Zoo Lights

We have never gone to Hogle Zoo for Zoo Lights before so we thought we would go check it out this year since we bough a season pass earlier this year.  It turns out, Zoo Lights is not included in the annual pass :)  I went with my mom, my niece, and of course the kiddos.  This December has been unseasonably dry and warm so it was nice to not to be freezing while we were there.  Right after we got there Santa came through with his reindeer.

Although, most of the animals were put away for the night there were a lot of fun animated light displays of animals.



Toothless

Jaxon lost his very first tooth on November 27, 2011

Jaxon was so excited to get money for his tooth.  He told me "Mom, I know the Tooth Fairy isn't real so you can just give me some money."  Doug has been calling him "Toothless" ever since and he gets so upset :)

Sugar Plum Fairy

Ashlyn had her first ever dance performance at the Festival of Trees this year.  She was so dang cute up on stage.  Her class is so young, it is so funny to watch all the little girls perform.  She is a natural! The highlight of the show was when her class was walking off the stage and Ashlyn decided to run back and forth across the stage blowing the audience kisses!

After we look at all the trees my kids LOVE to do different activities at the little elf village.

Ashlyn in the bubble machine

Jaxon's turn



Getting a manicure



Fishing for a prize

Turkey Trot 2011

This year Doug and I ran in our first ever Turkey Trot, it was a free event put on by the city.  The race was a little under 4 miles and the weather was perfect.  It was a fun course and I it was my fastest race yet, which still is not very fast :)  We want to make this a new tradition and as the kids get older they can join us on their bikes and scooters. I also need to give a BIG THANK YOU to our neighbors who watched our kids at 7:30 on Thanksgiving morning!

Mele Kalikimaka

Our city had a gingerbread house contest this year.  I though it would fun to enter and the kids were super excited about it.  I have never made a gingerbread house from scratch before so I made a practice batch of dough and let the kids decorate some gingerbread men.  I didn't want my house to blend in with the rest of the houses so I thought to make it stand out I would do a Hawaiian house.  I had a lot of fun doing it and everything is edible except for the sign.  I even boiled lasagna noodles in green water for the leaves on the palm trees.  My kids thought I was the world's coolest mom for about a week :)

Would you believe that I won the competition....well, that is what happens when you are the only entry!  I felt like a big nerd but, oh well.  I did win $40.00 in gift cards and some other prizes.  

Snow Kids

Back on November 18th we had our first snowfall of the season.  The kids were so excited to go outside and play.  I told them if I got them all dressed up in their snow clothes that they had to stay outside for awhile (usually they come in after five minutes of playing in the snow.)  Well about five hours later I had to beg them to come inside. 

They played and played and would not come inside until they finished making a snow man :)



The artists with their masterpiece :)

Purplestone

Back in October we had the chance to go up to my brother's cabin outside of Yellowstone.  I have been procrastinating typing this post because I took so many pictures I want to share but I know how long it takes to upload all of them.  

Ashlyn was so funny, she kept saying that she didn't want to go to Yellowstone, because she was afraid the bears were going to eat us.  So Eric was teasing her that we were going to go to Purplestone, to which she was quite excited.  It wasn't until the vacation was almost over that she realized there was no such place and Purplestone :)  Eric's cabin is about 20 minutes away from Yellowstone in Island Park.  We had a lot of fun playing poker, sitting in the hot tub at night out on the deck looking at the millions of stars, and eating with family. Before we drove into the park we stopped at a few spots beforehand to take in all of the beautiful scenery.

Yellowstone is SO beautiful and the pictures I took don't even com close to how breathtaking it is in person.  It was already pretty cold up there toward the end of October and I don't think that I packed  enough warm clothes for everyone. While we were driving we could see all the steam rising from the different hot pots.

There were so many beautiful geysers and hotpots!

I wish it was easier to get everyone in and out of the car because there were so many fun places to stop and look around.

Firehole Falls

As we were walking we found this really cool tree that had fallen over.  We decided to stick all of our head's through the roots for a fun family picture.

The Butterworths

 And you cannot go to Yellowstone without checking out Old Faithful!  Unfortunately, we had just missed the eruption so we had to wait about an hour until it would go again.  I think after the long wait the kids were a little under-whelmed to see it.

It is always fun to see the wildlife, we were lucky to see Bison, Elk, and Bald Eagles.

We had so much fun and are so grateful that we were invited to go up to the cabin. 

 I can't wait until next time (wink, wink)!

Halloween 2011

Doug and I were invited to a couple's costume party earlier in October.  Our costumes were not super creative, but we had a lot of fun.  We played games at the party, one of which was the Newlywed Game - come to find out that we are not very good at -  I think we only matched three answers the whole game!

I wish I would have taken more picture on Halloween.  I am bummed because most of the pictures I did take turned our kind of blurry. 

We started off the day at Jaxon's school for his Halloween parade.  He was a ninja.

Ashlyn was a Barbie Fairy and the twins were a Devil and an Angel :)  Everybody kept asking me how I decided who was who, it was the size of the costumes.  Because on Halloween I think the personalities of the babies were opposite of their costumes :)

 

After the parade I took the girls up to see my mom at her work where they could go trick or treating.  Then we came home and started trick or treating in the neighborhood.  The weather was so nice!  I let the little girls go early to a couple of houses so they would be able to stay home with me while the older kids went out with Doug later.

The twins LOVED trick or treating!  They figured out how the system worked really quick, Breanne would just walk right into our neighbor's houses when they answered to door.

A classic "cheese" face from Breanne

After a very long day of the fun the twins were SO grumpy.  I ended up putting them to bed at 6:30 that night, and they slept through the night!

To finish off the night we had our friends over for some spicy chili to warm up after everyone had been out trick or treating.  Halloween is becoming one of my favorite holidays, after Christmas of course :)

Hee Haw

Some of our very favorite people/neighbors invited us to go with them to Hee Haw Farms in Pleasant Grove to watch the pumpkin drop.  If you made a donation to Primary Children's Hospital you got to ride up 175 feet in crane and drop a pumpkin on car below.

First the Cushings went up in the crane to drop their pumpkins.

 We were all a little nervous for the ride up.

When it was our turn the crane operator thought it was funny to dip the bottom of the cage into a swimming pool.

 

All four of us hit the car! 
Throughout the day they would drop these HUGE pumkins, sending seeds and pumpkin guts all over.

This 'snowman' pumpkin was the crowd favorite!

We spent the rest of the day at the petting zoo, corn maze, giant slide, and a lot of other attractions.
We had a super fun time with great friends!