Lucy's First Field Trip

I cannot say enough how much I absolutely love being able to go on field trips with my kids. My mom never got a chance to do that (not that I think it was an option, but if it were, she couldn't do it) so for me to have the option is one of my favorite things!

So when Lucy's teacher sent an email saying they were planning a field trip to the aquarium and asked if anyone would come along to chaperone, I immediately responded (just in case she went with "first come, first serve" choosing method) and told Lucy I was going to try and come along, which made her excited.

Today, she loved when I went to drop them off, but walked to the play area with her and stayed with her. Going into the class, I was happy I got a group of girls (girls tend to be easier) and one of the girls had a mom and older sister who came with so I kind of had a backup chaperone with my group. This ended up being nice, because it turned out one of the girls was a bit of a wanderer and kept walking off, so she made it harder to keep track of all of them. 

The bus ride over was funny, a lot of the kids were nervous since it was their first bus ride and they weren't sure how to feel about no seat belts (it's kind of nice to see so many parents push safety in cars on their kids). One boy, sitting behind me, kept yelling out "oh shoot" when we first started leaving, haha. And one of the girls in my group asked that I send a picture of her on the bus to her mom (turns out the girl asked how the mom would know if she was safe on the bus and the mom told her if she needed she could have her adult send a picture of her).  It was sweet when everyone started singing "The Wheels on the Bus" so loud and then at one point I heard a good amount of them singing "Golden," haha.

One thing that made me nervous was when one of the other chaperone's mentioned her son was just out the day before with strep and there were A LOT of wet coughs all over the bus (including one girl who was obsessed with Lucy and kept grabbing her hand and wrapping herself around Lucy so I figure we're for sure bringing something home!)

This trip to the aquarium (because you may recall, I previously did an aquarium field trip with Cara last year) was a bit more chaotic. Instead of us just eating lunch whenever, they had a set time. Most of the kids are used to a morning snack that they didn't get this time, so the kids were all very hungry and didn't love having to wait. Luckily, we were able to distract them enough to last until the lunch time (we were able to cross off 3 areas before lunch). After eating it got crazy. There was another field trip there and their lunch was right after ours, but we couldn't leave the lunch area without a worker walking us to the building and so we had to all wait in one area while the other group went to their lunch and then a worker could escort us over, but it got SUPER messy (even the employees seemed stressed out). BUT after all that, we got to go back to finish our last two areas.

The last two areas were really exciting for the kids because they kept asking where the sting rays were and so we hit that right before the sharks (which is my favorite part). I think seeing the rays was the favorite part of all the kids, even though they couldn't really reach them, haha. Another mom of one of my kids showed up right before we left so that was nice for her (also gave me the idea I could always use PTO and show up at the field trip spot on my own in the future if I didn't want to chaperone or if I wanted to bring other kids with me). I'm glad I got to go and be with Lucy (I hope she liked it, but I was quite distracted). 

The bus ride home was a bit more calm, I sat with one of the quieter girls in my group and her and I played A LOT of Rock, Paper, Scissors (to a point where I forgot what my options were, the words weren't fully making sense anymore haha). I was bummed I couldn't check Lucy out of school at that point, but the teacher mentioned they were going to go do computers so I figured she should stay. Luckily, she seemed excited about that so she wasn't too bummed out to stay. 

I still look forward to more of these in the future! I think Lucy might have another one this year, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to go with on that, I only plan enough PTO to go on one field trip per kid, so we'll see if that happens or not. (Now that Gwen has had her field trip, I just saved enough for Cara, if she has one this year).

Halloween 2025

We've had so much fun this Halloween, but at the same time it hasn't felt like it normally does. I think just because it got so busy with soccer and all the activities at the beginning of the month. However, we still squeezed in ways to celebrate when we could, so here's what our Halloween Season looked like this year:

-I watched ALL the scary movies and made sure to wear all my Halloween shirts as often as I could. I gained a few more shirts (which I didn't need, but it's SO hard to resist when they are so cute). We also pulled out our decorations at the beginning of the month. I used to be SO into decorating, but now it's always so overwhelming so I had the kids just pick what they wanted and put it wherever they wanted. I decided this year we're going to only have certain spots for decor and we'll switch it out each month/holiday and with that limited down it should make it feel not as chaotic to me.

-Getting costumes. We decided to get Cara's and Gwen's at Target since they were cheaper there. Cara earned money for a wand to go with it (We let Gwen get one with her costume since Cara already had a scarf). Lucy's we found on Walmart's online shop, she just really wanted something with a skirt that went straight out (so she's a ballerina for, like, the 3rd year in a row, haha). Pierce REFUSED any and all costumes, so we got him some cute pajama outfit that is Halloween themed. Larry is the Colossal Titan from Attack on Titan, so definitely freaky, haha. I couldn't find anything that coordinated with anyone else's so I just stuck with one of my (very many) Halloween shirts. They loved wearing them for our City Halloween event (it gave them an excuse to wear them early haha)

-Thriller with Mom (18th): I just HAD to bring the girls again. I absolutely love making this a tradition each year, although, Lucy still hates the walkers, but the girls love Bubbles. They had a couple new dances I didn't feel were as good as their others, but they changed up the regular ones and they are still awesome! They did this at the SLCC theater which was a bit smaller, but I think it gets the girls more excited to see dance now that they all do dance.

