October iMoments

Joey is finally getting the hang of Luke's bike and roller-horse that were his only mode of transportation. It makes us happy to see them being used again. :)

During Sophie's family birthday party, Aunt Millie caught this cute moment between Papa and Joey. My kids are so blessed to have such a loving Papa!

It was Sophie's turn to have her field trip to the Hill AFB Museum, so Danny was sure to meet her there. They had a great time together, and Sophie loved showing off her Daddy. 

Johnny was recognized by the principle for being the Student of the Month! 

Claire's turn for her Daddy-Daughter date to the game. Good thing Danny enjoys his dates so much...because the Cougars are REALLY struggling this season!

While Danny and Claire where at the game, I let Johnny stay up for the first half. Johnny turns to me and says, "Watching football and eating gummy bears just feels good." :)

I caught Joey struggled up in Luke's blanket. This is a really special time in that Joey is virtually the same age, at the same time of year, that Luke was when he was home and healthy with us. There is some ache to see Joey and cuddled up in Luke's blanket...but mostly it makes me happy.

I've been determined to learn how to make homemade tortillas, just like I grew up on. I think my Grandma would be proud of these!

Enjoyed a special birthday lunch with Sophie-kins at Blue Lemon! I love our birthday dates with the kids...it's great to get some one-on-one time with each of them...at least once a year ;)

Joey is by far the most independent child we've had. I guess he decided he wanted a cookie...so he got into the laundry room and found a paper plate, then climbed up onto the table, took the lid off the cookie jar, grabbed a cookie, and put it on his plate! I couldn't even be mad about him climbing on the table, I was just impressed!

#brownieperfection

This seems to be the month of Joey/Luke flashbacks. I decided I needed some slippers for Joey. They're so much easier than trying to put shoes and socks on him just to run the kids to the school in the morning. Naturally, they had to be monster feet. :)

#momlife isn't so bad. :)

Blessed Day! First day of Nursery for Joseph, and he loved it!

When we went to go visit Great Grandma, Joey showed her how to work a fidget spinner. Ah, the influence of the younger generation...

Joey wants nothing more in life than to be like the older kids and do what they do. He's watched Claire practice piano in the morning, and so as soon as she goes to school he climbs up on the piano and practices too. 

Joey was LOVING his first time on that slides at the park...until he missed a step on the way up and bit through his lip. Those baby teeth are sharp!

Good thing Mama knew just what to do. Wipe the blood away and distract with camera!

The girls took our old cases when we switched phones. I caught them taking pretend selfies at the store! 

Our good friends the Overs were here visiting from Lancaster. Her sister lives here in Syracuse, and they were having a Halloween party and invited us to come so we could visit with our friends. The kids had a blast becoming acquainted again, and I loved the chance to catch up with Andrea. We've been so blessed in our lives with great friends.

And to think...it wasn't that long ago these girls were having fairy/princess tea parties!

We had the wonderful experience of joining Natalia in the Salt Lake Temple when she received her endowment in preparation to serve her mission in the Salt Lake City South Mission. Jeff, Jami, Rose, and Tali even stayed with us, and we had such a wonderful time together! We're so proud of Tali, and even though we're going to miss her we can't wait for her to serve. And we promise we won't just happen to find ourselves in her mission ready to smother her in hugs. We promise! :)

Claire made it into the beginner chess club this year at school! She's so excited, and I'm so impressed with her courage to try new and hard things!

Sophie has such a cute group of friends, and I'm so grateful that their moms go to the school functions and take pictures. :)

Claire's Halloween recital went so well! At least, that's what I've been told. Unfortunately, Danny and I were in Vegas and missed it this time. It was a double bummer, because Claire and I were supposed to play a duet. But what do you do? She knew we were so sad to miss it, and she was sad too...but she understood. Sometimes you just have conflicts in the calendar. But Grandma Candy took her and the kids, and Papa and Grandma Call were there to video it so we could see it as soon as she finished. I'm so grateful for amazing grandparents and awesome technology!

