Halloween, Pumpkin Patch, Samuel's Birthday, Thanksgiving

Gideon loves hanging out on Daddy's shoulders

Austin found a cat

Malachi and his friend on the train at the pumpkin patch

Travis using the big sling shots

Riding the train

Betsy in the train

Daddy and Gideon sharing a carrot

Caleb playing at the park

Malachi playing at the park

Malachi playing in the big pile of leaves that Austin made for him

Austin loves Gideon!!

Malachi loves the pet beds at Costco

Caleb loves them too

Gideon gets a little scared when he gets thrown in

Austin, Travis, and I were doing Dead Sea Mud masks and Malachi wanted to use it too!

Daddy was helping Gideon fight Joseph with pool noodles, they were sure having fun.

Daddy with his baby shark!

Caleb singing to Gideon a Halloween song he learned in school

Daddy and Gideon Trick or Treating

Gideon loves playing in the sand at the park!

Gideon got a voting sticker!

Gideon really wants a car for Christmas

Sweet little Gideon

Betsy found Gideon a dragon toy!

Gideon got Malachi wanting the car too!

He's walking!

Gideon is very pleased that he discovered how to climb into the dryer!

Such a happy, joyful boy!

Betsy made her first cake!! She did an amazing job, and it was delicious too, it is an Andes Mint Cake!

This little guy loves sticking his tounge out the corner of his mouth

Samuel loves Thanksgiving, especially the JELLO!

Austin loves that she got to hold a tiny baby at our Thanksgiving Feast!

So apparently my weeking goal to update my blog, means that I get to it about once a month.  Our lives are so incredibly busy, I don't get even a tenth of what goes on in our lives on this blog, but at least I get some of it, and most of the major events.  I didn't even get pictures of everyone in their Halloween costumes this year, oh well.  Caleb and Malachi were the same as last year, Olaf and a monkey.  Gideon was a shark and Travis was the ocean, he wore a blue shirt and pants, and I used velcro to put some of their ocean-themed bath toys on his shirt, like seashells, fish, and seahorses.  I wore my batgirl shirt and cape and black pants, Betsy was a butterfly, Austin was a blue angry bird, Samuel was Superman, and Joseph was something with a brown cape, not sure what.  We went to a trunk or treat at Travis' work, and a trunk or treat at the church, and trick or treating on Halloween night in our neighborhood.  Samuel was doing a carnival with the cub scouts in the other ward in our building so, Samuel, Caleb, Malachi, Gideon and I got to go to that as well.  That night was a little exhuasting, I didn't realize that the little boys were supposed to be in costume and go trick or treating to each of the carnival games and a trunk or treat at the end, so when we got their I had to be a little creative.  I gave Caleb and Malachi each a bag I found in the van, and used a scarf and a few other things to give them make-shift costumes.  (I can't even remember what they were supposed to be)  I carried Gideona and followed the boys around while they went to all the carnival games, At the end we went to a table with 10-12 bowls of different flavors of popcorn, and was trying to help the boys get some popcorn before the trunk or treat started.  By this point my ams and back are hurting from carrying Gideon for so long, he is over 20lbs and I'd been carrying him for over an hour now.  Anyway, Malachi kept pointing to different kinds of popcorn, and then I would get him the one he pointed to, then he would started screaming that he didn't want that popcorn, he wanted a different one and would point to that, so after this happening several times, I gave up and said we were leaving.  Malachi was in full temper tantrum mode and I was tired of being there anyway.  The other boys weren't happy about missing the trunk or treat, but it was for the ward anyway, and we were only there for the cub scouts carnival.  I carried all our stuff and Gideon, with Malachi screaming and crying about popcorn the whole way back to the van, which was parked just inside where they had put the cones for the trunk or treat.  I fed Gideon in the car real quick, and got everyone buckled in, I finally figured out that the reason Malachi didn't want any of the popcorn was that it was too sticky.  So I found a popcorn ball that wasn't too sticky, and he finally stopped crying and screaming and happily ate his popcorn.  I also realized later that his ankle was hurting him (he kept asking me to carry him, to which I said "no" since I was already carrying the baby) it was bruised and swollen the next morning, so I put ice on it and let him rest most of the day watching T.V.  So anyway, Halloween night both Austin and Betsy stayed home and watched "Hocus Pocus" and passed out candy to Trick-or-Treaters and everyone else went out trick or treating in the neighborhood.  Joseph and Samuel were going too fast for the little boys, so we let them go ahead of us as long as they stayed together.  Gideon wasn't feeling well, he had an ear infection and was on antibiotics, so he fell asleep after the first hour, I took him home to let him sleep, while Travis took the Caleb and Malachi out a little longer.  They had a good time, and came back home just before the sirens went off signaling the end of Trick or Treating.  Joseph and Samuel called just after the siren went off, and told me they were near Pizza Hut (about 2 miles away) and wanted a ride home.  I couldn't believe they had gone that far, they were supposed to stay in our neighborhood.  Travis went and picked them up, and poor Samuel was so upset, I guess he didn't want to leave the neighborhood but Joseph made him, and he was super tired.  So I confiscated all of Joseph's candy that he had gotten.
We went to a Pumpkin Patch one day that Travis had off work, everyone except Joseph since he has too much school work to catch up on (which he didn't do).  We had a great time there.  Gideon loved riding around on Travis' shoulders and going down the slides.  Austin loved the kitty cat she found, and played with it most of the time.  There were lots of fun activities and we had a great time, even got to pick out small pumpkins to take home.
Travis has been going out in the field every two weeks out of each month since October, and that will continue until April, when he'll leave for six weeks.  Not looking forward to it.  Anyway before Travis left we voted (eary voting) for the Presidental Election, we both wrote in Evan McMullin since we didn't like either of the Republican or Democratic Candidates (Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton)  Donald Trump won, I wasn't too happy about that, but some people went crazy, all sorts of rioting and violence, crazy stuff.
I had vein surgery November 10th in Wichita, KS.  Thankfully Travis was able to come back home from the field and get the day off to take me.  We had Gideon and Malachi with us too, but the rest of the kids were at school.  Travis dropped me off at the clinic, and took the little boys to McDonalds.  I went in, and they had me change into some surgery shorts, and then I laid face down on a table, and they started numbing up my leg, and then started cutting and pulling veins out.  They ended up pulling out 39 veins out of my right leg.  They bandaged my leg up, gave me instructions and let me leave.  Travis and I went to Costco after and I rode one of those electric carts around while Travis got everything we needed, then we drove home.  The numbness was wearing off by then, and I was really wishing I had brought Ibuprofen with me.  I took some when I got home (it's a two hour drive) and rested in the bed the rest of the day, keeping my leg elevated.  I rested most of the next day too, getting up a little here and there, while Travis kept telling me to lie down and do nothing, but that is not easy for me to do.  By the next day, I was able to take off the bandages and shower, and start moving around more.  I was supposed to wear my compression socks, but they kept bunching up behind my knee and bruising it up.  It was pretty painful, so I ended up switching to compression shorts that Travis and bough for me, and those worked much better.  It was a long process, but I am finally feeling a lot better, although it is still hard to kneel or squat down, but I went into my follow up appointment just before Thanksgiving and I am healing well.
Samuel turned 10, November 17th.  He had a birthday party, with about 10-12 friends showing up.  We had fun doing a pin the tail on the pokemon, and had a little pinata full of toys,  we ate pizza and had cake and ice cream.  Then opened up his presents, then played with his friends.  Travis had been in the field, but was called back to the base for something and was able to get away for an hour or so to come to Samuel's party, it was nice.  Then we went to a Relief Society activity afterwards that was fun, except I had all the kids with me and they were a little crazy.
For Thanksgiving we made a lot of food and had a potluck feast a the church, it was fun and delicious.  While I was making one of the pies, I accidently grabbed a hot pie plate right out of the oven with my bare hands and burnt my fingers dropping the pie and making a huge mess all over and under the oven.  My sweetheart, Travis, without me having to ask, cleaned the whole thing up for me, while I put my fingers in cold water.  My fingers were tender for the next couple days, but are feeling better now.  Travis had an extra turkey that he received for his soilders so we made another Thanksgiving feast on Sunday and had 5 missionaries over for dinner.
Gideon has had several ear infections in the past month, and is being referred to ENT to have tubes put in his ears.  But now he has croup, he was starting to get sick with it on Saturday, and I spent the night taking him outside and giving him breathing treatments (I still had some medicine from the last time he was sick).  Finally by 5am, he was still struggling to breathe so much that I took him to the ER, we ended up being there for 5 hours while they gave him strong oral steroids, and 2 EpiRescue breathing treatments, and took chest x-rays (miserable) and nasal swabs, and had three different doctors looking at him, they finally let him go home.  He was so happy that we were leaving the hospital that when we got outside he started giggling.  He is still very sick, and struggling to breathe, and has a fever, so I'm hoping I won't have to take him back in again.