Linder Farms & Kaity at the Funeral

We went to Utah last week because my grandfather was very ill and was going to pass away.  He did on Oct 11, 2012 and although I will miss him so much, I am so glad he is finally whole.  Because he served in the Air Force, they lined the street leading to the church with American flags.  Kaity loved playing in the leaves and seeing cousins.  More on Grandpa later, here are the photos of Kaity playing outside at the church.

This past Saturday, Oct 20, we went to Linder Farms, which is this great farm here in Idaho.  I've seen Carisa's posts on it the past few years and was so excited to take Kaity this year!  We loved it so much that she asks to go back to the farm every morning when she wakes up.  Her favorites were the slide, the swings, and the bunny rabbit.  Kaity has asked pretty much every day if we can go back to the farm.

So much fun!

Barrel Train

giant box of corn

making "corn" angels

swing ride & cheesy smile

bunny rabbit

This past Saturday, Oct 20, we went to Linder Farms, which is this great farm here in Idaho.  I've seen Carisa's posts on it the past few years and was so excited to take Kaity this year!  We loved it so much that she asks to go back to the farm every morning when she wakes up.  Her favorites were the slide, the swings, and the bunny rabbit.  Kaity has asked pretty much every day if we can go back to the farm.

Fotofly Family Pics!

My favorite of all three of us!

Originally we were headed to Utah to spend some time with the family, have a birthday party for my grandmother, and take family photos.  Family pictures are super important and fun to both me and my sister.
The first extended family photo I know of was taken in 1983 (ish). My uncle John was still alive, I wasn't yet.  The photographer was such a jerk and the picture turned out so horrible that the next extended family photo was taken in 2007.  Yeah, it was +2 grandchildren, 4 spouses, and 11 great-grandchildren.  That photographer was a friend of the family, Jay Bryant Ward.  He now focuses mainly on his painting career (and rightly so).

She looks so grown-up!

My immediate family took a group photo when I was in middle school.  I always loved going to friends' houses and looking at their family photos and seeing how much everybody had grown and changed - it made me kind of jealous and sad that we didn't have that.
Last year, my sister found this place on Facebook.  It's in Draper, Utah and it's called FotoFly.  They are amazing.  They have several different backgrounds and you rotate through everything in about 45 minutes.  They are AMAZING with children.  Last year I came away feeling like Kaity wasn't cooperative at all and my pictures wouldn't turn out - but I loved them!
This year, we all met up and did our sessions again.  Kaity loved all the attention and was such a little ham!  Here are my favorites from this year:

I am 3!

Candid Cuteness!

All the Zaelits

My dad is such a goofball, he is always doing stuff like this!

The best of cousins!

Brettster

 

Halloween Time

It's Halloween and we are loving it.  Kaity is going to be "Princess Hair" aka Rapunzel, so I am busy making the costume.  We are also getting ready for a trip to Utah to do family pictures and planning various Halloween parties for Preschool and Cub Scouts.  It should be fun.
I love the idea of having craft/learning projects as countdowns to holidays.  The Activity Mom has some great ideas and links, so this year we've put together a folder and have been doing a few of the ideas I found on her site.  You can see the whole countdown here.

So this week we have done sorting, matching, coloring, counting, and Spider Webs.  Kaity loved making these, and they were super easy and turned out so cute!  Kaity couldn't to wake her daddy up to show him her "pider wev." (Jared is working nights right now so he's usually asleep until 3:30, give or take).  Anyway, I didn't have any black yarn but I do have a ton of spare yarn so we picked out the colors.  I like how they turned out, I think the bright colors really make the spiders show up well!