Hogle Zoo

We took advantage of a good weather day on Friday to go to the zoo. It will likely be our last visit this year. The kids were especially excited that Kissie got to come with us! I forgot my camera, but luckily Kissie remembered hers. Too bad I forgot to snag her camera to grab a few pictures with her in them! Most of the animals were pretty lively with the cooler weather. I'm excited to see the new arctic exhibit when it opens-- they are sure doing a lot of construction in that corner of the zoo.  

 Luke enjoyed the carousel, but in a very concentrated way. No smiling, but lots of solemn examination of all the movement around him. 

Ut-oh

With Violet off-track for preschool and Kevin out of town last week, we had a couple of quiet mornings last week. A little too quiet I guess! I was cleaning out a closet and enjoying Violet and Luke playing together without any problems for a pretty long period of time. Ut-oh! Luke came up to check on me and I patted his head and noticed that part of it had that funny buzz-cut feeling. And then I noticed his hair looked a little funny. 

He had these weird stair-steps in his hair... so I was off to investigate and found this. 

 Ut-oh! I was sure with those long locks on the floor that Violet had attacked her own hair and Luke's, but I guess Luke's hair was a bit longer than I had thought. So many things to be grateful for-- with family pictures this week-- Violet didn't cut her own hair and Luke's haircut was mostly in the back! I put Violet in time-out so I could smile and take pictures. 

Luke must have been traumatized by his sister cut because he got kicked out of one salon the next day when I tried to get his hair evened out. He put up a fuss at Cookie Cutters the next day, but luckily they were more willing to work with him and he settled down after a few minutes. His hair is shorter than I'd like, but at least Violet's trim isn't noticeable much anymore and it should all grow out in a few more weeks. Now I just need to find some kind of hair wax to style his hair-- keep it spiky. The other hair products we've tried won't keep that hair up!  

 This isn't a great picture, but at least you can see Luke showing off his cheesey grin and sadly, how the hair products failed us in the church rush this morning!

GIVEAWAY--Shutterfly Christmas Card Promotion!

Shutterfly is once again offering free Christmas cards to bloggers who post about their Shutterfly experiences. I loved my Shutterfly Christmas cards last year! I think the website is easy to work with, orders are delivered promptly, and there are o-so-many designs to choose from this year, even more than last year I think. 

Here are some of my favorites-- one of these will likely become our family Christmas card pretty soon! This year I'm probably going to do a 5x7 flat stationary card and send it as a postcard.

 

  

 I like that they have so many 4+ picture layouts. Lots of choices! You can see their whole selection here: photo Christmas cards

I've also had great success with other photo cards from Shutterfly. I've been on their email list for over 5 years now, and at least 3 times a year I get a promo code for 5-10 free cards. These photo cards are perfect for me to use for the monthly letters I write to my grandparents and Kevin's grandparents. You can see the selection of cards, including birth announcements (fun!) and other holiday cards here: greeting cards

Last, a little plug for Shutterfly's photo books. Their website is easy to use and they've made great efforts the last few years to have more options with layouts. It's a great tool, especially if you aren't wanting to create whole pages from scratch (and if you do want to do that, it's still easy to use Shutterfly). 

GIVEAWAY!

Shutterfly has given me 3 promo codes for 25 FREE CARDS to give to YOU! I know my readership numbers aren't that high, so you have an excellent chance at winning! Leave a comment by OCTOBER 31st at 1:00pm if you are interested in winning... I'll pick three winners randomly in a week. If you think I don't have your email address, include that in your comment too. 

Now, I just have to keep my fingers crossed that my family pictures go well next week! 

Good luck!

UEA

We were excited to have 2 days last week that were completely free--no school, gymnastics, or preschool.  We are't super scheduled as it is (except T/Th), but it was still nice to have a complete break! Thursday we went to Gardner Village for our annual see the witches trip. Luckily we were there early enough that we missed most of the hoards of other people enjoying school off too. This year the girls were really excited to have their pictures taken with each and every witch. 

 Luke was not so excited to have his picture taken. Here's the only one I got. I'm not sure if he was wary of the witches or was just enjoying his stroller-less freedom. It's so great to be able to go on short outings with no stroller now-- I love it!

 Luke got the cutest grin in this picture, even if he's in the shadows-- I tried to recreate it with him in the sun, but he vetoed that idea. 

Our good friends Heather, James, and Samuel invited us to their house on Friday for a fall walk and a spooky lunch. I loved walking on the Farmington Creek trail with all of the huge mature trees. Maybe someday we'll have trees like that in Herriman! 

 The girls were especially excited to spot the pink leaves on the ground. Luke loved being stroller-free once again, to pick up rocks and leaves of any color. His favorite thing was to throw the leaves off the bridge into the creek. 

Heather made a delicious lunch of mummy dogs, jello ghosts, apple mouths, and the kids decorated sugar cookies at the end What a treat! To top off our fun day we visited Kissie on the way home. It was a good fall break!

21 hours in St. George

We took a super quick trip to St. George last weekend. We were supposed to stay a few days and explore, but of course, the Primary program got scheduled for the same weekend a few weeks after I bought our tickets. Oh well! We had a great quick trip and were still able to participate in the once-a-year program that Cora was so looking forward to. 

On the way to Tuacahn we stopped by the St. George temple. The Visitor's Center was fun to explore, and the girls loved seeing where Aunt Jen and Uncle Kurt got married. 

See how thrilled Luke is with all the picture taking?

He actually thinks it's pretty fun for a while, and will walk around the house with the play camera demanding we all 'say cheese'!

We had a 'Little Mermaid' dinner at Tuachan. The girls loved the pre-show entertainment too-- especially when they threw out toostie rolls. 

Little Lukey was too young for the show, so he got to hang out at the 'showcare' center for the show. I had mixed feelings about the service-- I think we might do things differently next time. And a next time there certainly will be! The show was amazing! Great for both kids and adults! It made me wish I had seen Tarzan last year, and so excited that they are doing Aladdin next year. We will definitely go. We had terrific seats because I booked so far in advance--they said our performance was the 53rd sold out performance in a row, so it's worth planning ahead. Violet fell asleep about three-quarters of the way through, but Cora held on strong through the whole thing, even though it went waaay past her bedtime. It was a terrific night and well-worth it. 

You would think with the late and exciting night, all of the kiddos would have slept so well in the hotels. Little Lukey just isn't a great sleeper away from home yet. We survived, and took advantage of the free breakfast and swimming pool before check-out. We also did a stopover at Cove Fort on the way home. IT really is a neat place, and perfect stretch your legs point. 

All in all, a great little trip! 

Alpine Loop

 We were a little late this year, but we finally made it up to the Alpine Loop for a leave looking trip. The girls loved looking for pink leaves. We stopped for a walk around Cascade Springs-- it was a bit too late for fall colors there, but we did see a snake, a fish, and a fuzzy caterpillar that made things interesting too. 

 Violet had her turn with Brinkley, the preschool dog, and she was excited to tote him around on our walk. 

Next year we will need to make time to go earlier in the year!