Merry Christmas

Our family has been very blessed this year. We feel very lucky to have five beautiful, healthy and happy children. We love our new home and community. We are so thankful to have the gospel in our lives. We are thankful for all of you, dear family and friends that mean so much to us! May you have the Spirit of our Savior with you during the Christmas season and throughout the coming year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Gingerbread Houses

It's not Christmas at our house until we make our lovely gingerbread houses! The kids woke up yesterday to the smell of baking gingerbread and they knew that it was the day. They were so excited! I think they ate more candy than they put on their houses, though!

Hmmm. Cam doesn't know how to spell my name!


Adam's best buddy Brit joined us for the festivities!

Spencer kept insisting on eating the Cinnamon Santas, even though his face would turn bright red and his eyes would water. We would try to get him to eat something else, but no, he preferred to turn his head into a volcano!

Beware of the Grinch!

This year, Spencer is afraid of the Grinch. So when he starts acting up, we don't tell him that Santa's watching or he's going to get a lump of coal. No, all we have to do is mention that the Grinch is coming, and he'll promptly behave! Spencer has had a great week because he finally decided to be potty trained. That's got to be Mom's best Christmas present ever! No more diapers!!!

School Choir

Aubree has been in the school choir this year. She has really loved it. I was surprised, because she had to be really dedicated and get to school by 7:30 am to practice! Those of you who know Aubree, know that is not her best time of day, so that's really saying something. The choir had a Christmas concert last week and they sang the cutest songs. It was really fun.

Halloween, Halloween and more Halloween

After three different Halloween parties, a Halloween band concert, a school parade/party, a preschool parade/party, pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating, we are just about Halloween-ed out! Just looking at the piles of candy makes me cringe--the kids will be wired for the next six months at least! As if the Christmas trees in the stores and Christmas music on the radio won't do it. Good grief!

The Pumpkin Patch

We have had the most beautiful, and warm, October I can remember. One day we went to the pumpkin patch with Grammie, Aunt Tara and cousins Brie and Amy. We found some great pumpkins, rode in the pumpkin cart, and played hide-and-seek in the hay maze. All of those things were fun, but if you ask the kids what their favorite part of the day was, they will definitely say that going to Arctic Circle afterwards and getting Halloween flashlights in the kids meals was the best!

Ben, Spence & Daddy's Birthdays

Ben's 5th Birthday was a blast! Grandpa cooked a delicious dutch-oven dinner, the cousins came and the absolute best part was his "righteous" Transformers cake. The Transformers were so tough that they broke the cake into pieces by the time we got around to eating it!

Original cake...it's a masterpiece, isn't it?

Tough Transformer breaks off edge of cake...

Transformer war utterly destroys cake...


For their joint birthday present, Ben & Spence got the most awesome power wheels Jeep! They spend each day going on new adventures and they make me think of a new place for them to go each time. They are now veteran world travelers (or at least veteran back yard travelers).




Spence had been planning his Diego birthday cake for weeks before the big day. He absolutely bounced off the walls in excitement when it was finally finished!


Our Diego adventure included tying up a crocodile and hitting it until candy fell out. Would Diego approve of this treatment of endangered animals? We don't know, but we sure had fun!

Daddy turned the big 4-0 on the same day that Spencer turned 3. He wanted a Dora cake to match the Diego cake but we decided he was too old for Nickelodeon-inspired character cakes. He got a boring Happy 40th Birthday cake instead. It's a bummer to grow up, isn't it?

Jackson Hole Trip

Okay so I'm finally blogging again! The last four months were a blur, but wefinally got moved, settled, kids done with school, etc. We have had a really fun and busy summer so far, here's some of the stuff we've been up to:

We just got back from our annual family trip to Wyoming to go river rafting. This picture was taken at the top of Inspiration Point at Jenny Lake, just outside of Yellowstone. The kids did a super job on the 4-mile hike and the view was spectacular. Also feeding the "chickmunks" at the top was a thrill. :-)

Famous antler arches at Jackson Hole

The "Big Kahuna" wasn't so big this year, but we definitely got our thrills on "Lunch Counter" (below). Adam, Aubree and Cam did the big rapids four times, and the third time down we all fell out of the raft on this section of rapids. But they got back in and wanted to do it again! They were braver than I, who had nightmares about it for a week!

All the grandkids piled into the raft for the "calm section" of the river

with Uncle Cam as the guide, they had a great time!

Moose Falls

Just inside Yellowstone, there is a place called Moose Falls where you can swim and jump off the cliff into the water. The hot springs come in and warm up the water so it isn't too cold, the only chattering comes from fear of the cliffs! The little kids and I sat on the edge and provided a feast for the unbelievable swarms of mosquitos.

Daddy getting ready to jump. Aubree and Adam did it too, only I wasn't there to take a picture that time.

Yellowstone

Cam's brother Ryan and his family joined us on a short trip to Yellowstone before our river rafting trip in Jackson Hole. The kids had a great time doing all the hikes together and checking out all the awesome geysers, hot springs and wildlife. By the way, no, we did not see any bears (I don't think they really live there!)

OLD FAITHFUL! Ryan amused us all by telling us loudly as other people were passing by that this was the LAST time Old Faithful was going to blow, and boy, were we lucky we were going to see it! You should have seen some of the looks he got.

Ben, cousin Kobe and Spencer were inseperable little buddies throughout the trip.

4th of July Race

Aubree and Cam joined me for the Kaysville 4th of July 5K fun run (why do they put the words "fun" and "run" in the same sentence, we want to know?). They did awesome! They ran the whole way without stopping, and both of them beat me with a surge of energy at the very end. They are a couple of great runners!

The runners: Aubree, Tilese, Cam, Lauri, Blythe and Dave

This was before the race; we didn't look so pretty after. As Cam put it: "You looked like you were about to die." Can you say, "someone's in the dogouse?!?"

Blythe's Wedding

Dave & Blythe were married in the Bountiful Temple on July 5, 2008.

We are so happy for them!

Aubree with the beautiful bride

The boys got a little restless during the photo ops.....

Check out the stance...looks like we're going to prom or something!

Summer has arrived!

The boys with their summer buzz...wish I could do that to my hair!

A New Home!

No way! We finally bought a house? Must be a dream. It sure feels like it! After a year and a half of looking and a couple of failed attempts, it appears that we have really actually bought this one. We are so excited and so are the kids. We haven't actually moved in yet, but hopefully that will happen soon. Here are some pictures we took the day we closed.

Front View

Kitchen

Great Room

Master Bedroom

Downstairs Family Room

Play House downstairs

Back View

Back yard, Fire pit

Back yard, stream