Kaylee's Preschool

Today was Kaylee's first day of preschool and she loved it!! Here she is walking out the door.


I told her to give me a thumbs up and this is as good as she could do with the sun shining in her eyes.

Here are the kids in her little class:
Kaylee, Senica, Morgon and Kyson

I went running while she was gone, came home and showered (it was really weird it was so quiet) the to the store. She is excited to go again tomorrow.

Yesterday was quite a productive day - there is nothing like reaping rewards from your hard work. Our shelves were getting filled with empty jars. It's nice to have something to fill them up.



At the end of the night I had:
36 pints of chicken
10 pints of salsa
6 quarts of grape juice (Bruce picked and juiced these)
35 pints of pickles
6 quarts of green beans
3 quarts of pinto beans

I'm VERY thankful for a garden this year that has produced quite well.

Sisters Time!!

This past weekend was one of the times I look forward to every year - Our Sisters Party! LeAnne came from Oregon and surprised Garth and brought him with her. The girls and Darren were going on a Daddy/Daughter campout so LeAnne brought him. He didn't know until they were about sitting on the airplane that he was going too. He just thought he was going with his dad to drop his mom off. It was a good surprise and of course Dustin was thrilled! Dustin and I met the others at Horton Creek so we could go hiking. We hiked up to where we camped before with our family. We put our feet in the water and ate trailmix. Before the hike LeAnne pulled out a bag with a note on it. The note said "To make a perfect mix there should always be a few nuts, a little fruit, and some great FLAKES. In the bag was some almonds with crasins and we were the Flakes to add to the perfect mix. It was really cute. It was fun having the boys with us for this.





That night Bruce and the kids spent at Twila's so we came back here and slept. We did a little of this:




and some of this:

Friday we went to Showlow for lunch and shopping. We went to Grumpy Jakes and got their delicious Killer Tater. YUMMY!

Friday night we stayed at Twila's house while they were gone to Scottsdale. Bruce stopped by for a short visit to pick up his pillow.


We played cards

I told LeAnne and Kelli to show me some action for this picture and this is as good as it got.

We played air hockey

and LeAnne was the winner. (I think it's because she is the only one that has an air hockey table at home.)

Saturday morning it ended. Kelli and Holli headed for home and their families. LeAnne stayed here and that evening we all went to Snowflake so she could see the brothers before going home. We went to Rex's and had hamburgers. The kids had a blast like always. Sunday Kaylee and I took LeAnne and Garth down to Mesa. We ate dinner with the Ridings then went to Grandma Nena's house for the night.
Kaylee with Grandma Nena

Since Kaylee and Garth were the only 2 kids they paled up - or at least Kaylee loved Garth. LeAnne and I got back to Grandma's house and this is how we found them. Garth was watching the science channel.

It was a fun weekend and I look forward to next year. It was pretty funny because 2 different times Kaylee asked me why mine and LeAnne's faces looked the same. She kept looking at both of us. Another time she told me the only thing different between me and LeAnne were our clothes. I guess Kaylee thinks we look the most alike out of the other sisters.

It seems like the last few years LeAnne has brought something great and homemade for the rest of us. This year she had made each of us a necklace and matching earrings. They were really pretty.

Again Already??

We haven't had any broken bones in our family until last April when Dustin broke his finger. Well....last week he was riding Bridget's bike trying to to some tricks and fell off and yep, a broken arm. He just got back going good on the piano from his broken finger and just started playing the violia at school. I guess in orchestra he is now the drums and triangle player because he can do that with one hand. He is having a fun time learnig how to do everything left handed. So this is Dustin for the next 6 weeks!

Dallas and Jill

I have been waiting for some pictures of these two....August 5th these 2 little love birds (my niece Jill and Bruce's cousin Dallas) got married in the Mesa Temple. Everything was great and it was a neat day.


We are so happy for you two - they are so stinkin cute!

Green Beans

I went to Showlow yesterday with Bruce to take some letters to the PO over there. I left with the assignment for the kids to pick stuff out of the garden and hang clothes on the line. Well we got home to this:



They minded very well (yeah) and were snapping green beans. They had it set up to their liking!

Back 2 School Party

We decided it would be fun for Bridget and Dustin to have a Back to School Party. There are so many good kids around to have fun with. Bridget invited a few of her 6th grade friends and Dustin invited a few of his 5th grade friends. We told the other kids they had to be in Capps to invite friends. We had it last Friday night. It consisted of:
Bubble Blowing Contest....

......and the winner is Rebekah!

Food


and lots of playing outside. The kids played outside games and had tons of fun.


Jumping on the tramp

Capture the flag

Kick the Can

And Ghost in the Graveyard.

We told the kids we would see how this went if we did it again. It was great and all the kids had fun. It looks like it will have to be a tradition!

Home Sweet Home

Here are some pictures Bruce took the other morning....

1st Day of School

Like many others today was the first day of school. Here are pictures from this morning:
Kaylee 4 - She is starting a little preschool on the 31st that she is very excited about.

Tylinn - 1st Grade - Mrs. Honsinger

Rhett -3rd Grade- Mrs. Cronin again (she moved from 2nd up to 3rd grade)

Dustin-5th Grade-Mrs. B

Bridget -6th Grade- Mr. Starks (First time one of our kids have had a man teacher)

The gang - sure love these kids!

Who knew .........

......we were so good lookin??? My friend from HS just put these on our blog so I had to put them on mine. I didn't realize fashions have changed so much - I guess it has been 14 years. Fun times & great memories. I'll have to find some more of my pictures.

Rhett is 9

Yesterday was Rhett's 9th birthday. It didn't seem very eventful but he was very pleased with it. He was the boy for the day so it made him feel special. Bruce and I took him to lunch of his choice. He decided to go to a new Mexican food place in town. He enjoyed that much - as all our kids do for their birthday dinner. Then it was back to the house for presents. As you can see from this picture he was shocked to get his own DS.

He wanted to go to Mark and Twila's house to fish and have dinner. The kids did a little fishing then we ate hotdogs. Rhett decided he would rather have some kind of yummy cake for his birthday instead of a plain cake decorated neat so here he is blowing out his candles on his cherry cheese cake.



After cake we played a little basketball and rode bikes.

We are SO thankful to have Rhett in our home. He is a good boy that is trying to do what is right (most of the time). The thing I love most about Rhett is his laugh. If you haven't heard it tickle him next time you see him and get it out of him. Happy Birthday Rhett Man!

Backpacking up Horton Creek

This past Friday and Saturday we did our family backpacking trip up Horton Creek. It was a blast. I've already been racking my brain trying to figure out when we can go again. Tylinn and Kaylee were troopers - I guess all the kids were but I was the most worried about them. They had on these little packs with their clothes so the rest of us got to make up for their own stuff they weren't carrying. Tylinn and Kaylee hiked the 2 miles up and the 2 miles down like this a lot of the time singing. They didn't even stop for a break. Some of the things Kaylee was saying on the way up were cracking me up. On the sign at the start of the trail head there was a picture of Smokey the bear on it. She was so sure we were going to find Smokey on our trip. We saw big foot prints ahead of us in the mud and she was sure that was Smokey's. I kept telling her she was doing good and she would say "I know I'm a pro". I didn't even know she knew what a Pro meant.

The other kids trudging along. It was time to leave our house and it started pouring rain. We waited a little bit and decided who knows what the weather would be like 35 minutes from here. We got there and it was still coming down pretty good so we went to the fish hatchery that was right there. After we left there and went back to the trail head it was just finishing up.

So by the time we got to camp the ground was all wet but none of our beds or clothes or anything was. Here are the kids setting up their tent.

This is our dinner. I wanted to make sure and put down what we ate. Before hand I warned the kids that this camping food wasn't going to be like normal yummy camping food that you eat different when you backpack in. They ended up thinking it was pretty good food. This for dinner Friday night was boil in a bag instant rice with Tyson chicken. It was really good. That night we had pudding for a treat. The next morning it was instant oatmeal packets and lunch was bagel PJ sandwiches. Oh ya and hot chocolate night and morning.

Friday evening the kids got to play in the creek a little bit but Saturday is when we hiked up the water. It is so gorgeous up there. We would see a cool waterfall and think it was the best ever and walk up a little farther in the water and see something else way cool. We finally told the kids we couldn't go any farther because we had to go all the way back and it takes a while walking in the rocky water. These next few pictures are just fun ones we took along the way - SO PRETTY!!


Bruce and the kids were getting perched on this rock for a picture then Bruce discovered this HUGE spider. They are trying to get rid of it so they can proceed.

Got rid of the spider and every body's happy!

Bridget owning the world!

The one family picture we could get.

Do it Dustin!!

Tylinn was funny - she asked if we could take a picture of her like this then after we did she asked if I would put it on my blog for her so here it is Tylinn! What a cutie!

We were trying to see who was bravest by laying down in the cold water.

Bridget getting a taste!

Pure beauty!