We were finally able to get back to our Saturday builds this morning. Today, the kids built a helicopter in honor of Veteran’s Day. The kids are getting really good without help now. Alex brought his buddy along and they worked so hard.Lucy was super excited to use sandpaper on her helicopter’s edges.Once the copters were built, they were able to use stickers to finish them off. This Home Depot doesn’t have paints for the kids, like ours in Wylie did. I think we are going to try a different one next time. Painting was one of the kids’ favorite parts. Once everyone was finished, we snapped a quick pic and headed to Krispy Kreme for some quick donuts.Natalie had practice for her big performance later on in the day. I dropped her off around 2, then we met back at the high school at 5. Lu wanted nothing to do with me, since Uncle E was there and also “her” buddies. (She ended up sitting with them for the entire concert and didn’t make a peep. I was so very proud of her.)Poor Alex has been struggling for the past few weeks with his throat. With the weather changing, his sinuses have been playing havoc on him. He was such a trooper to come and support Natalie while he was not feeling so well.

The Concert was amazing! Natalie was one of only eight kids selected from her school to participate in this special choir, and this opportunity only comes once every three years. We had perfect timing moving I guess.The choir was led by the associate director of the Tabernacle at Temple Square. He was fantastic at getting the youth to be expressive and change dynamics to really captivate the audience. We were all very impressed. Hopefully, when we move down south, Natalie will have other opportunities like this to increase her experience in singing.

Halloween turned out great this year! Things were very busy, but I think the kids all had a fabulous day. We started our morning off at the story-time Halloween costume parade. After official story-time was over, the kids were able to “parade” through the library to various trick-or-treat and prize stations. Bookmarks, pencils, coloring books, and stickers were a nice change from all the candy the kids have already received to this point.Miss Sarah has really done an amazing job with all these little guys.From the costume parade, we had to run and search for a pumpkin for our dinner.(An ooops on my part for forgetting to get it earlier. Finding a pumpkin ON Halloween is darn near impossible.)We went to the elementary school next for class parties. However, due to security reasons, I was not able to take pictures. The kids played games, ate treats, made magic wands, and did an activity story with me. I had to crack up because yes! my kid was the only one in his class that ended up with the wrong thing at the end of our story. Alex totally missed the direction that I said to keep the unfolded part of paper up at the top. 😂 His pumpkin had two half faces.After class parties, I finally found one lone pumpkin at Bowman’s for our Halloween dinner. (It barely fit in the oven. 😱)We made our “Dinner in a Pumpkin” just in time to be finished by 6:00 for trick or treating. It was delicious!

It was 40 degrees by that point, so we had to grab a quick picture, then put jackets on. Definitely NOT what we were used to in Texas.We met up with our buddies to go door to door together, while Natalie and William went off to parties with their friends.Lucy has been asking for weeks when she would get to go trick-or-treating. She was SO excited that it was finally the day! Lucy loved getting treats! And seeing Harold the Hot Dog! When we came to Sister Murdock’s house, I thought Lucy was going to be so excited. We have looked at her witch from the car since the beginning of October. Now that we were given the opportunity to go see it in person, Lucy wanted nothing to do with it. Go figure. (It was lit up with a spooky green face.) We got just enough treats, to not be an excess, before Lucy got really cold. Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped fast. Alex and his buddies went to trick or treat more, while I brought Lucy home. We made delicious apple pies together with the apples we picked from the orchard behind Eric’s house and handed out candy to the trick or treaters. Lucy would get so excited every time someone would come to the door. SHE had to be the one to hand out the treats. Once all the kids made it home from their activities, everyone compared their loot and snuggled in to watch Hotel Transylvania and eat pie.

It was a fabulous evening!

The kids had off from school today for an end of term teacher work day. So, we decided to go visit the Ancient History Museum. Natalie and Alex were not with us when we went the last time, since they were in school that day. They were really excited to see what Lucy and William were going on and on about.Visiting the museums in Utah has been an awesome experience. We are not run over by tons and tons of people (especially daycare groups!), so the kids are really able to enjoy their experience and dive into learning, without being rushed.Bones seemed to fit right in with Halloween just 2 days away. 😂The displays in the Museum are amazing! It is hard to get the full perspective of how huge some of the dinosaurs are in a picture!Lucy loved creating her own dinosaur masterpieces on the felt board. I can’t wait until we can put ours up in our new house.Alex has always been enthralled with a challenge. He is the kid who comes home from school and heads straight for his homework assignments. He also does above and beyond what he is asked to do, and loves to be the leader. (VERY competitive!) If given the opportunity to show what he knows, he will jump right in. He spent a good 20 minutes at this diorama finding every bit of information that it asked to find. I didn’t see any other kids even give it a second glance. Just these little tendencies in his personality makes me know he is super driven and is going to do amazing things.I love when the kids can just explore their area and create what their imagination desires. Lucy spent about 45 minutes “making fossils” with the sand, then “discovering” them, and cleaning them off. The big kids jumped right in and worked together to creat reservoirs that would hold the washing water for Lucy’s fossils. I love watching them work together for a common goal.After exploring the rest of the Museum, we ended in the quarry. The kids really wanted to look in the gift shop before we had to head home, so they did not do much digging this time.We had a great adventure and I’m so glad that our little neighbor could come along too.

