's really no point in cleaning it up because I'll just be getting everything out again the next day!

Anyway the upside is that I've really had time (between batches) to hang out with my kids, which I will admit is not always the easiest thing for me. I like to be doing something with the kids: a craft, a walk, etc., and it's hard for me to just be with the kids. I've really been trying to just run around the house with them (literally) and hold them more often, and it's been wonderful. I'm actually growing to look forward to those little chunks of time where I can just be silly and play. Who knew finding my inner kid would be so much fun?!