Catching Up: October (Warning: Super long post!)

October was a fun month!  Even though I was recovering from knee surgery, we were still able to do some fun things with the boys and as a family!  

Here we are at the UW Homecoming Parade.  

The boys after the parade! I absolutely love this picture of them!   

The boys enjoying some Daddy time!  (Ya know they have to do that before basketball season starts and they don't see their daddy nearly as much!)
The weather in October is crazy.  One day we got a TON of snow. It was probably one of the biggest storms of the entire winter!  The boys loved going out and playing in the snow. Making snow angels, throwing snowballs, eating snow, etc.  This was really one of Z's first times really being old enough, big enough to play in the snow!  

We then, of course, had to go inside for some hot chocolate!  

Another fun weekend we had amazing weather! So we took the boys and our rakes and went to a park. We (meaning Dustin because I was still gimpy) raked up leaves there and let the boys jump in the leaves!  They had a blast!   

Here is our family in the leaves!  

A few more shots of our fun at the park!  

We were so lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa Hansen come out for a visit!  We went down to the Denver Zoo for a crazy free day! There were tons of people, but we were still able to have fun and see everything.  I gimped around on crutches and a giant brace, but it was still fun to see the zoo, and even better, experience it with Grandma and Grandpa!  

We loved seeing all the animals, the statues, and going on the train ride around the zoo!  

So much fun with Grandma and Grandpa at the big zoo!  

By the dinosaur statues on the way to our parking garage.

Another highlight for Jack was getting his early birthday present from Grandpa - a fishing pole!  Here is  a picture of the prepping of the pole.

Once we had the worms and got the pole ready we headed to the park to fish in the pond!  Check out how Jack caught a fish!  

A he did catch a fish!  In fact I think he ended up catching like 5 fish! When he caught his first he was so, so excited until he went to touch it and it started flopping.  Then he was terrified.  If you can't tell, in the top left picture he is both crying and smiling!  

A few more pics from our fishing adventure!  

Saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa! It was such a fun visit!  I took the boys to do lots of fun Halloween activities. I love Halloween.  I love dressing them up. I love candy.  The decorations.  (I love being scared!)  I just think it is a fun holiday.  I am trying to pass on the excitement of it to my boys, cuz Dustin hates the holiday!  So we made sure to decorate the house cute, carve and paint pumpkins, wear fun Halloween clothes, and go to lots of Halloween activities! 

The outside of our house.   

Grandma and Grandpa brought the boys some little pumpkins and some  big ones that we could carve. Here are the boys painting their pumpkins while Grandma and Grandpa were here.  

Carving Pumpkins as a family.  The boys were both disgusted and fascinated by the goop inside of hte pumpkins!  

Cute Halloween pajamas and shirts!     

Here are the boys Trick or Treating at the Children's Clinic.

  Here I am making them pose by our decorations before Trick or Treating fun!  

Me with my handsome doctor and cute little monkey!  

Visiting Daddy at work after Trick or Treating at the Clinic.

 I think Jack thinks he has to have multiple costumes each year, because for the last couple of years he has had more than one.  he wears a different one for each event.  Here he is as a doctor (with his monkey of course!)

We also went to the Downtown Trick or Treating at local businesses!  Here Jack is Spiderman!  They got to play some fun games and do some fun activities while picking up loads of candy! :)

 Then we went to the Stake Trunk or Treat on Halloween night.  A cute older couple always brings this fun little set up for people to get pictures by, so here is our family on Halloween!

 Jack and his best buddy, Phoenix, were both sporting their Spiderman looks! :)  

Our family!  

 Yes.  The boys and I sure enjoy Halloween!

And as if this post hasn't already been long enough, here are few parting photos of my cute, crazy guys!  

I love Jack and his fun personality!  He can be crazy but so, so sweet too! :)  

My handsome boys before church one day! :)

Sorry for the duplicate pictures, but gotta show our crazy Zanderman some more!

Catching up: September

I bet that everyone has given up on this blog!  But I haven't!  I just have not had motivation since my knee surgeries to do a lot of things, blogging for some reason was one of them.  I know I have dug myself quite the hole, but this blog, and documenting the events of our little family, is super important to me, so I will do my best to catch up and then keep it up!   It has been long enough since I posted (December) and even longer since what I last wrote about (September soccer!).  

