Trick or Treating like there's no place like home!

I'm no halloween extraordinaire. I am, however, LOVING that we are in a place where you can fully appreciate halloween and outdoor events. No coats. No jackets. No snowboots. No winter storm warnings. No hot cider (ok, I do miss that). No finishing when the sun goes down. THIS is halloween Phoenix style. We quickly found out last year that halloween around here is for everyone. There are events on every corner, for a week before halloween. Every neighborhood has a block party and if you want to have trick or treaters, you merely set up outside and watch the kiddos flock to you:) It's great.

Cute brothers... Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh MY!



Pumpkin Patch in the middle of the desert!?
Fun day with preschool
and the boys' favorite skeleton shirts that I had to wash
every night for the past two weeks! They DO glow in the dark
 and I got them on sale at Carters:)



The happiest Tinman! One of the girls at the Boo Bash was teasing
him telling him he didn't have a heart and how was he going to have
 a girl friend if he didn't have a heart. He replied, "In real life I do
 have a heart, right mama!"

Poor Cowardly Lion... fleece costumes are not conducive to 90* Phx!

Ok, this is the only pic I have right now of our whole fam, but the
Boo Bash took professional ones... so more to come. And no, Napoleon
is not part of the Wizard of Oz, but he is single, ladies (wink, wink)
AND he's going to be a dentist, if all goes well!

    This year, we were able to hit up a few parties including the Midwestern event on Friday afternoon and the Boo Bash (put on by the Az Dental Assoc.) on Friday night. Saturday, we laid low and went to the zoo and then Sunday we got together with our totally awesome friends to eat dinner in a pumpkin by candlelight and watch It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and eat yummy popcorn balls. It was Great! I also have to mention, we (again) took first place in the Boo Bash Costume contest. Oops. I think I'll retire while I'm ahead! The greatest thing about our costumes is that for the 4 of us, I spent less than $20! I planned ahead this year and hopefully can do the same next year... with a little less last minute rush:) Ha! (Did I mention I have been telling Ben I want to SIMPLIFY my life to which he keeps replying with a sinister laugh and a "You wouldn't know how!") Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll have to simplify AFTER the holidays. Did you know I LOVE holidays AND ANY reason to party??

You Arrrre 4, Isaac!

I always say this, but I can't believe Ike is already... 4! He is such a great little boy. I know I'm biased, but he's pretty special in our eyes. We had a Pirate Party this year at the park (something we may not always be able to enjoy at the end of October, so we thought we better take advantage)! We made candy skeleton necklaces, went on a pirate treasure hunt and ate skeleton cupcakes. Oh, and of course, played Pirates- there was lots of "ARRRRGGHH!" going on! It was a great day with LOTS for friends and fun! Thanks, everyone!

Notice Ben Walker's face in the background:)

Not all the kids, but some of the Pirate Posse

Who Is That??

Yep, Kanye West and Taylor Swift... I think our babysitter thought we were the coolest people ever!

FYI- it took 30 mins to paint on, including taping off the hair line... It took over an hour to wash out and another hour to clean the shower! I guess it was worth it:)

Poor Taylor, once again, Kanye stole her thunder!

For the record, I'm sitting on a old lady walker with a bench... I just thought it was a good pic of the rest of the girls!

Old Geezers:) I think they've been hanging out in Sun City too much!

Some of our friends threw a halloween party this weekend and there was a competition involved... If you know me, you know what that means... I spent way too many nights lying awake trying to decide what to be and spent a little too much time trying to convince Ben to do it... The results... We came home $100 richer and we had a GREAT time! There were some FABULOUS ideas for halloween costumes that I will be using in the future:) I think MY favorite was the Human Pinata and a Little Birthday Boy. What a fun night!

Idaho Modge Podge... the last in the series:)

You would think I was busy or something the way this blogging is going... I am finding that this fall is flying by! I need to start reporting on our day to day, preferably before Christmas! Anyway, on to Idaho... We had the most fortunate opportunity to spend our last couple of weeks in Idaho not traveling at all, but instead indulging in raspberries and green beans everyday. With warm days and cool nights and GREAT company, who wouldn't fall in love??
  

Richard Pieper Family 2010

Quite the babysitters:)

Best Friends:)

Welcome back Paul!

I have to admit that part of my nervous self was nervous to spend an extended amount of time with the Piepers. That doesn't sound right.... What I mean is, I still wanted them to LIKE us or even LOVE us after our trip was over. I know my kids aren't ALWAYS on their best behavior:) ok, neither am I. As luck would have it, we had THE BEST TIME EVER in Idaho! I LOVE LOVE LOVE spending time with our families and my kids are in LOVE too! Even Zach has learned to say "Nanna" for Hannah and "Pauo" for Paul. The kids were most entertained with all the aunts, uncles and cousins, not to mention two very loving, helpful, spoil-rottening Grandparents. I love you all to pieces and we had a WONDERFUL time!

