"The Town Too Tough To Die"

Gary wanted to do something fun with us while he was here so yesterday we took a day trip to Tombstone, AZ. It is about a 3 hour drive South East of Phoenix. That part wasnt the funnest, but once we got there we had a great time!

 The reenactment of the famous O.K. Corral gunfight.

Dinner at Big Nose Kates Saloon. Enjoying our rootbeers and all.....

I liked walking though Boothill Graveyard. The resting place for the good, bad and evil of the 1880's.

 

An interesting fact that I didnt know: Boothill is the name for many cemeteries during the 19th century. It was a common name for the burial gounds of gunfighters, or those who "died with their boots on"

Bulls Eye

Ty called me about 2:00pm yesterday and said that he got his elk! Wahoo!

Yesterday was the first day of the hunt and he got it with one shot!! Double wahoo!!

I sent Ty with my small camera and we pinkie swore that he would take picture. But did he? No. These are just a few pics from his phone he sent me so they aren't the best qualit, but hey, it's somethin'!

Gary drove down and met them for the hunt. Although he missed the actual shoot, he made it in time for the hardest part - hauling the massive thing off the mountain, skinning it, cutting and packaging it to freeze. Lucky him.

I hear Christmas bells.......

The day after Thanksgiving.

It must be time to crank up the Christmas music and get the holiday decorations out!!

Tyson left yesterday afternoon for his hunt. Who knows how long he will be gone. The hunt lasts 7 days so I know that he will be back by then. And it better be with an elk! So in the meantime I figure I will get our house all Christmassy.

My favorite home decorations are the frosted berry lit garland going up my stairs and my nativity set.

Well, the halls are decked! All the Christmas decorations are up except the tree. I'm waiting for Ty to get home to set it up. I hope he comes home soon....with an elk. We all miss him already.

Thanksgiving Day

Since Tyson had his elk hunt that starts tomorrow, we ended up staying home for the holiday. He left pretty much right after lunch for the hunt. I sent him with some leftovers and some pumpkin pie. And told him to get an elk!!

Our friends, the Hunts, have no family around either and were going to be doing Thanksgiving by themselves too so we decided to join and have a big party!

We had the feast at the Hunts home since she was cooking the turkey. I brought basically all the sides (which is fine by me! I stink at making rolls and gravy so I told Carrie that if she did that I would happily do everything else!) and a couple pies to add to her few pies she made. It was DELISH!! Everything was great. All the turkey day fixins' and great friends to share it with. Perfect.
I'm bummed I didn't bust out my camera to take a picture of the turkey meal and our families, but I did capture a few plays of the kids 'football tournament'! Arizona winters are my favorite. I love it that we could be outside on Thanksgiving Day in shorts and T-shirts instead of all bundled up trekking through the snow or having to stay inside watching the blizzard outside (as we would in Utah).

I am so grateful for my family. They mean the world to me. Each one of them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Shopping Cart

Emmry likes to pull things she can reach out of the pantry and wonder around the house with them. Today I gave her a bin with wheels on it so she could push around all her "groceries".

She was having a blast going from one end of the house to the other.

What do ya say we need to get her a shopping cart for Christmas.....???!!!

#1 Turkey Trot

Tage has been training for this long awaited day of the Turkey Trot for weeks now. Yes, training! He would want to go up to the school and run the course and have me time him. Oh my. This is intense stuff for a 3rd grader!
Just so you know:

The Turkey Trot= a race against your fellow classmates and the rights to brag about it all week. Seriously.
Getting lined up at the starting point.

Well, all his training paid off! He won FIRST PLACE!!!!!

He was always within one of the first 3-4 runners until close to the last half of the run. I could see that he was falling behind just a tad, so I yelled out some encouragement and saw the fire burst. That's all he needed. For someone to tell him he can do it. It was so awesome to see that. From that point on he was #1. The rest was history.

He was SO proud of himself! And so was I!

Tage really is a super fast runner! He can keep right up with his Dad when they go running. I am not a runner, but he for sure would kick my butt in a race! That's for sure!

Good job today Tage!!!!

Your #1

We love you!!!

(and yes, bragging rights were definitely used to the max)

Moving Beds

Today I moved the guest bed up into Tage's room in preparation for the new couch I bought off Craigslist(!) for the guest room. We are turning our guest room into a play room!

But before it was completely moved, Emmry and I had play time on it.

SOLD

We decided to sell Tage's 4-wheeler on Craigslist. I think that Tage was a little sad to see it go, but I know that he is excited to get a new bigger/faster one with the money we got from his old one.

.....One last picture of Tage on his 4-wheeler......

Emmry was ready to ride! She thought that it was the funnest toy she had ever seen!

Flooded backyard

I left the sprinklers on yesterday late afternoon/early evening for 3 hrs!!

oops!

I wonder what our water bill is going to be...

Trick-or-Treat

While we were eating dinner last night (prior to the trick-or-treating) Tage said that he would make a bet with us (Mom and Dad) that we get to guess how many pieces of candy he was going to get and that if he got more than that that we had to give him a dollar. I'm not sure how that was a bet, but we played along with his game anyway. Dad guessed 100 and I guessed 126. After I asked him what we get if he doesn't go over our guessed amount. He thought long and hard and said that he would give us his little 3 inch tall lucky leprechan. Ooooohhhhh, Awwwwwhhhhh, lucky us! I hope that we win! I need some more luck in my house with getting more green stuff called money! That would be the best bet I have ever had.....to win Tage's lucky leprechan!!
Well, he won. 166 pieces of candy to be exact.

He never did ask for his dollar.....so I just kept it. Along with a few pieces of candy, but don't tell him that.

And here is Miss Emmry couting out her loot and wanting to put everything in her mouth with or without a wrapper.


Oh my, I think she is the cutest Pebbles E V E R!
But I'm bias, I know.

Meet the Flintstones

Because Emmry looks so dang cute with her hair in a pony tail smack dab on the top of her head, I decided that she should be Pebbles for Halloween. Then it turned into a whole family theme dilli-o!

(Sorry about Tage in this picture. But this was the best one we got. I promise we don't drug up our kids!)
I spend a few days last week busting out their costumes with my mad sewing skills (straight lines only....I can do it!) I think this year has been my favorite Halloween, I loved that we did a theme all together as a family.

Emmry hung onto that bucket the whole night! She wouldn't let anyone take it away from her! It was so cute.

I caught Ty in the bathroom fixing his hair (used my hairspray too!) and asked him if he felt weird having hair again...he just laughed.

Yabba Dabba Doo!

3

Today Emmry made it to 3 big baby steps!!!

1

Emmry took her first step today! It was just one, but that's all it takes! She will be running before I know it!

Crazy Hair Day

This past week has been Red Ribbon week.....(say NO to drugs week).
Well, each day they had something different the kids could do/wear. Like wear a hat, twin day, jersey day.....and today was crazy hair day.
He wanted to do a side mohawk then spike the other side. Oh, and color it. This is how it turned out.

Ahhh, isn't he so cute?!?!?!

1 year pictures

I forgot to mention that Emmry had her 1 year/cake smash pictures taken on the 10th. Emmry was horrible! She cried practically the whole time. What a stinker! I'm surprised Lorie got a couple good ones. She didn't want to stay put and would turbo crawl right back to me as soon as my hands were off her. Ugh. I was exhausted after our 3 hour photo session! I wanted to give up so many times, but Lorie was so sweet and patient. I could never be a photographer. I just don't have that kind of patience.

Onto the cake smash pictures....don't ya just love her tutu? Me too. I almost didn't get it because it was $20 and I thought that that was too expensive. But I'm glad I talked myself into it. She will probably end up wearing it for Halloween. I'm sure she will wear it when she is a little bigger and come on...she's a girl and will probably want to 'dress up' everyday....right?!?! Ok then. $20 well spent.

Just like on her actual birthday, she didn't want to get all messy with her hands. Once we gave her a spoon she was still cranky and whiny, but at least would sit there for a few seconds and poke at the cake a bit.

October so far......

It is now 6:19pm. The boys headed up North near Camp Verde a few hours ago to go scout out elk with one of Ty's friends for his hunt next month. That means it's a girls weekend!
Emmry didn't take an afternoon nap so that means she got put to bed early....really early.....like 6:04pm early....so what am I going to do all night long?
Catch up on my journaling!!!!!
I heard you..."it's about dang time!"
I know, I know, I'm waaaaaaaay overdue on my journaling!
Here are a few highlights/things to remember so far this month.....

Oct. 1-2
General Conference/Winter Grass
I love this weekend!
Listening to our prophet, being uplifted, staying in our jammies A L L D A Y long, being with my family, setting new goals, and yes, I have to throw this in.....realizing that soon we will no longer be in the triple digits and have heat warnings everyday!
Each General Conference marks a change of temperature for me here in Arizona. In Aprils Conference I dread the summers hot temperatures will soon be here before I know it. And now, in October, I get so giddy that the nights start to cool off (into the 70's) and the days start cooling off (dropping down into the 90's) and I get to wear pants and covered toed shoes!!! Yay for winter!

This is also the weekend that we usually over seed our grass and get it ready for winter grass. (Crazy, I know. We have summer grass and winter grass) So that is just what we did.

I guess the only think I don't love is that we are all crammed into the office. We don't have BYU cable TV so we have to watch Conference on the computer. So we just wash down Zeus's couch and make the best of it.

Oct. 3
Big Brother
I love to watch Tage interact with his little sister. It is so precious. Tage down right adores Emmry. And Emmry L O V E S his big brother!!!

I can't imagine our family without these two rug rats. Love them both to pieces.

Oct. 4
Nose
Lately Emmry has been scrunching up her nose breathing in and out through it making a sniffing sound.

She thinks it's hilarious and if we start to do it and ask her to do it too, she will actually do it on command. It's actually both quite funny and adorable. Love her silly personality.

Oct. 5
Drawing
Tage lost his chance to watch T.V/movie tonight. I can't remember why, probably because he was either being a smart aleck and talking back to me or not doing what I asked him to do and having to ask him a million times to do it. So, he busted out his artsy skills. He is actually very good at drawing. His Grandma Rigby gave him a step-by-step instruction drawing book with over 500 things to draw and Tage loves it! He is a bit hard on himself and doesn't think he does a good job, but I sure do!

Oct. 6
In the closetI now have my guest room closet turned into the playroom closet. Emmry loves to just sit and look at books.

She doesn't think that it's too funny when I start to shut the closet door though...

Oct. 7
Joy Ride
Cute neighbor Caroline loves to play with Emmry. This morning she took Emmry on car rides back and forth from the front door to the back door.

Emmry thought it was the funnest thing in the world and whined if Caroline stopped. Seriously Caroline loved it too though, she probably pushed her for a good 5 minutes! No joke! Then she wanted to try pulling her....

That didn't work out the best though, so she went back to pushing...

Oct. 9
Paper Plates
There are two cupboards that Emmry knows she can play in. The tupperware and the paper goods.

Although she doesn't get to play in the paper good cupboard very long because I just put the plates and napkins back and don't want them to get too dirty. (yes, I vacuum my floor and wash it, but ya never know...) But whereas the tupperware I can just throw into the dishwasher so she can play all day with those if she wants.

Oct. 10
Walking....with help
Usually when I stand Emmry up and try to get her to walk holding my hands she would just take 1-2 steps but then just want to sit down to crawl, but today she took more than just those 2 steps! She now is a little bit more patient and will walk with me for a few seconds. This means she is getting closer to walking.....aaaaaahhhh!

Oct. 12
Rain Water
It rained the other day and I put out a few buckets to save the rain water for my garden. (Hey, it's called free miracle grow!) Rain water is THE BEST for the garden and we don't get it very much here so every drop is precious!

But, it is also so precious to see the smile on this munchkins face when she is having fun playing in it.

Isn't it the neatest thing to see when children learn something, or see something for the first time and get so excited about it? I love it! I love watching Emmry enjoy the simplest things in life.

Oct. 14
Daddy/Daughter
I went out for a girls night tonight and came home to this....

.....my heart melted.

Oct. 15
Dust Devils
Today was Tages first football game! This is his 5th season of tackle football and I think that this is going to be the BEST season he has ever had!
He has been 'playing up' in division every season so far (meaning because of his weight he could play with the 'older' kids even though they allowed his age too...weird rules and difficult to explain, so I just won't).
Well, this season he is the oldest and biggest in his division. That means he ROCKS! Today he made 3 touchdowns and scored for an extra point after one touchdown! He is dominating the field, knocks the other teams players to their butts and runs lightning fast. HE IS DOING AWESOME!

This is going to be a good season...I can just feel it!
Good job and good luck Tager!
We are so proud of you and love you so much!
xoxoxoxox,
Mom and Dad

Oct. 17
Stand Up
Today Emmry went from her bum to her feet without holding onto anything! Once she stood up all the way, it only lasted a second then she was back to her toosh, but she did it! She cruises along furniture and pulls herself to anything all the time, but standing up alone.....today was her first!