For halloween this year my kids each decided what they wanted to be, lets see if you can figure it out from the pictures, only one may be tricky. I'll post the answers at the end. We celebrated halloween this year on Saturday. Riley had a basketball game in the morning so after lunch we did a party at home for the rest of the day. I gutted some pumpkins and let the kids carve away. I think they really enjoyed getting to use the little knives all by themselves. Then they played some games, mummy wrapping, relay races with balancing eyeballs and spider crawls. They stuffed popcorn hands. Then I spent some of the day getting ready for our spooky dinner we had after trick or treating. It was complete with mummies and blood, ghost boogers, vampire teeth, eyeballs, blood worms, bones and witches brew(except my dry ice disappeared in the freezer) so it wasn't quite as spooky as I wanted. But they all still loved it. Mason was expecially freaked out by the blood and worms. hahaha Riley-Vampire Nixon- Vampire Mason- Carrot Kate- Bunny
We went to Lake Powell this past summer for the 4th of July. That still is one of the best vacation spots on the face of the earth, even with all my children there. It was a quick trip full of adventure as always. On our way down we had to stop to change our tire on the side of the road. We had our own little firework show on the 4th with everyone. We got to do sparklers too and only ended up with a few burns on our feet. The girls threw Laura a surprise baby shower. We played some funny games, she got lots of cute gifts and we helped accessorize some onesies for her too. It was fun having the boat to ourselves(the girls). We loved going on jet ski rides and of course lots of swimming and playing on the beach. Mark caught a few big fish nothing for dinner though. Riley got to really work a lot on his swimming and now does well without a life jacket. On our last night there the boys caught and killed a rattle snake. It was a little freaky cause even when they had the tail and head in separate bags the snake still tried to attack the bag. It's always fun making new memories in Lake Powell.
We did a lot of fun little things this summer that made it great! We had BBQ's with friends, made fires in the backyard in our fire pit, went camping, did swimming lessons, attending local baseball games, playing Tball and baseball, going to the local dirt bike track, swimming at the hot springs, going to water parks with friends and swimming lessons. Even the simple things were great like having picnics in the front yard and riding bikes with our neighbors. One saturday we loaded everyone up, even ruca and went to blacktail for some boating, fishing, swimming and lunch! Mark got his motorcycle license this summer and got to go on a road trip with friends and then the whole family got to go on a ride. That was a lot of fun!! It was a great summer that we really just tried to enjoy together.
On my way home from Arizona I took the kids to Vegas to see our cousins that were there for the summer. Mark was done with the campaign and we were pretty much done selling five-0 so he hopped on a plane and joined us in Vegas for the weekend and to help me drive back home. We stayed in the castle hotel(the Excalibur), the kids loved that. We played in their arcade one night and the boys went on a 3-d sponge bob ride. We met up with Chad and Alexis for lunch and then we all went back to our hotel for some swimming. The kids really loved the water slide. Mason even got brave enough to go down by himself. Then we went and got ice cream and our cousins headed back home. The next day we walked the strip with the kids. We went to the M&M store, saw the lions at the MGM Grand(huge hit), we ate lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe. That was really cool to do with the kids, except Kate was terrified of the Elephant and would get really upset whenever it would start making noises. And last we went and saw the Bellagio water fountains, the kids were absolutely blown away by it and wanted to just stay and watch that all night. The kids were so tired of walking by the end of this trip. The next morning Nixon said his feet hurt so bad and he wouldn't even walk anywhere. He crawled everywhere in the hotel room. I felt like a horrible mom. But I rubbed them that night and the next day he was fine. Grandpa Doyle and grandma Elizabeth and grandpa Wayne and grandma Roxie flew in on Saturday night cause Sunday was Alexis's birthday. So we all had breakfast at the hotel together and then we headed home. It was a great family vacation before Mark started his new job.
I took the kids out of school 2 weeks early and we headed to Arizona, for warmer weather and to see family. Kate got to meet her great grandma for the first time and all my kids got to meet their great uncle Brett, who I hadn't seen in about 12 years. It was such a fun trip I don't even know where to begin. We did so much and got to see so many people. We are truly blessed to have such great family and friends in Arizona to visit!!! So I'm offering fair warning there will be lots of pictures to follow...The above picture is my kids 4 hours into the 16 hour drive to Arizona. We owe a huge thanks to grandma for flying to Salt Lake to help me drive to AZ. It deffinetly made the trip more enjoyable for all.