     I should also mention we had our first ever Richard Pieper family reunion. What a lucky time. It just so happened all nine siblings could be there. Paul came home from his mission the first day and we just had a blast! As you can imagine, we kept busy as ever! We also we able to catch up with Casey, Rach and Zaya before they began their Las Vegas adventure and Beck, Michael and Jacob before their Wisconsin adventure. What a lovely time to be together. I can't say enough good stuff.

      Finally, we were able to spend lots of time outdoors hiking, biking, running and climbing. Oh, and we even tried out the new hottub while projecting a moving onto the side of the house. Yep, take a sec to re read that one... The brothers were at it with crazy shinanigans the whole time! 

     All in all, the summer was just wonderful. It makes me sad to post all this b/c I've been trying to forget how fun it was:) and get back to life "in the big apple (desert style)!" We feel very fortunate to have had this time together and to have shared it with so many of you!

Mary, Hannah, Peter, Paul, Rach, Sarah, Beck, Jen, Ben

cute back sides:)

Calvin Klein... meet your match

 

 

The Jones Family - cute little baby Jacob

hiking at Jenny Lake (before Ike fell in the lake!)

 

post falling in Jenny Lake- brrr! Nice monster undies!

Logan Canyon hike- Wind Caves

Happy 7 yrs of Hiking Married:)

The Boys with Great Grandma Pieper:)

The Midwest, In All It's Glory

As if we didn't have enough fun the first time around, we returned to Nebraska and Kansas for more "action:)"

Playing at Lake McConaughy- awesome sandy beaches and warm water. We made a little afternoon trip out of it and even managed a stop at Ole's to see the famous Polar Bear, Elephant head, Giraffe head, etc. A "must see" on I-80:)

Laugh if you must, but TRACTOR PULLS are the COOLEST thing ever! As you can see from Zach's reaction, they are simply mesmerizing! Really though, if you ever have a chance at this pure redneck form of entertainment, run to it! It was well worth every pennie and the 100* 90% humidity we suffered through to watch it! Ike's favorite tractor was name "Mean Moline." He still pretends he is Mean Moline every once in awhile.
Perhaps just as good as the tractor pull itself is people watching at the tractor pull. Lets just say we have a whole new respect for redneck children and what they must go through at home... Ok, I better share... I saw a little kid with BEAUTIFUL long curly blonde hair. In fact it was so beautiful that I pointed it out to Ben. THEN THE KID TURNED AROUND... yep, it was a BOY with lovely blonde locks down to his hips age appx. 2 yrs. with a shirt on that said "My Daddy Drives a Caterpillar Machine" sweet.

How can you not eat PLENTY of CORN on the COB or cookies for that matter?? It's the midwest for heaven's sake! Zach LOVES it:) This was the day he discovered said love.

My cousins with Ike- they look pretty tough, eh?! They played nurf wars for what seemed like hours. Ben was on a team with Justin and Mallory. Ike, Josh and Madison were the upstairs team. Nurf darts were flying everywhere. It was a sight! Ike is still talking about going back to visit these guys and when that will be. He had a blast (and we did too)! We also got to see my cousin, Danielle and my Aunt Jen of course, but I missed that photo op:)



Ike prays every night that we can go back to North Platte to the bumper boats and that he and Grandma can choose red again. Yep, it's bound to be a tradition now:) Besides bumper boats, he also LOVED the Childrens "mah-zoo-zem" including the dentist room, doctor room, pizza shop, bank, grocery store, school house, farm, art room, music room, and car racing room. It was a huge hit! (he prays for that every night too)!



Zach and Gramps enjoying the tractor pull- can you tell it's HOT??

Grandma Pokorninininini (as Ike calls her) We just call her Grandma :) I love this lady so much. She is truly someone I look up to and miss everyday. Sniff. What a good lady.



Well, I missed getting pics of the rest of my family in Kansas, but this is my Aunt Mary. She is so fun! In fact, she is so fun that she was caught on many occasions taking my kiddos for walks to the pond, to see the birds, to the Library and Park! Crazy lady:) I love her and am so glad she has left such a good lasting impression on my boys. I hope they always remember the goodness of our family in Kansas. Wow, I really miss them now. Maybe I can talk Ben into moving to the Midwest after school???

 We had such a good time in the Midwest. I really do feel like it is my growing up home. I miss it, maybe someday I'll even miss the humidity:) We were able to spend lots of quality time with our family and with each other. We took walks or runs every day. We also went on an awesome day trip 4 wheeling with my dad to Halsey National Forest (in Nebraska- weird, I know, but really cool). We went to Cody Park to feed the ducks and ride the carousel innumerable times and even checked out a tandem bike to ride around town (for free, no less)! The river in North Platte is beautiful with the nice river paths and I had a blast running there (turns out I can run FOREVER in the midwest)! Oh, I also should mention, I had a wonderful time Garage Saling and ended up with some real steals- like a new kelty baby backpack for $5! Sweet! Thanks everyone, we had a wonderful time!