-One of our neighbors threw Halloween party the weekend before Halloween. I went into it thinking we'd visit, maybe snack, and leave, but it ended up being SO much fun! They had lots of food, we joked around with all the neighbors, and played a fun charades-type of game, it was women VS men and even though the men started to get ahead in the end us women won! I've always said I would love to start doing a Halloween party for the kids friends in the future, this really made me want to do it!

-The girls got to have Halloween parties during dance the week of Halloween. The kids had so much fun with these! They got to dress up, color, play games, do freeze dances, hear stories, and get goodie bags. I'm glad their dance place makes it extra fun for them!

-Drive around to check out decorations on the 28th. The kids said they were looking forward to this all week. This year, we went to further neighborhoods (because Larry saw some when taking Gwen to soccer and knew we'd have to check it out this night...it made me so happy he's getting more into it) and other parts of the neighborhoods we usually go to. Pierce fell asleep at the beginning so he missed all of it, no surprise there. I also got lots of fun ideas of things to add to our home for future years (Larry even said we need to amp up our yard decor and next year he'll turn the water off early so we can actually put our inflatables out).

-Carving pumpkins, we saved for the 30th (which I wish we would've done a little sooner since we decided to bake seeds again and it took SO long, but it was fine) We got our pumpkins on the 25th from Wal Mart, which was a first. It's always fun letting the kids pick the designs they want. Unfortunately, one of our pumpkins went bad (big crack on the bottom and it started to leak out), so Larry had to sacrifice his idea, but the baked seeds and final carvings turned out really good (Lucy chose the same thing as last year - ballerina. Cara chose the HP, Gwen chose "Trick or Treat" words. Pierce wanted a typical Jack-O-Lantern face).

-The kids had their usual Halloween parades this morning (except Pierce, who doesn't have school so he got to go to school in his "costume" on Thursday). Unfortunately, they were both at the same time, so Larry had to go to Cara's and I went to Lucy's and Gwen's (since it was Lucy's first one). We both recorded the kids so we could each see them in their parade. Gwen and Lucy's was fun, I ended up being next to the guy Kinder teacher's wife so it was fun chit chatting with her and there was a guy from New Zealand on the other side of me, who had a lot to say about the differences between American Halloween and what he's used to (we do it big, what can we say? haha) and told us about his experience with Covid in another country (he thought for sure it was a death sentence). My favorite part of these is when the kids see you and just light up! I was smart this year and used PTO for this time away (instead of trying to make up the time later), which was nice because I could stay there after dropping the girls off and take my time rather. I even made sure to buy all the kids some "boo grams" they were selling (which turned out to be purple colored lemon lime suckers shaped like a skull), so they were excited for that.

We braided the older girls hair for a "Hermione" effect
And Lucy got a ballerina bun and red slippers, of course!

And, of course, Trick or Treating tonight! We had a lot of fun with that, but Pierce was done by the 5th house (we did start early so we hit up some houses that weren't ready in the beginning). I told him he had to keep going to get more candy and he'd say "I have enough candy" and when I told him we had to keep going he said "fine, but this is the last one" for each house. Gwen and Lucy wanted to quit by the mail boxes (we had 2 turns left, so I told them since we had 2 more turns that we might as well do the ones we haven't hit). I totally made them push through and told them they'd be happy they got more candy (which they are).

So even though it felt chaotic, it was a very fun season and I look forward to the rest of Fall time!

October Activities

-Parent Teacher Conferences: Pierce's teacher just did a quick call on the 1st. I learned that he is very quiet (not too surprising). She was surprised to find out he can be aggressive at home, cries when he is told no, and wondered if he talked very much (which he very much does!). So that one was entertaining. The girls we scheduled for the 2nd. Cara is still testing off the charts for her grade, even being in a more challenging class. They also said she needs to work on participating in class discussions more. Gwen is testing pretty high as well and knows most of the basics they focus on at the beginning of the year, so the teacher suggested she bring in books from home to read during reading time and she'd work with her on comprehension more. Lucy is good, but forgets what she knows when the teacher tests her so we'll have to work on that. As always, the book fair is always fun (I almost didn't buy as much, but when I went back the 2nd time I suddenly found lots more, haha). I also got each of the classes a book from their stack they had on the tables.

