November Birthdays

Boppa, Corin, and Elijah all have birthdays right in a row, so we had a big combined party for them.

We started off by playing a family game of softball (literally- a big, fuzzy tennis ball).

Then we all headed over to Andy/Grace's house for presents and dinner.

 Boppa the Grey: You shall not pass!

Destination Phoenix

We took a few days and headed south for a "vacation"! We're somewhat odd people in that we went and stayed with friends (very good, patient friends) with 4 kids and 2 large puppies for our vacation. We did manage to come home feeling less stressed! :)

We took a break at Montezuma's Castle for a picnic. The sycamore trees are very cool. When their bark is in process of coming off they look very "camo"!

Then we went to the AZ Pioneer Museum. It also happened to be the Rebels and Redcoats weekend!

Christian wanted to spend more time in the carpentry shop drooling over clamps and planes. :)

There was a hay maze

 The kids got to be taught the drills by a "rebel" soldier!

 We saw some shady characters...

Hopefully none of them will end up here!

 The twins made friends with a couple girls from the 18th century. :)

 We got a bonus visit in with Christian's old roommate's family!

The rest of our weekend was spent drinking coffee with old friends and watching the crazies play in the freezing water.

Oh, and Julie had the kids make caramel apples- yum!

Our Occasionally Annual Treasure Hunt

We're not big "crowd" people, so we'll often spend Halloween just doing our own thing, which occasionally turns out to be a treasure hunt...that the kids like to dress up for. It's some fun family time anyway. :)

 The girls all ended up being ninjas- of some sort or another...

 These ninjas' weapons of choice happened to be princess tea party accessories.

 A ninja with a pirate Mama.

Sometimes even ninjas need hugs! 

 The Fearsome Threesome

 Peter decided to give himself some muscles...

 Elijah was quite the menacing figure!

 And then we added dark eyebrows...just because why not?!

 The commencement of the treasure hunt!

 My cousins made me keep this red dress as a cute swimsuit cover-up. But I'm afraid I turned it into a pirate outfit. Or maybe just a normal downtown Flagstaff resident- either one works.

 Berea does look like maybe she's a ninja from the middle east...

 Flagstaff pirate- we say "brrr" instead of "arrr"

For the treasure the kids got a few pieces of candy and some money to spend at our church's craft sale in a couple weeks!