8 Years Old

Paislee celebrated her 8th birthday this past Sunday. One month from today she will be baptized! All these changes are very exciting and make me feel so very old. Here she is posing with one of the cutest dresses I've ever seen, thanks Grammy.
As you can see she is thrilled with her 8 year old status. She attended her first Activity Day activity at the church on Wednesday and loved playing with all of the other girls.

She also received her very first set of scriptures. She loves reading with the family every night and is constantly impressing us with her ability to read all of the difficult words. Last night she realized she could mark her favorites with her new pencils and I'm afraid her book will be rainbow colored before too long.

Why horse-opoly? Those of you who may not know Paislee but know me may wonder why my child has a horse game. She is actually obsessed with horses and all other animals. From a very young age she liked them. Her bedset even has horses on it at her Santa Claus request in 2006. We have stables, horses, feed buckets, cowgirls, outfits. This poor kid knows that I'm very allergic to them and has already apologized for the fact that she will have horses at her house when she grows up.

We are having an all girl Hanah Montana bash next weekend so this was a very simple cake (you have to have cake ON your birthday).

Halloween Backyard BBQ

On Halloween we had a fun pit stop at Jake's parents house in the middle of our running around. We cooked hot dogs and sausages over the open fire and watched the girls play in the leaves.

Grant and Grammy on the trampoline. It's funny how kids have strong, positive connections with most family members and then this magnetism with others. Ella and Papa are like this and have been since she was a baby, now we have Grant and Grammy who share this strong connection. Then there's Paislee who loves everyone equally and 110% without hesitation.

Grant eating and smiling sweetly for the camera. I think October 31st will be the last day in a long while where we didn't have to wear coats outside.
Ella ingoring her dinner and posing for the camera.
Paislee, Ella, and Papa patiently waiting for their dogs to cook.
We were having so much fun that we went back and played some more after the trunk or treat was over.

Animal Control

Two precious kitty cats, one pink and white, the other black and white. When the girls came up with these costumes I was thrilled, easy and inexpensive! They turned out to be the cutest little cats around.
This one can be a bit of a diva, but we love her sparkle.

The rough & tough puppy enjoying his first Halloween treat.

This is a photo of Paislee taken by Miss Ella Jeanne, not too bad.

Here's our little zoo of animals, Jake and I definitely have our hands full with these three rambunctious kids. But moments like these make it all so worthwhile.

Halloween tradition is that we visit Great Grandma Mitchell first, this year she had two visitors we hadn't met yet, Aunt Terri and Aunt Therese. We seriously whirlwinded into the house and 30 minutes later whirlwinded out again, hopefully Grandma wasn't knocked over. Then we head over to Jake's parents house. This year we had a fun BBQ outside in the leaves (those pics to come). And we finished it up with a Trunk or Treat, you honestly can't beat that. 1 hour of walking and handing out candy and you leave with a full bag and saw lots of friends. We were home and had the kids in bed by 8:30, that I think is a very successful Halloween!