Sophie's still growing!

Sophie loves to play with the balls Jen gave her.  It's her favorite toy to play with. We call them Mr. Piggy and Mr. Ducky.   They're great because she plays ball with them and chews on them.  I'm having more moments when I really enjoy her.  She's getting so big.  She weighs about 42 pounds.  I'm hoping that pretty soon she'll stop growing.  She's becoming a better dog.  I think she's getting more used to the boys climbing all over her.  She still needs a lot of work with healing and running away.  When the front door opens, she wants to bolt.  She likes to play with the neighbors little dog.  It's a good thing she's so cute otherwise I would give her away.

Happy Halloween

 This year for halloween Chase desperately wanted to be a Broncos football player and Bridger wanted to be a ninja.  Bridger didn't like wearing his mask because it made his face "itchy."  They were very happy with their costumes. They had lots of fun at school on Halloween.  Matt didn't have to work so it was the first time that he was able to come to the school parade.  I helped out during Bridger's class party.  I helped them make oreo spiders.  After school, we carved our pumpkins.  Shantelle gave us a Mr. Potato head pirate accessories on talk like a pirate day.  We had the most compliments on that pumpkin.  It turned out really cute.  I can tell the boys are getting older because they carved most of their pumpkins by themselves.  Matt had to help in a couple of places.  They designed their own pumpkins and then cut them out.  It was really fun.  I tried to roast pumpkin seeds but I ended up burning them.  They were burnt to a crisp.  That is so my cooking.

It was the warmest halloween on record.  The boys just wore long sleeve shirts and were warm enough.  Matt went out with the boys while I stayed home with Sophie and handed out candy.  All day Bridger was counting down until trick or treating.  After lunch he said "can I go now?"  So at 6:00 we finally let them go.  Originally Bridger said that he wanted to go trick or treating until midnight but at 7:30 he came home because his feet were SO tired! It was actually nice to have a little buddy to hand out candy with me.  Chase was still going strong so he went another hour.  It was insane how much candy the boys got.  We have three ziplock bags full of candy!!!  

Chase Flag Football

Chase lucked out and was assigned the same flag football coach that he had last year, coach C.  His son Carson is in Chase's grade.  3/4's of the team was made up of boys from our neighborhood.  The assistant coaches, Coach T and Coach M are from are ward.  Their sons are Joseph and Parker.  The team is:  (back row) Joseph with his dad behind him, Andrew, Carson with his dad behind him (the main coach), Parker with his dad behind him,  (front row) Nate, Carson's brother, Sam, Easton, Cody and Chase.  His team was the Denver Broncos.  They had a very successful season.  They were undefeated!!!!  They took the season very seriously.  They had practice at least once a week and then a couple of games during the week.  It got a little crazy with soccer but Chase was able to make it to every game.  On his last game, he caught a pick six and ran it down for a touch down.  It was a perfect way to end the season.  He's the fastest boy on the team.  I loved his coach.  He did a great job of letting every boy play every position.  It was a great season!!!!  We had a pizza party to celebrate the season.  We were so proud of the boys!!!

 Bridger would spend most of the game playing catch with his friends.

Chase's Fall Soccer

 Chase has had a challenging soccer season.  They won about half of their games.  I think their team has had a difficult adjusting to the new team.  But I have been impressed with his new coaches.  I think they're really trying to work with the boys.  They're were times when I thought they would ream the boys, but they were very positive and praised the boys for the good things they did during the game.  Hopefully the spring season will be better.  I've been so proud of Chase with how hard he works at soccer.  He goes to every practice and gives it his all.  He's a great defensive player.  His speed really helps him.  Coach Steve really praised Chase and said how much he's improved and what a hard worker he is.  What a great compliment.

Pumpkin Walk

 Sweet Grandpa and Granda A came down to see the boy's pumpkins at the school's Pumpkin walk.  It had been raining most of the day but luckily it stopped when we walked through.  But it was still really cold.  The boys have been so excited to show us their pumpkins.  Bridger told me that "they didn't have skin colored paint so he had to color his face pink and then they didn't have orange so his hair had to be red."  I still loved it.  Chase did a long mustache on his pumpkin.  They looked great!!!

 The boys love eating donuts and hot chocolate at the pumpkin walk.  It's turned into a tradition.  Bridger's friend Brody came with us.  The boys were very impressed with 956 pound pumpkin.  You can tell from the pictures that the boys were freezing.  We're were rushing out the door so I forgot to bring jackets for the boys.

Bridger's Fall Soccer

 Bridger's soccer team was called the "red rockets."  But Bridger would point out every game that they should be called the maroon rockets since their jerseys are maroon and not red. Luckily his best friend Brody was on the same team.  His coach, coach Ryan, was wonderful with the team!  He made soccer so fun for the kids.  Bridger would score at least one goal per game, sometimes 2-5 goals per game.  Sometimes the coach would make him stay back on defense to let the other team have a chance.  He's an aggressive little player.  I think it helps playing soccer with Chase.  It makes him tougher!

We were really lucky to have family come down and support the boys during the games.  Grandpa and Grandma A and R came down.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures when the R's came.  We had a great time with the A's.  

Bridger and his "friends"

Bridger got to bring home "little bear" for the day.  Little bear takes turns going to everyone's house in his kindergarten class.  Bridger wanted little bear to meet all of his "friends."  He gathered up his friends and brought them out on the trampoline and had a party jumping with them.  I loved looking out the window watching him play with his friends.

Fall Break

 Kaye was so sweet and allowed us to stay at her cabin over fall break October 10-15.  Shantelle and I came up Wednesday night.  We saw about a dozen deer on the drive up.  When we came around the corner to Kaye's cabin, there was a deer waiting in the front yard for us.  Matt and Mom came up on Friday and Robby came up later that night.  Shantelle and Chase worked on a couple of puzzles.  Mom taught Chase how to play chess.  Chase would beg anyone to play chess with him.  It was so beautiful up there!  I brought my bike and was able to go on a few bike rides.  There was only one day that was cold.  The rest of the time was beautiful!  We went for lots of walks and played outside.  They boys loved playing ping pong.  On our last morning, Mom came in and woke me up and said "there's a mommy and baby moose right outside our window."  I jumped out of bed and sure enough, it was true!   We ended up waking up everyone because they were so close.  We even went out on the porch to watch them and they didn't run away.  We watched them for over an hour.  It was such an incredible sight to see them so close!  

 I love how relaxing Kaye's cabin is.  I read a couple of books. We played lots of games and watched a few movies.  Saturday night we went down and got shakes.  Saturday night we saw an older moose.  The next couple of nights we were able to go down to the same spot and find her again.  It was awesome!  I got some great pictures with mom's camera.

Raking Leaves

 While we were up at Kaye's cabin, we noticed that there were lots of leaves on the ground.  Chase and Bridger spent a couple of hours raking up the leaves.  Sophie wanted to help too.  The boys were so pleasant about helping.  Chase needed to do a two hour service project for school so he was very determined to finish the project.  They ended up raking six bags of leaves.  Thanks boys!!!

RaJenIp Salsa

 I got a little carried away with my salsa recipe this year.  I used the RaJenIp (Rachael, Jen, Kip) recipe that Jen created.  I can't help but think of Clay when I do salsa.  We were canning salsa the day Clay died.  I didn't want to double it but I added a few extras and it turned out to be a bigger pot than I expected.  I ended up with about 45 jars.  So I'm hoping that I won't have to make salsa next year.  I added a little bit too much lime but I tried to doctor it up but it didn't work so we have really limey salsa.  It was  an all day project but at least I'm done now.  The whole house smells like salsa now! Last week I did a couple of batches of my apples.  I didn't do any canning last year so I was almost out of everything.  It's a lot of work but I'm always so glad when it's done.