BOO!!!!

So, I know I'm a little slow in posting these but better late than never!

The ward party was on Friday and we had a great time but I took no pictures which is sad because Ashlynn's wings broke so she didn't have her real costume for Trick or Treating!  No big deal though, they all had a great time!

Maryn and Cayden had a Halloween Party at a friends house Saturday afternoon and had a great time!  Cayden got very into it and wanted all the make-up for his costume!

Ethan was an old time gangster, Cayden was a Pirate, Maryn was Sleeping Beauty, Gwendolyn was Cinderella and Ashlynn was the fairy god mother, until her wings broke!  Then she was going to be a 50's girl with a poodle skirt but she didn't like wearing the skirt so for Halloween she had her tutu on and a little white shirt!  It worked!

We were kind of slackers and never picked up pumpkins to carve so instead, I made sugar cookies and the kids got to frost them!  They had a blast using the decorating tips and bags!

RAIN!!!!!!!

We finally got some rain during the sunshine hours so the kids and I had to get out and play in it a bit!

 Ashlynn found the spot where it ran off the house and just got soaked playing in it!  Not the best idea because it was the dirtiest water but she had fun!

 LOVE this one!!!!

 I love water on flowers so I had to take some pics of the flowers after the rain stopped!

Summer evenings

Saturday afternoon we decided to take our dinner to a park and play!  It wasn't as hot as it could have been and we needed to get outside!  So... there was some swinging

 

And some playing in the sand...

And some climbing.....

And more sand playing...

 And lots of running by Cayden...

And some sliding!

And some more swinging! I just love Cayden's push and run method!

Ethan's favorite part of the evening was playing catch with dad! I don't think he's set the football down since then!

And some more climbing!

Even Ash had to get in on the catch!  She does pretty well!

It was a great way to end a Saturday!

Independence Day fun

Our ward had a pancake breakfast early Monday morning to start off the festivities!  I figured it'd be a great chance to try out my new camera.  Well, the pictures ended up mostly over exposed and not very good.  It's going to take me a while to figure it out but I'm still excited!

After breakfast they  a bunch of kiddie pools filled up outside which were a hit with all the kids.  They had squirt guns and all sort of water toys but as you can see the girls thought their hands were the best!

We had to keep the girls from jumping all the way in multiple times!  

They also had a parade and the girls found our neighbor's bike and decided to play with it!  They were so cute!

 They had a game where a bunch of dads held an empty water bottle on their heads and kids had to fill cups of water and carry them on their heads and fill up the dad's water bottle!  I took a bunch of pictures of it but they didn't turn out!  It was great fun watching the kids "miss" the water bottle and get the dad's all wet!  

Thankfully I did not get too wet but everyone else was completely soaked!  Good thing we have leather seats in the car, or they would have walked home! :)

I love the timer setting on my camera and the tripod we had for the video camera works great too!  I also think I got the exposure problem figured out.

Playing with my camera during the fireworks was fun!  Here are some of the pictures I took! I might want to get sparklers next year just for fun pictures!

This heart one was a fun one!