The past few weeks

Holy moly I feel like time is flying! The past few weeks have been filled with doctors appointments, birthday party planning, and normal life. Chad was invited to a dinner for the credit unions in the area. He had no clue that this dinner was actually for Him! Chad won the HOPE (Helping People Everyday) award for the Southern Arizona Region! He worked so hard on developing a financial literacy program for teenagers and adults in the Tucson area. It has gone really well at the Boys and Girls Club of Tucson and is growing to other non-profits as well! We are so proud of him making a positive difference in peoples lives!!!

Chad got tickets to the Gaslight Theater which is so much fun to go to! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Miller for taking the kiddos overnight! They had so much fun and so did we! We actually saw Henry Porter but these fun signs were out front.

We have been trying to catch as many Boise State games as we can and the kids love to wear their jerseys and cheer Boise State on! Before one game we took them to our favorite frozen yogurt place.

For family home evening this week we bought some pumpkins to carve. Easton dug right in while it took the girls a bit of convincing. Especially miss Sophie who hates getting dirty.

Easton of course needed a truck on his pumpkin while the girls designed a princess.

On Tuesday we went with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jeff to their ward's trunk or treat!

Easton caught on very quickly that if walked up to anyone with a bucket of candy and said trick or treat he would get candy. He did say it to a few that didn't have anything haha. They had fun getting candy, playing games, and eating cotton candy.

Lydia and her friend Addyson performed some of the songs they have been learning in preschool yesterday. They had a little halloween party and it was so fun to see the two of them just happen to both be Elsa for halloween!

Recent Fun

A couple weeks ago we went to Safeway for Lydia's preschool field trip. They were awesome and showed the kids around the store and gave them little free samples.

The bakery was by far the best part of the store! They let the kids come back and the lady was so good with the kids showing them the big boxes of sprinkles and buckets of frosting! She let them have a little taste too.

She showed them all her fun tools and all the stuff she makes in the morning. She has to start at 2am! Then she had a cupcake for each of them to decorate.

She told them they can come back and say hi to her anytime and she would give them a free cookie. And she of course them gave them all cookies haha.

Then the kids got to go over to the seafood area and the gentleman there let them touch a crab claw and also had a little fun pretending it was his hand.

Then they took us to Starbucks where the nice ladies had chocolate milk all ready for them with whipped cream on top.

And last the nice bakery lady had a big batch of dough all mixed up and wanted to show the kids how the different machines work to make the different shaped bread and rolls.

To make french bread  was pretty cool. She would throw a chunk of dough like a frisbee into the machine and out it would come in a perfect loaf. We had so much fun at Safeway and the kids loved learning what went on behind the scenes.

Harley Davidson has built a new location here and about a month ago we drove past the building and Easton got all excited and exclaimed "it's a castle mom!!!" It really does look like a castle. I told him there was motorcycles inside the castle and ever since he has talked about how Dad needed to take him to the motorcycle castle. So last weekend we took him and also had Jackson with us. They were sooooooo excited to see all the bikes.

Then we headed next door to Ride Now to look at more fun toys.

Jackson and Easton really wanted to take these home. Jackson was hilarious because he was calling for Shama (Grandma Miller) thinking she would buy it for him. No luck kid haha.

Uncle Mike and his band played at the Sahuarita  Festival Saturday night so we went to check it out. It was a lot of fun. They had a free little ferris wheel and jumping castles. The band sounded great and the kids also enjoyed climbing the rock wall.

While I took the girls to the festival Chad took Easton to the U of A football game. His work gave them free tickets and Easton was talking nonstop on how he was going to watch football with Daddy.

Sadly the wildcats lost but Easton talked all the way home on how he did his cat cheers and he wanted the cats to win and he was a cats fan. Even when Chad asked him about being a Bronco fan he teased Chad and said he wasn't. Easton is a funny kid he is pretty talkative normally but if you end up one on one with him he talks your ear off. Chad luckily caught the conversation on video it was too cute.

30 Random Acts of Kindness for Our Favorite 30 year Old!

Since Chad turned 30 years old this year we did something extra special for this awesome man! His parents joined us on Saturday on a mission to perform 30 random acts of kindness! I meant to take a picture of all of them but kept forgetting but here is what we accomplished in 3 hours:

1. Chad spotted a gentleman on the side of the road with a flat tire and helped him out

2. We gave a box of candy to a Fire Station. When the girls gave the firefighter the box, mom told him it was in honor of their father's birthday. When they got back in the car Chad started laughing because he was sure that because of the way mom said it the firefighter thought "their father" was dead. So they were doing random acts of kindness to honor their dead father. haha

3. We also gave candy to the staff at University Medical Center Children's Center

4. We stopped at 2 Police Departments with no luck of finding anyone but Chad spotted some EMT workers parked in a parking lot! I am sure he scared them to death when he jumped out of the car and offered them the candy. They looked pretty apprehensive but then laughed and said thank you when he told them why.

5. Chad gave lollipops to the Boys and Girls Club 

6. We volunteered at Bens Bells

7. Mom donated some money to Bens Bells also

8. Smiled and made eye contact with 5 people

9. We took carts from the parking lot into the store

10. Held a door open for someone

11. Gave a compliment

12. We jumped out and helped a lady unload her groceries into her car

13. Picked up trash

14. We asked the Target cashier what her favorite candy bar was and bought her a Twix

15. We taped positive messages to the bathroom mirror in Target

16. We put quarters in the candy machines at Frys

17. Taped a note that said "You are an awesome Mom!" on the changing tables. 

18. The kids made thank you cards for military that said "Thank you for keeping us safe" I  am kicking myself for not getting a picture of this one. We stopped at Golden Corral and found a WW2 vet eating his dinner and the kids gave it to him. His face totally lit up and he told the kids they were so sweet. 

19. Passed out stickers to kids waiting in line at Target and Frys.

20. The kids put heads up pennies on the sidewalk for kids to find

21. Said hello to everyone we saw for 5 minutes

22. Placed happy notes inside books at Target

23. Gave popcorn to a couple renting a Redbox movie

24. Gave out Hi-Fives to people hanging out in front of the library

25. Left a note of encouragement on a random car

26. Let cars in front of us while we drove. 

27. Handed out lollipops

28. Picked up clothes that were dropped on the floor at Target and hung them back up

29. Left coupons next to items at Frys

30. Parked in the back of the parking lot everywhere we went to leave the front spots for others.

31. Handed out bottles of bubbles

32. Sent a picture "I Love You" text message to a bunch of people we love

Okay so we ended up doing extra since 2 were unplanned but it was a lot of fun. It was funny to see people's reactions. Most of the time they looked at us like crazy people but once we explained what we were doing they would smile and say happy birthday to Chad and say what a great idea it was.

Happy birthday to the best guy ever!!!

Park, Football, and Quilting

A few weeks ago we took advantage of the nice cool evening and went to the park. The kids had fun playing at one we don't go to often.

We brought their baseball gloves and they love throwing the ball around and the girls are actually getting better at catching it. Easton we finally got him out of the habit of trying to throw the ball from the glove.

Friday was the first Boise State game of the season!!! So of course we had to get all geared up for the game!

And they won!

Sophie wanted to learn how to sew this summer and while I was at girls camp Grandma Clayton helped her make a quilt for her doll. They got the top all sewn together and then this weekend they quilted it. It turned out so cute!!!