Halloween Post 2010...

Another year of pumpkin painting and decorating, trunk-or-treating, and office Halloween parties.  It was fun!  Luke decided to be Buzz Lightyear again.  I was glad his costume fit him still!  He was Buzz 2 years ago.  Here's Buzz when we first arrived at the ward trunk-or-treat.  He was ready to get on with the candy action!

 Ella saw her butterfly costume when I was unpacking some boxes and wanted to wear it again.  Glad she was happy to be butterfly for a second time!  Made things easy for me. ( Click here to see first round of the butterfly.)  She loved dressing up and getting candy. 

                                   
                                        Caught her with a whole fun size candy bar in her mouth...

We painted pumpkins with the Smiths a couple of weeks before Halloween.  My mom and dad sent the kids some fun face pieces to decorate pumpkins with, so the kids had fun decorating with those too.  It was kind of like playing Mr. Potato head for days... they kept changing the faces until the pumpkins were too squishy and gross to keep any longer.  Saving the face pieces for next year! :)  Here are a couple of our creations.

                 The dental squadron held a Halloween party for the kids at the office.  Luke and Ella had
                           a good time trick-or-treating at all the operatories and hanging out with their buddies.  

Most of the dental gang that came to the kiddi party...

Most of our Halloween festivities were on Friday and Saturday night.  After the ward trunk-or-treat we made an attempt at trick-or-treating on base.  Whoa!!  I've never seen so many people trick-or-treating in all my life.  That place was CRAZY.  You would think you were walking around Disneyland on a crowded night or something with the swarms of people walking around those streets.  The trick-or-treating started at 5:30, and when we went at about 7 or 7:30 the porches with lights still on were few and far between.  Streets were still packed with people though.  I don't know how people on base buy enough candy to stay open for longer then 10 minutes.  Fun seeing all the costumes walking around.  Seriously crazy amount of people though. 
Sunday we had some friends over for dinner.  We just got a handful of neighborhood trick-or-treaters at our house.  People around here like to dress up and go party on Halloween.  They trick-or-treat, but it doesn't seem to be a big thing.  Soo, theres Halloween 2010 for ya.  :)

We like walks.

There are footpaths everywhere around here and they go through some fun places!  We have had fun exploring our new spot.  Yesterday morning it was raining, so when it cleared up we thought we should get out for a bit!  I brought the camera along since I wanted more pics of the area... and of the kids too!  Over the last few weeks, Luke and Ella have been little leaf collectors.  They don't get tired of finding more. 

Luke never tires of sticks either.

After walking for a few minutes, you get to this big park area along the river.  I love that everything stays so green here.  The leaves are falling off the trees, and the grass still looks like it's spring time. 

We usually bring bread along for the ducks.  There are some really greedy and mean swans though!  Luke likes to run up to them so they'll hiss at him. 



Found a fuzzy caterpillar.





We pass lots of cows and horses here in the countryside!



Luke wears his wellies on walks to jump in the puddles!  Ella didn't want to wear hers and ended up with soaked feet.  This part of the path was quite soggy yesterday.

I push the stroller behind them for a lot of the time.

Once you walk through that footpath, you end up here.  A neighboring village called Barton Mills.  It's super cute. 

There's some crazy park equipment here!

Running for the park!



On the giant swing together!  Yeah, I'm not so good at self portraits.



It's kind of cutie... a lot of the animals wear these things since it gets pretty cold this time of year!

This little girl usually falls asleep in the stroller on the way back home.   Makes pushing an empty stroller the first half of our walk worth it!

Luke decided to take advantage of a napping sister to do some tree climbing.  I chilled with Ella for a good thirty minutes while he sat in the "best place ever."

Love this kid.

Couldn't pass up the photo op with the cute tree monkey!  I did leave him alone after a minute so he could play up there though.  :)

When you get off the footpath back to Mildenhall, you can either turn right to our house or go straight to the shopping area of the village.

Sainsbury is the supermarket here.  Nice that it's a close walk from home, but quite a bit more money then shopping at the commissary!  It's really small compared to American grocery stores...  maybe a little bigger then a Fresh & Easy.  It's fun trying different European brands.  They are building a super Sainsburry next door to this building.  Those are like mini Super Target stores with home decor, clothes and food. 

Well, I feel a little like Dora the Explorer now.  Thanks for coming on a walk with us on this beautiful day!   Gracias!  J/k.  We watch a little too much Dora I guess.  Oh, and this post has taken forever to post because I ran out of storage for pictures in my google whatever picture/blog account?  huh?!  More storage is pretty cheap (like $5 per year) but I didn't know you could run out of picture space on here!   



Pumpkin Patch 2010

My cute friend Stacy invited us to go along with them to the pumpkin patch this weekend.  Good times.  It was in Beck Row, a village just next to this one.  It's fun to see how different patches do things.  This one had a stand with fresh homemade donuts and a pony for the kids to ride.  Luke and Liberty got balloons and had fun running around with them.  We'll have to do their corn maze another time.  It looked pretty good!  I'm a sucker for pumpkin patch pictures.  Here's some of this year's batch...





Ella found some cute baby pumpkins!

Luke was liking the horse!

Checking out the Coast

A couple of weekends ago we went with the Smith family to Cromer.  It's on the coast about an hour and a half North of where we live.  I hear it's a pretty popular tourist destination in the summer and gets quite warm, but it was super cold and windy when we went!  The kids played on the chilly sand for a bit and we checked out the life boat station, the village cathedral, and window shopped.  A storm was coming in and it started pouring just a few minutes after we drove away that afternoon!  Good timing if I may say so.  Cute town.  I want to go back when it's warm next summer :)







London Temple Trip

Last weekend we met our ward at the London temple for a picnic on the grounds.  It was an activity for the primary kids, and Luke had been excited to see the "England temple."  It's so pretty and green on the grounds!  The temple is closed right now for cleaning, but I'm anxious to see what it's like inside.  The ward had a little program at the the visitors center, and then the missionaries told us a little about the history of the temple, visitors center, and Christus.  I want to visit Copenhagen before leaving Europe to see the original Christus statue now.  

The temple!  They just recently put the Angel Moroni on the top of this one.

Primary kids had fun torturing the ducks. 

Grass and trees everywhere.  Oh, and our ward in the distance!

Ella had a great time finding different colored leaves.  They are just starting to change color around here.

We followed the Casallis family down, and then tried a pretty good restaurant with them on the way home.  Luke loves hanging out with AJ and Logan.

The primary kids sang I Love to See the Temple and did a good job :)  Also, some random trivia... the Christus statue in London is only 8 ft. tall.  Quite a bit shorter then the one in Salt Lake.  I think they said that one is 11 ft.

Oh, and I'm just realizing that there is a caption button when you click on pictures... and all this time I've been wondering if putting captions above or below pictures is the "right way." haha. 

Ella is 2!

The day after we arrived in London, Miss Ella turned 2!!  It was a pretty low key day... she and Luke slept until noon (just a little jet-lagged!) haha.  When I heard her waking up, I went in their room and told her happy birthday!  She responded, ya.. a happy birday a me, an a happy birday a Jenni!  I thought it was cutie that she remembered it was Jenni's day too.  :)  After lunch, we played at the park for a bit.  I was glad we did cake the Sunday before because we didn't quite make it to getting a cake on her real day.  Ahh... stinks to have a birthday between moves.  At least she isn't old enough to care yet! 

She was excited to wear her cupcake shirt.  :)

Some things I want to remember about this little cutie at 2:
*She loves to climb... ALWAYS climbing and moving.  During church, she gets quite the workout climbing up on my lap, getting down, climbing up on the chair, getting back down, standing up on the chair, etc. etc.  She loves climbing at the park.  Can't get this girl to sit still!
*She loves Luke.  Whatever he has is what she wants, and she copies pretty much everything he does.
*LOVES, loves, loves books.  It doesn't really matter what book you read to her.  She loves them all. 
*She always says "a hold you" when she wants me to hold her.  Kind of funny... I remember her cousin Gunnar saying the same thing when he wanted his mom to pick him up.
*She gives lots of kisses.
*Loves yogurt, fruit, and cheeze-its.  She's always asks for a bite of whatever I'm eating and will eat anything.  Thanks Elle for not being picky :)
*Loves her dammas and dampas (aka grandmas and grandpas).  My mom is pretty much the only person she'd rather be with.
*Wants to do everything herself.  When I try to dress her, she always says, "a no mom... a MY turn."  On the same note, she's very opinionated lately about what she wears.  She wants to pick out everything from her hair pretty to her shoes and everything in between.  I have to hide stuff if I really don't want her wearing.  She loves jewelry too... I had a regular old black covered elastic thing on my wrist yesterday and she said,  "oh, dat's cute mom."  I love it when she says stuff like that!  haha.
*She still likes babies, and points them out everywhere.  She still loves being the baby in our family.   
*She's my little shadow and still hates it when I leave.  She's been known to throw a tantrum outside the bathroom door until I come out.  *Likes the idea of going potty on the toilet and big girl underwear... hoping she decides to actually be potty trained sooner then later!
*She likes the "potorn song" aka... Popcorn Popping
*Loves Dora.  She'll shout stuff out when the show asks questions and dance and sing when the theme song comes on.  We just got her a Dora DVD since she's so into it and she's been requesting it every day.