Zoo Lights

We went to Hogle Zoo for the Zoo Lights!  The light displays were great.  The kids loved them!  There weren't many animals to speak of, but we sure got excited about the ones we did get to see!  We saw a river otter, a bear, a jaguar, a tiger, 2 snow leopards, and some cool birds...not sure WHAT they were.  I've never seen so many people at the zoo in my life.  It was SO crowded and it was SO cold, but the kids had a ball.  Matson fell asleep on the way home, but when he woke up this morning he said,
 "I want to go back to the zoo when it's dark again!"  A fun, new experience to go to the zoo in the dark!  Thanks to Grandma for the tickets!  We had a great time.  :)

 

Wax Museum

The 5th graders do a wax museum each year.  Kelsie wanted to be Betsy Ross.  Kelsie loves the colonial era and thought it would be fun to be a seamstress, since sewing is something she enjoys.  This is her poster.

Kelsie as Betsy Ross

At the wax museum.  She looked very authentic with her needle and thread and American Flag!  The whole thing was really cool!  All the kids stood like statues until someone pushed their button.  Then they would give you a fact about their person.  Very fun and Kelsie learned a lot!

Emily's Turns Eight!

Emily is 8!   Those 8 years went FAST.  It was only fitting to have a GYMNASTICS cake for our little gymnast!

Emily was super suprised to get a Bitty Twin doll for her birthday.  She has been wanting bitty twins for a LONG time and was delighted.  She named her doll Zoey.  :)  She also got some fun pioneer era books (which she loves), a bonnet for Kirsten, and a Barbie camping set.  Fun, fun!

Emily invited 3 friends over for her birthday.  They went to Hang Time (a trampoline and foam pit place) which is Emily's idea of heaven.  Then they came back here for treats.  It was the easiest party ever and Emily loved it!

Little Mister

All ready for church

Halloween 2012

 Happy Halloween! 

We have a bumblebee, a knight, a lion, and a cat!

White Crayons

So we are at church the other day and Matson is coloring some pages in his coloring book.  All of a sudden he says "I hate this one!".  I could see that he was frustrated because the white crayon was not showing up on the white paper.  He stated again and again that he "hated this one".  Well, Andrea saw the commotion and tried to calm him down.  This prompted him to exclaim that "it is stupid!".  Half-laughing, Andrea told him not to use bad words, but he continued his rant.  I tried to explain that white crayon on a white paper doesn't work, but he just looked at me like I was out of my mind.

In my son's defense, he obviously wanted to see a streak of color from this crayon on white paper.  When none appeared he thought it stupid that such a dud crayon even existed.  After all, the other colors worked just fine. 

Always fun to get a glimpse inside the mind of a two year old.

October

Kelsie won the 5th grade spelling bee and was a finalist in the school bee.  She was quite devastated that she didn't win the school bee but we tried to remind her that it's quite an accomplishment to be one of the top spellers in the whole school.  She is a little over achiever.  She has always been a great speller and the kids in her class come to her when they don't know how to spell a word. :)

 This boy is a NUT!  And the little one is trying hard to keep up!

 Carter at the fire station on our preschool fieldtrip.

We made slime!!!

John turned 36!  Kelsie made his cake and used every candle in our house to get to the number 36.  There aren't actually 36 candles, but the numbers added together equal 36.  That's thinking out of the box!  It was a cake to remember!

Fall in the Canyon

First Day of School

First Day of School.  Emily started 2nd grade and is in Miss Layne's class.  She is new to our school but we've heard great things about her!  Kelsie is in 5th grade with Ms. Decker.  Kelsie is thrilled to have a female teacher after 3 years of male teachers!  She was ready for a change!

Wii Success

The kids have become obsessed by winning Bozers castle on Super Marios Brothers on the Wii.  It is all Carter has talked about for a week!  Today was a happy day at our house!  I was making dinner when I heard all the kids shrieking and jumping up and down!  I ran to see what was going on...well, guess what?!?  They had FINALLY won Bozers castle!  Thanks to Kelsie and Brianna we have now arrived in Wii greatness!  Look how happy they look!  :)  Made their whole week!!!

Babies

 

Our laptop blew up so John is working on getting the pictures off of it and organizing them on our new computer. I came across this little treasure I don't ever remember seeing! How tiny and cute are they? And they even liked each other! I'm pretty sure Emily was trying to steal his binky cause she still thinks we shouldn't have ever taken hers away! I love the chubby little hands intertwined. I can't believe this was a little less than 3 years ago. They were just babies...

