A Taste of Winter

This picture is taken from our front yard on October 12th. It has been unbelievably cold here, a rough weather transition for us who still try to wear flip-flops and shorts! I'm feeling the panic to buy winter clothes for all of us!

It maybe got to a balmly 40 degress, but Mackenzie was determined to go play in the snow. She thought it was great fun to make the snowman with Uncle Vern. She kept going up to it and patting it, and then eating the snow off his belly!

And He's Off!

Here is Collin in action. He started walking on Sept. 3rd, 2008 at 9 months and 1 week old. I'm a little late in posting this. He is now 10 1/2 months and can now get around quite well on his feet. He prefers walking over crawling. He loves to try to grab onto Mackenzie and walk for stability. The only problem is that she freaks out and starts crying and trying to run away, but he holds on for dear life, sometimes even getting drug around by her.

Wildlife

One of our favorite things to do is go for rides in the mountains to spot wildlife and just enjoy some fresh mountain air. We got so lucky when coming off the mountain the other day when I spotted these elk.

Two calf elk about 100 yards off the road up the hill.

And here is their mother not too far away, watching us very closely.

Then around the bend I spotted this nice 6-point bull elk. I wish I could have got some better shots of him. This is a rare site, especially from the road!

When we drove back into town, we decided to drive through 'The Grove' among the homes that are at the mouth of the canyon to see if we could spot the deer that have made a home in peoples' yards.

Yes, this lady walked right out her back door into her yard among the deer and they all turned and followed her to the shed. We think she feeds them treats!

Wild turkeys in the Grove.

What happened to Fall???

We both love the seasons. That was one thing we really missed while in Florida. It has been so nice here, temperatures remaining in the 70's and 80's everyday and I was thinking that this was a great transition from Florida and fall was really nice. Well it actually has been warmer than normal. So Saturday morning, it all the sudden hit us. It was 50 degrees for the high in Cedar! Mackenzie kept saying, 'Oooh, freezin' when she'd try to walk outside. We went for a ride up in the Beaver mountains and this is what it was like...winter!

I love it when it snows. I think it looks so magical. It was so neat and exciting to see (although cold :)). I made Tyson drive me up on Big Flat at 10,000 ft to see what it was like and get some pictures. Mackenzie kept wanting to get out in the snow. She loved it, but her teeth started chattering and she kept saying 'freezin'.

'What is that stuff falling from the sky???'

Fall in the Mountains

I finally bought a new camera and was so anxious to go up to the mountains and get some beautiful fall pictures. Unfortunately I wasn't so successful (I need camera classes now!), but I did get some cute pictures of the kids up at a park in Cedar Canyon.

Our Last Night in Florida

Although this happened nearly 4 months ago, it is a story worth telling and also worth reading. I figured I'd blog about it so that I could remember it well, and also have nightmares tonight!

It was June 1st, 2008. It was our last night to sleep in our townhome in Florida before making the big move to Utah. We finally got the kids both to bed. Mackenzie was asleep in her empty room on nothing but her mattress on the floor. Collin was asleep in his crib in our room. We had spent the entire day packing and getting everything ready for the moving truck that was coming the next morning. Tyson and I spent the night downstairs taking apart furniture, packing up the rest of the kitchen and all the odd and end stuff. We still had so much work to do and boxes were piled everywhere.

Around 10:30 pm I realized I was out of soy milk for Mackenzie (which is not a good thing), so I ran to Publix quickly. When I got back we continued to pack until 1 a.m. when we were finally so exhausted. I set the alarm for 6:00 a.m. to get back up and continue packing, thinking to myself that we were going to be so exhausted on only 5 hours sleep and trying to do such heavy labor with moving. Well off to bed.

Just after 4 a.m. I suddenly awoke to see the sillohuette of a person standing just inside our bedroom near the foot of the bed. Of course, I (Stephanie) was sleeping closest to the door. I instantly starting screaming and flung my arm to the side hitting Tyson to wake up. I kept screaming there's someone in the bedroom. Tyson bats my hand back away and rolls over and tells me I'm having a bad dream and to go back to bed, never once opening his eyes (he's used to me waking up in a panic from having bad dreams I guess). I keep screaming there's someone in the bedroom, and he wakes up. When he does, the lady flips on the bedroom light! Tyson instantly sat up in bed and just starting screaming at her to 'Get out of our house!' several times. All of this happened in seconds of course.

It was a lady in her 70's probably, long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail with it falling out. She had on a white cami with white bottoms. She was as startled as we were and started scrambling for the door, but was looking like she was having trouble walking.

Tyson, while screaming to get out, jumped out of bed and ran to her to get her out as fast as possible and find out how she got in. He kept asking her how she got in, but she didn't seem to quite understand. Finally, I said that I probably left the door unlocked when I went to Publix and came back home through the garage (oops!). So, he told me explicitly to go check on Mackenzie and then he helped the poor lady outside and down the steps and found a neighbor that thought she knew where she lived and would take her home.

