Happy birthday Nathan!!!

On the 13th of this month, Nathan turned the big 3-0. I really wanted to do something big and fun since for my 30th he took me to Las Vegas and sent me to a U2 concert with my sister, brother and best friend. But that little thing called medical school got in my way!! Oh, and having a 6 month old doesn't help either :) Nathan doesn't have much time off school...ever... and he is always very busy studying, so I decided that the big party would have to wait for another time. I did manage to organize a surprise party for him however with a few friends and couples from school. He had no idea and we had a lot of fun. 

Singing happy birthday

Helping daddy blow out the candles

Carter opening Nathan's presents...I'm pretty sure he thought it was his birthday

On Nathan's actual birthday, I made him some shrimp pasta for dinner and Carter insisted on getting him these cupcakes at the store. So we sang happy birthday again!! 

Carter was so excited to blow out candles again!!

Happy birthday Nathan!! We sure do love you!!! 

Halloween!!!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Carter really understood the concept of trick or treating and he really loved decorating the house and carving pumpkins. It makes holidays so much fun when your kids start getting old enough to enjoy them too. 

Our first Halloween adventure was our ward trunk or treat. Carter chose his knight costume for this one. They had a lot of fun games, cotton candy and of course trunk or treating. Carter had a blast, and he got lots of good candy for mom and dad to eat :)

Chase was our little pumpkin. I had a hard time finding him a costume I liked, and truthfully I didn't really want this one either, but he sure made it super cute and I loved it in the end!

Our next Halloween adventure was carving our pumpkins. We had our friends the Bunnells over and we had a great time. Carter and their little boy Davido are the same exact age, and they are the best of friends!! It's so fun to see Carter have a little buddy!

I love their faces!!!!

The finished products!

I guess Chase doesn't like being held like this :)

On Halloween day we went to play group in the morning at church, and Carter chose to wear his dinosaur costume for this one

That night we went trick or treating with our friends the Tew's and the Cloward's. We went to a great neighborhood, and Carter had so much fun we had to make him stop! He would have gone forever!!

The Tew's... We love them!!

My little batman.. This is what Carter chose to wear for trick or treating.

Chase enjoyed the festivities too!

Mommy's little pumpkin

Aunt Lisa...

In the middle of October, my sister came to visit. We showed her around our new town, celebrated her birthday and just hung out. Carter was in heaven and LOVES it when we get visitors (as do I!!!) Even now, Carter tell me he misses Lisa and wants her to come back. We had so much fun while she was here and missed her the second we dropped her off at the airport. You better come back soon Lisa or Carter will be mad at you!!

We went to the zoo one day. It was a lot bigger than we expected, but it was a lot of fun. The boys did great and Carter loved all the animals!

They have a carousel there, which Carter rode about 4 or 5 times!!

We walked around the corner to find this red panda sleeping like this. I thought it was hilarious.

Here is Carter with the orangutans. I couldn't get a good picture of the orangutan, because ever angle had a reflection. But I thought it was so cute that he was putting his hand up on the glass for Carter to touch! There was a baby in there too and it was going crazy running around and doing flips. Carter was laughing pretty hard!

The kangeroo's were just roaming around wild. Good thing they didn't attack :)

This is what Chase did...

Of course there was some baking that had to occur while she was here

These boys LOVE their aunt!!!

We made another trip back to the pumpkin patch. Mostly so I could get some doughnuts!

I'm not the only one who loves the doughnuts!

Lisa had her birthday while she was here so we celebrated that...and Carter got another birthday party!!

And we went to the aquarium...

Carter holding the starfish

The massive greens eel

We also took Lisa to the Liberty Jail and Independence

We went shopping and found this knight outfit. Lisa just had to buy it for our knight in shining armour!! He didn't take it off for like 2 weeks. He saved a lot of princesses and slayed a lot of dragons :)

His favorite part of the zoo was the polar bear. He would swim right up in front of Carter and push off the glass so he could do a flip. Carter loved it and was laughing pretty hard. 

This was the gondola ride over the African grasslands

The Gorilla taking a nap

And a few very large tortoises