 

As we were flipping through pictures Matson saw one of John and exclaimed, "Daddy SUPER NICE!"   Matson keeps us laughing every day...and in awe at the things he comes up with already.  Love our little 2 year old cutie.

Bear Lake- Day 2!!!!

The 2nd day at Bear Lake was GORGEOUS!  We went to an actual beach this day and we were all amazed at how gorgeous it was.  It was like being at the ocean...and you have to know that I have been dying for a trip to the ocean for the last 4 years!  Pretty much I was in heaven!  The water was a gorgeous turquoise blue and was as warm as a bathtub!  The sand was soft and warm and the there was just enough waves to make it PERFECT!  I fell in love with this place!!!  It really was a perfect day (minus the 45 minutes of sheer terror that involved a 911 call and all out search for my 3 year old nephew who went missing).  In the end, many prayers were answered, and John (not knowing that Chase was even missing) discovered him a mile from our beach spot and brought him safely back to greet the hysterical family and the police who had been helping to search for him.  So we continued the rest of our vacation feeling happy to all be together and extremely grateful for the best possible outcome of a terrifying experience.  Here are some pictures...

Matson building castles in the sand (which translates to Matson digging up wet sand and flinging it at us)!

Aunt Michelle flew in this morning and we could hardly wait to see her.  The kids all greeted her with their water squirters and soaked her down!  Then they spent most of the day trying to get the adults wet!

Matson LOVED it as much as me!  I guess he wanted to become one with the beach...he kept lying down in the wet sand and holding perfectly still! 

He was so filthy...covered head to toe with sand...but he was so happy!

Carter and I are working on building a moat for our castle.

That evening we played all kinds of fun games together. The highlight was teaching my dad how to play "don't eat pete"! He had never heard of it before. And then watching my dad play "duck duck goose" with all the little kids. They loved chasing grandpa around and he kept getting picked!

Cute cousins hanging out in the morning before we leave for home.

After a fun vacation we got raspberry shakes and then headed for home.  It think Matson was completely delirious-he was so tired!  The only thing better than one binky it TWO BINKIES!  He is one funny little baby...and he knows it!

Bear Lake -Day 1

We went to Bear Lake for our family reunion with all may family.  None of us had been there before and I was dying to see what all the hype was...all of my neighbors go there every year and LOVE it!  It was my turn to be in charge of the reunion so I convinced everyone to try out Bear Lake.  We rented the cabin (AKA GIGANTIC house) from a family in our ward.  It was gorgeous and relaxing and we had a great time!  This was the view from the family room at the cabin. 

We arrived and settled into tht cabin and then headed to the lake.  We stopped at a little spot by the road which didn't turn out to be a prime spot but the kids got super muddy and sand covered so I think they had a good time!  This is Matson heading to the water when we arrived!

 Back at the cabin we had some fun games and activities after dinner.  The kids gathered items from outside to make their own totem pole person and then we set them out to represent each family.

My Kiddos

Our Totem Pole Creations

The boys also found time to play a little miniature golf around the house!  Fun times!

John and my dad enjoyed the gorgeous view and spent a lot time counseling over some issues at work.  This is literally how John spent the whole vacation.  I want to go back just to he can enjoy a vacation without all that work stuff hanging over him the whole time...  You gotta love my dad in his flannel jammies...sorry dad!!!  I couldn't pass over this picture when I went through them!

Here are a bunch of the cousinsn exploring the areas around the cabin.  One of my favorite things about it was all the open space around us.  The kids loved building dirt houses, searching for treasures, and being able to roam free without any worries.  It was the perfect place.

Courtney

 On Saturday John and I were both working on various projects and the girls were looking after Matson.  After awhile Matson comes running in to talk to me.  He's all smiles and says, "I Courtney".  The girls had dressed him up in a dress (Emily's shirt), put make up on him, put bows in his hair (which he would NOT allow), and painted his nails.  He was going around telling everyone he was Courtney.  It was so funny!  Matson was super pleased with his fingernails that were painted yellow.  He said "Kelsie made these" and showed them off to everyone!  Today he turned to John to show off his nails again and said, Kelsie made these!  Then turned to Kelsie and said, "you made these!"  He was so proud of Kelsie's abilities to turn his fingernails colors!

The girls sure loved turning their brother into a girl for a couple of hours!  I did the same thing to my baby brother and he survived so I know Matson will be okay!  :)