One big, long, catch-up fall post!

Well, it's time to play catch-up. Fall has been a beautiful season and we have really enjoyed it. The weather has been great, minus one snow day. The colors are amazing. I light my cinnamon candles, open the windows and sip hot cocoa. Fall is my favorite month! Chad and I had our first date in a long time. We were invited to attend the Denver Dinner for an event that benefits abused and neglected kids. We dressed up and spent the evening enjoying cocktails, dinner, entertainment, and music with friends. I was surprised to see so many familiar faces when we arrived. It was a great time for a great cause.

These two pictures should be flipped. Cheyenne plays on the floor and plays so rough with this that it eventually collapses on her. You can see she is just as happy to chew on it as she is to play with it. The first time it happened, I was in the kitchen and heard Creighton yelling for me "mommy, Cheyenne is stuck!". I found him standing over her, lifting this off of her (it's maybe 2 lbs) but he was holding it up off her like he was lifting a car off of someone. He said "you have to get her, she is stuck", as he is lifting it off her and barely breathing. He cracks me up!

Cheyenne has decided she is too big for her beloved swing. She tries to scoot out of everything, so I suppose we should start strapping her in. Although, she seems to prefer a quilt on the floor, some toys, and space to roll around.

Not the best pic of all the kids, but it shows their costumes and that's all we need. Creighton was Frankenstein, Cheyenne was a fairy, Cort wore the infamous Woody costume, and Kiley was a devil. When someone asked Creighton what Cheyenne was, he said "she is a fly"....I suppose he isn't familiar with fairies and the only bug he really sees that has wings is a fly. :)

Kiley was on fall break all of last week. We spent the time at the park, playing outside, watching movies, going to the pumpkin patch, and catching up on house work. The weather was so beautiful, except for one snowy day, but of course, it was 70 degrees the next day and we were once again in short and tank tops. I am trying to get Kiley to watch some of my favorite movies-My Girl, The Addams family, Now and Then, so we spent one whole day watching movies.

On the hay rack ride. It's impossible to get a pic of them all looking at the camera. This came close.

Kiley and Creighton in the hay maze at the Pumpkin patch.

This picture of Kiley and the boys cracks me up. Kiley is 10 and the boys are 3 and 2, but more than 1/2 her size. They aren't big boys either, she is just very petite. They still listen to her and she somehow manages to carry them around, despite there only being about a 10-15 lb difference in their weights. She is a really, really good big sister and she'll be a great babysitter in a couple of years.

Finally, Cort is big enough to go on our playground by himself. We do plan to make some changes to it though. The ladder he is crawling up is going to turn into a rock climbing wall. It's more fun and safer. The fort will be closed in more to make it more like a tree house and we may take the three swings down and move them to another area of the structure and put a bridge across the center. We'll see, but for now they have a blast on it.

I am not sure why Cheyenne is giving me this crab-tastic face. I think it may be that she HATES the hat and I always put it on her.

One of the houses a couple blocks from us goes all out for Halloween. I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing because it's too wide. This was the exit to the haunted house and me and the kids are in front of the entrance. We took a walk down there with our kids and a few of Kiley's friends one evening. It's definitely a fun thing for the kids to do on Halloween night. We didn't take the little ones on Halloween night because it's much scarier with smoke, fire, sound, etc. The girls did go down and go through it though.

Baby Cort feeding Cheyenne fire cheetos. Don't worry, I took a quick picture and then put them back in the bag before she could grab them.

Denver got some snow on Tuesday evening. A lot of snow. One of our tree limbs fell off and one was resting on the deck awning. In true Colorado fashion, this should all be melted by tomorrow.

This is our lab, Cooper, with a toilet seat around his neck. He was supposed to be upstairs taking a nap with Creighton. I heard Creighton yelling "Cooper's stuck, Cooper's stuck!" and when I went upstairs, I found Cooper with his head in the toilet drinking water. When I said "Cooper!" he tried to pull his head out, but because he has a big head and this is just a little kids training seat, he pulled the whole thing off and this was the end result. :)

Cheyenne and Cort had their well baby Check-ups a couple weeks ago. Cheyenne is 25 inches long and 15 lbs. This puts her right in the 50th percentile.

Cort was 32 inches tall and 23lbs. He is in the 76th percentile for height and 10th for weight. Tall and thin.

I am running out of time now, but will update more in a few days!