Halloween 2010

We had a super fun Halloween weekend! Saturday morning we got up and decided to take the kids to Gardner Village to see the witches. We were early enough that we beat the crowds that swarm the day before Halloween. It was a great way to start the day!

The Ducks are our Favorite Part!

Dancing With the Witches

We had a wonderful lunch at Archibald's. I love that place! They even had the restaurant decorated for Halloween with little spiders hanging from the lights. Zack and Lexi had fun reaching for the spider. Zack even drew a spider family for our new friend.

That night we got the kids dressed up for the tricks and treats. (Ok, it was mostly treats!) Zack was Dash from The Incredibles, and Lexi was a prettyful princess. She loves her new costume.

Despite the cold and rain we had a great time. For Lexi's first official Trick-or-Treating, she sure caught on fast. She had been asking to go all week. I don't think she even realized that she was getting candy at each house until the next morning. She had a blast running from door-to-door following her brother.
Spending time with my family is the best part of any holiday!

Halloween

Ok, I know I'm almost a month late in posting this, but I'm posting it anyway.

So, as many of you know, we had kind of a rough lead-in to Halloween. Shortly after my last post on the blog, we all got the swine flu. YUCK! It knocked us back for a good week. The coughs are only now just fading away. So, we didn't get to picking our pumpkins for carving until 2 days before Halloween, and didn't get them carved until the morning of. But we had fun doing it anyway! The night we went to pick our pumpkins was one of our first ventures out of the house after getting sick.

Fortunately, we were all feeling MUCH better by Halloween night and it was a beautiful night for Trick-or-Treating! It was only chilly, so we were fine putting jackets under the kids costumes. We were very excited to try out the treating in our own neighborhood for a change. Zack had a blast running up to the doors. He didn't want to keep his mask on for long though, as it got dark he really had a hard time seeing, so I was glad he took it off. By about half-way through he started telling us to stay on the sidewalk and he would go to the front door all by himself. Little Mister Independent! Lexi was glad to be out of the house. She had fun just watching the chaos and getting passed between Mom, Dad and Autie. Aren't they adorable in their costumes?!?!

Trimming the Tree

Things have been a little crazy with Alexis coming 2 weeks early and all. So we have finally pulled out our Christmas stuff. Aaron insists that we can only do this AFTER Thanksgiving. Understandably so, Thanksgiving is a very important time of year and not one that should idly be looked over. Having your daughter born on that day kind of makes it important too!
So Aaron pulled out all of out Christmas stuff and he and Zack started to put it all out. Zack had a blast helping dad with the tree. We think he was most excited to do this because he saw the big train set that we have that goes around the bottom of the tree and we told him that we can't set it up until we set up the tree. There is a great motivator!!

A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Alexis Nicole Bates has chosen November 27th, 2008 to join or family. Yep, Thanksgiving Day 2008, plus it is Joel's fiance's birthday too. A little something extra.
Amanda made it home before Aaron did Wednesday night and asked him if they could go out and walk the mall or something. So after dinner, everyone loaded up and went to the mall. After being out for about 2 hours we started to head home. Aaron taught Zack a fun game of Mall Hide-And-Seek in which Zack and Aaron would run to the space between each store and wait until Mom would come and find them, then they would run to the next open space. Aaron & Zack had a blast but Amanda had a difficult time keeping up. Give her a break she is full term pregnant at this point.

We came home and put Zack to bed after which Amanda desperately needed a bath to relax. After her bath she went to get a bowl of breakfast cereal. Again give her a break. A break is just what she got too. Her water broke about 10 PM on the 26th. So after calling Aaron's mom to come over and watch Zack, we headed off to the new Intermountain Medical Center. Amanda started full on labor at around midnight. Alexis was born about 4 AM.

Both mom and baby were fine. Amanda did a superb job of maintaining her weight and was off to a good quick recovery, which she would need with a 3 year old brother waiting at home. Alexis came with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. Even a little bit of a retarded toe (it's a family thing). She was lucky and didn't get her fathers 'butt-chin' as Amanda puts it. She did however get the Putnam family ears. Very tiny. She was also born with a full head of black hair, which would explain all the terrible heartburn that Amanda went through. Even two weeks early she came out a healthy 7 lbs. 5 oz. an measured 20 1/2 in. A full pound and 1 inch less than big brother.

Everyone has agreed that she looks a lot like Amanda. It has been a long standing joke that both Amanda and her sister Britta are great copy machines. They make great copies through their children. Abby and Alexis are very much like their mothers and Zack and Landon are very much their fathers.

Amanda and Alexis are doing quite well and Zack is adjusting to being a big brother.

Boo At The Zoo

We have had a great time this year at the zoo. It has been totally worth getting a membership to the zoo considering how often Zack loves to go. We aren't quite sure if it's the animals that he loves or just the fact that every time we go we ride on the train. Anyone who knows Zack would lean toward the latter.
This year we decided that it would be really fun to take Zack to Boo At The Zoo. We thought it would be a great for him to take another go at the zoo this year before it gets too cold. Not to mention yet another excuse for him to wear his costume... he's Batman! Well it turns out that several thousand other people thought the same thing. This was a record breaking day for zoo attendance. The place was packed. Seriously...there were parts that even Aaron felt the his personal bubble was being invaded. Amanda had a rough go at it, being 9 months pregnant and all. There were lines for every stop to get little treats from sponsors for the day. Even though it was uncomfortable, Zack was very well behaved and he had a great time.

We ended the afternoon by going to a quiet lunch at the Olive Garden. This was exactly what we needed to unwind from our very hectic morning. This also gave Zack the opportunity to place his first ever order at a restaurant. We knew what he wanted so when our sever came to take our orders he asked us what we wanted and as it came time to ask what Zack wanted, he interjected with this: "Excuse me sir... I want Mac & Cheese... PLEASE!" We were very taken back not to mention very proud that not only did he used his manners, but that he has grown up to a point where he can place his own order. He is growing up so fast.