This evening, we went to the South Davis Rec Center’s Spooktacular. We have been to this rec center for lots of various activities, and every time it amazes me. However, this event was the most incredible Halloween event I have ever been to! They outdid themselves 100 times over!We started off with cookie decorating, since it was right at the beginning. From there, Lucy and Alex went through “Moana’s Adventure.” They decorated the boys locker room as a walk through adventure, with different scenes from Moana, including Taka’s volcano, Moana’s ship, and Lucy’s favorite: “Shiny” (Tomatoa the crab). We went to the big rec pool area next, which they had completely decked out. They turned the little kids castle into a spooky haunted castle, and made the bridge into a haunted walk. They also turned the hot tubs into the Evil Witches boiling brew, which included the infamous black poisoned apples and bubbling green potion. (I wanted to get a picture of it, but was too nervous of Lucy taking a plunge in head first.)Lucy was ready to jump right in. They fished for ducks in the lazy river……Threw spots onto the floating Dalmatian with Cruella DeVille……Then they fished for pirate booty in the lagoon before we headed off to Neverland to look for Peter Pan.We were blown away to see that they decorated Lucy’s swim lesson pool and diving pool into a Neverland Adventure. There, we boarded a canoe to go through Mermaid Lagoon, Alligator Swamp, Pirate’s Cove, and by Skull Rock. Lucy thought it was hilarious that Captain Hook was asking for “Stinker Bell.” (As long as he stayed at a distance.) Our private captain was The Phantom of the Opera. Sam and Alex had Jack Sparrow. It was absolutely amazing!From there, we went to the Carnival Game Corral and then Trick or Treat Lane. The kids were able to “go door to door” and get treats from several rec center employees.Lucy has a weird fetish for skeleton animals. She HAD to pet the cat skeleton. 🤷🏼‍♀️

We watched about a quarter of the Ice Spooktacular Show, which featured almost 50 of the center’s ice skating students.They all did a fantastic job. We had to leave the show early though, or else we would not have been able to visit very much else before the event closed.Lucy did the Hotel Transylvania’s Freeze Dance, and from there, it was a marathon race to get in the last few activities the kids really wanted to do. There was Glow In the Dark Ring Toss……Poke-A-Pumpkin……Eyeball Cauldron Toss……Bounce Houses and Inflatable Slides……The HauntedCastle (Which the kids all deemed as “LAME!”) It was only some super awesome singing pumpkin heads……and these really cool see-through ghosts. Next, we went into the Haunted Pirates of the Caribbean. We tried to tell Lucy that it would be too scary for her, but she insisted. Bad idea. She was terrified! I have to admit, walking through sheets hanging everywhere and not being able to see where you are going, knowing that there are zombies and pirates hiding in there with you, is pretty scary! Lucy said the most freaky part was the pirate lady that was in jail yelling, “Let Me Out!” Lucy kept telling us, “That was Dang Scary!” Alex and William went through The Zombie Apocalypse together, since we thought it would be too scary for Lucy, but they said it was not as scary as the Haunted Pirates.We ended the evening on a lighter note at Tink’s Pixie Dust Maker. The kids were able to create their own concoctions of edible pixie dust and cap them off in a special tube. I have to say, after three hours of nonstop entertainment, on top of Natalie’s event earlier, we were exhausted. It was a fabulous day though and we will for sure be adding the Spooktacular event as a new Hardy Family Halloween tradition.

Tonight we went to the Halloween Bash put on by the Bountiful Youth Council. The kids had a lot of fun playing the games….…Winning treats……& taking the Spook Walk…Lucy didn’t know what to think of the scary gorilla. She thought he was funny at first, until we got within 5 feet of him. Then, she clung to the back of my leg as we passed him.

It was Costume Day at Lucy’s dance class today. I was a bit worried since her costume is quite poofy this year. I tried to persuade her to leave her wings and necklace at home, but that was useless. She had to have every component for “Princess of Pink” Pinkalicious possible. She did amazingly well dancing! She absolutely loved watching herself in the mirror almost the entire 10 minutes I was allowed in the room. She has such a passion for music. It radiates out of her hands and feet. I was concerned at one point because she was not following along with Miss Paige for their performance piece. Miss Paige said Lucy always dances her heart out and that is why she teaches dance. “If a child is dancing, I don’t stop them,” she said. “That is what we are here to do.” Totally made me love our dance studio even more!Class ended with Lucy getting a creepy spider with a top hat stamp. She thought it was the best thing ever.

Sam and I were asked to head the Fall Festival for our ward. I’ve got to say, I was quite petrified! I’ve done many a parties, but none for so many unknowns. We were told to expect 250-300 people. That made me panic more. This building is much bigger than our Wylie building, so I had a hard time picturing how to set it up and make everything work. We were given a committee of several fabulous couples, and we could not have pulled it off without them! Today was the big day, and I have to say, I am pretty pleased with how things turned out. Sam and I went to building half an hour earlier than our set up crew, just to make sure we knew if things on our paper plans were going to work in reality. Little Miss was overjoyed to help us put up the tables and push around the carts.

That is……until her “best friends” came. Natalie was late, so Lucy took full advantage of the attention they gave her instead. She has these young men wrapped around her little finger. I am so impressed with them. They treat her like gold……Even if it means she wants to create a hideout from the monsters under the tables.The crew dressed up: A football player, a ghost, a scary clown, and “Princess of Pink” Pinkalicious. The boys were not able to wear their masks because of the very little kids attending. They will wear them the rest of the season though. They are very good sports about it. These two boys are the best of buds.😊Natalie’s crew, minus “Chantler” The games were hilarious. I really think the kids had a great time. And they all worked together so well.Mummy Wrapping had to be my favorite though. Lucy was such a great helper with Ashley and Natalie. She laughed the entire time.Jackson was hysterical trying to hold up his wrap anyway he could, even with his mouth!