Halloween was a little different this year...obviously. ;) #thankscovid
Besides social distancing and all the restrictions due to covid, Curt had just started finishing our basement, so all of our time and efforts were going to that--instead of working on cool or themed costumes.
So most of our costumes were re-used from past years, and we didn't coordinate as a family at all, and I didn't find anything super cute for Hallie to wear--I just used what we had on hand...but it still worked out, and we still had fun.
Hallie: cutest little skunk I ever did see
Hudson: most adorable monster ever
Bronco: most dedicated Spider-Man there ever was
Calvin: true in real life Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes...for the second year in a row haha
Tucker: the (covid) bat that started it all...best last-second costume created 100% by him
The boys were able to dress up for small parties at school, which was fun that they were still able to do that.
We carved pumpkins the Sunday before Halloween, and Curt only had to help Bronco--Tucker & Calvin did theirs on their own!
Tucker's pumpkin was the scary angler fish in Finding Nemo...with Nemo in his mouth. Super impressive!!
A few weeks before, we did our annual Halloween-themed dinner with my family--and the food was top-notch this year, especially with Tucker's name tags, haha:
The pumpkin pee (mango flavoring) was Tucker's favorite name (face palm):
Curt really wanted to do Chicken and waffles...so he creatively named it spider webs and bugs with bug juice, haha:
On Halloween day, which was a Saturday, our ward did a social-distanced parade through our neighborhood, and people set out candy along the way. It was the perfect activity for a covid Halloween, and we loved participating in it.
These pictures were taken by one of the ladies in our ward--so nice of her to share!
And this was the most creative way we saw someone passing out candy--a social-distanced candy tube slide!
My mom & Denex stopped by to say hi and see our costumes right before the parade, and then Mike & Chris came and sat through the parade route and visited with us for a few minutes afterward. So fun.
And then on Halloween night, we bribed the kids to not go trick-or-treating, and we let them pick out $5 worth of whatever candy they wanted instead (and we just added it onto our grocery delivery order for that week)--it was perfect! ;) We had pizza for dinner and played a few fun minute-to-win-it games with the big kids, and then stayed up and watched the BYU football game. It ended up being one of my favorite Halloween's ever!
Picking up M&M's with straws
Searching through whipped cream to find candy corn...with only their mouths! (or a straw in Calvin's case, haha)
(we took a lot of pictures and videos this month...)
We'll start off with some cute pictures of Hallie. This was the first time I put her little gold moccasins on, and I had just gotten some ruffle bum jeans for her...and she just looked so cute! Little girls are so fun!!
And a cute video to show her off even better:
This was just the cutest little thing: Bronco, Hudson, & Duke all sitting on the driveway, watching the older boys play, while eating apples they picked off our (or maybe it was a neighbor's) tree
GENERAL CONFERENCE:
Saturday Morning Breakfast--I cheated and bought cinnamon rolls again this time,
instead of making them from scratch. Not nearly as yummy, but SO much easier, haha!
Bronco thought it would be a good idea to draw smiley faces on his hand while we watched Conference...whatever keeps him busy, I guess! The boys actually did a really good job paying attention. I did a ticket system again, where they earned a ticket for each talk that they listened/paid attention to and wrote down at least one thing they learned or felt; then they got to buy puzzle erasers with their tickets after each session.
And no, I did NOT fall asleep during Conference at all...(face palm)
Curt took the boys on a bike ride during the women's session so I could watch (with Hallie!) in peace. Besides Calvin kind of getting lost on the trail...they had a great time!
Nora ended up coming over at the last second and watched the Women's session with me--
and she got this picture of me and Hallie:
Sunday Morning Breakfast--french toast!
Hanging out during one of the sessions--Curt says he took this picture because there were just so many kids, haha!
Calvin can't ever take a shower in Curt & I's shower without getting into or messing with something that he's not supposed to. (One time he lost an entire bar of soap down the drain when he took the drain cover off after covering the drain and almost flooding the shower...he's crazy!) One morning I noticed this small patch of hair that was shaved in a rectangular shape...and Calvin sheepishly admitted to testing out Curt's razor that he shaves his head with! (face palm!) hahaha
My fall entry table decor:
Transformed into Halloween:
And for whatever reason, the boys REALLY wanted some big decorations out in the front yard--so Curt got this inflatable pumpkin with his amazon review deals, and the boys were so happy about it. (I think inflatables are super tacky, personally, but the kids loved it, so I put up with it haha)
Working on our basement floorpan so we could start getting ready to finish it!! Woot woot!!
I love getting to hang out with these two and give them some individual attention in the mornings while the big boys are at school (what you can't see is that Duke is perched in my lap, haha--he always wants to be where we are):
Calvin shared one of his creamie's with Hudson, and Hudson was SO happy:
Cute Hallie girl practicing sitting up:
We tried dehydrating some of the apples from our apple tree this year, and it was a hit!! And Curt got this funny/awesome fruit picker through his amazon reviews:
Hallie LOVES Curt's hats:
Hudson was so proud of himself for standing up this little chicken toy, haha:
Hudson selfie. Very flattering.
