November 2023

Happy 9th Birthday, Clara!

This year we just had a few friends over for a play date rather than a big party. Clara had a great time with Heidi and Iyla.

A favorite present this year was a marbling art kit.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Benson!

This kid would have been a happy camper with just fruit loops and cupcakes. He is FULL of energy and never stops.

He loved his paw patrol stuffed animals from Grandma Beutler!

One of the benefits of having a birthday over Thanksgiving break is that the whole family can have a pool party at the YMCA with you!

Birthday wrestling with Grandma Blacker. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I volunteered in Macy's kindergarten class for their Thanksgiving feast. This girl didn't eat anything besides corn, cornbread, and juice boxes, but she sure loved having me there.

Puzzles with Grandma while we waited for dinner.

I forgot to take a picture of everyone at the table, but these were the yummy leftovers. Rainbow Jello is always the favorite tradition.

Playing dead dog after stuffing ourselves is also a favorite tradition.

The day before Thanksgiving Grandma had Lexi and Cole come over to her house and make turkey and pumpkin chocolate covered peanut butter truffles. They spent all day decorating them.

And of course we ended the day with a Christmas movie.

The morning of Black Friday Dave ventured out to Lowes with me to pick up Poinsettias for the ward relief society Christmas Party. It was so cold that some of them started freezing before we found a spot for them inside.

November Happenings

Cole participated in a robotics team competition this month. He's in the middle top of the stands in this picture. Unfortunately his team didn't do very well, but he seemed to really enjoy it.

Benson's first haircut at the grown up salon!

Clara got Braces! Her poor mouth is so small that there just wasn't room for any of her grown up teeth.

Benson wanted to watch the show on the TV that was mounted on the ceiling with Clara, so he made himself comfy on the floor next to her.

Very rarely this kid actually runs out of energy and just crashes (literally crashes) in the middle of the living room.

New House Progress

Dave (and I and my dad) put in the heating wires for parts of our new driveway. Lots of work!

Shiplap is going up in Clara's room.

Tile is going up in the master bathroom!

October 2023

Beutler Family Reunion - Panama City Beach, Florida 

Traveling is getting a little easier now that we don't have an infant, but it's a long way from Colorado to Florida!

This kid was worn out from playing on the beach!

The Beach!!!

Thanks for the pizza, Liz!

The dolphin show and petting the sting rays at Gulf World were a highlight of the trip.

Thanks for dinner at Sharky's, Grandpa!

The Zoo in Panama City Beach is always fun. This time Clara was old enough to do the sloth experience, where she got to go into the cage and pet them.

Liz snuck in some corndogs for the nieces and nephews. ;-)

There were soooo many alligators to feed.

Benson had a blast with his cousins.

We hit up Wonder Works with the older kids and Grandma before we left town.

Macy mastered riding her bike with no training wheels!

Soccer

Macy and Clara both played soccer this fall and had a blast. It was Macy's first season, and she LOVED it. She's a little natural out there, scoring goals almost every game. We might need to adjust our ice cream for goals policy if she keeps this up.

This is Macy right after she scored a goal, beaming.

Clara and her team.

Halloween

The elementary kids have a pumpkin decorating contest at school every fall and they love making something to enter. I helped Clara make a cute little fox out of an artificial pumpkin. Lexi decided that bigger was better and made a giant wire and paper mache pumpkin with Grandpa Blacker, with a bad kitty on top. Clara won third place and got to pick out a book at the book fair.

Benson decided that since Clara was painting her pumpkin, he needed to paint his too.

Benson LOVED trying on every single costume we have.

This year we carved pumpkins with my Grandma Crockett and my dad.

For our ward party this year, Cole was Ash, a Pokémon trainer, Lexi was Belle, Clara was Rapunzel, Macy was Elsa, and Benson was Sully from Monster's Inc. The girls won "prettiest costumes" in the costume contest and were elated.

Trick-or-treating on Halloween night was a blast. Costumes usually morph into things that are a little warmer though. Halloween in Colorado:

Red Rocks Open Space Fun.

Clara finally had her first field trip of Elementary school! Because of COVID and bus driver shortages she didn't get to go on field trips in the younger grades, and she has been waiting a long time for this! The pioneer museum wasn't exactly exciting, but she didn't mind. ;-)

Progress on the New House!