Indoor Fun

Since it has turned cold, the girls have struggled with having to stay inside most of the time.  Yes, we did play in the snow after our big storm here, but now it is just wet and chilly outside.  Ellie doesn't understand this and often is seen (and heard) banging on the door, wanting to go out.  Well, here is one of the girls' newest indoor activities.....

A Tangled Halloween

Kylie was counting down to Halloween this year (well starting with "5 more sleeps").  I haven't seen her this excited in a while.  One day we even played "trick-or-treating" because she wanted to go so badly.....the girls would knock on their play room door and I would answer and give them some play food once they said the magic Halloween words.  It was fun (at least for the first half an hour).  Even though Ellie didn't really understand all the fuss about the upcoming holiday, she was excited too.  She loved it when she would spot pumpkins on someone's porches while were out on a walk or would see the Halloween decor in the grocery store.  She would raise one fist up in the air and yell, "Weeeeeeen!"  Grandma Bunker took both the girls to the pumpkin patch earlier in October and they loved that they got to pick out pumpkins.  We haven't had time to carve them (yet....Kylie still wants to do it), but Kylie had fun decorating one of hers with crayon drawings and stickers.

Kylie chose to be Rapunzel this year.  Though her hair wasn't long and magical, it did have flowers in it.  Ellie was Pascal and could do a pretty good chameleon tongue to accompany her costume (which I made!  I was actually quite proud of how decent it turned out.  I just used one of her sweatshirts and pants as a pattern.  It was my first time ever sewing sleeves, which was a little difficult.).  The first time Ellie realized she had a tail, she gave it a big hug.  Chris was Flynn Ryder.  I wanted him to be the King (since I was the Queen), but Kylie insisted that he had to be Flynn, I mean Eugene.  So Chandra was the King and Casey was Mother Gothel (it's the hair!).  

 

 

 

 

Always....two fingers in the mouth and the other hand playing with her bellybutton.  Had to make sure she had a two piece costume!

Trick-or-treating was of course fun, especially since we didn't stay out too long.  The girls were plenty pleased with the candy they got.  We just picked a few houses in our neighborhood, mostly those belonging to our ward friends.  In retrospect, maybe we should have gone to more houses so that I would still have some candy to snitch!  

Cabin Time (August)

We made our annual trip to Grandma Rowe's cabin in Island Park, ID back in August and good times were had by all.  We definitely had a full cabin with all of us Bunkers there and it was fun to be all together.  Kylie and Ellie both loved being outside, taking walks along the river and going on a canoe ride.  Saturday we all went into to West Yellowstone to walk around/shop, eat the best pizza ever and get some yummy ice cream.  Sunday, Chris took our little family on a drive to the headwaters of the buffalo river.  We saw a couple of moose on our drive and quite a few more around the cabin that weekend.  Monday we went into Yellowstone and this year Firehole was open for swimming.  This was my first time sliding down the natural water-slides there, which, even though it was a bit cold, was so fun!  Even Kylie did it.  I wish we had taken some pictures.  We also did the usual jump off the tressel, in which Kylie wanted to do too.....see pictures below!

 

Their canoe sprung a leak!  

Grandma and Kylie were sitting in water at this point and had to join our canoe.

 

Before everyone else was brave enough to get into the chilly water, Kylie had jumped in several times!

  

Cold?  Yes, but she continued to jump.

Ellie wanted to jump too of course!

When we told Kylie we were going to the cabin, she immediately asked if she could jump off the bridge this time.  I was surprised that she remembered that from last summer!  But I wasn't surprised that she wanted to jump.  She was so excited.  I went up on the tressel with her and dropped her to Chris. 

 

Since there are rocks straight down from the tressel, I had to swing Kylie out a bit.  Unfortunately this caused Kylie to twist a little and to land on her thigh (as seen in the above picture).  The slap was painful and produced an immediate welt.  Even though our little girl cried, she was very proud...and still wanted to continue jumping into the water from the dock.  As I wrote this post, I asked Kylie if she will jump again.  She said, "when I am a little older, like this tall, but not as big as you."  I think she will do it again.

 

Kylie really didn't want to leave the river, so Chris filled a tub up for her to take an old-fashioned bath.  And the water was much warmer than the river! 

 

We all enjoyed sitting around the fire pit at night.  We let Kylie stay up late one evening so that she could do sparklers (we never did them on July 4th!) and so she could experience her first s'more!  Mmmmm!

 

As always, we loved being up at the cabin and thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the area.

Summer Revisited

As I was going through some pictures, Ellie got really excited when she spotted these ones.  Both Kylie and Ellie sure love swimming!  It could be a long winter.....

 

I love this picture and that we caught Ellie's face.....pure joy!

 Kylie loved going down the slide all by herself

 Ellie loved the slide too and would lean forward when she was ready to go down

Our Fifth Anniversary

I know that I am very far behind on my posts.  It has been a busy couple of months!  Sorry family!

Back in August Chris and I celebrated our fifth anniversary!  We were able to spend some time together (almost 30 whole hours!) thanks to Casey and then Nicole and Josh for watching our girls.  Over the past year or so, Chris and I have talked about hiking Mt. Timpanogos.  Chris has never done it and both of us wanted to do it before we potentially leave Utah.  Since we didn't have the time or money for an anniversary "get-a-way", I suggested that we go on a hike.  Chris agreed, but 5 hours into our hike, I am not sure he was very happy he did.  J/K.  We had a great time together and both the hike and the views were amazing.
 

It was a beautiful day to hike....not too hot, not too cool. A little hazy though.

There were some pretty cool waterfalls along the hike. 

At the top!

The snowfield we slid down instead of hiking down...faster (and more fun)

 

We of course were quite tired after hiking Timp, but it felt so good as well (and dinner never tasted so delicious).  My legs were sore for a few days, but the memory of our anniversary hike will last forever!  :)