Temple Lights

Tonight, we went to see the lights at the Temple - beautiful! We haven't been in a couple years, so it was really fun to go again. And, I might add, a lot nicer now that the kids are getting older! We started out by visiting a certain Fish and Chips place (yum!) and then walked around at the Temple. Out of 14 pictures, this is the only one that turned out (broken camera, remember?), but it's still fun. We drove by this house on the way home that we've enjoyed over the years because they totally deck out their house for Christmas - and every other holiday! We love seeing it every year. This year the house next to them had a sign outside that said "Ditto" and pointed next door. I know that's not as funny in words, and I tried to get a picture of the two houses so I could show you, but it was hillarious! Of course, we had to explain to these young whipper-snappers what "ditto" means - yes, I feel old.

My little treat-makers!

Tonight, I only had my three youngest at home, and I needed to make some cookies for the Activity Day tomorrow, so I had three little helpers! They were so cute in their little aprons, I just had to see if the camera would give me a couple pictures!

Laura making "her" cookies for the activity.

Talin and Kelcie patiently waiting their turn.

Unwrapping kisses for the top - a few ended up in mouths.....

New post

O.k., so it's time for a new post, but I don't have any pictures because the camera broke, and I'm really tired of trying to take decent pictures on my cell phone. So, here are some random updates: The puppy is doing good - I downloaded an ebook on training and it helped a lot. Of course, right now he's whining because he wants to play :) Erin and Ethan had a band concert last week - really fun. They had a couple medleys of Broadway Christmas tunes and Movie Christmas tunes - that was cool! Jamie had an orchestra concert a couple weeks ago and that was good, too. The kids had their Winter Sing at school right before Thanksgiving - those are always so fun! Their teachers pick such fun songs and things to do. Kelcie had her own little Kindergarten Christmas concert at the school - I'm still getting used to her being in school!!! It was SO FUN to see her up there and REALLY fun songs!!! She got to sit on the front row and play the tamborine because she hasn't gotten any warnings yet this year! Erin got Student of the Month for P.E. - she loves P.E. which is fun for me because I didn't. But, they got a new teacher this year and I really like how he does things. She also got allergy tested on Friday and not much showed up - woohoo! Although, that still doesn't explain why she's stuffy all the time - we'll figure it out. Ethan is taking Spanish this semester and he has exploded into Spanish!!! He rattles it off all the time, currently has 100% in the class, and has learned more than I ever thought they would teach in JH!!!!!!! It's really fun for us because since he was 2 yr. old he would try to speak spanish because Daddy did and so he would say all this jibberish - all the time! He's been SO interested in Spanish forever!!! So, we're all really glad he can finally have some knowledge behind him now. Talin is just growing and growing - now fitting his size 4 feety pjs that I bought way to big (he's 2 1/2!). He's fun to have as a little partner while everyone else is at school. O.k., now I've posted and I've got to do my lesson for church. Have a wonderful Sunday!

We may possibly be crazy!

It's really hard to get a good picture of this puppy, but he is SOOOOOOO CUTE!!!!!!!! I went to pick Jamie up from a friend's house last week and found out they had Miniature Schnauzer puppies (hmmmmmmmm). Well, we've always talked about getting a boy so that we could have both parents on site when we breed, so I came home and mentioned it to Lafe. We thought about it ALLLLLLLLLLLLL week - quite the decision. Well, we finally decided yesterday and went and got a new puppy. This is Toby........

I think the model is pretty cute, too :)

It's beginning to look a lot like..........

Our house feels like it's glowing now with Christmas all set up!!! It was a bit of a challenge to find new places to put things in the new house, but we found some fun ones! AND - the lights we had for our old house were enough to put on this house, too! It was Talin's turn to put the star on the tree - I think he thought that was pretty cool. He also loved putting the ornaments on - one very heavy branch with slowly get rearranged :)

Turkey Trot

I went to watch the Turkey Trot at the kids' school on Wednesday. Erin qualified to run for the Junior High, and then Erin and Jamie were both on the Relays for their classes. It was really fun to be at the school with the kids.


Erin at the starting line (yellow shirt). She got 11th place - I'm just so glad she was excited to do it!!!


Jamie getting the Turkey from the hoop.

Erin taking the Turkey to the hoop - their class won overall for the whole Junior High -woohoo!

Laura, Jamie, and Ethan also ran the Fun Run - that little Laura was bookin' it! Fun Day to be with my kids!

Naptime

Talin falls asleep in the car sometimes when I get the kids from school, so I usually lay him on the couch. I walked in about 1/2 hr. later, and found this -I thought it was so cute!


This one Erin took because she thought it was cute, too. I guess he woke up for a second. He loves our animals, but he loves to chase Tiger, so it was cute that Tiger would climb up and lay by him.

Laura's Baptism

Today was Laura's baptism - it was such a wonderful day for her and a beautiful Baptism. So neat to be able to share it with her cousin.