-Volunteering at Humane Society: My work gives us volunteer hours (separate from regular PTO) to use up, which is nice. One of my friends reached out to me saying she was setting up a group to volunteer at the Humane Society on the 8th. I love animals and since she set everything up it was nice to just need to show up. We got to see all the animals (so cute and hard not to grab one to bring home) and just helped clean windows. Unfortunately, after about an hour or two, they ran out of window cleaner and apparently had nothing else for us to do so it was a quick volunteer job. I learned about so many fun volunteer programs and events they have for kids (reading to cats, camps, and birthday parties!). I would love to do the reading to cats a lot, but they are a bit further away, so it won't be as often as I'd like.

One of the friendliest cats they had there

-Getting the house more in order (12th?) has been so much fun this month. I added hanging shelves in office to clear off our mantle (the kids semi destroyed my Friends Legos so I have to rebuild and get some cases for those so they don't get so dusty. Bonus: now I can add seasonal decorations to the mantle!). We got organizers for kids rooms, from Ikea, to help keep them looking more cleaned up. We also got a huge dresser to clear out 2 other dressers and offer more storage (from Wal Mart that has EXCELLENT customer service. One piece was cracked and we were able to get a replacement for just that piece within a couple weeks). I also added in dusting the main level on Fridays which is helping a lot! Since the rooms are more clean, I also have claimed Pierce's old room as my wrapping room so now I have a place to lock up that the kids can't get into during the holidays :)

-We used the Fall Break time (14th-20th) to have our Dentist and Eye Dr checkups. Everyone is cavity free! I was smart and decided to watch AFV during my visit (best idea ever). Pierce actually let them look at his teeth (and then liked pretending to be a "teeth doctor" and check on our teeth after his visit). Lucy still has a while until her one tooth will grow in. Cara has small teeth blocking her big teeth from fully coming in so we need to work on getting those ones out next. Gwen just rocked it all chill, like she is. Everyone still loves the prize drawer, haha!

-Soccer is over (for the 1st half)! So now it feels like we have SO much more time in the week. Their games on the 4th got canceled due to rain, but it meant we got to have a free weekend and a peak into what it will be like after it's done and it felt so freeing (haha)! We'll have to really prepare ourselves for the Spring session (which was supposed to be just Cara and Gwen at that point, but Lucy's coach said they could extend and she said she wanted to). Wonder what things will be like when Pierce is in sports too.

-Best pics of the kids this month:

The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940

I officially know I love going to see plays, especially comedy ones. So when I heard of one coming up at Hale called "The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940" I knew I had to see it. I mentioned to Rachel that if she got any free tickets to that one I'd love to take Larry to it (this was back when we saw Prince of Egypt, so it's been a while). 

Mom then reached out to me a few weeks ago saying she'd like to go and wanted to know if I'd go with her (I guess she forgot I mentioned wanting to go with Larry, but as long as I could see it, I didn't care). She told me this one sounds cool because the whole cast is in black and white (except the narrator, who is in color) and I was even more intrigued. I asked Larry if he'd mind if I went with her instead and he said he didn't care (he likes doing things with me, he doesn't really care what the things are). 

Mom mentioned this one was in the "smaller" theater (which kind of made me a little iffy because the one we saw the other play in felt pretty small), but that it didn't have any bad seats. Luckily, I liked the smaller theater since it was a stage in front of chairs (the bigger stage is a circle stage in the middle of the room and the seats go all around it), which is what I'm more used to. Our seats were way to the side so we didn't see part of the set, but it didn't take away from the story or acting.

I will say I noticed a couple flubs, but they carried it off so well they were very hardly noticeable. It was definitely a fun, goofy play and was so fun to watch. We were in the 2nd row, next to the bar cart so we got to see most of the characters way up close. 

The production was done so well and I just ended up loving everything about this one. I'd highly recommend seeing it. I also saw a lot of cute shows coming up so I'm really excited to go see more, and hopefully take some of the kids to some too!

Vintage Market Days

This year Mom and I tried the Vintage Market Days in Spanish Fork. It's closer to my home so as long as they had good (or some of our favorite) booths it would be good to switch for future ones. Getting down there wasn't so bad, but figuring out parking was interesting.

We found out they have 3 buildings at this one (Logan only has 2) and they had a lot of the same vendors. I found lots of cute décor to add to my collection. Unfortunately, there were a couple I was looking forward to, but they weren't there, so that was a bummer. They also didn't have a lot of food truck options for lunch. We, surprisingly, got through the whole thing so quickly. We were done looking at everything by 11. We then had lunch and then did a quick second walk through to see if we missed anything.

This guy was too cute not to get!

Since we were done so early, we decided to hit up Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx on the way home. I found some things to add to what I got at VMD, so that made me really excited (I'm definitely going through what I do have to get rid of some things, but the new things I bought were for areas that don't currently have decorations for, so it worked out.

Always have to get the kids bath bombs

It was nice because Mom and I got to talk a lot and it felt cathartic to hear what she had to say or to say what I needed to. While I missed the Logan one, but this was a nice change. I could see switching it up each year or each season (they have a Spring and Fall one). I still look forward to more of these in the future.