October Fun

I accidently put the videos first so here you go:

Shizzie has come leaps and bounds since we started doing the training classes with her.  She can now fetch, drop, sit, come, and walk on a leash. Halleluja.  If only we could get her to stop jumping up on us. She's a ball of energy and we love her.

At Zac's party. It'll all make sense after you read through the pictures below.

October has been such an awesome fun month from start to finish.  Here we are at the top of the month.  We love living so close to BYU and being able to participate in fun events like BYU Homecoming! Anne ran in the kids Cougar Run in the 200 meters.  She had a blast and still talks about racing "like Mama".  We just wish it had been a tad warmer, at 8am in the morning it was barely 40 degrees outside so we were all bundled. 

 Rachel sporting her cute BYU gear.

 After the run was the blue pancake breakfast while we waited for the parade to come by.  The pancakes were actually kind of gross but Anne liked them.

 We believe this parade is farrrrr better than the 4th of July one.  It's much more kid-friendly with candy, interactive people, and music.  Anne's favorite part by far was seeing the "siwens" (sirens).  Since we live near a main road we hear them all the time and she always talks about them, so when she heard them in the parade she was estatic to see what the noise actually comes from.

Rachel having her first candy.  She's a fan.

 We love these cute matching pj's from Grandma Thatcher!

 My hair stylist.

 They both asked to climb in there.

 I love this picture.  Totally Rachel.

 Tired girl.

 I know this is silly, but she has such a cute crying face I had to take a picture.  Cute little button nose.

 Trying to get them to take a picture together.  This is as good as it got.

 Her new friend Geoffrey. (And that's Shizzie in the background.)

 While we were taking a walk Anne stops and does this.  We ask her "What are you doing?" She says, "I stretching, like Mama stretch." So cute.

 Shizzie has gotten over her distaste for water.  We took her to the duck pond and she dove right in.  She didn't want the ducks, just wanted to play in the water.

 In the middle of October (the 16th to be exact) we celebrated Zac's birthday! I had been planning a surprise party for him for months and we alllllmost made it.  A friend accidently spoiled the surprise the night before the party, but it was still fun.  We had a bbq and flag football at the park.   Thank you buddies for helping me put everything together and thanks everybody that was able to come and show Zac how much he is loved.

 Rachel and her buddy Logan.

 A brownie covered in peanut butter with chocolate frosting.  Zac's favorite. Thanks Alexis, for helping make it look so cute!

 The kids loved playing with the water spigut.  Sorry parents.

 Anne wanted to play too.

 I think Anne is more excited for our birthdays than we are.  Nice wrapping huh? ;)

 Dancing with the girls.  They sure love their Daddy :)

 A preview of next month's fun.

 Another tired girl.

 Anne said she was mowing with her mower "like Daddy".

 Anne is obsessed with my shoes.  I swear she walks in these high heels better than I do.

 On one of our many sick days we had fun decorating Anne's "treasure box" as she called it.  Thanks for such a fun present Maija!

 And for the end of the month.

The girls had fun with the pumpkin (you'll see in the video).  Here Anne's supervising Daddy's handywork.

 Rachel wanted to put these on.

 I thought Aunt Michelle would like to see that the hat she made me while I was in college is still well-loved.  Anne insists on wearing it when we go out and I think it is pretty darn cute.

 And now for the Halloween fun.  Last night we had our ward's Trunk-or Treat party and we were so excited to wear our costumes.  We decided to go with a Whinnie the Pooh theme this year since that's the girls' favorite movie.  I went to DI at the beginning of the month when they had a ton of cool costumes available and these happen to be the ones that I found in each of everyone's sizes.  They're kind of our alter-egos which is great.

 And believe it or not, it was Zac's idea for him being Piglet. So awesome.

 That night was also my Halloween Fun Run in American Fork, my last race of the season.  I wanted to see how fast I could run a 5k after training for 10k's all summer.  I was pretty bummed and thought I wouldn't be able to run cause two days before I had the stomach flue and couldn't train well.  But I decided to go ahead and just run it anyways for fun.  The race was a blast.  I loved running in the dark in my Whinnie the Pooh costume and hearing kids cheer "Look Mom there's Whinnie the Pooh! Go Whinnie the Pooh!" I ended up beating my last race time by 5 minutes and got first place in my age group.  Cool way to end the running season.

 Just Rachel and Dad went to Church today since Anne still has a runny nose and this is how he dressed her.  Adorable.

 While they were at Church I was tidying up the kitchen and Anne really wanted to sweep the floor.  She does such a good job at this, very thourough.  Even moves the chairs out of the way and shakes the rugs.  My big helper.  After this we made caramel, chocolate, candy bar apples mmmmm.

 Grandpa Thatcher sent Anne a new rocking horse for her birthday! Thanks Grandpa! While Zac was trying to se it up the girls were testing out the equipment.