Trunk or Treat

For our Trunk-or-Treat and Halloween Party, Troy and I joined in on the golf theme.

In Michigan, everyone decorated the trunks of their cars for trunk-or-treating events. My brother and dad went all out every year with music, lights, foam machines, themes, and even Halloween video presentations. When my brother found out that no one really does that here, he was devastated. I told him that he was free to decorate the trunk of our car if he wanted to. My mom and I were only gone running errands for an hour or so and we came home to find his masterpiece. Jorden had scavenged up all miscellaneous Halloween items that he could find around our house and he quickly came up with a creative display. He even wired a car adapter to be able to hang orange Halloween lights from a golf club on the ceiling. His trunks are usually much more elaborate but he did a great job for what he had to work with.

This is the first year that Blake has been able to understand the concept of trick-or-treating. He was really shy at first about asking for candy.

Then, when he figured out that he was loading up his bag with candy, he lost his shyness and dove right in.

He concentrated so hard on trying to get his candy open. It kind of broke my heart when I had to limit him to one or two pieces after he had worked so hard to obtain it all. For the rest of the night he looked around for his pumpkin bag and signed "more" over and over. Thankfully he forgot about the candy I hid the next day.

Blake won the award for the best costume. He even got a little trophy which you can see he was very proud of.

After the Halloween Party, Troy decided to try to hit things into the trunk of our car.

It looked like fun so I tried too. None of my hits made it very far and I had terrible form. Pregnant people should not golf; the belly gets in the way. Or at least that is my excuse.

Troy really wanted to smash my platinum pumpkins with his golf club.

I convinced him otherwise.

I think we may be Halloweened out and it's not even Halloween yet! At least we have a few more days to gear up again.

Tee Time

We started our Halloween events over the weekend, so here comes the big costume reveal.

We took our little golfer to Gardner Village which has become an annual tradition because of the great fall ambiance spread throughout. It's like a Halloween wonderland.

My mom came out to visit last week and joined us for the festivities. She just can't stay away from her grandson for more than a two month period. She earned a free plane ticket when a spring business trip to Mexico was cancelled because of the Swine Flu craze, so she saved the voucher until now so that she could visit her favorite people in the world.

Blake's other grandma came too. He is just so loved.

He wanted to spend the majority of the time watching the ducks and trying to climb into the river. He kept waving to the passing ducks.

What a sweetheart.

Platinum Pumpkins

A little spin on the traditional:

Troy hates carving pumpkins and Blake is still a little too young to enjoy such an activity, so I took the pumpkin decorating into my own hands this year. They went platinum.

Pumpkin Patch

I asked around to find a pumpkin patch in our area and no one seemed to know of any. Everyone just buys their pumpkins at the store I guess. I had this picture in my head of what the Michigan patches were like; the apples, the cider, the pumpkins, the hay rides...

After some searching, we found the greatest little pumpkin patch. We didn't get the apples and cider, but I wasn't one bit disappointed. It made for a great outing and it was just what I had pictured.

For starters, they had fun tractors to sit on.

A little boy's paradise.

Troy generally dislikes festivities associated with holidays but he was a good sport for my sake.

Another great perk at this place was the corn maze for children.

The corn maze was Blake's favorite part. He kept walking through the stalks instead of on the laid out paths. It was a like a little jungle for him.

We also went on a hayride and enjoyed the fall colors.

 Finally, there were pumpkins!

We started the quest to find the perfect Blake-sized pumpkin.

It was a struggle for Blake to hold any of the big pumpkins.

My pumpkin and my little pumpkin.

Blake kept picking out the random misfit white and green pumpkins. He finally settled on a perfect little orange pumpkin.

Teaching Yoga At Last

I am officially employed. Even though I completed my yoga teacher training in January, my national certification took months to process and didn't become official until May. Then, alas, I got pregnant and was sick all summer, making teaching in the evenings about the last thing I wanted to do. Now that I am very obviously pregnant, I wondered how I could teach a yoga class without looking ridiculous. The solution was so easy; teach a Prenatal Yoga class! This is a class I have been interested in teaching ever since I became involved with yoga, and of course now in my current state it makes perfect sense. So, with a little paperwork, interviewing, and preparation, Granite Peaks School District was kind enough to hire me to teach their first ever Prenatal Yoga class. Luckily, I am in the baby capital of the world, so hopefully I will have a good turn-out.

My class starts in just a few weeks, and I will run a brief 4-week trial session before the holidays. Then I will start up full swing in January and run a few longer sessions (and have a baby somewhere in there). So, if you know of anyone in the Salt Lake area who is expecting and would benefit from this class, please pass the word on! Here is the flyer with all of the information: