More Arizona Sun and Fun

As you can probably tell, the kids had a great time in Arizona with their cousins. They were rowdy and crazy and slept very well when they finally crashed at the end of each day. Gavin would wake up in the morning, and say, "Mom, I need to go and see if my cousins are awake." He even cried to stay at Heidi's house. :-( We had so much fun.

Part of the trip was that Caleb helped Mark and the other men of the family, tear off their garage to get ready for their new renovations and adding on. He pretty much just rolled out of bed everyday and went to work outside, as you can tell from his sweet hair.

Dad was a force to be reckoned with walking around with a crowbar in each in hand.

Gavin and Rachel had a great time running around together, nonstop, especially when the older kids had to go to school. They happened to see that the mailman had delivered the Wal-mart toy ad, and stole in from the mailbox and went running to the backyard to check it out.

Nana kept everyone entertained and laughing by holding as many kids as would fit on her lap and then pretending to sleep, until one of them would snore very loudly and wake her up. This went on about as long as it possibly could.

Josh, Hannah, Rachel, Henry, Cheyenne, Gavin and Morgan (just a few of the 11)

We also went to a pizza place with a huge pipe organ that comes up out of the floor and plays all kinds of music. Gavin spent most of his meal with at least one hand over his ear.

The last day we went to a great train park, with 3 playgrounds and a train and merry-go-round that you could ride on for a small fee. The kids were pretty much in heaven.

Hannah and Gavin

There was a play area that looked like a old jail, so we had to spend plenty of time climbing on top and pretending to be in jail.

Our group took up an entire train car.

A trip to Mesa, AZ

Time Out for Women and Girls!

This weekend we made an 11 hour road trip to Mesa, Arizona to see my family. The occasion was to get all of the girls together to attend a religious event, called Time Out for Women and girls. My mom and sisters had all gone to a similar event before, but this was the first time I made the trip. And it was the first time that the older nieces, Alaina and Cheyenne, also got to attend, so I was really glad to go with all of them. There were some great speakers and musical performances for the entire day. Here are all of us sisters and our amazing mother who brought us to this great event.

Here are Cheyenne and I waiting for things to get going.

A bad self portrait of me and a good pic of Heidi. All weekend we are being told that we look so much alike. I don't see it in this picture though.

Schatzy and her 2 older girls, Cheyenne and Lanie. They were really fun to have along. They always make us feel young and more fun than we usually are.

Heidi and Schatzy with their party faces on! I really love these girls, and that even when we go a long time without seeing each other, you never feel the absence when we get together again. It's like we don't live hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

I'm so grateful that we got to spend this girl time all together. I really needed it, and it was so uplifting to hear the inspirational talks and messages through music that were shared with us. It was just what I needed to remind me of how happy I am in my faith and in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful every day that I have the chance to be with my family forever.

Oh SNO!

This is what we woke up to this morning. Gavin was of course overjoyed, and asking to go outside from 7:15am on. Finally at 10, I took them out. I know they aren't as bundled as they should be in 30 degree weather, but since they have coughs and it was such wet snow, I didn't let them stay out long. We had a fun time and a snowball fight.

Happy Halloween!

Though our first photo will show you how much Henry liked getting on his neon green hairspray, we really did have a great and festive Halloween. We started it with a carnival last Saturday and then a fabulous dinner and trick-or-treat party at the church tonight. Gavin's Batman obsession continued to include Halloween and we were able to piece together a great costume for him. Anyone who has spent time with Henry in the last 4 months knows that he is the epitome of the Incredible Hulk, and prides himself in totally heinous outbursts, so you can understand why I immediately went with the idea when my friend Jessi suggested it.

They looked great and had a lot of fun. Here are some super cute shots.

We have already had several talks with Gavin about the fact that he doesn't get to "be" anything until next Halloween. And NO we do not dress up in costumes for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Tough concept for a preschooler apparently.

I voted today

This year on Election Day, I will be spending many many hours at a Salt Lake County polling location to assist all of those Americans exercising their right to vote that day. I have the job of working with the fancy touch-screens used by Utah voters, and trying to keep them from breaking, while helping people to be sure that they completed their vote correctly. While I have already learned a lot from the 4 hours of training that was provided for this job, it will be an interesting day for me. I hope to at least discover if the county clerk's office made the right choice in hiring several hundred people without asking for reference or ever meeting them. We shall see.

So, today I cast my absentee ballot and then took this incredibly attractive picture of myself, and realized a couple of things. One being that it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to actually notice what my hair looks like in the middle of the day and try to do something about it. More importantly though, that even though sometimes the choices we are given are like choosing between eating dirt and eating something worse, it is still better to make our own choice and not wait around for someone else to make it for us.

Get out the vote.

Pumpkin Time

On Sunday, we carved our Jack-o-lanterns. This was the first year since having Gavin that we actually carved the pumpkins... not that he is super deprived or anything, I just always found that it was easier to let them paint them than to deal with knives etc.

I think that my past idea might have been better than deciding to carve them... this was the face Gavin was making as we tried to convince him to stick his hand in the pumpkin to pull out the "junk." Needless to say, he never actually put his hand in, but he did use a spoon and scoop out about 2 seeds... and I did the rest.

Henry wasn't as afraid of the mess, but he still was just excited to get to swing around large utensils.

Gavin made our design, which was pretty much make all of the parts of the face look like mountains (aka triangles).

Caleb had more than enough help trying to make something a little more elaborate with his pumpkin.

I think this pretty much say it... we were satisfied with our results, and we have to light them almost every night, so that the boys can blow out the candles.

I is for Native American?

This week I taught preschool at my house, and we learned about the letter "I". I got the ideas for Thursdays lessons, from Jessi, who had "I" last year, and would have had it this year if she hadn't just had her newest bundle of joy. I was grateful to steal her theme for such a fun day at preschool. I would never have thought of "I is for Indians" on my own, but it turned out great, and I was even able to restrain myself from saying anything about white men killing them and stealing their land.

We started out our lesson with a very non-PC clip from the movie Peter Pan, that of course, the kids loved. Then we each chose Indian names and learned about petroglyphs. The kids each made a vest and attempted to draw a petroglyph of their new Indian name. Then they made a headdress and a paper plate music shaker. We ended our class with an Indian feast or dried meat (beef jerky), dried berries (raisins), and some mixed nuts. It was super fun.

Here's the class all dressed up.

They had to show off the drawings on the back

(click on the picture and it will enlarge so you can actually see the drawings).

Dancing Sheep (Lexi)Running Horse (Gavin)

Princess Piglet (Aiko)Juggling Clown (Parker)

Princess Pink Pig (Paili)

I loved having them each pick out their own name. Parker was really focused on being something related to Halloween coming up and Aiko and Paili are best friends so they really wanted to pick the same animal for their names. The following morning Caleb changed Gavin's name to Chief Whining Horse, which actually got him laughing instead of complaining.

Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim

Last weekend, Caleb left us for two days to drive to the Grand Canyon, hike from the South Rim to the North Rim (23 miles) and drive back home. We missed him a lot! But as he left on Friday morning Gavin said, "I sure hope Dad has fun." And I think he did. He went along with his brother- Nathan and his good friend- Nick, as well as Nick's brother-in-law. Caleb was able to finish the hike in a bit less than 10 hours, and while he was sore afterward, he was still able to walk around without much limping and tell the tale. He also impressed me with some really great photography.

Here is my handsome husband in a really beautiful place.

This was the night before, you can tell because their smiles are still pretty big.

Crossing the Colorado River.

This is a shot of Nathan on the climb out... he is that tiny guy.

Finally done... Great job guys. Now that is an endurance challenge.

The boys and I can't wait for Caleb to take us back to the Grand Canyon, but we probably won't go to do a hike like that.

New list

Well, I finally got smart and figured out how to put the cool little feature on my blog that lets me know when people have updated... the only drawback is that now I can't keep my list in the same order that it was. I know some of you may think that is fine, since my old order was mostly random, but actually it was highly calculated and planned in the way that made the most sense to me. It was sorted by the geographical region in which I met you, though not necessarily based on where you now live (the Gap being its own state entirely ;-)). I will miss my old sorting, but have now chosen to have it sorted based on who has updated most recently... Maybe that will guilt some of you into posting more often (hehe).

And just for fun... Here are a few pictures from one of Caleb's hikes... to get us all pumped up for him to complete the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim this Saturday.

Oh...

Not sure if I need to say any more than what the title says. These guys just seem to be transforming right in front of my eyes. Over night Henry has become a little boy... and the crib went away. At the end of last week he started sleeping in a toddler bed. Gavin has always slept in a twin bed, but I don't think their room is big enough for 2 twin beds, and I still don't think they are big enough for bunk beds (even though Gavin asks me often if they are). He has made a seamless transition and his love for sleep has not been interupted. I just still can't believe he is so big. When Gavin hit these milestones we were so excited, but it almost brings tears to my eyes to see my little Henry snoozing away. And now when I get out the camera, he looks at me and smiles.

A little man's favorite shoes

September 2006

September 2008

Two boys, one pair of black wedges. Not sure why these attract them, but I just thought the comparison in these photos was too funny not to share.

Little Devils

This is what my boys have been acting like today.

They seem pretty proud of themselves too.