October in Arizona is when everyone seems to come alive again with the weather cooling off and holidays coming! We started October with being sick for the first half of the month-(that was fun!) but ended with Max's 8th birthday and a fun, candy filled Halloween!

This year we went to more houses than any other year. Ryder caught on after two houses and was happy as can be when he realized he was getting candy! In his deep low voice he said "Twick or Tweat"

We paid our kids $5 to hand over their Halloween candy. Max loved this idea but Maci seemed to love the money part but not the part about throwing the candy away. She said it would be much better if we put it in our treat bowl instead of the garbage (defeating the purpose of paying her). She is so my girl when it come to treats!

Tiffany and I took Jonas and Ryder to Mother Nature's Farm where the kids got to pick a pumpkin to decorate, look at farm animals, go through a hay maze, and have a wagon ride driven by a tractor. They loved the hay maze so much that they went through it 5 times. Then when it came to picking a pumpkin Ryder and Jonas would pick one up, look at it and throw it like it was a ball-needless to say we tried to get them out of the pumpkin patch before they smashed all the pumpkins!

I can't believe Max turned 8-we have an 8 year old!!!!!! Max was reading out loud a birthday card from Great Grandma Waldron and it said, "Some boys are smart, some boys are sporty" he paused and looked at me and said, "Mom, I'm both!!!" I absolutely loved seeing such confidence. He is such a great kid and I am so grateful for him and his personality-he keeps me on my toes!!! We took him and his friends to the Bounce U for his birthday party and realized we could have let all of them loose in our backyard and they would have had just as much fun. Lucky for us one of the kids threw up in the back of Travis's car on the way home-YUCK! Thank you to all of the family and friends who called or came over to make his day a special one!