Halloween and such...

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween. We sure had fun at our house!

I was let off the costume hook by my kiddos, which is great becuase I'm not sure I would have been up to making costumes for them. Allison decided months ago that she wanted to be a witch and wanted to wear the costume I got for the dress-up box during last year's after-halloween clearance. And Carter was going to be a wizard, but then decided to be a pirate instead. I found his little costume online for 99 cents... I bought 2 to make the shipping worth while and now my kids don't have to fight of the pirate costume during dress-up... yahoo!

At the ward's trunk-or-treat

trick-or-treating our neighborhood with daddy

Beginning the sugar high...

We had some other fall fun at our house too. A few weeks before halloween we went to a little pumpkin patch near our house. Nothing big, but the kids had fun.

they love silly photo ops...

And were all about the mini pumpkins and gourds.

Unfortunately we went about a week too early. They INSISTED on carving the pumpkins for FHE a week later, which meant that by the time halloween rolled around those poor jack-o-lanterns were BLACK with mold. Ew... Needless to say they got tossed yesterday.

I {heart} NY

Can I just say that New York is amazing? I took a long weekend off to meet my mom and aunt in Manhatten for a fabric shopping tour through the NY garment district. It was amazing!

Peggy Sagers (owner of Shilouette Patterns and tour organizer) took us to several retailers (including Mood Fabrics!) and designer wholesalers, which aren't open to the public. There was so much GORGEOUS, amazing, DESIGNER fabric. I'm talking fabrics tagged with names like Elie Tahari and Prada, events like "Fall Runway 2010" and "Spring Runway 2011". Chances are I spent too much, but I found some amazing things and I'm all re-inspired to get back to sewing again! I found fabric for a new winter coat, 2 dresses, a few tops, a pair of bermuda shorts and somethings for the kids too. It was so much fun!

And here's part 1 of my haul... including a few piece for my mother-in-law. Can you believe that most of this stuff was actually free? Marcorp (a designer wholesaler... they had the most beautiful Elie Tahari silks in their warehouse!) had a big laundry cart just full of pieces that were going to the dumpster. We were welcome to dig through it and take what we wanted. The grey fabric (future pencil skirt with box kick-pleats in back), black & blue one (either a top or a skirt), the bright pink (hello... play clothes for Allison!), black & orange sheer and the two floral sheers (Mom Thornock... do you want any of the last 3?) in the corners were all free, rescused from the fate of a dumpster.

The big piece of black & purple will be a new dress coat for me, the blue polka dot will be a dress for me and a skirt for Allison, the light fabric (its a striped pale purple shirting weight) will be either a summer skirt or a top for me and the purple & white impressionist floral is for my mother-in-law. I say part 1 because one of the wholesalers we went to had just moved their shop and were not cutting yardage for us, just taking orders that will ship next week. I'll take a picture of that box when I get it... I'm super excited for it. I found some great stuff there...

After 2 days of fabric shopping, we headed to Manhatten for some sight-seeing on Saturday.

We went to Rockefeller Center

And took the elevator to the Top of the Rock

We made our way to the Gershwin Theatre for our matinee of Wicked(Best. Show. Ever!)

Then walked down to Times Square after the show.

It was an amazing weekend away. And I can't wait to go back. So... anyone wanna come visit me and Manhatten? :)

Niagara Falls

Last week my parents flew in to come see us and we spent Friday at Niagara Falls. It was amazing! We took the Maid of the Mist boat tour and got soaked, but those photos are on my Dad's camera. In fact... most of the good picture are on his camera. I need a copy of those... hint, hint, Dad! Maybe they could find their way in downloadable form onto mckeent.com? Pretty please?


Anyway, here are the best of the photos I DO have, which don't actually include my parents. But I promise, they did come.

Either way Niagara was amazing and I'm super glad we went, even if we have to make it a short day trip to accommodate two tired little kids.

The Great NY State Fair

Brian and I took the kids to the NY State Fair last Saturday. Its held in Syracuse, so it made for a great day trip. We went opening weekend and it was SUPER crowded and crazy. But our choices were either opening or closing weekend (the fair only runs 12 days... what?!?), but we had fun. Here's a few photos:

Everyone's favorite part: the Shriner's circus put on in the kiddie area. It was great, even Carter was rivited every time an act came on. Allison's favorite part was watching the ariel gymnist who climbed the fabric for stunts. She spent her whole act just staring at her, eyes wide and mouth open. If you asked Allison what her favorite part of the fair was, she'll tell you that it was the circus, and the part the girl "climbed up so high on the fabric!"

Over all, I was acutally a little disappointed with the fair. Coming from my 4-H background, I really wanted to see some awesome 4-H non-animal exhibits (which we couldn't even find) and come stunning arts/crafts/sewing/quilting entries, which was housed in a TINY not-very-accessible building. Excluding quilts (several of which were displayed on blank walls) I think ALL of the sewing exhibited was shown in about 20 square feet of exhibit space. Now, maybe my point of view is skewed, becuase I knew the Pyuallup and Kitsap County fairs like the back of my hand, but I really didn't think that this fair had NEARLY as much in the way of non-animal exhibits as either of those fairs. Made me homesick in a way. On the bright side, what we did see and what was exhibited encouraged and and inspired both Brian and I to aim for having a few entries each for next year's fair.

