More Crafting...

Ciera and Kaylee working on a korker pom pom in their HMS school colors :) This has been a fun project to work on....except now the girls are always wanting to bake more korker ribbons...again...how many of these can a family of 4 girls have? Too many :P

Wall...

Yes, a huge, expensive wall. I think it will make a good sledding run in the winter time...for now the kids like to tramp through it, hopefully we can get grass on it before it sprouts weeds. And I am GLAD to be almost done with the "developer" in our area. We had quite the run in a few days ago. He is always putting his nose into the middle of our business, and I have been very respectful and listened to his drivlelings, but he was all upset the other day because I was "making this more difficult than it needs to be" and we shouldn't be "putting him in the middle of these decisions" blah blah blah....Anyhow...bleck!!

Chili...(again from Allison's blog...)

Mostly the words of Allison, with some additions by me :)

"One night as I sat at the computer by the back door and sensing movement outside the glass door I looked to see a little Chihuahua staring back at me through the window! I went outside and he backed up, very scared! He was skin and bones and frightened to death! I thought he'd just made his way under our fence and needed back out to find his way home, but inside I sort of knew he had no home.

Sure enough, the next morning Mom and Dad found him in the back yard again and noticing that he was so skinny, fed him! When the kids got home from school they all fell in love with the tiny, spunky little guy! Needless to say, more than a month later he's still with us!"

"Aly was really quite accepting from the beginning. She was a little jealous, but we constantly gave her love and attention, too, she never acted out. Now that Chili is feeling quite at home, his "puppy ways" are in full swing and he's constantly trying to get her to chase him....nipping at her face and ears until she'll snarl back or go racing after him! It's sort of cute to watch!"

Tanner getting to know Chili.

"Kaylee LOVES Chili and hopes with all her heart he becomes hers someday!"

"The boys immediately named him Chili the Chihuahua and although we still don't really want to keep him, Dad has adopted him and so he's still here! He's been to the vet and was declared a 4 month old, full-bred Chihuahua, got his shots and even got neutered! He seems to be here to stay....unless the girl cousins can convince their Daddy to let THEM have him! {fingers crossed!}"

The girls love to go and get Chili, or my dad brings him over, and just "hang out." He is a good little puppy.

Ensign Ranch - (Majority is from Allison's blog...)

We had wanted to start a tradition of going up to Ensign Ranch as a family for memorial day weekend, but when we went to book the lodge for this year, it was already taken! We decided to go the weekend before Memorial Day weekend instead! And since we didn't have all the family able to come along, we invited some friends to join us this year. It turned out to be a super fun trip!

All together there was us, Aaron & Alliosn, and three other friend families....the Hancocks, the Andersons and the Huffs. Most of us made it up there by Friday afternoon...we prepped dinner and had a fun game of kick-ball.

Saturday we got up and enjoyed a nice big, hot pancake and sausage breakfast! Yum! Then some people headed out for a walk and to check out whether we could ride horses this year! Check out this scenery!!!

It was drizzly and sort of cold, but where there are horses, you'll find several of these kids....The older ones got to go on a trail ride, (We had a few weepy faces since some of them didn't meet either the height or weight requirements.) Those that couldn't go on the trail, got to go on parent led horse rides, (Or more like Hancock led), but only 3 could go out at a time, so there was some waiting involved. The first glimpse of the horses!

We decided to feed and pet the "non-riding-horses" in the other corral while we waited.

By the time everyone got their rides in...it had begun raining and we were freezing! We headed back to warm up at the Lodge and enjoyed sandwiches, fruit and chips for lunch, then just kicked back and hung out all afternoon together!

This is what the kids did the majority of the time. FOUR SQUARE!!

This picture was actually taken the next morning when we were cleaning up, but it shows the huge great room where we spent all our time. The kids played pool, shuffle board and four-square all day here!

That night we had burgers and hot dogs for dinner...

Again, more pictures of the facility...the kitchen is AWESOME for big groups!

And one more just cuz Janelle posed so cute!

Check out Janelle's cute baby, Jane!

Then the kids watched a movie while the adults cleaned up and hung out, and we ended the night roasting s'mores outside in the fire pit! I love s'more pictures!

Someone brought those awesome HUGE marshmellows!

It was super smokey 'cuz the rain was still drizzling!

After that we cleaned up the sticky mess and got the kids into sleeping bags and eventually asleep!

The adults stayed up gabbing the night away and playing games! Really fun times!

The next morning we got up, cleaned up the lodge and headed home....

So much fun!! Can't wait until next year!!

cousins...

A photo during Kassi's soccer game and what the boys occupied themselves with...you can tell they really love each other :)

Fishing after the games was quite the experience. I don't think Mike will do this again without more adults. He was constantly being asked to help cast lines, untangle lines, reel in lines, get guck off of hooks, and once--to help get a fish!! Mikenna was asking for help as she was trying to reel in her line. We thought she had once again caught a ball of green stuff, I asked Tanner to help her out, and what do you know!! It was actually a fish!!

Sunday they worked on a welcome home sign for Aaron and Allison...a pic of Mike's scout group that he is in charge of and a random donut.

May times...

Girls having fun at their friends :) We don't usually get an opportunity to play with these types of toys.

Spent an afternoon cleaning out under the stairs...aka the toy, game, and book closet....

And then photos of the side of the house where we have to put up an expensive retaining wall, which our neighborhood developer is making us do...

Last of April...

A park in Creekstone that the kids love to hang out at. We biked over here one Sunday afternoon. Not sure why, but the spinning toys are the popular attractions here...

Kaylee had a science project this year...it was on sunlight and plant growth. The majority of the "growing period" was while we were in UT. Fortunately, Allison helped us out by caring for and photographing the plants. The night of the science fair, the school also had a school wide science night. (wordy sentence). Julia, are you loving Kassi's outfit :)

Here are photos from Kiera's soccer game. She is getting a bit more aggressive and actually gets a chance to make contact with the ball.

Oh, and below, I forgot to add this photo to the Easter ones...here, Mike is having the kids help put candies into the eggs that will be hunted for :)