gingerbread houses

Every year the Council Bluffs Stake holds a gingerbread display at the Kanesville Tabernacle. Last year we had a little accident and our house never made it to the display. This year I vowed to redeem myself. I will turn in the yellow house in the picture, which while it isn't a masterpeice, I did learn a lot from. Our Primary also decorated gingerbread houses as a primary activity. We will be turning in three very unique houses. We had one house that the girls just couldn't get enough of all the candy gluing freedom they suddenly had! As for our family, we decided to do one just for us. Just before Chad and I were married Chad's mom wanted to start a family tradition of decorating gingerbread houses. Without her there the following years to see it through, the gingerbread thing kinda never happened. However, since we do it to help our stake anyway, we have decided to take on this Williams family tradition. Two years down, and I hope lots and lots to go. Aimee and Porter had a great time with it this year. Mostly Porter just liked that there was a whole lot of candy at his little fingertips, and eventually we had to cut the poor kid off. Aimee on the other hand loved the eating and the decorating! She did 90% of the house we kept, and I think it is awesome!

oompa oompas

We had so much fun being the Flintstones last year that we really wanted to have family themed costumes again. In about June or July we saw Willy Wonka on Netflix. When it was over Chad had the idea that should be our Halloween costumes. I thought that it was a great idea, even though the more I thought about it the more I realized what a project it was going to be to create. I got started at the first of September. I decided to make Porters first since his would require the least amount of fabric if I completely butchered the design. It turned out really great! There were a few minor changes I wanted to make but thought it worked pretty well. My first real problem is that I got overly confident. Porters oompa pants had gone so smoothly that I waited way too long to start on the other two pair. In my rush to whip them out I made all kinds of stupid mistakes that cost me a lot of time. I was still coloring stripes on the socks and making Chad's top hat the night of our ward trunk-or-treat! I admit that it wasn't quite what I had pictured in my head. I never did find brown turtle necks, I didn't have crazy Gene Wilder hair coming out of Chad's hat, and I didn't get the balls for our shoes made, but it was still so cute. This picture doesn't do it all justice! This was night two and by then we had run out of green hair spray (I was green the night before) and the kiddos didn't have as much patience for all the orange face paint. They had also beat up their pants a little. It was so fun seeing them both run from door to door in these pants though. Aimee learned quick that the faster she made the rounds the more candy she was getting. Porter tried a different approach and just reached both hands in every bowl and got as much as he could fit in his little fists. I totally regret that I didn't take a video of the actual trick-or-treating action. It was adorable! Village Green is also one of the best places a kid could live at Halloween. It is safe, everyone is close, and nearly everyone sticks with the fun celebrating of the holiday instead of the dark part. Aimee would have trick-or-treated all night, even though she complained of her bag getting too heavy, if it hadn't been for a potty trip. It was such a fun night!

painting pumpkins

This year for Halloween we decided to paint our pumpkins rather than carve them. While neither Chad nor I had ever attempted this, we decided this might make it's way into Williams family tradition! One of the best parts about it is that everyone gets to participate all at the same time. Last year we all helped clean the pumpkins out then Aimee and Porter had to just sit and watch since we decided that knives just might not be the best toy for them. We also loved that the pumpkins were a lot brighter and lasted the whole month on our porch. Since we are surrounded by the botanical gardens we have lots of squirrels. I think they all get their entire winter store from eating all of the carved pumpkins. Aimee and Porter had a ton of fun. Aimee carried her pumpkin around outside the next day because she was so proud of it!

bucket helpers

My little people have been pretty good helpers lately, especially since they found my flour buckets. My mom gave me some buckets with screw on lids that the two of them push around the kitchen and use as height extenders. I keep two of them in my kitchen, and it has been fun to get them both in the action and still keep them away from things at the far end of the counter top that I don't want them to touch, especially when the mixing bowl is full (I have had more cookies make it into the oven lately). We have recently been making a lot of apple pie and apple bread. Aimee loves helping to peel the apples. Porter just likes eating them. I have also included a picture of one of our Halloween projects we did together. Aimee was so excited to make spiders. I should have showed the one with the legs that she bent and inserted that I helped with much less.

vala's pumpkin patch

Our families have heard us brag about some of the cool stuff Omaha has to offer that Idaho doesn't. One of those is Vala's Pumpkin Patch. It is sort of the Disneyland of pumpkin patches. I had never been to one until we moved here, but have since learned just how awesome they are. the best part is that every year gets more and more fun since Aimee and Porter enjoy it better as they get older. Here are just a few pictures of some of the fun things we do there. Aimee rode the pony's all by herself! We still hear about that regularly. We rode on the family pedal carts, and tried to bury Chad in the corn pit. We played on the jumping pillows this year for quite a while. Luckily there are three that are for different age groups. Porter got a little frustrated that he kept loosing his balance when other kids jumped too close to him. He had fun running from one end to the other and then sliding down the sides. We also had some pretty great games of ring-around-the-rosy! We rode the Vala's express train, had duck races, watched the pigtucky derby races, saw a dragon that ate pumpkins (and brushed it's teeth after) and watched the pumpkin cannons. Last, but not least, we went on a hay rack ride to pick out pumpkins. This year our medical club didn't pay for it so we decided to make the best of it. We were able to go in the middle of the week when it wasn't nearly as crowded and early in the month when it was still super warm. It was a trip to go down in the books! We, and especially Aimee, can't wait to go next year!

bathroom project

With my camera cord MIA I missed a few fun things from September. One of those was our bathroom floor upgrade. We had some pretty gross linoleum that was stained in a few places before we ever showed up in Omaha. Chad, with some cunning craigslisting got us some free supplies. At the end of his OB/GYN rotation he went to work and installed it. It was sort of weird timing getting it in since chad had to help with some ward stuff in the middle of the project, but it all worked out. He learned how to drain and remove a toilet, and put the floor in all by his self. I was so proud. The only hard thing was that since that is our only bathroom we had to improvise for a day.

camping

Last weekend our ward had a cookout/camp out. We decided to go ahead and participate in the entire activity. When some of our great neighbors moved out in May they gave us their tent. Having a good sized family it is a good sized tent. This is the single piece of camping equipment that we own. However, with Aimee's recent fascination with the woods we thought this would be, if nothing else, a trip to be remembered for years to come. We definitely succeeded! The weather was forecast to be great with a chance of rain late Saturday morning. So, with a few borrowed items from our friends, a stack of blankets, a pack'n play, and some bug spray we embarked on our family's maiden camp out voyage. When we arrived we picked a great spot for our excessively large tent and went to work reading the instructions to get it set up. It was only missing one piece! Aimee and Porter thought it was nothing short of magical! Getting ready for bed that night and watching those two babies rolling around in the blankets and bouncing off the air mattress I understood why my own parents went to all the work of camping! I am a terrible sleeper by nature, but at about 11:00 that night when the rain started pelting our tent, I knew it would be an even longer night than I had anticipated. My sweet husband got up in the middle of the night in his garmies to move the kiddos out from under the dripping spots and adjust blankets that were now wet. A couple of times I too had to get up to push up the roof of the tent where water was pooling and dripping. It was a long night, and an even longer day cleaning up after our adventure, but we actually had a blast! We loved it so much that we decided we needed to do it again. Last night we set up our tent in a far corner of Village Green just behind a dumpster. This was the flattest location we could find that wasn't right on our lawn. I think it would have been awesome except that it was so cold last night, and there is a lamp post located next to the dumpster that runs all night. By morning Chad and I both had a baby sharing our blanket beds and we couldn't wait to get inside. I think we will have to wait until next year to make our charming third attempt, but we are all looking forward to it! I'll post pictures as soon as I find my camara transfer cord!