As we started selling things/getting rid of junk from the basement to get ready to start finishing it, we finally got rid of these thrashed couch cushions the boys have loved and played with for the last few years. We had bought a cheap couch for the basement in our old house, and the boys completely destroyed it by jumping on it and making the springs pop through, etc. When we went to give the couch away/try to sell it a couple of years ago, the boys started SOBBING--saying that they had so many memories with the couch cushions and loved playing with them SO much...so we caved and let them keep the cushions and got rid of just the couch frame. They got a few more years of play out of the cushions, but we were not willing to keep them any longer...and the boys were very sad to have to get rid of them for good. I found the picture of them crying when we originally tried getting rid of them the first time, just for comparison haha:
Calvin & Bronco were acting very suspicious, so I went upstairs to see what they were doing...and low and behold--Calvin was on TOP of his closet, trying to get up into the attic...!! Crazy boys!!!!!
This is my daily view: Hallie always wants me right by her, and whenever I sit down, Duke instantly snuggles up to me. At least I can say I'm very loved. ;)
Tucker's last soccer game with his Provo Fury team. I talked about his soccer in my September Phone Pictures post, but by the end of the season, only one spectator per player was allowed to come watch, so I couldn't be there. And Curt had to fill in as coach for the last two weeks because the head coach's wife had COVID, and he had to quarantine. What a crazy year! But the boys did really well and learned so much over the course of this season--they lost the first few games, but then won every game after that! Woohoo!
Friday night porch date--eating takeout from Molly's
(a restaurant by our house we've wanted to try for years), and it was super yummy!
Saturday morning pileup in mom & dad's bed--how on earth did we end up with such a big family?!?! (and a dog??!!!) It's a good thing we have a king-sized bed to fit us all. ;)
Sweet Hallie girl--sitting up on her own!
She woke up one morning and had perfect balance--no more falling over!
And I love what was going on in the background of the picture above...Bronco dressed like spiderman, doing spiderman poses on the baby slide hahahaha:
Curt got a waxing set with his amazon review deals, so he did some nose hair waxing with Cory & Allie after family dinner one Sunday night, haha:
Cory had to put tape over his mustache, haha, and then Calvin even joined in!
Curt's company did a (socially distanced) fall party at Wilkerson Farms pumpkin patch--and it was a lot of fun! It's the only activity we've really done outside of our home (#covid), and the boys were SO excited about it. We're so grateful for Curt's job at Simple Nexus! They are the best!!
This turkey was ginormous...and so was Hudson's cheesy smile in that 2nd picture haha:
Fun rides:
Hallie did so well in the baby carrier:
The face painting was pretty amazing--and everything was on the house, courtesy of Simple Nexus:
The weather was perfect, and the sunset was GORGEOUS:
I finally get to get rid of all our baby boy stuff--so excited to be able to pass it on to
Collin & Rachel & baby Cash on the way! (and this is only part of it all...)
This is a big deal and a tender mercy--we/Igot a new car!!! This was my post about it on social media:
For anyone who knows us well, you know we tend to shuffle through vehicles fairly often. 😬 Most of the time it involves Curt finding a great deal on a car that needs some work, fixing it up and driving it for awhile, and then selling it for a profit to be able to buy something a little nicer. We don’t want to go into debt for cars, so we’ve always had to settle for what was available in the price range we could afford. Our beloved “hulk” (giant green Yukon) has been giving us more troubles lately, so we’ve been on the lookout for something different...and a true tender mercy happened two days ago that the exact car we were interested in popped up for the exact price we were hoping!! And it’s WHITE!!! 🤩 My dream color of car finally coming true!! (And we’re finally to a point where we don’t have to buy a broken car—this one runs perfectly as is! 🙌🏻 ) The Lord truly is aware of each of us and answers our prayers—I have a strong testimony of this. ❤️ And now I’m publicly announcing that we finally have the cars we are both happy with and that work great...so we don’t have to trade up or get anything new for a VERY long time...right @curtalansmith??!! 😉🤞🏻 #whitesuburbanforthewin#sograteful
Our hulk had been giving us more and more troubles and was starting to be less and less reliable (the dash didn't work, so most of the time we couldn't see how fast we were driving or any of our gauges or anything like that, and the battery had some issue where it died all the time, so if we didn't drive it every day, we would have to jump start it to get it to run, which was super annoying, and Curt was getting sick of having to keep trying to fix it), so we started toying with the idea of getting a new car. We wanted something newer and more reliable (and not green, haha), but we also didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for it. We have money set aside for the shop/basement fund, so we had that to draw from, but we didn't want to have to take out more than we had to. But yet we felt like we needed something more reliable, and something we could be happy with for awhile. We decided a newer suburban would probably be best for budget purposes, and after test driving a 9-seater (pretty rare, since most suburbans have 8 seats), we decided we liked the extra space and the possibility of that extra seat. So we set out criteria in our minds of what we would want: a 9-seater, newer suburban, with lower-ish miles, under a certain price, and WHITE if at all possible (and a private seller--no dealerships). We decided that we would wait until the right car became available so that we didn't settle on something we didn't really want. Anyway, no sooner had we decided on and set those criteria...then that very night this car popped up on KSL, and it had EVERY SINGLE THING we were hoping for! 9 seats, newer year, lower miles, exactly in our price range, and WHITE!! I saw it while I was nursing Hallie for bed, and it had only been posted an hour earlier, so we texted the seller right away and went down to see it that night. It ran perfectly and didn't have any codes or any issues, so we told the guy we wanted it, and Curt met him at the DMV that next morning to get the title in our name, and we had it that afternoon! It was truly a tender mercy and an answer to prayers. I'm so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who blessed us with exactly what we were hoping for...and so quickly. Such a huge blessing. And we LOVE it!!!!!
