Happy Halloween

Evan was able to spend a couple of days at home with us this week and we LOVED every second of it ( well almost, we did have to cut up his deer .... gross ). The kids thought it was great to have the deer hanging in our garage. Addie would walk out and look at the deer and then come in and ask, "how is the deer doing? " Sander, who wants to be just like his dad, would go out and touch the meat and say it was doing good. We finally had some time on Saturday to cut it up. Since there was a massive rain storm right as we were heading out the door to go trick or treating, the kids gathered around and made some burger until the storm passed. They thought it was the greatest thing ever! We had Addie all ready to be a princess and then she saw the caterpillar outfit and she was sold. She has been carrying her "green thing" around all week. She has loved every second of wearing it. Hannah liked it too! She would sit by Addie and the next moment she would have an antenna in her mouth sucking on it.

Hannah was tiger. She spent her holiday with a cold, but she was able to pull out a smile for some pictures.

Gracie, my beauty queen! She kept telling people she was a musketeer, saving the king! She was so excited to put on her dress and make up...then she learned the sad truth about putting on make up, sometimes it isn't any fun. Her eyelashes are so long they would curl up and touch her eyelids and that made her really upset. The tears turned on and the makeup started to run down her cheeks. Sad girl! We were able to get her cleaned up and teach her the proper way to cry with make up on.

My kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE How to Train Your Dragon. Sander was so excited to be Hiccup. I think he has worn these clothes for three days straight! Thanks to my awesome neighbors who helped put this one together! Sander has been cracking me up. We were at a party and a little girl was dressed as Astrid, and she came up to say hi to Sander. I said " Sander look it is Astrid" and he immediately blushed and ran to my side. Later, after he had been trick or treating, he came to me and said, " mom I passed my girlfriend three different times!" He is taking this Hiccup/Astrid thing very seriously.

We got done trick or treating and went home to warm up our hands and feet and then took the kids to get some pizza. They were so tired they feel asleep on the way there. We got to pizza and brought it home and put the kids in bed. ( They enjoyed their pizza this afternoon.) It was a great Halloween!

Some days are just dead fly days...

This morning I got home from the gym and headed straight for my water bottle. Later as I was cleaning up the kitchen I noticed there was a dead fly floating in my water bottle. My first thought was, SIIIIICK a dead fly in my water bottle! Then I thought, did I DRINK that water while the fly was in my water bottle? Finally I thought about my seventh grade health class when I was introduced to the P and P factor ( yep, poop and puke ) which is apparently what flies do every 5 seconds. My thoughts then returned to SICK!!! That pretty much set up my day for me.

The other day, while I was taking out my contact it tore in half. I got part of it out, but the other part was stuck in there. I mean really stuck! I had a friend come over to see if she could get it out. I tried flushing it out with a water bottle, not the one mentioned above. Nothing worked. It was in there over the weekend. Well, it finally came out, but I needed to have the eye doctor make sure I got all of it out and check my eye for scratches. So I headed to the doctor who made sure my eye was okay, and I got a cute new pair of glasses out of the visit. You can't really complain about that.

Then I thought it would be a neat family homely to take my kids to the moving wall, which is a replica of the veterans memorial in D.C. We gathered the kiddos and talked about the war and how so many people have died so we could enjoy the freedoms we have today. The kids were all prepped and ready to go. When we got there at 7, we found out they took it down at 4! Yup, my mind returned to the dead fly in my water bottle and what a day it had been. It did turn out okay since our cemetery has a memorial set up for veterans from this area. I think the kids got the message we were trying to portray. Then we spent time walking through the cemetery and talking about the lives of people who have passed away. It was a nice evening. So the day did have some "dead fly" moments, but in the end it all turned out okay.

Grandparents Day

Sander is loving the life of a pre-schooler. They just had Grandparents Day, so Grandma and Grandpa Gee and Grandma Shirley came down for a visit. They had a little program, played games, and did a letter exchange. They ended the fun with some treats. Thanks for coming all this way just to spend an hour at school with my little guy!

It was fun to see how excited Sander was to have some time with Grandpa! They played wii, went on bike rides, went to the park, and watched movies. I can't say I minded having the company here either! While walking through the store with my mom and grandma, a man stopped us and said we needed to get a generation picture, because we all had the same face.
(too bad I still can't get my pictures so download) He later brought his daughter over to us to show her all of us together. I figure if I can be anything like my mom and grandma, I am in good company.