Our family

Autumn and Laura with their Dads.

Lafe and Laura before the Baptism.

Congratulations, Laura! We're are so happy for your choice to be baptized!

Laura's Baptism pictures

Laura got her Baptism pictures taken tonight, and I just had to show you!
Autumn and Laura (cousins) are 2 days (like 32 hr.) apart and are so lucky to be able to be baptized together since we live next door to each other!!! They are such sweet friends and we had SO MUCH FUN going to get these pictures taken. We had picture of them done when they were 4, I think, and so we figured this was a perfect time to do it again. I love to call them "twinner cousins" because they really look so much alike.

SO THEM!!!

This one we actually signed to let them hang it up in the studio - cool!

Happy Halloween!!!

Erin - Cowgirl

Ethan - Gangster

Jamie - Wicked Witch

Laura - Good Witch

Kelcie - Fairy

Talin - Magician

Jack-o-lantern!!!

Last night we remembered that it was time to carve the big pumpkin - so, at 8pm we started carving (half our kids' bedtime). We got this big pumpkin this year at Sam's Club and it was so fun! They took turns carving and deciding what to make it. This is what they came up with:
Kelcie was helping get the "guts" out and came in to wash her hands, "That's just gusting!" I love how she says it that way - one day I'll have to tell her it's "disgusting", but not yet.

YUM - we love the seeds!!!

The finished product - difficult picture to get! Kelcie's mouth is all chocolaty because I was inside making cupcakes for her party at school today :)

OOOOooooooooooooooo! O.k., he's actually kind-of cute.

Laura's 8!!!

My little Laura is 8 now!!! Can you believe that?

She was pretty excited knowing that she would probably be getting scriptures for her birthday (the advantages of having older siblings!) and she wanted a doll that she could do her hair.

Laura is so loving, smart, tender and has no fear ( well, of swimming, roller-coasters, etc. - she is, however, afraid of flies - almost to the point of mental meltdown if they're stuck in the car with her - outgrown that, mostly) She loves to be with mommy and is really good at getting out of work - magically. She loves to read and enjoys a good laugh with friends. She's my sweet little Laura.

Happy Birthday, Laura!!!!!!!!!!

Fall Break Part 2

Readin' at the campsite - I thought this was so funny ;)

Before we left on Saturday, we drove over to Tuzigoot - another ruin similar to Montezuma but on a hill instead of in it. It was really neat because you could walk through it this time.

Then we drove up to Jerome - an old mining town up on the mountain - literally on the edge of the mountain. It's known for being haunted, I guess - haven't looked into that much. But, it was really fun to see - an old town and seeing how they built those houses onto the mountain. They had the NEATEST Kalidescope store ever!!! So many and so many different! We had a BLAST in there!
Anyway, that's what we did - had fun. Talin had been asking for probably 6 weeks to go camping in the trailer. So, we finally went - the first thing he wanted to do when we pulled up - at 10 in the morning - was to go to sleep in the trailor :) Everywhere we went he just wanted to go back to the trailer - quite a relationship he has with our trailer, I guess. So, today he's already told us 3 times we need to go camping again ........ with the trailer. Sweet boy - we'll have to figure that one out - it gets darn cold at night now!!!

Fall Break

So, for Fall Break this year we decided to go camping at Dead Horse Ranch State Park - sounds great, huh? It actually was really fun - the Park had great campsites for GREAT prices. It was a little warmer than we were thinking - since it's north from here, I just figured cooler - but, it's still desert there, apparently, and we were only about 5 degrees cooler than here (104!!! What's up with that?) So, we set up camp and then we went to see Montezuma's Castle which is really cool! The Sinagua people built it in, I think, the 1400s up on the wall - it's so amazing to try and imagine living that way. The kids thought it was great!Then, we went back to camp and made Hobo Dinners for dinner with campfire Banana Splits for dessert - the campers next to us were so curious she had to come over to figure out what we were doing :) Next day, we decided to go to Out of Africa wildpark - we LOVED it! First, they do a little safari where you can feed some of the animls and they are right there next to you. Then, we went around and saw all kinds of animals and watched a couple shows. In the Safari, Talin was getting done and complaining until the guy pointed out the tractors on our right (as a joke) and Talin sat up "Tractors?" - that's my tractor boy! Here are a bunch of pictures - I'll try to label them:

Talin feeding the Giraffe

Zebra

Kelcie and Erin feeding the Camel

Talin petting the Snake - SO soft and smooth!

Laura and Talin petting the Tortoise

Ethan and Laura petting the Water Monitor - he was so cool!

Grizzly Bear

Tiger - I just LOVE big cats - I want to just hug them and pet them......

White Tiger - BEAUTIFUL!

Tiger Splash Show - really fun, too!

By the end of the day we were pretty hot and dehydrated, but it was so worth it and so fun.