Farm With the Littles

On a gorgeous fall day a little while back, Cec and I took our littles to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country. When my older 2 heard we'd been there they were pretty sad and wanted me to see how unfair it all was—but I reminded them that when they were that age they had plenty of playdates and outings, and I'm pretty sure they had more as we had all the free time in the world! Anyway, our morning was glorious and the kids were loving all the animals and time together.

 Livs' sad little banged up face from a bike fall the day before...

Happiest baby riding a horse all by himself! 

 

  

I always get a kick out of the kiddos doing their best "locked up" faces as they play in the jail :)

Family Playtime

We ditched out on school and work last Friday to spend time together as a family. At first I was thinking we might run off to St George, but Joseph convinced me to stay much closer for the cooler temps and fall colors of the cabin. We packed up Friday morning, stopped by my parents' empty house (they're playing in Europe) to gather produce from my mom's fertile garden, and then stopped at Blue Plate diner over in Sugarhouse for brunch. Yummiest breakfast food there!

Then it was up the canyon to PC and the lovely cabin. My kids love it up there so much and spent the afternoon entertaining themselves in the bunk room. Joseph and I alternated riding bikes, then we popped over to dinner at Cafe Rio and the fun playground on the Swaner Preserve. It was such a perfect fall evening, but once the sun set it got pretty cold and we headed back to the cabin for hot-tubbing and s'more making (once Luke was in bed of course—he is an adorable ball of crazy and we didn't want him in either of those situations :)

 

Saturday morning we made a big breakfast, packed up lunch and headed into Park City for the Alpine Slides.

Bentley rode on the track next to me and I grabbed a few shots of him cruising down but he was fast!

Oh this picture makes me so happy. My slide buddy had the time of his life as we rode together and his soft fluff blowing in my face just made our adventure too fun! Love, love, love my baby bear!

 

In the late afternoon we roamed the property high above the cabin to find some vivid leaves and get wiggles out before heading back to the valley:

 

Our Sunday was packed with meetings, lessons to teach, and a final trek fireside so we came back to the valley for dinner. We'd planned a LeBaron family dinner at Mary and Seth's that evening too—our first without Ruth Ann and Neil :( but we are determined to make sure they still happen at least once a month.

Love my little family with all my heart.

Pinewood Derby!

Last week the cub scouts had their big Pinewood Derby. Bentley and Joseph worked on a car as I have no clue what to do for those (what? kids need weights? See I am clueless...) Our awesome new neighbor had Bentley over to cut and shape his car–he is a woodworker for a huge company and has all his machines and tools in his garage. He graciously invited anyone over who needed help and since the YM and YW did this activity too, he probably ended up helping with more than 20 cars! He's a rockstar--what a good guy (plus he has 3 teenagers so he was happy to help them and all their friends).

Anyway, Bentley really wanted a rocket-like car so this was his final, golden creation. It ended up not being very fast (I guess it wasn't very aerodynamic) and he was a little disappointed that it didn't place first in any heats but we tried to remind him it's all about the fun of creating something cool and learning new skills.

We rented our neighbor's awesome track and used it for 2 hours for both the cubs 

and then the YM/YW.

Bentley's turn pressing the start gate

Then it was time for the youth to race!

I was so thrilled with the great turnout we had and that my YW totally got into it. Such a fun combined activity!

I found some treat ideas on Pinterest and they looked cute for 10 minutes before the hungry yoith devoured them!

 These little trophies were just too cute (another Pinterest idea!) and super easy to make.