Triathlon or Bust

My friend told me about a little triathlon that our stake was putting on the other day. They wanted it to be a family friendly thing, so they dropped the distance on all the events. I have always thought it would be fun(ish) to do a triathlon, but too intimidated to ever do one. I had one days notice - so no time to get really nervous and change my mind- so I called up some friends ( be grateful you were sick Kate) and we decided to give it a go.

So Anna, you wonderful girl, and I went over to the community pool early this morning to see if we really wanted to sign up. After looking at the routs we decided to try, and if we dropped out no one had to know. Everyone was really nice and it was super low key. We all laughed about how we didn't know how to swim, although I think I was the only one who really didn't have any technique which was made know to me when Gracie yelled out " start swimming for reals now Mom!" I survived the swim and jumped on my bike. It was all peachy until we hit the head wind for the last 4 miles. My bike kept popping out of the easy gear, so I got a little added exercise. I kept pushing on encouraged by my family who drove by to cheer me on. Once I hit the running, I thought I was done for, but my goal was to not walk so I kept on running about as fast as other people were walking. ( sheesh, I was tired) I hit the last part of the run and realized I couldn't hear my cheering section. I guess I was going a little faster than I thought because Evan hadn't even made it to the finish line, because he thought it would be a while before I made it there. Oh well, I finished and actually had a good time. I think I will do more in the future....although I may change my mind tomorrow.

Where has the summer gone?

I am having problems getting my pictures to download, which is really too bad because we have sooo many fun pictures. Our summer has been filled with trips to Idaho ( to welcome home my mom and dad from their three year mission ), trips to St. George to visit Evan, late night out-door movies, cook outs, mud days, craft days, kids parades, swim days, lemondae stands, bike rides, birthdays, t-ball games, cooking classes,working in the garden, and lots of downtime just hanging out with family and friends.

Now we are back in school which I thought would mean less to do, but now I find myself running from school to pre-school to soccer games to PTA meetings to play dates. And I have to fit in the gym, naps, meals that will pass as real meals, feeding the baby and keeping the house clean. So I guess we just went from busy to busy with a needed 9-11 hours of sleep for the kids ( with a no sleeping in option!! ).

Things have been hoppin' which is how I love it! I love fall, and I think we are almost there ... do you ever really get fall in Utah or is it always HOT? The kids are excited to get Evan back, and lets be honest ... so am I! Hopefully I will be able to get my camera working to get some pictures of all the fun on here!

I am a Child of God- A Cappella

For any of you who like the soundtrack to "The Mission", the A Cappella group "Inside Out" has combined I am a Child of God with Gabriels Oboe. It is BEAUTIFUL!!

www.last.fm/music/InsideOut/_/I+Am+a+Child+of+God

Since Hannah

We are a little behind on what has been going on here, but since we had Hannah, things haven't slowed down one bit. This was the happy ending to our Valentine's Day. We love having such a sweet baby in our home. It hasn't made the older kids calm down any, but they are a little more loving, not always in the softest way, with their baby sister and with each other. The kids had a great Valentine's Day running around following clues that led to their valentines, eating chocolate, and loving each other!! In fact, we lost Addie for a minute and when I found her, she was hiding in a corner with three boxes of chocolate on the ground. When I looked at her, she got a really big smile on her chocolate covered face. ( I wish I would of thought to get the camera, but we had some apologies to make to Gracie and Sander for eating their chocolates. )

We were grateful to see smiles since the night before, Sander and Gracie were playing around, and showing off for their cousin Chris and his wife Taylor, when Sander face planted it on our concrete floor. There were tears all around and one REALLY fat lip. Poor boy, woke up in the night and started crying because his "lips weren't working right."

That happened after they had been having so much fun doing this! They love to pose for the camera. How long do you think that will last ? :)

We were also able to help some of our friends put out fliers asking for donations to put together kits for the people in Haiti. There were so many people who donated that the kids were able to put together 200 kits!! Later we took the kids to the Humanitarian Aid Center and took a tour. At the end, the kids were able to give the kits they had made. It was a really neat experience for our families to see how willing others where to help those who have been suffering.

Hannah Jo

Here she is! Hannah Jo Grover. She was born on Thursday the 21st. 8lbs.7 oz.- 21 in. -We finally got a redhead!