Bird Halloween Party

My mom held her Halloween/Birthday party again this year. I love this new tradition. We all get to dress up and have a fun Halloween dinner and play games. This year Matt and I (okay, I made Matt agree) decided to be Ghostbusters and Ethan was Slimer. Let me just give a big "Thanks" to my mom who made the body of the Slimer costume and helped me figure out his hat. Though he ended up looking more like a green pepper from "Veggie Tales," I think everyone got who he was supposed to be.

My brother Kirk dressed up using tattoo sleeves, his wife Heather was a nurse, Seth was a rapper, Dakota a groovy gal and Hannah and Jacie were witches. Justin, Shelly and Ava were the Scooby Doo gang. Justin was Shaggy, Shelly Velma and Ava was a course a cute Scooby Doo.

Jaime came as a fabulous Cruella Deville, Phil a cowboy, Curt Ryan a pumpkin and little Caycee a pink leopard.

Krista, Taylor and Trigger were Little Bo-Peep, Little Boy Blue and a sheep. Check out Krista's blog, House of Payne if you want to see costume pictures.

For dinner we had wonderful onion rings, monster toes (homemade corn dogs), a barf salad (pistachio salad), a graveyard dip and ghoulish punch.

After dinner my parents gave each family a big pumpkin they had grown in their patch to carve. Then the carnival games began. We had bobbing for apples, bean bag toss, a straw blowing contest, and my favorite, the donut eating contest. Ethan was so cute he loved the doughnut contest. I was surprised he got it. He would lay down on the ground with Curt Ryan and Ava to eat his doughnut. He quickly figured out that wasn't going to work then got up and grabbed his doughnut.




Afterwards, my parents had set up a spook alley in the basement for the little kids. Complete with strobe lights, scary sounds, skeletons, spiders, mist and black lights. Ethan loved it and wanted to keep going through again and again.


Thanks Krista and Mom for taking pictures. Our camera is not working.

Pumpkin Carving

Matt and Ethan carving pumpkins for the first time. Ethan was so excited.

September 2009: Laura's Visit

The last week of September, Matt's sister Laura and her family came to Utah for a visit. They stayed in Salt Lake for a few days before heading up to Logan so Ethan got to hang out with his cousins from Arizona.

The first day we hung out with Laura and her family, we went to the zoo. It was so fun to go again and see all the baby animals, the giraffe, tigers and snow leopards. Unfortunately the baby elephant wasn't out yet.


The next day we went to the Discovery Gateway children's museum. Out of all the exhibits Ethan loved the beehive ball center and of course the cars.

This car is especially cool since it has two wheels to turn.

The last day we hung out Brian, Laura and the girls were on their way up to Logan and stopped at the Dinosaur park in Ogden. Matt and I have been meaning to check it out, but had never gotten around to it yet. Ethan was still a little young to full enjoy it, but he still had a great time. I thought it was a great museum. Especially the outside dinosaur displays. It was great to just let the kids run around and not have to worry about them breaking them. The museum was decorating for their October spook alley, so there were little skeleton men and Halloween figure everywhere. It looks like it would be a cool haunted forest to check out.


It was so great to see Laura and her family and for Ethan to play with Bailee and Eli. I think he was only 9 months old the last time we saw them. Thanks Laura for letting us tag along.

September 29, 2009: Witches Outing

My mom and sisters came down today and we met at Gardner Village to check out the witches. Below are some pictures my sister Krista took while we were there. It's always so great when they come down to hang out.

Me and Ethan outside the knitting shop.

Ethan watching Curt Ryan try on Halloween garb.

September 25, 2009: Snowbird's Oktoberfest

Matt and I went to Oktoberfest up at Snowbird Ski Resort back when we were dating. It was fun to see the booths and have their sausage with sauerkraut. We have always meant to go again, but have just never made it. We decided to take Ethan up this year. They usually hold it the last weekend in September and the first few in October. Matt had a Friday off so we decided to go up then instead of Saturday to avoid larger crowds. Apparently, Friday is not considered part of the "weekend" since the booths were all empty and no one was there. We decided to just let Ethan run around on the trails behind the resort buildings. He had a blast just running to his hearts content and had to drag either Matt or I along with him most the time.

September 19, 2009: Truck and Tractor Fair

I had been hearing on the radio about this Truck and Tractor Fair up at the U. I thought it would be great to go to since Ethan, like most toddler boys, loves trucks and tractors. It usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes to get from our house to that area of SLC. This day, it took over an hour from the time we left our house until I could pull into the parking lot, thanks to lovely construction. Ethan was such a good kid the whole time we were detouring and turning around.

Anyway, enough about that. Once we actually got into the fair it was great. They had fire trucks, ambulances, big rigs (current and vintage), police vehicles, lifts, tractors, garbage trucks (new ones), etc. that they were allowing the kids to get in and climb around. Ethan was so excited and ran around, until I tried to put him behind the wheel of a fire truck. I guess it was a little too big up close for him. He loved the vintage trucks and of course the tractors.

They also had a bounce house, caricature artist, and wood projects that you could build provided free by Home Depot.

Ethan trying our the forklift.

Me and Ethan in front of the Fire Truck. This is as close as he would get to it. He loves fire trucks, but I think he was scared since it was so close and so big.

Ethan loved this vintage truck.

Ethan on a big red tractor. It took a lot of waiting to sit on this one. It was very popular.

Summer 2009

It was so sad to see summer turn into fall. Although I love fall, we had such a great summer watching Ethan grow, explore and experience new things.

Ethan's first Jeep ride up Logan Canyon. We will definitely be doing more of this next year when we get the chance.

Hiking on a trail up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We actually ran into a snowfall area and had to turn around. It was to nice and cool durning the hot summer months.

I got a little kiddie pool for Ethan which he loved to play in and of course while having a cool treat.

We loved going to Hogle Zoo. I think we will be getting a memeber pass again this next year. It was definitely worth it. Ethan loved riding on the Zoofari Express.

Ethan with our cute neighbor, Lila. She is the older woman in his life. They are a month a part and are so cute playing together.


Ethan prepping for another bike ride.