Meanwhile, I thought 'Why am I going to check on Mackenzie? She's not crying, so I don't want to go in and wake her'. So I decided to walk downstairs through the rest of the house, in the dark, amidst piles of boxes and furniture out of place. I scared myself to death stumbling over things and looking in the garage etc. Then it dawned on me! CHECK ON MACKENZIE! What if it was a set-up and she was already gone. I've never ran and panicked so fast in my life. I ran to her room and swung the door open to find her half laying on her mattress and half on the floor, fast asleep. I was so thankful, but in tears by then. I couldn't believe I was so stupid to not immediately check on her at first. I got so worked up about the whole incident that by the time Tyson walked back in the house, he found me in pieces. Even though everything was ok, it was the worst feeling ever!

Well, we climbed back in bed with our hearts still beating out of chest, asking ourselves what just happened. It was so hard to believe. Tyson said it was his worst nightmare come true, waking up to someone standing in your bedroom. Well, we finally fell back asleep at 5:30 a.m., just to get up to the alarm at 6 a.m. The next day we kept asking ourselves if it really happened or if it was just a dream. It is still so hard to believe it happened, and it will probably haunt us the rest of our lives! Good thing it all turned out ok.

The Iron County Fair

We went to the last day of the Iron County Fair for Mackenzie to see all the animals since she LOVES animals. We weren't able to find the animal exhibits (I think they all went home), but did find the petting zoo which worked just the same for her. She got to pet some sheep and goats and horses, but had an allergic reaction to them as well! So we went over to the rides and she went on the longest merry-go-round ride ever! She enjoyed every minute of it!

Happy Birthday Mackenzie!

It's hard to believe, but Mackenzie is already 2 years old! Our little baby girl is really growing up quick. It is kind of sad for us to see her grow up, but so much fun at the same time to have her be a toddler. Mackenzie has changed so much in the last couple of months since we left Florida. She finally grew some hair, she's potty trained (yeah!), she talks in sentences, sings a lot of songs, plays with Collin, has almost grown out of her allergies, and she sleeps in our bed now (ok - not everything is positive!).
Mackenzie turned 2 last week and we had a big birthday party for her at Grandma Black's with 14 of her cousins, and also her aunts and uncles. She is in LOVE with horses and gets so excited
when she sees them, even in a book, so we did a few horse things for the party.

Mackenzie's ready for her party!

We decided to have a pinata for all the kids. After looking around town and not finding any cute ones, Tyson decided he could make her a horse. I thought he was crazy but he pulled it off. He made the shape out of cardboard boxes and filled it with at least 10 bags of candy. I did all the decorating of it and it actually turned out quite cute. Mackenzie loved her 'new horse' in the living room when it was getting made, so we were worried at the party that she would be upset seeing it get beaten to death. We let her try to take some swings at it, but she just wanted to push it and swing it. Then when it took it's beating, she said 'Oh, cry' to Aunt Natalie, but she was ok.

She LOVES balloons too!

I went to enough effort in making some cute invitations to at least post them in the blog. I sent the invitations all out 5 days before the party, and 2 days after the party was over, I found them all returned to me in my mailbox! It's a good thing everyone invited was family.

The Invitation:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MACKENZIE! We love you, Mom and Dad.

Silly Kids in the Tub

I had to post a few funny pictures of the kids in the tub. Collin and Mackenzie are quite the pair in the bathtub! They both hate getting scrubbed, but aside from that, they each like to play around in there.

This is Mackenzie saying her prayers in the tub. She says them all day long, wherever she's at and it is so cute. She always says the same thing, "Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day. Amen."

Isn't he adorable, even with the pink washcloth on his head? Of course Mackenzie put it there and he doesn't mind. She loves to dump water on his head too!

This is Collin's favorite thing to do in the tub...play with the faucet! It makes me crazy....off and on, off and on...hot and cold, hot and cold. He loves it!

Settling In in Cedar City, Utah

We've now been in Cedar City about 2 1/2 months and are finally feeling like we are adjusting...just in time for temperatures to drop tonight into the high 30's and give us another shock! Well here's a few pictures of the house that we are renting. We are enjoying the house now that we have it clean (it was filthy when we moved in). It's in a nice area by the golf course, backed up against a hill. The views, especially the sunsets, are beautiful from the home which is probably our favorite part about the whole house.

Oh yes, we live on a hill and Mackenzie thinks it is hilarious to run and grab her pink car and push it out of the garage and down into the street so that I have to go running after it. She does the same thing with any balls too. What a stinker!

This is the view from the back patio in the evening. That patio sits at roof level since the house was built into the mountain, so it makes being in the backyard nice for us.

This is the backyard with the mountain. Mackenzie likes to climb up the mountain and get herself stuck up there until one of us rescues her. Again...she's a stinker sometimes!