So to start here is finishing up the month of September! :)

Dustin found a few pieces of free sod.  So yes, to go along with our ghetto chicken wire fence, we laid those few pieces of sod in our back yard!  The boys were excited to help dad water, and have some grass to jump on and do somersaults on!  (And when we had our winter storms later on, that patch was perfect to play on and avoid the mud underneath!)  

Gotta love Fall rain storms! We had fun going out and splashing in puddles as a family one Sunday afternoon!  We were a mess after, but it was a lot of fun.  (It reminded me of the my younger years when we were complete "gutter children!"  Nothin' wrong with that!  Ha!)   :)

One day I rode my bike and pulled the boys in the trailer around the UW campus. We stopped and took a random trip to the Dinosaur Museum there on campus.  
One of the biggest events of September was Jack starting his first day of Preschool!  He went to a cute, new Christian Preschool in town called The Ranch.  He was so excited to have a new Cars backpack and head into school!  That kid loves to learn! Even though he was super excited, this Mommy was a little emotional about her baby starting school!    
Here is the beautiful church where Jack's preschool is held.

Jack with his teacher, Miss Stephanie, on his first day!  

Jack went to The Rånch on Mondays and Wednesdays.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we did a little home preschool with some kids from church - Jack, Kinlee, Addie, Jonah, and Josie.  Us moms took turns teaching each week in our homes.  It was fun and the kids were able to do some fun things.  It was fun, but it definitely solidified for me why I am a secondary education teacher.  Here is a picture from one of their fun adventures - a field trip to the Fire Station.

There was a celebration downtown one day to kick of Fall, the beginning of school, and kind of celebrate UW athletics, so I took the boys.  The boys had fun meeting up with friends (the Anderson boys) getting their faces painted by cheerleaders, playing a few games, and then dancing to the music!

And of course, the highlight, at least for Jack, meeting Pistol Pete (Cowboy Joe as my boys call him!)  

Here they are showing off their awesome dance moves. Then it was a wonderful treat to go to a football game with Daddy actually sitting with us!

The last weekend of September, Dustin's paren'ts came out for a short weekend visit so they could come to the Nebraska vs. Wyoming football game. We found some good Wyoming gear for them and it was fun to have them at the football game with us.  Lynn got to spend the game with Dustin on the sidelines while Patty helped me juggle the kids!   I love these pictures of Dustin with his parents, especially showing how short his cute mom is between the two tall guys! :)    

Also in September, I got to head to Utah (without kids!)  to go to Time Out for Women with my mom, Lisa, Stacy, and Amy.  It was amazing!  The music and speakers were so great and inspiring.  It was weird to be without kids for the weekend, but it was a wonderful trip!  Here are some pictures from TOFW and with our lovely bags we got!  :)  (Love the pic of Lisa pretending to punch my mom in the head!)

That weekend we also were able to do a cute wood craft that said AUTUMN.  I love my crafty sis-in-law!  I love getting new decorations for my house!   

I had such a wonderful time with these amazing ladies!

 At the end of September I had to have knee surgery.....again.  We needed a fun outing before I was gimpy, so we went up into the mountains and did a little hiking and exploring.  

Our Family!  

Enjoying some  time out back before my surgery the next morning.  

So for my 3rd knee surgery, I needed my torn meniscus fixed, some cartilage trimmed out, and even though they couldn't do my ACL repair yet, they prepared my knee to have an ACL repair in 6 months by filling the old bone tunnels with bone tissue to let harden so they could drill again for my next surgery. Here I am post surgery in the chair I didn't leave much.  I was on crutches for awhile, and thankfully my boys were willing to come and do some snuggling with me!  (I think they actually got sick so they were more willing to sit still for longer amounts of time!)   Our ward and friends were AMAZING in taking care of meals for us and watching the boys while I was laid up!  

I will end this lengthy post with a few more random pictures of the kids being silly, showing off pajamas, having fun, making messes,  climbing in dryers, playing with Daddy, etc!  I sure love this handsome, silly guy! :)

Zander Man!   

 Being goobers! :)