Apple Picking

Brian's been out of town this week, so I've been trying to pack the kids' days with fun things to do to help them go by faster (for all of us!). And I've been having the hardest time finding a decent apple at the store around here, so we went to a local farm to do some apple picking. We were in luck, too: galas had just come in and they are DELICIOUS!!! It was a fun little farm. In addition to apples they had a cute little country store, several other crops for the picking through-out the year and a little petting zoo. The kids really had a great time. It was lots of fun. We'll probably go back later in the fall for pumpkins.

Love this picture. Carter spent most of the time walking around munching on a HUGE apple. I mean, does life get any better than eating your own yummy apple while exploring outside without mom nagging you to hold her hand? Carter doesn't seem to think so...

Feeding the goats. Carter kept his distance, becuase he did not want to share his apple with them (which is good... we had feed pellets for them). Allison thought feeding them was great.

Museum of Play

Brian took the day off yesterday as kind of a birthday gift to Allison (she LOVES it when Daddy doesn't have to go to work!), so we took the kids to Rochester to the Strong National Museum of Play. We had so much fun... we were there 4 hours (its a 90-minute drive and the kids went napless, so we decided to leave kind of early), and didn't even see everything... we didn't even have time to THINK about the Toy Hall-of-Fame on the 2nd floor!

There was so much to see and do there... an active area call the Field of Play (not a plyaground, but lots of large, active toys... race cars, PVC Pipe Organs, Dance Dance Revolution, Ball Rollercoasters... stuff like that. The other half of the first floor had a giant Sesame Street interactive exhibit, a kid-sized Wegman's (THE grocery store, for all you non-east-coasters!) to shop and "work" at, a little Historic section, an art section, a post-office, a helecopter and a boat and I don't even know what else, because we didn't see it all!

The kids had a blast, and it was a fun, exhausting trip for all of us. If it was closer to home, we would have paid for a family membership before leaving yesterday. Enjoy the pictures!

Allison got to meet (and hug!) Raggedy Ann. She's been visiting the museum this month to celebrate her 95th birthday!

Carter ejoyed Wegmans, but would have liked it better if the food had been real.

Allison loved ringing up her own groceries and pushing the buttons to make the receipt print.

So cute! The reading nook at Sesame Street!

Allison's favorite is Zoe. Carter thought Snuffleupagus was pretty cool...

Look out, world!

Allison was excited to see the Barbie display when we first came in.

They both loved the big aquariums at the entrances.

What are we up to?

Just...

playing dress up.

Decorating for Christmas

There are two two-year-olds living at my parent's house right now. And they love Christmas trees. We started decorating today, and my mom loves her granddaughters enough to give up her pretty, perfect tree and allow them to "help" her decorate it, which means no breakable ornaments, lots of ornamnets placed down low and pretty poor ornament distrubution. They had a blast. Here are just a few pictures of Allison and her cousin Emma decorating the Christmas tree.

They had a favorite branch...

They were very particular about their placement...

Reach, reach, reach...

I really do think that the holidays only get more fun and more magical when children join your family and start to understand and enjoy the season themselves.

Provo's Freedom Ballon Festival

Brian and I have lived in Provo for 5 solid years. Apparently Provo's Freedom Festival is one of the biggest, best 4th of July festivals in the country... who knew?!? And in 5 solid years we have never willing gone to participate in any of the activities. We did see the parts of the parade our first two years, but we don't count those as willing participation... we lived on the parade route. It was much more like being a, literally, captive audience as it was incredibly difficult to get out of the driveway during the parade when you're on the parade route.

Anyway... every year they hold a hot air ballon festival. I decided that this year we should go. It would be fun and Allison would love it!

So, thanks to Carter's bad night last night, we were all awake by 6:15, which finalized the decision to go. It was so much fun. Allison loved seeing the big balloons. She also got to meet Smokey the Bear and give him five. That was pretty much all she could talk about the rest of the day.

I'm so glad we went. It was a tons of fun, turned a bad start to a day into a good one and we even managed to get this half-decent family photo of all four of us (thanks, Emily!).

SNOW!!!

Story of the lives of most of the country right now, I know, but boy have been had the snow coming down here in Utah lately! Right now we have about 10 inches or a foot of snow on the ground... expecting more with snow falling for a beautiful white Christmas!

We let Allison out to play in the snow for a little while the other day... this was when we only had about 4 inches... there's a ton more now. I'm not quite sure what she thought of it. She had a hard time walking in it.

Hardest part about the snow on the ground... having to keep Allison cooped up inside all day. She is definantly not enjoying that part about the snow.

Merry Christmas!

We took Allison to visit Santa. She loves Santa, but didn't want to sit on his lap all by herself.

Merry Christmas anyway!

Football!

I love football... especially college football. I'm the kind of wife who will quite happily let the TV be tuned to college football games for most of the day on a Saturday. NFL is a different story, but college football is great, if you ask me.

This year, Brian and I are excited to be Cougar Football season ticket holders again. YEAH! Yesterday was the home opener. We took Allison and it was so much fun! She really wasn't sure what to think at first... there was so much to look at and take in. But, I think she enjoyed it.

Great photo, right? Football is just so beautiful... we pretty much have nosebleed seats, but its really not a bad view...

Touchdown! She really will do that if we ask her to say touchdown. =)

She was a big fan of the yummy popcorn...

Getting ready to leave. It was a fun day, and so past bedtime.