This is the face Grandma Candy got when she wouldn't let Joey play in the broken portion of the fence. :)

These boys...they were both zombies for Halloween this year, just by chance! And what better place to be a zombie than in Grandma Candy's epic leaf pile?

Trunk-or-treat with Grandma Candy!

"Umm...Mom! I'm trying to watch football in the wee hours of the morning, here!"

Halloween

With mine and Danny's trip to Vegas, we didn't get to carve pumpkins until right before Halloween. The day before, in fact. However, it worked out well since the kids were off of school that day, so we had the afternoon to work on them. We had a great time! And the older kids are finally to the age where they can do a majority of the carving on their own, which was really fun for everyone. Especially me, who really didn't have the will to carve the better part of four pumpkins. :) I think they turned out awesome! And it was a great FHE activity to boot!

Tuesday was the big day! Sophie and Johnny dressed up for their class parties, but Claire got to have her much-awaited Dia de los Muertos party. The kids were all pretty happy with their day when I picked them up! We had a quick dinner and then got ready to do some trick-or-treating! Joey had practiced at Grandma Candy's truck-or-treat, so he was ready to go! We picked Grace up along the way, per our Halloween trick-or-treating tradition, and took the neighborhood by storm. And we were sure to stop at our annual stops for hot chocolate and fresh scones with honey butter. Love our neighborhood! Joey did pretty good...but after a while opted to just sit in the wagon and eat his candy.  We couldn't blame him. :)

And with that, Halloween was behind us. There won't be many more years before Claire will be done trick-or-treating...and then maybe we move on to Halloween parties? We'll have to see!

Vegas Tough Mudder

Finally...after almost eight months since Danny signed up for his first Tough Mudder...it was finally here! And Danny was ready!! We were both really excited, though I was a bit nervous about navigating the spectator route by myself. I wanted to see every bit of Danny conquering this race that I could, but I had NO idea what I was doing! But if Danny could run the thing, surely I could figure out how to spectate it! :)

 Danny had a start time of 9:30 am, but we were sure to get there in plenty of time. I wanted him to help me figure out the spectator route, and we needed time for pictures and the like. We also met up with the rest of the group. The morning started out chilly, with a stiff breeze, but it quickly warmed up. It was going to be the perfect day to get muddy!

Each wave got to have a little pep talk from the emcee. I guess he's been doing this forever, and he's got his little speech down pat. ;) He was upbeat and positive though, and reminded everyone that this was a challenge...and to challenge themselves to do what they didn't think they could do. It was silly, but it was also kind of awesome. It made me wish I was running, too! Even though I was a ways away, I could tell Danny was totally pumped and just dying to get started! And then finally...they were off!

Luckily for me, there were two others from the work groups that were there supporting their significant other, so I wasn't alone in trying to figure out the spectator route. Though honestly, it was still too hard for us to figure out! We stumbled around for a while, not able to find the first obstacle that we were supposed to be able to watch. So we went on to the second one, and waited about a half hour or so before I saw Danny and Ben coming up the hill. Danny knew that the rest of the group wouldn't be able to keep up with him and Ben, and as it turned out it was only about a mile into the race that they pulled ahead. It made me so happy to see the big smile on Danny's face! He was having the time of his life. :)

The first obstacle I was able to see Danny do was the "Pyramid Scheme". Luckily for Danny and Ben, I had been sitting there for a while watching groups struggle with getting everyone up over the slippery incline. But there was one group that did it with ease, so I took note. The way to do it was to built the human chain...but instead of the person at the top going over and then pulling the person beneath them, the person on the very bottom needed to come up first! I clued Danny in as they approached, and they got themselves (plus a few others!) over with not problem. It was so fun to watch!

Next he was on to the "Hero Carry". Danny and Ben moved WAY quicker than I did, so I wasn't able to get there to take pictures. But the good crew at Tough Mudder got a good one for me. :) I broke away from the other two spectators I was with and struck out on my own, trying to get to the next obstacle after the "Hero Carry" before Danny and Ben got there. 

