happy halloween!!

We had an AWESOME Halloween this year. We kicked it off with a stellar ward party the Friday night before. My friend and I were in charge of it so unfortunately there are no pictures. I was running around crazy and Jesse was on child-duty. But we had a chili cook-off, costume parade, cupcake walk, trunk-or-treat (in the church because it was raining), etc. It was great! People told us we did a great job and it was one of the best ward parties they'd had in a while. :) I'll have to harass my friend for her "before" pictures of the tables and stuff.

On Halloween, Abby's preschool class did a super cute little program at an assisted living center that is next door to her school. She was so excited to sing for all the "grandpa-greats and grandma-greats that need some help"... as she told me. Cute girl. I thought it was an awesome service they did. Afterwards, they had the kids come back to the school and perform for the parents. So this is Abby with her friends at school performing their fall and halloween songs!

And this is Snow White trying to step in on the party. She was so proud of Abby. :)

One of the many perks of Microsoft is... TRICK-OR-TREATING. The building essentially shut down for the families to come trick-or-treat. The girls LOVED it. It didn't take Claire long to figure out what was going on. She'd run to every person or random bucket and yell "Treat-treat!" and then stole five or six candies. I only got two pictures before one of the millions of security guards informed me that pictures within the building were not okay. It's cool. I understand. There's some crazy awesomeness going on in that building that I wouldn't want stolen either.

This picture is awful. Sorry, I was grabbing Claire away from the candy. We went with like four other families and it was a zoo. But not in this picture.... oddly enough... just our own personal zoo.

Halloween re-staged!

After trick-or-treating, we were totally exhausted. We didn't even go out that night. Abby loved handing out candy with us though, and seeing the other kids in their costumes. All five of them that rang our doorbell. I didn't get pictures that night, but today I made my kids go throw their costumes back on. And I put mine on. Though sans awesome black yoga pants.

There's a party in the Larsen house!

I have ALWAYS wanted to go to a Pumpkin Patch. But I had no idea where to go when I was in Utah, or I decided Abby was too young, or who knows why I didn't go. But I always wanted to go. So when my friend asked if we wanted to go along this year I immediately jumped on it! Wahoo! Bucket list, check. So here is the massive picture dump from our awesomely, chilly trip to the Stocker Farms Pumpkin Park in Snohomish, WA. Enjoy!

Bumpin' up and down in my little red wagon....
(Claire LOVED the wagon. I'm so buying one for Christmas. Don't tell Jesse.)

Abby and Jesse searched far and wide in the big field of pumpkins...

And this is the one she picked. A gourd. A freakin' gourd. Of all the beautiful orange pumpkins, she picks a gourd.
Be your own kind of beautiful, I guess?

Claire found her pumpkin pretty fast.

This is NOT a piece of fried chicken. It is a donut. And it was the most heavenly donut I've ever eaten. They were from a street vendor at the farm named Seattle Street Donuts. They were cinnamon-caramel flavored and they literally melted in your mouth.

And this is me eating the entire bowl of donuts. I was supposed to share. Whoops. :) (We bought three bowls because they were so amazing).

This is the pumpkin Abby was going to buy before she found her gourd. Check out her mouth. It's a half-eaten corndog. Personally not a fan, but she loved it. Let's hear it for fair food!

This farm was super cute. They had tons of fun activities for the kids. Like pounding nails. Who knew it could be so entertaining?! My girls LOVED it. So we pounded nails,

we hula-hooped,

raced rubber ducks,

fished for trout,

dug in a giant corn pit,

and apparently pounded more nails. :)

And Claire started her own band with some old pots and pans that the kids could bang on to make music. She's going to be a rockstar one day.

Oh you sassy child. This is her "hey grandma, come visit me" face. ;)

We had an awesome time! It was cold, but the girls were great. There was actually a train, pony rides, hay rides, face painting, human hamster wheels, and a pumpkin bounce house, but my four-year-old screamed bloody murder if we took her near those venues. So we pounded more nails. One day we'll figure out what scares her about all of those things, but at least they had fun! And yes, Claire spent the whole time trying to see out from under her hat. It's the only hat she'll wear. She loves it. So we make it work. :)

P.S. Current boy name idea: James. Thoughts?

This is for you, Kelsey. ;) Love you!

Oh my heavens.
I blogged;
Therefore, I rock.

It's been such a crazy month. Seriously. So much so that I didn't even blog my trip to Utah. Again. But I had to post at least this one picture of my girls with Maryn. How beautiful are they?! I wish Abby had been looking at the camera, but when you have three in your face, it's hard to get them all looking at the right camera. Anyway. This was taken by the reflection pool at the Salt Lake Temple. It's a new tradition for me to take the girls to Temple Square when we fly out there. Temple Square is another place I took for granted when I lived there.... So now I'm going to make it a point to get there whenever we go to Utah. Beautiful, just beautiful.

This picture was taken on Abigail's first day of preschool. So far she LOVES it. She goes three days a week and has made two super cute girlfriends that she loves to talk about. Yes, this was the best face and pose that I could get from her. She is an ultimate spaz. And she wouldn't let me dress her in anything cute.... She was also painting a school bag that day so I didn't want her to ruin anything that was cute. I'll post a new picture of her in an adorable outfit soon.


