Happy Halloween!

This is going to be a mega post about all of our Halloween related activities for the last couple of weeks since I'm behind. The good news is, I'll be all caught up though! Yea me!

About a week and a half ago my mom and I took Miles to our local nursery to pick out pumpkins. We had heard from our neighbors that they had great pumpkins for a great price so we had to check it out ourselves. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find that they also had a corn maze, farm animals to pet, etc. Dave wasn't able to go with us unfortunately because of his evening schedule at Target and we were running out of time to get them especially with yucky weather in the forecast for the next weekend. Miles had a great time running around in the corn and picking up everything imaginable off the ground and shoving it in his mouth. He also seemed to be enthralled by the goats. He stood there and pointed at them for forever. We finally had to drag him away.

Last Monday while Dave had the evening off, we carved our pumpkins. Miles is still a bit young to understand what was going on. I was hoping he would help pull out the "guts," but he was more interested in eating the lid. Gross. He kept biting into it and then would make this face like that was the grossest thing he had ever tasted, but he kept doing it. Such a silly kid!

"Dad, give me my pumpkin!"

It took me a couple of days to get a picture of all of our pumpkins together and the morning I remembered to do it, we got our first dusting of snow!

The next evening was our Young Men/Young Women sponsored Halloween Carnival at our church. Miles wasn't technically old enough to go, but because I currently serve in Young Women's we took him anyway. He had a blast running all over the gym and seeing all the other kids dressed up in their costumes. He even helped Dad win three cupcakes in the cupcake walk! Cheating? Maybe so!

It was so hard to get pictures of our cute bag of M&Ms! He was in constant motion that night!

Fishing at the fishing pond

The cupcake walk

The donut on a string game

Our church had planned a "trunk or treat" activity for everyone last night since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year. Dave unfortunately had to work! I figured since Miles is still a bit too young to actually go trick or treating, that the trunk or treat activity would be perfect for us to attend. About 30 minutes before the activity was scheduled to begin, it began pouring cats and dogs. We never made it over to the church, but heard a few people showed up during the short break of no rain and then packed things up after the rain started again. We hung out with our neighbors for a bit trying to decide what to do when the rain finally stopped. We decided to go to a few houses in the neighborhood of people that we knew and then came back and answered the door for trick or treaters. It wasn't exactly what I had planned for the evening, but I think Miles had fun anyway which was the point. He got a few pieces of candy to give to Dad too!

Eating leaves along the route (don't you know leaves are WAY better than candy!)

More interested in the Halloween decorations at houses than getting free candy

Part 4 (finale)

After we ate lunch, but before Miles woke up, Dave was able to squeeze in one ride on a ride that Miles couldn't go on. It was a roller coaster-type ride so he had to do it alone (I'm not a big fan of rides these days, especially not roller coasters). After Miles' nap we thought it would be fun to take him through Mickey's house and our timing couldn't have been any better. We ended up getting there right in time to get our picture taken with Mickey Mouse. Later that afternoon we took the train ride around the park, watched the Celebration Parade, and did some souvenir shopping. After all of that was done Miles was pretty much done too. We decided to head back to the hotel and get dinner on the way home. After Miles went to bed, my mom once again offered to stay with him so that we could go back to Disneyland to watch the fireworks show. We both were so tired, but I'm glad we went back. We had fun watching the show and did a little bit more wandering before we gave up and headed back.

Our blurry picture with Mickey
(I'll have to buy the park's picture since ours turned out blurry, of course!)

So happy

Playing the piano in one of the play areas

Watching the parade

The Celebration Parade

Riding the train

So in LOVE with that face!!!

The castle at night

The water show before the fireworks

Part 3

On Saturday, October 16th, we got up and around as fast as we could and headed over to Disneyland! It wasn't the perfect bright sunshiny day I would've hoped for, but I think it turned out to be a much more comfortable day because it was overcast and sort of on the chilly side. It never rained while we were there either which helped. The park was packed. I haven't seen that many people in one place in a while. It felt like at least half of Utah was there that day with us as well since it was a long weekend for all of Utah schools. We saw lots of people wearing BYU and University of Utah T-shirts. We had long lines unfortunately, but overall had a blast. Miles loved watching all the people and he enjoyed the rides that we got to go on. He even got to meet Mickey Mouse!!! He kept pointing and smiling at him until we got closer for the picture and then he got a little scared. He was pretty interested in his big nose. It was too cute! Miles was a trooper and did great.

We made it!

All decorated for Halloween

Park Entrance

I've noticed in a lot of these pictures Miles has his mouth wide open. I think he was having fun!

Riding the carousel

The Dumbo ride

Mad Hatter Tea Cups

We had to get him some Mickey Mouse ears!


As we were walking around trying to figure out what to eat for lunch, Miles gave up and fell asleep in his stroller. What a cute kid!

Part 2

After our adventures on the beach, we decided to head back to the hotel to hang out there the rest of the afternoon with our goal being to get Miles to bed on time so he would be ready to go for DISNEYLAND in the morning!

Having fun in the hotel pool

Getting a fast ride from dad

Warming up. His bottom lip wouldn't stop shivering!

After Miles was in bed, my mom agreed to stay with him while we went out for an "adult evening." We ended up at Downtown Disney for dinner. Dave was in heaven 'cause we ate at the ESPN Zone restaurant; TVs everywhere with every game imaginable on. Oh joy! The food was actually pretty good though.

UEA Weekend/Fall Break Part 1

On Thursday, October 14th, we headed down to Anaheim, California for a four day fun-filled weekend! The trip was supposed to take about ten hours of drive time, but with Miles it took just a tad bit longer, but he really did a great job at traveling again. I can only imagine how boring it is to be stuck in a car seat for that long. He also surprised us by taking only one nap during the day which lasted about an hour. As the sun was setting his grumpiness started to set in, but he eventually fell asleep until we got to our hotel. Dave found us a great deal on a hotel just blocks away from Disneyland. My mom also came with us so she could experience Miles' first trip to Disneyland as well. She was the only one out of all of us that had been to Disneyland before, but it was when she was 9 so she was excited to go back.

We woke up much earlier than we wanted on Friday morning and started thinking about rearranging our schedule for the two days we had in California. Miles didn't sleep well which was to be expected so we decided instead of heading to Disneyland that day and the beach the next day, we would just switch the two and give Miles an opportunity to have better naps so he was ready for Disneyland on Saturday.

While Miles napped, we drove part of Hwy 1 along the coast.
What a beautiful drive!

Playing in the COLD water at Huntington Beach

He had much more fun at the beach this time versus when we were in So. Carolina. I think his nap made a world of difference!

Playing with dad

Even though this picture is blurry, I love his cute smile. He was having fun!

So much fun that he didn't want to be held and just wanted to explore!

Interacting with wildlife on the beach