BUT...I missed it! I still couldn't figure out where the heck I was supposed to be! By the time Danny got to where I was, he had already done "Everest 2.0". I was so bummed. But he and Ben were having such a good time, they walked back with me and did it again!! Danny ran up that wall like it was nothing, doing by himself what most others needed help with. Yup. That's my man! :)

With "Everest 2.0" done, that was the end of the first half of the spectator route. Danny had a few miles to run to get to the next place I could meet up with him, and I had quite the walk to get there too. I was feeling a bit more confident in my ability to figure this out on my own, especially when I realized that nobody was bothering with the spectator route. They just walked wherever they wanted! And I decided to swallow my pride and start asking people to help me. That helped immensely! :) And everyone was so nice. Seriously, the atmosphere was amazing!

I actually got to the next obstacle before Danny got there...though it was really nerve-wracking to wait! I had no idea if Danny had already been there or not, and if for some reason I missed him I'd just get farther behind him. I was so relieved when I saw him and Ben come up over the hill! Next up for them was "Kiss of Mud"...

Danny rocked it! Ben wished he'd worn a shirt. :) Being in the desert, it really wasn't mud as much as it was gravel with water. Danny's knees got a little scraped up, but otherwise he was no worse for the wear. And he was still having an absolute ball! And I can't describe how happy it made me to see him loving this experience so much. 

I hustled to the next set of obstacles, and luckily these three were rather close together. First up was "Funky Monkey". The run between "Kiss of Mud" and "Funky Monkey" was pretty intense, but I have to say that the little bit of walking Danny and Ben from that last hill to the obstacle was just about the only walking they did. 

Now, the next set of obstacles was a lot of upper body and grip strength. Danny knew he didn't train for this part...he's always so conscientious about his shoulder and not wanting to re-injure it. So it wasn't all-together surprising when he dropped into the green drink. But nonetheless rather frustrating for Danny. He felt like the gloves we got him actually hampered his ability to grip the bars on this particular obstacle, so he decided to try again without them. He got farther, but unfortunately his arms were already fatigued and he just didn't get all the way across. Next race though, he'll be ready for the "Funky Monkey"!

Next up was "Shawshanked", and Danny was still running! I couldn't believe it, but he still had a smile on his face!

After "Shawshanked" was "Kong", which unfortunately Danny wasn't able to finish. Again, next time he'll be ready!

And there were only two more obstacles after "Kong" before the race was over! The next obstacle had a spectator area, but there was no way I was going to be able to beat Danny and Ben to the finish line (and the last obstacle) if I stopped...not with how much quicker they were moving than me! So I high tailed it to the finish line...and the obstacle of all obstacles..."Electroshock Therapy"! It was this obstacle that kept me from being on board with this whole crazy idea to begin with. I just hated the thought of Danny running through live wires! But he assured me that it wouldn't be that bad. Well...turns out it was that bad!! And what's worse is that I didn't get the camera set up in time to get it filmed for the kids. So I made Danny run it twice! In my defense, I didn't know how painful it was until AFTER he ran it the second time. Oops. :) But that's how amazing Danny is that he willing ran it again! And can I just say that I'm so glad we got Danny's race pictures for free from Tough Mudder?! They got WAY better pictures of "Electroshock Therapy" than I did!

At that was that! Danny finished the Tough Mudder, and did so easily. He was so happy to get his official Tough Mudder sweatband, but was bugged that the people that had ran at least one Mudder before got a different color. He wants that other color now. :) All said and done, Danny ran 12 miles of obstacles and complete the race in 3 hours...and did a few obstacles more than once! It was a better experience than either of us expected, and Danny is hooked. I'm sure we'll be doing another Mudder soon!

After the race, Danny found the water station where he could hose off. Somehow I lost my phone, so we ended up looking for that for a few minutes before finally making our way to the car. We were both pretty hungry, and there was really only once place we wanted to go. Shake Shack! So we drove back into town for a delicious and indulgent lunch before starting our drive home. It was an uneventful drive, and we made it home at about 10:30 pm. I'm so so glad that Danny talked me into this whole race idea, and that we decided to make a weekend of it. We needed the time together, Danny needed that race, and I needed some time away from the monotony of daily life. Best. Weekend. Ever!