Creativity award...

James had to dress up for work this year and I had mentioned that he should dress up as a crazy cat lady... Well Jade thought that was hilarious! A few days later she was still talking about it so I took her down to D.I to see if there was any suitable costume ingredients.... She found enough cats to fill a bag and a gold purse and a lovely blue shawl and head wrap. She came home and cut out a ton of cat pictures to glue into a "photo" album and attached some cats to the shawl, found some jewelery and even came up with a name for the character "Jolene"
I don't know if James was as amused as Jade was but he was a good sport and he wore the costume to work, complete with a baggie of cat treats and a camera for taking pictures of cats.... it really was funny, he didn't want me to take pictures though but I did convince him to let me take a few, "Jolene" is showing Jade all of her cats...

Halloween

This year Jade was a Gypsy and Gemma was a Ballerina Witch. It was cold and raining but the rain did stop just in time and we went trick-or-treating. Jade would have gone all night, but Gemma filled her bucket and announced (5 blocks from home) that she had enough candy, she was done and that I needed to carry her...
It started raining again just as we were coming up our street, yes I was carrying Gemma, so it was good timing.
They had a fun time!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch for my birthday this year. there is a fun pick your own pumpkin patch by Grandma Rory's, we have gone there the last few years.
Jade spent her time looking for the perfect biggest pumpkin. The ones in the picture aren't it, you can kind of see it in the wheelbarrow. Gemma loved them all, and was very quick to find hers.

Geode Hunting

one of Gemma's finds

These are a few of my favorite ones that I won't let James open.

We went Geode Hunting about 2 weekends ago. Ever since I saw that there was a place to do that pretty close by (by close i mean 2.5 hours on totally dirt trail ) I really wanted to take the kids and go check it out.

It was so much fun! The pictures don't really do it justice because I was too busy looking for them too.
Opened one
Down in the pit digging out the geodes...
At first when we finally fot out to the sign that is quite mis leading by the way, it seemed like a bust, there were holes everywhere where people had previously dug, and after digging for a while, and finding nothing we figured it was all played out. So James decided to do a bit of 4-wheeling since we were already out in the hills... boy stuff you know ;-). Gemma was worried and said "we can never find our house cause it's too far now"
So we were just out riding and we crested a hill and saw an old excavator, we decided to go see why there would be one just sitting there because people don't usually ditch heavy equipment like they do with cars.... anyway we came upon the actual geode beds it was so Awesome!!! We spent a few hours looking and came back with a huge bucket full and I cannot wait to go back! Thank you James for a great and memorable day!
So the reason for the digger is that man that owns the property goes out 2 times a year and digs up some of the beds and then he allows people to go look for the geodes.

Student of the month!!

Jade was chosen to be 4th grade student of the month by her teacher Mrs.Harper because she is very helpful, obedient and on task and so sweet! Way to go Jade!

Peaches

My dad gave me two bushels of peaches Jade thought it was great and helped me put them up, Jade thought it was so fun to pack the jars. She was a great helper and we got a ton of peaches!

Camping

Jade has been asking to go camping for quite a while so we finally got everything together and went for Labor Day weekend. we went up into the High Uinta Mountains. It was very nice weather not too hot and not too cold, (although it did get a bit nippy in the middle of the night). Normally our camping is going up to Grandpa Rays Property in Duchesne but that includes running water and electricty. This was Jade's first experience with camping in a tent. She Loved it!
We also took Sampson, He had a good time( I think)but ever since we have gotten back he doesn't race me to the car anymore, I guess he's afraid we will go camping .... Sheesh take the dog camping one time....
James and Jade made a hammock out of a tarp and they thought that was quite funny. We did the usual things roasted marshmallows, played in the river, and had tinfoil dinners over the campfire.