October in Pictures

 Morning after Trunk or Treat breakfast of champions

 

 We love checking on the kids every night before we go to bed. They are so sweet and often sleep in funny positions.

 A big wind during a storm one night blew down the bird house in our back yard

 I participated in a weight loss/health challenge and as part of it I asked my Facebook friends to help me out with some extra exercise. For every "like" I did a squat and for every comment I did a burpee. I was sore, but happy I was able to do it afterwards! I was really happy that I was able to complete the weight loss part of the challenge too - I lost over 6% of my body weight!

A couple Saturdays ago some friends of mine and I planned a "MAN-date" and surprised our husbands with a fun day out. We all met up later for a dinner date night at our house. I am so happy we have such wonderful and fun friends!

Joy School Halloween party

 The girls each designed and cut out their own pumpkins. Benji was in bed because it was late and he was a little grumpy :)

 

 Halloween bento. You can't really see the black witch and bat and cat or the bat punched into her sandwich. It's so fun to do holiday lunches!

 Cute, big, first grader!

I loved this little bit of school work she brought home last week :)

We went to HP earlier this week and Ben's highlight was riding the motorcycle there, if you can't tell by his face ;) Too bad someone (ahem, Ruby...) drew on it before I could scan it in. This kid loves anything with wheels and a motor!

It sure has been a fun month!

Happy Birthday Benji!

 Our sweet boy turned 2 yesterday! We had a great day and he loved all the attention on his "burfday".

 Ruby and I made the cake while Ben napped and I successfully kept him away from it until 2 minutes before party time.

 "Oh, this black stuff on my fingers....it's, uh, I don't know where it came from...?"

 Grace made us a birthday list to make sure we did all the required birthday stuff.

 We FaceTimed with grandparents to open their gifts. He was thrilled with all the Thomas train stuff he got!

 He was so focused opening up his presents.

 He was also pretty happy when the cake came and he got some for real.

 

 Quite a spread he ended up with thanks to grandparents, Craigslist and DI :)

His birthday was so bittersweet for me. It's exciting to see him learn and grow and do new things, but it's so sad that I really don't have a baby anymore! This sweet boy is so snuggly and loving, but he's got a headstrong and stubborn streak in him too. I think this week he knew that he was turning 2 and has started exerting a more independent mind and spirit (a.k.a. not listening and doing what he wants to do!). One of my favorite things is how his cheeks jiggle when he runs. He's in the 99th percentile for height and weight, the doctor this morning was surprised that Rob was only 6' tall because she thinks Ben will be really tall! We all just adore this kid and feel so lucky that he is in our family!

Trunk or Treat

 Friday night was the ward Trunk or Treat Halloween Party.

 We had found the girls' costumes months ago and snatched them up when we found them knowing they'd be the most popular costumes for the year. Then on Thursday morning I realized we didn't have a costume for Benji! I didn't want to spend a ton of money on something he wouldn't wear or he would hate, so I figured he would wear his very favorite thing on this planet...a train! I found some boxes lying around the house and bought some paint and voila! I was really pleased with how it turned out and Ben was over the moon happy about it!

Such a fun night! I love having a couple of times to dress up and enjoy Halloween!

The Pett's Move aka My Heart Broke

After moving back to Frisco from London, Brent and Aubrey got a really good opportunity to move closer to their families in Atlanta and stay with HP, so they moved. It was so hard to say goodbye to our closest friends who have been our family for the past year but we're excited for all the new opportunities they'll have in Georgia!

We had them over for one last Sunday dinner and forgot to take a picture until the end when everyone was melting down, haha!

Best buddies!

A couple days later we went over to help them get all packed and cleaned up.

 The kids had a great time jumping on the trampoline until it was time to disassemble it

 HP guys

 HP wives and kiddos

 Everyone

 I love this squash/selfie picture of everyone!

They even did the kick off for us when we left. We sure do love them!