Jumping on the Bandwagon (Or at Least, the Hayride)

The blogosphere has been overwhelmingly assaulted with pictures of Halloween festivities, and so I figured it was time to add my two-cents worth.  I do not have a cute tutorial for making fabulous wall decorations with crows and skulls and vinyl ghosts (Jason will tell you, we have absolutely no Halloween decorations...gasp!).  Our decorating is limited to placing a few pumpkins on the porch.  Granted, what Jason does to those pumpkins is nothing short of amazing, as you can  see here.

Normally the majority of our pumpkins come from our garden, but we had to rely wholly on the local pumpkin patch for produce this year. (Darn you, squash bugs!)   As it turned out, the local pumpkin patch has expanded and now offers more allergy-inducing amenities than ever before!  Now there is a petting zoo pen, a corn box, hayrides, and mazes and towers of hay bales.  Jason and Spencer were in hay fever heaven!

We went with extended family and had dinner at Two Jack's Pizza afterward with everyone. It really is an enjoyable tradition, and just one more reason why I love fall so much. So without further ado, here are the photos:

This post authored by Amber

School Lunch

We recently celebrated the little known holiday of "National School Lunch Week" by going to Brevin's school to eat lunch with him. I must say, I think they feed these kids a whole lot better than I ever got fed in elementary school. They even have a fresh fruit and salad bar (although, I noticed some children weren't choosing to put those items on their tray). And nothing makes you feel more nostalgic than drinking milk from a small carton, don't you think?

After we ate, we went outside for recess. Garrett even helped with operating the jump rope for several of Brevin's classmates. He was laughing and having a grand time until I started taking pictures and video footage. I was only able to capture the images of a disinterested, nap-ready two year-old, but they still are pretty funny.

Can I say, this sure beats an afternoon at home eating a bowl of Ramen Noodles?!

This post authored by Amber

Fall Sports

This year's soccer season ended much the way it began.  Spencer was part of a U-8 team who utilized a three coach system, focused on teaching the boys proper field position, and thereby annihilated every opposing team they faced.

Brevin's U-10 team was a slightly different story.  They lacked the coaching attention of Spencer's team (to say the least) and the result was a loosing season. 

Despite the differences, Jason and I enjoyed spending a month going between fields to watch the boys play with fierce determination and, most importantly, a positive, sportsmanlike attitude.

And just like that, the season was over.

So now, with Thursday evenings and Saturdays suddenly free of any soccer commitments, the boys were quick to accept an invitation from dad to attend a BYU football game.  They were able to enjoy the Cougars homecoming win over San Diego State, but I think they could care less for the outcome of the game.  They just love to spend time withe their Dad.

Boy, we are sure loving Fall!

This post authored by Amber

Taking in the Fall Colors

Every fall we make sure to take a drive through Provo Canyon and take some photos just above Sundance resort.  This year was a little more challenging because after we drove all the way to our destination, we found that I had not charged the batteries for the camera and they were both indicating that they were drained.  I kept switching between the two, warming them in my hands and pocket, in attempts to get just one more picture out of each battery.  With each shot, I worried that it would be the last. Needless to say, it added a little stress to what was planned to be a nice evening with the family, especially when Spencer decided to make faces and wreck limited family snapshot opportunities. 

Only after being sternly threatened with a loss of media privileges did he cooperate and we got a picture sufficient to add to the archives of fall photographs. 

Getting a decent individual shot is a little bit easier, we've found.

This post authored by Amber