Our beloved Hulk. It was good to us while it lasted, but we were ready to move on.
It took a month to sell it, but now it's gone!
The people we bought the Burb from (I think that's what we're going to call it, haha), had a GIANT dog. This picture doesn't do justice to how big he was--he came up to my chest when he was sitting down, and his face was as big as Duke's entire body!! But he was the calmest, sweetest dog. And he loved me. I've never understood why anyone would want a big dog...until I met him. (But I'm still happy with Duke's teeny size) ;)
Cute matching skeletons:
This is how Tucker loved spending fall break--still in his pajamas at 12:30, reading book after book haha
Also for fall break we took a family drive through the Alpine Loop (in our new car!) to look at the changing leaves. And we ate pizza in the car, and the kids thought it was awesome. :)
For Mike's "Glad to Be Alive" Day (the anniversary of when he suffered a sudden cardiac death 6 years ago and miraculously was brought back to life), we had him & Chris to dinner. And the boys made him a few little crafts, and Tucker decorated his cake with a cute little topper. We're so glad he's still here with us!
It's always an adventure with Hudson in the house. This day he was left alone for about 30 seconds while I was picking out clothes to wear and Curt went downstairs for some water...and Hudson somehow flushed two brand new bars of soap down our toilet. (face palm) It was quite the adventure getting them out!! Oh, Hudson!
And here he is admitting to it and talking about what should go in the toilet instead haha:
Our neighbors had some concrete work done, and Hudson loved watching the whole process:
We are too cheap to pay the ridiculous amounts of money they charge for school pictures. Some years when we get the proofs and see how handsome the boys are, I wonder if maybe the money would be worth it...but this was not one of those years, haha. Just not the best pictures of any of them! ;)
Curt got a new leaf blower as a part of his amazon reviews...and we all had a little too much fun trying it out hahahaha!
And then Hudson showing a big pile of leaves. I have to say, it has been super nice having a leaf blower!!
Bronco is very much into calendars and dates and everything, and I want to remember his nightly ritual of crossing off the date on his calendar and always counting down the days until the next event. Love him!
Speaking of Bronco...we're finding a lot of evidence that he also loves messing around with our phones when we're not aware...
And then some funny videos...
We worked hard over the course of about a week and sold some things and got everything out of our basement so Curt could start finishing it. (We got a little storage unit to hold everything we didn't get rid of) It's amazing how much nicer it looks to have it all clean!!! (And I have LOTS more pictures of everything that I will share in a separate post dedicated to the basement)
When the lumber was delivered for framing, Curt paid the boys to load it all into the basement. Because of our crazy staircase that turns halfway down, it was easiest to go through the window, haha. Again, lots more pictures to come! ;)
I found this is Tucker's backpack, and he told me it was a list that they had to make with the school counselor (who came to talk with all the classes). They had to make lists of people who they feel like they can talk to, people who love them, and things that make them happy. I love that Duke is at the top of each list, haha. Duke has been so good for Tucker, and I'm so glad we got him.
We tried out Crumbl cookies for a date night (and may have become hooked...since we've been ordering cookies from them almost weekly ever since, haha), and they had an Andes Mint cookie that literally tasted like heaven--my favorite cookie I've ever had. So, SO yummy!!!
Curt finally broke down and bought a dutch oven to cook his sourdough bread in, and it has made his bread even more amazing than it already was!!!
Every once in awhile I'm able to sneak in a little Sunday afternoon nap...and Duke is always sure to come cuddle up right next to me, haha:
Cute Hallie girl--I can never get enough of her and her smiles!!
Tucker & Calvin dressed up for their class zoom meetings on the day before Halloween, hahaha:
Oh, and cute Hallie peeking through the slats in her crib. I love getting her up from her naps because she's always SO happy!!
And then finally, a few more videos.
Random fun with Hudson & Hallie:
Duke hurdling over the boys:
Hudson riding his balance bike--he has gotten so good with it and actually balances when he rides!
And then more Hudson shenanigans...evidence of how he drew all over the walls. (face palm) At least it was only with a pencil! And I made each of the older boys take a wall and help clean it off, haha. It's a good thing Hudson is so cute...!!