All of the swimming began at 9pm the night we got to grandma's and grandpas. And continued everyday. Most days you could find us in the pool for at least 5 hours a day. We were soaking up the sun and water.
It was even a special treat for me, I got to see 2 of my very best friends. I love those girls and their kids are sooo cute!!!
We even had time to sneak in a few extra pics before church. How cute!!
Here's our family photo shoot we had. Everyone was there except Mark, we missed you. The siblings are all growing up and we are getting to be quite the group.
The boys hanging out with their uncles while the ladies got their pedicures.
Jessica, Kate and Me. She was gearing up to have my boys for a sleepover. She's awesome and the kids had a blast, thanks guys. The whole time we were in AZ, Kate had a thing for the dog beds and and loved to play and lay in them. They were just her size. This was a common site around the house Brett and Mason walking around in shorts and no shirts. Peas in a pod.
And more popsicles, Idahoans trying to stay cool.
Jess and Kate, I was shocked she just cuddled right up to her.
More pictures from swimming at Chase's. We ate yummy mexican food with the missionaries and then we did the slip and slide and swam in their pool. Mason is so not a water guy and kept Uncle Joe company with his phone. While we were eating Mason had to go poop. He yelled for me to come wipe his bum and he had locked the door. Well Chase didn't have a key and Mason refused to get off the toliet to unlock it, he said he was going to get poop everywhere. It took three different people to try and when we finally got in there to wipe his bum there was one piece of poop the size of a dime. So much for the fact he couldn't get up or he would get poop all over the place.Ice cream and popsicles were a must at grandma and grandpa's. Grandpa spoiled us and bought us 80 ice cream sandwhiches, a big box of otter pops and a bag of popsicles all to eat while we were there. And I must say I don't think we left much behind for them to enjoy.
Here is a sweet picture of great grandma Farnsworth and Kate I just couldn't pass up. So sweet.Here is what we looked like walking through downtown Pheonix in 100 degree weather. (and yes all 4 kids are in the stoller.)
They loved riding the light rail and thought it was one of the coolest things we did.Me and the kids got to go see Kaley's classroom. This was her final year teaching so she was there packing up stuff and she let the kids come eat lunch and play on her smart board. Nixon and Mason thought it was really cool to eat lunch at school and Riley enjoyed sitting up front and getting to be like a teacher.
Chase and Kaley had us all over for dinner on Monday night. We ate mexican food and had the missionaries join us. Then we went outside for some slip'n'slide fun. The adults even got into it and had a contest who could go the furtherest. And if I remember correctly my little big brother beat us all by a mile. The kids loved the slip'n'slide too. Then we headed over to there pool. Chase, Riley and Nixon all had cannon ball contests. I would have to say the pool was quite a bit lower when we left. We all squeezed into the hot tub to play dribble, dribble, drench. The kids loved dumping cups full of water on our heads. Once we were all water logged enough we headed back to the house for some homemade ice cream sandwhiches. Yummy!! Thanks again to Chase and Kaley, we had a great time!!
For a special treat Grandma let us get out all of her fun doctor stuff and play. The kids were loved checking all of our reflexes and thought that was pretty funny. I actually thought it was pretty interesting to see each of my kids' ears. But I think the favorite was giving the grapefruit its shots. We took the kids to a couple of museums. The first was Falcon Field Air Museum. They had lots of really cool old air planes, helicopters, missles and lots of other military stuff. The favorite by far was the little yellow air plane they were able to pedal all around. The other museum we went to was the Phoenix Children' s Museum. There was so many amazing things that actually seemed pretty cheap to create and the kids absolutely loved it. Some of our favorites things in the museum were, noodle forest, the race car track, the car wash, the huge play gym and the grocery store. Although I think they probably enjoyed the light rail we took down town almost as much as the museum.
I got to see my cousins(who are actually the same age as my kids) But it was a lot of fun seeing family, eating and swimming.
We went to the blue wave and got ice cream. The kids thought it was fun because you picked your ice cream, then put on your toppings and weighed it to find out how much you had to pay for it.
The girls got to spend an evening(boy free) getting pedicures. Thanks to mom and Jessica for setting it all up and hosting it. This is a before picture of our toes...