On September something, 2011, a new member was added to our family: the van. It's a 2008 Dodge Caravan. And I love her. She arrived at 11:00 p.m. and was delivered by some crazy Russian man. She's quiet, beautiful, and drives ever so smoothly.... We're still searching for the perfect name: Blueberry, Big Bertha, Big Blue, etc. Any suggestions?


This is what I stare at as I drive. It's ultra intimidating. When the car is actually on, that little screen turns into a touch screen. I have no idea what 95% of the buttons mean. I'll figure it out eventually. We have small successes each day. Yesterday, I figured out how to turn the air on. Today, the windshield wipers. Who knows what tomorrow will hold!


And this... is my 24-week-pregnant belly. What?! I'm pregnant?! Yes. I guess this is my formal blog announcement. It's a boy. Due date: January 20, but we're planning on February. And we have no idea what the name is going to be anymore. We had Benjamin in mind... but neither of us like that today. Jesse's favorites: Gabriel (yuck), Liam, Gunnar, and Bryce. I've debated Logan, Seth, Jude, James, and Bentley. YES I know Bachelorette evil guy was Bentley, but I still like the name. So... please put in your votes. I need opinions please.

And these are my girls after four hours of watching General Conference today. We LOVED General Conference, but after so many hours of being indoors, it was time to get out and blow some bubbles. :)

P.S. I have almost zero control of Abby's outfits these days. She's starting to look like an orphan. But at least she's a beautiful orphan. :)


Oh Claire. She kills me these days. She loves to sing "happy to you" and "twinkle, twinkle." She's constantly talking or parroting and she pulls THE BEST facial expressions ever. We tried to capture some, but we weren't fast enough... Claire also has a new love of all things babies ever since one of my best friends had her baby boy this month. Claire is always asking to hold him and she just wants to be with him always. It's super cute. And I love Abby too. Gotta give some Abby love. SUPER smart. And she remembers everything. She loves to write her letters and she's doing a great job with reading. Awesome, clever, and imaginative girl. Her quiet time monologues are good enough for novels. Her toys experience some incredible drama these days. Keeps me entertained. ;)
The rains have started and it's freezing my bones, but we're doing our best to be happy. Some days I think I'm really starting to adjust to being here. Other days, not so well. But we're getting there. And at least we're happy, right? My husband is awesome, my girls are amazing, and I have the best friends EVER to be my Washington family. What else could I ask for? (the sun, but really it's not an option). Hahaha... Love to all.

Abby's an internet sensation

This is part of Microsoft's KinectShare.com advertisement stuff.
Look where the red circle is.
Recognize anyone?
I know it's a crummy image, but ctrl+printscrn can only do so much.
Do you see her yet?

You should see ABBY playing Kinect Sports in our ghetto living room! She's a sensation! Just kidding. But Jesse is there, and if you look closely, you can see Claire peeking out from behind Abby. I'm the only one missing. Every time Abby sees it she says, "that's me!"

How funny is that? I'm not 100% sure how they got the pictures... something about Jesse working for Microsoft and uploading to a work account.. so don't worry. Your Kinect images are safe. We actually don't own a kinect yet--we were borrowing a friend's--but we love it. We're hoping to buy one soon.

If you feel like checking out the real thing, you can look at kinectshare.com.

In other news, once again, the sun has stopped shining in WA and I'm counting down the days until I fly to Utah. SARAH will be there and SETH will be home!! Best Utah trip ever. I haven't seen Sarah since December and Seth since August 2009. WAY TOO LONG to see some of my favorite people ever.
We're going to play outside, eat Cafe Rio, Mandarin, FROZEN YOGURT, and just have a blast.
And Jesse will actually join me this time.

Huzzah!

If you give a mom a cookie...

I just saw this on a friend's facebook status. I cracked up. It's extreme, but it's also so true. So I thought I'd share. Here's to moms and future moms. We ROCK.

If you give a mom a cookie...

by Marianne Hales Harding on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 12:46pm

If you give a mom a cookie…

She’ll have to give it to her toddler…

And when the toddler has the cookie, the mom will need to vacuum…

Once she has the vacuum out, she’ll have to do the stairs too…

And when she finishes the stairs, she’ll realize she ought to sweep…

When the floors are swept, it only makes sense to mop…

After she’s finished the floors, she’ll move on to the counters…

And if you’re going to clean the counters, you’d better clean the sink…

The dishes in the sink will remind her that she never cleared the breakfast table…

And while she’s clearing the breakfast table she’ll notice a few stubborn stains on the dining room chairs…

Since she’s gone to the trouble to get out the upholstery cleaner, she’ll scrub the couches too…

She won’t be able to stand having clean couches under dirty windows so she’ll wash them inside and out…

Which naturally leads to scrubbing each and every venetian blind…

Before long she’ll find herself sand-blasting the cement patio…

And repainting all of the exterior trim on the house…

In the meantime, the toddler will have found the rest of the cookies…

And when the toddler has the cookies…

The mom will be vacuuming yet again!