Our First Utah SNOW!!!

HIP HIP HOORAY!!!  TURNS OUT WE LOVE THE SNOW!

I've been so worried that having been away from the snow for so long was going to ruin me and that I'd hate the snow.  But NO!  We love love love it!  What made me laugh was when it snowed a little earlier this month and I realized that we needed to buy everyone snow gear since we haven't been in Utah since Kade was 2.  So when the full storm hit, we were prepared with coats, bibs, gloves, boots...the works.  Turns out playing in the snow is WONDERFUL as long as I stay warm and dry.

 Rhett was sooo excited to go out and play in the snow.  I got him all bundled up and set him out.  I watched him from the warmth of the house for a few minutes...just picking up snow and eating it, kicking snow...and then I couldn't take it anymore. I had to throw on a coat and go out and play in the first snow with him. AND YAY!!!  It was wonderful!

You know how there are tons of parenting moments you wish you could take back?  Times when you're just lame and don't pay attention to your kids the way you should, or don't take the time to play with them or do all sorts of dumb things instead and then at the end of the day during your prayers you just feel like a horrible parent? Well this wasn't one of those times and it felt soooo good.  For realsies.

At any rate, Rhett loved the snow, we filled up spray bottles with water and food coloring and gave him a green shirt with buttons and blue jeans.  We didn't have the traditional long carrot for the nose...so we chose Broccoli, which is why Rhett, with his straight forward imagination....named him "Broccoli Face."

Kade left for school that morning and insisted that it wasn't cold enough to need his coat (no snow at this point). So instead of fight that fight again, I said okay.  By the time school let out there was 3 inches and the sky wasn't letting up.  So, I picked the boys up, they came home and immediately dressed in their snow gear and headed down with some friends to the baseball park down the street. (it's got some great hills)

Luke came home before me and Rhett got down there crying and saying Kade had kicked him and he didn't want to go back....rad....sometimes (often) they're not so nice to each other and may or may not exchange wrestling each other down to the ground......Then when I walked down the street with Rhett and LOVED the scene of probably 20 neighborhood kids all playing in the snow and sledding together.  Then one of the boys came up to me and said, 'You're two boys were fighting and one hit the other and then he kicked him and then he went home crying....." to which Kade continued the story and said that since Luke hit him, he'd pushed Luke's sled down the hill....ahhhhhhh!  whats worse then having to walk down a sledding hill to get your sled...that was rough.  At any rate, they made up later--and now the Winns have an awesome reputation for solving their problems with violence. :)  nice.

 I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS PICTURE. This is Kade's good friend Adam getting run over by the other sleds as they tried to form a train down the hill....HA!! I love his smile---so amazing!

I just wanted to point out that we now have slightly better attire for snow then we had in GA :)

Halloween 2012

This year's costumes:

Max-Lion

Rhett-'Pider-Man'

Luke and Kade--Mummys

They got to wear their costumes to school for the parade.

Mom and Max before we ventured off to go Trick-Or-Treating
This year had record setting high temperatures which I LOVED. We walked around without jackets it was so nice. Woo Woo!

I never have those pumpkins around for trick-or-treat candy--they don't stack well and i don't like that.  But Rhett was having a hard time finding the opening of his pillow case. Soooo..we used safety pins to secure make-shift ribbon handles for Rhett's pillow case which I thought was genius!  Seriously--it was awesome!

Jess took Max home after about 20 minutes because he was ready for bed.  He was going to take Rhett too, but Rhett was having so much fun and wanted to keep going so I said I'd keep him with me.  Well, joke was on me, because 2 houses after Jess left he said he was tired. So I carried him the rest of the night.
We ran into the boys good friends on the way so they got to trick-or-treat with them and it was wonderful!

Afterwards with their loot!

Oh the 'Fall'-ness of it All

At the Park one saturday. It was an awesome day. Me and the boys went to Wal-mart, picked up everyone's favorite lunch-able, and went to this cute park that my friends call 'scooter park' because there's a little path all around it for the kids to ride their bikes and scooters.  Plus the most ridiculously huge sheep I've ever seen...laughable they're so huge.

We just took a quick pic after church one Sunday because it was such a beautiful day.

While Jess, Dad, and B.J. were at the mens session of conference, mom and I had a kids night. We made Frankenstein luminaries and Spooky cupcakes.  

When we drove up to Wyoming this last time we about had to stop the car just so we could stare at the beauty that was the canyon.  WOWZA. I wish pictures could do God's creations justice.  We've been given such an incredibly amazing place to live!

Hot Cocoa to warm everyone up while watching Aladdin.

 Baseball in the backyard.

Here are some clips from our last visit and backyard baseball.

Luke Getting Tackled (during baseball)

Kade hitting the baseball while hool-a-hooping :)

Aunt Andrea and Rhett. I love this picture :)

Grandma Winn playing with Rhett, teaching him his letters.

Since we were doing pumpkins so early this year, we decided to paint them instead of carve, which I LOVED cause the boys could actually do it, instead of pick a design and stand back.  (oh, and for some reason B.J. and Kara got cut off at the end...hence the fancy dubbing.)

Rhett painting and re-painting his pumpking. He LOVED it and did probably a million coats.

Dad's a U fan (mostly to vex the neighbors) and Kade has taken it upon himself to represent the Y in the household. :)

Love this!  A#1: B.J.'s eating his paint.  And B#2: this is the most AMAZING picture bomb I've ever seen done by Jess. Love it! HA HA.

So, this Nightmare Express was awesome! There is a family down the street from us that owns a whole bunch of property and has built a train track on it. They set up tunnels all over that are filled with spooky things ('pooky fings' if you ask rhett) and little kids actors and actresses.  It takes a good 5 minutes to go through it all and it's just so awesome. Plus, it's totally free.  A friend of mine invited us and we all went down for some pre-halloween awesomeness.  The boys did great--Rhett got nervous and didn't so much 'like' it, but was brave.

FALL-ING!!!

The boys have been looking forward to this for months.  The tree out back drops a fair amount of leaves.  So, we rake them up...and jump into them from the tree house.  

Max during the raking...

Luke...

Kade...

We got out the outside kid's table so Rhett could jump into the leaves as well...I loved this particular 'dive' of Kade's! HA!

Jess bought 3 ninja costumes at the after Halloween Sales. It was awesome to see the boys in all different colored costumes being crazies in the back yard...i didn't however get a picture of all of them...but here's Lukes--he was rad!

Luke had 2 sets of Vampire Teeth. He was brushing them...ha! It made me laugh.

Sister Aubrey Winn

SISTER AUBREY WINN

Jess' amazingly great littlest sister is off to serve the Lord by serving in the Mesa Arizona Mission.

She had her ('non-farewell') talk on October 14th so we drove up to Wyoming to share in the fun-ery.  

I love love love living within 2 hours of them.

Julie, Uncle Barry, Aubrey...and salad

Rhett immediately took a liking to Uncle Barry as he teased him about eating his food.  Garrett kept looking over at him and smiling and laughing.

ahhhh. Love

Aubrey is one of the most sincere people I know. She always gives her all to a task. She is always looking for ways to help others.  She's hilarious, witty, and will be an INCREDIBLE missionary!  YAY for Serving in the Lord's Work!

AND NOW, a tribute to the many faces of Aubrey: