General Conference

The boys picked their key words to listen for to earn their candy to later play (blackout) conference bingo. Their words of choice were Jesus & God for Maverick, and love & prayer for Lincoln. They earned those treats pretty darn quickly! I started using conference as a time/reminder to swap out items in our 72 hour kits (something Ronnie suggested). It felt so nice to have my kits all put together with enough of the basics that we would be ok if there were an emergency. I still have things I would like to add eventually, but those essential items are taken care of!

Scarecrow Festival

Ronnie invited us to do the scarecrow festival with her at Thanksgiving point this year. It was pretty impressive. I enjoyed being outside and seeing all the creativity while walking around. The boy's favorites were, of course, Scooby Doo and any and all Star Wars. It was a lot colder outside than we had dressed for (especially for our Texas transitioning bodies), but we were tough and had fun regardless.

Mav Exposed

Maverick brought home his reading book checkout list one day and let me know that he signed it for me. ....can you tell which signatures are his vs mine? We talked about how I needed to sign things and not him. It was a good laugh.

Cornbelly's With Dad

Pictures are from the two nights we used our guess pass to have Lehi come to Cornbelly's with us. We had the Lovell family come one night, too.We discovered the caramel popcorn was delicious, pumpkin and apple donuts were good (but didn't live up to the hype about them), and leaned a lot of facts about Toy Story. The corn maze was set up to be a picture from Toy Story, and had questions to answer that determined which direction you went in the maze. The boys LOVED the apple cannon and might have been their favorite thing....or the rope's course. That might be a close second. It was so nice having Lehi there because he was able to watch Brielle while I played on the ropes with the boys. ...They also loved the ziplines (I have some rad videos of Lincoln getting some serious air at the end of the run). We stayed late, wore the kids out (yay!) and loved spending time together.

We made may trips, the last the boys decided to use the last of their punch cards to ride the mechanical bull. Maverick did a good job and Lincoln was a hoot--pretty much hanging on while one leg was wrapped around the saddle. I have a video for both in the video folders!

City Trick-or-Treat

One of my neighbors told us the city was holding an outdoor trick-or-treat where you walked around to different booths set up outside. We were able to sign up and get our time slot reserved. Lehi and I were so impressed with how inclusive the booths were for the whole community--from firefighters, librarians, police officers, to the "Miss Lehi" high school gals. The police officers had a mechanical dog that was controlled from a distance (including voice) that the boys thought it was the coolest thing ever. We ended up with lots of candy, coupons, and other trinkets.

Halloween

We went to Walmart a few weeks before Halloween for FHE to get supplies to make the boys their costumes. After having about half the things I needed in the basket, I turned to Lehi and said, "should we just buy them one that is already finished? It's not like I am saving any money here." The boys were so excited to each find a Scooby Doo (which we were going to make). But Lincoln's we called Scrappy Doo, because that is who he wanted to be ;) I did get a few things to make Brielle's, because that wasn't one I was going to be able to pull off a shelf. This year we had, Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo, and the monster they were chasing (running away from)--who just happened to look like a monster from Where the Wild Things are.

We had the Lovell family over to do some trick-or-treating with us. Alex and I took the boys & babies out for a bit, then brought the babies back to hang out with Lehi & Tyler while they held down the fort & passed out candy. With COVID, the neighborhood requested those who would be participating to put a printable sign up for trick-or-treaters to see and know they could go to that house. It was almost like an eye-spy mixed in with traditional trick-or-treating. One house had their backyard all decorated with people dressed as werewolves, etc that we got to walk through. Maverick ran towards the end because he was so scared. I think their favorite house was the one handing out cans of soda. Alex and I were partial to the ones with hot chocolate.

Maverick & Basketball

Maverick has be so much fun to watch...both on the court and the side line. His dribbling has gotten so much better, along with his shot and confidence. He has been making multiple baskets every game and playing stellar defense! He actually sticks with his man really well, it might be his strongest skills this season. He loves playing and has so much fun. His sideline antics have given us a lot of good laughs. From doing jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, high knees, etc while waiting to play again. He even set up all the water bottles in a line to dribble through at one game. He says he has to keep working out, even if he is not in the game. Sometimes he does it all by himself, other times his teammates join in...and we love it.