Picnic in the Park

We have been loving the weather here! It gets cool at night but warms up to the perfect temperature during the day. Last Wednesday we went grocery shopping and decided it was to nice to go home and eat lunch. So I ran in the house and grabbed some stuff and went to find a park. Well the park by our house is closed until January because they are preparing for their Christmas display. So I remember I had seen a little park in a neighborhood just south of us. We got there and I guess I hadn't looked very close at it because it wasn't much. We enjoyed our picnic despite the hurricane winds we had that day! Ella loves Peanut Butter and Honey and Easton usually prefers Jam instead of honey!

 This park had a few swings and a scary slide. The kids love to swing!

 They both went to the top and decided it was to scary, it sort of was and it had sunk on one side.

 It was such a fun day at the park I hope we can do it a few more times before it gets too cool!

Sugar Cookies

Last week for our FHE treat we had sugar cookies. We started and mixed them together before dinner and before dad got home. The kids each love taking turns dumping ingredients into the bowl. We mixed it together and I left to go use the bathroom. I had gotten them both down but Easton managed to get back up and found a spoon and he was eating spoonfuls of the cookie dough! He was so mad at we when I took him down. After dinner we had our lesson and family prayer. After we were done we rolled out the dough and they each picked a couple cookie cutters and helped me cut them out. Ella loved the mini star one and Easton loved the mini bat. After they baked we let them cool and then frosted them and decorated them. They loved them! It was a fun activity and the kids didn't go to sleep until almost 10:30 that night from all the sugar!

 All our Halloween shapes!

 By the end Easton had smeared frosting all over the table and his chair and his hair!

Halloween Masks

We got all our Halloween stuff out last week. The kids loved getting everything out. They found these masks they got at SCO last year and were laughing at themselves in them. They had quite a lot of fun!

Take my Picture

Ella loves to have her picture taken (except when it really matters!). She said I will hug Easton and you take a picture ok mom? She certainly loves that brother of hers! She is so sweet with him and loves to hug and kiss him. She will be sitting next to him playing and just lean over and kiss him, it is so sweet. I hope they always have such a great friendship!

Easto

Easton is really into climbing right now. He has figured out that he can move something and stand on it to get higher or to reach something. He loves to climb on our little table we have. We don't have anywhere to put it for the time being so it sits in our front room. He LOVES to climb on it and sit.

 He loves his "vroom vrooms" as he calls them. He refuses to say car so I guess that will do! He lines them up all the time and then moves them into another line it is so cute to watch him play, until Ella takes one out of the line and he goes crazy! We usually bring out his cars and all the little people daily because they both love them so much!

Charlotte

The last week of September Andrew went to Charlotte, NC to take his boards. He got there a whole two days after my little brother did on his mission. This was his second board exam but they call it Part 3. He takes Part 2 in a month. This exam was a practical exam. He had to do basically what he would do in an eye exam and a couple other things like IV's and things like that. He will probably hear back in the next month to know if he passed. He flew in the day before and met a couple of his classmates who were taking it the same day. They all went to eat at a Diner's drive-inns and dives place there and enjoyed some Hamburgers and fried pickles! He is happy to have that part done and feels like after the next one is over we will be in the home stretch, just one more rotation!

I found these pictures on his phone.

 

Downtown Charlotte

The restaurant they ate at!

New Pajamas

This has probably been our coldest October of the four we have had here. It is usually still pretty warm at this time. We still have a warm day here and now but nothing like it has been. Last weekend was really cold. We had to break out the warm jammies! I usually don't have to put these on them until December here. I am grateful I listened to myself last time we were at Costco and picked some up because I usually wait but I'm glad I didn't because the next morning after this it was 65 in our house!

General Conference

We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference last week! I was shocked when during the first session I walked in the room and Ella was sitting on the couch listening to President Monson! She loves President Monson and would stop and listen for a few minutes every time he was on! I think next conference we will try some little games with her! I figured with potty training that was enough to focus on! We really loved Conference and the things we learned! We have done really good the last two months in having Family Night and Ella has started to notice, she wanted family night on Thursday night I love that it is working!

 They did really well while we watched and we got to hear most of it! These are very rare scenes when they sit and read the same book usually one wants what the other has! It was such a sweet scene and I just love moments like this!

Halloween Pillowcases

Last week we went to a friends house up in Memphis and she helped me make some Halloween pillowcases for my kids. She was making some for herself so she invited me and a couple others to come. I went and had such a fun day! I was really missing some of my friends and it was nice to have an outlet and get together with some girls. I met two new people and the one I really wish I lived closer to and that we were sticking around here. She was really fun to talk to and we had a lot in common. It really boosted my spirits which is just what I needed. She helped me with mine and even made all of us lunch! It was such a perfect day!

 

Here are the end results:

 

I took 12 pictures of Easton and this is as close to his eyes being open in one of them that I got!

 Ella asked me what I did with her old pillow! Ha ha!

Potty Training

So for a couple months now I have had big plans for conference weekend. I wanted to get Ella potty trained. I knew it would be a good weekend since we both were home and we had no where to go and no church! So after we were up so late and got a late start I thought there is no way I can do this we are so tired. Well she had a stinky diaper and Andrew suggested we go try the potty after he changed her and she went for it! She usually would disagree very quickly. She went and sat in there and after a couple tries she went. She was so excited which she hadn't ever been! She did really good the first day and only had one accident which she had just gone but hadn't emptied herself out so I think that is why. Sunday she got up and wet in her pull-up before we could get her on the potty. She has been dry for a long time in the mornings probably for a year she has been dry most mornings. Well she ate and after said she needed to go again. She went in and went and went stinky as well. We were all excited, ha ha. I thought the stinky would be the hard part but she has done great with it! For going stinky I found her this puzzle that I got months ago at the dollar store. We have now done it about 100 times and even though it is way advanced she loves it! She puts the princesses together and I do the rest! Sunday she had one more accident and that was the last time, so she has gone a whole week without an accident now! We slowly ventured out finally on Tuesday to the park and she did great and she went to school on Thursday and did awesome as well! I am so happy she finally gets it! We already feel we haven't gone through as many diapers!

 

She filled up her prize chart by Tuesday and she FINALLY got her Ariel Barbie doll. I say finally because we carried this thing all the way to Utah this summer in hopes she would learn. We brought it all the way back with us to Mississippi and she finally earned it!

Another promise we had made to her a couple months ago is that if she learned we would take her to the Disney store (Disneyland store if you ask her) and she could pick whatever out that she wanted! So we made her fill two charts and go 5 days without an accident. So on Friday night we headed up to the mall to go to the Disneyland store. She wasn't very happy when I first stopped at Charming Charlies I barely got in the door and she got really mad so we went to the Disney store. They didn't have a whole lot of selection due to the Halloween costumes everywhere. Ella really just wanted something Ariel but all they had was stuff we already had or stuff that was over what we wanted to spend.

Easton loved it as well!

They both loved the big movie playing!

We finally got her to agree on some figurines. She wanted the Ariel ones but we had most of what was in the pack already so we talked her into the Aladdin ones. She loves them!

Being the awesome parents we are we got Easton a cars set. He really struggled this week with being sick and taking care of Ella on the potty was hard for him he didn't get a lot of attention and he is just to young to understand why she gets something and he doesn't so he lucked out! Now if we could just get him trained I could find lots of things to use diaper money on instead!:)

 

Accident Prone

So just in case Easton wasn't have a bad week he had to go and gash himself in the eye. The one under his eye is from Ella pushing him into the cozy coupe car on Saturday. The one above his eye he got last Monday. I was skyping with my mom and sister and he came running at me and tripped and ran right into the coffee table with his eyebrow. I didn't know what to do and kept telling him I wasn't going back to the ER. Lucky for us Andrew had just pulled in the driveway. It stopped bleeding within a couple minutes so we figured he was ok and didn't need stitches. It was pretty nasty looking. We put a butterfly bandage on it later that night and that seemed to have helped a lot! Lets just say that night we ended up with Pizza for dinner! It was a long Monday!