It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

I feel like I'm getting so behind with this blog. No wonder I don't keep a journal. Just a little bit to catch up...we went to Becky and Jason's for Thanksgiving with my family this year. It was so nice to get away for a change. We usually do Thanksgiving at our house and I love to have everyone here and to do all the cooking (I'm seriously way to anal about cooking the turkey, it's a big problem I have), but it was nice to get out of town and just get to help out this time. We needed a little break and it was so fun to finally see Becky's house. We went to the planetarium with everyone and then to see the lights. It was the night they lit them so it was a zoo, but still so pretty and the kids loved it. Me and Eli even got away for an afternoon to do a little Christmas shopping so that was an extra bonus. I would post pictures but I didn't take any. Becky has a zillion on her camera so when she posts them I'll steal them over and sneak them in. Now for Christmas...I have been ready for the holidays this year since it first snowed so I was so excited to finally get the decorations up. The kids loved helping. Our poor tree was all weighed down in the back from the heaping pile of ornaments Zach wanted to put all in the same place. They do such a good job. We got our tree from my dad's yard this year. It is so big and pretty, we really lucked out! With decorations up, and most of the shopping done we are ready to enjoy the rest of the season!

The things kids say...

Tyler is getting so big and it's not very often that he says cute little things or mixes things up anymore. Don't get me wrong, he is still a super funny little guy, he is just growing up and understanding so much these days that he doesn't mess things up very often. That being said, this week he came up with some pretty cute/funny things that I don't want to forget. First off, he had a program for the veterans on Veteran's Day. He got to invite his great-grandpas to come and watch and when we were getting ready to call and invite them, I was telling him what to say when they answered the phone. He looked back at me and was reciting it and said "What is tomorrow again? Vegetarian's Day?" It was so cute. He said it a few times that night and then he kept correcting himself because he knew it wasn't right. Then on Sunday we were all getting ready for church and he came in all dressed up and ready to go and looked at us and said "Is today quick Sunday?" I'll have to remember that next fast Sunday. Can't say that I blame him though, it seems like we are always in a rush to get there on time. The morning goes by WAY to quick.....then we get there and sometimes sacrament with 3 kids seems to crawl. I bet he always wishes it is "quick" Sunday.

Trick or Treat

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Having it on a Saturday meant lots of time for carnivals, treats and dressing up. The kids were so excited they got to wear their costumes so many times. They were so cute (I mean scary!) and had so much fun. We had our ward carnival, the school parade and trick or treating at the relatives Halloween night. The kids were so worn out when we got home they didn't even want to go around the block. Zach just wanted to stay home and pass out candy at the door in his pjs and mask. It was so funny looking. He'd just stand there and say "you can have two" then he'd shut the door on them. Funny kid. We got home just in time from trick or treating though. Right after we got in the door poor little Allie started throwing up.....glad the flu waited to hit until we were home. Other than that it was a great Halloween. Believe it or not we still have a few pieces of candy left!

Our devilish dracula, super scary skeleton and beautiful little bat.

Some pretty scary little boys...look out!


Allie loved dressing up. She was scared of the masks at first, but then decided they were pretty funny...and still a little bit scary.


Fun at the ward carnival....Zach was a little cheater but it was ok...Tyler's mad eating skills let him win the race and both boys had a blast.

First stop on the trick or treat trail. How great to be a little kid!

Jack-O-Lantern FHE

I'm a little late in posting, but need to catch up on all of the fun we had last week. We started the week off by having Family Home Evening with our good friends and their kids. We started off with some yummy soup and homemade bread. Then we had a little lesson about stearing clear of "Satan's web". The kids had a lot of fun with it and had some great ideas about ways we can follow our Heavenly Father. They talk so much more when their friends are around. Afterward we carved some scary pumpkins and finished the night off with some spiderweb brownies. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast!

Most of the kiddos and all the pumpkins

This girl is not scared of getting goopey!

Crazy Zach and his pumpkin snack

Tyler and Braxton were the kings of carving.

Halloween Party

Saturday night me and Eli went to our friends Bruce and Crissy's house for their annual Halloween party. I don't think I've dressed up for about 12 years, but we had a lot of fun. Eli and I went as his Grandma and Grandpa. They were great and let me raid their closet for their clothes. It was so funny because most of the people at the party know them from the ball games so they knew who we were. Eli was such a good sport and pulled off Grandma Beulah perfect! The party was a lot of fun....good food, fun games and great friends. It was so funny to see everybody dressed up. There were some pretty ugly she-males over there! It was so nice to have some good laughs with our friends. Thanks to Eli's dad and Kathy for watching the kids and thanks Bruce and Crissy for being such great hosts...again!

Brucina and Crissy

Brent and Claudene

Broc and Amber

Me and Eli

Why............

This is for all the moms out there. Remember a while back sometime last summer when Tyler had taken a utility knife to our leather couch? Well, this is along those same lines......same couch, just a different kid and a lot grosser. Zach has been spending a lot of time with one of the little neighbor girls. It is great because they get along really well and keep each other occupied. Today they came over to our house. They had been playing outside for a while so when they asked to watch a movie I thought it was no big deal.........so for 1 1/2 hours they watched their movie. I was kind of happy because they were not quite as wound up as usual. I got some laundry and cleaning done upstairs and was enjoying the quiet........I should have known. Now, before I get the bad mom award, I had checked on them a few times and they were just watching and playing. How I didn't notice what had happed I don't know. As the movie was getting over Tyler headed downstairs to play....a few seconds later the quiet was interuppted by his freaking out cry.......I ran downstairs to find out what the problem was and all I heard was this. "ZACH POOPED IN THE TV ROOM". What??????????????????????????? I walked in the room and saw it, then I smelled it. After a few deep breaths I got the story from both of them. It was his friends idea to poop in the window and smear it. So since she had the idea, I guess Zach was the first one with the urge and one thing led to another. I should have taken a picture but was too worried about cleaning it before it somehow got on anything else. There was poop all over our windowsill, and all over that poor couch. I don't know what is worse, that he pooped and wiped it all over, that he did it in front of his friend that is a girl, or that he did it and then put his clothes on and kept watching the movie like nothing happed just breathing in the stink. Needless to say, the friend went home, and he got one long polar bear shower.....one word keeps going through my head.......WHY??? I will never get why little kids do the things they do. So for any of you having a bad day, or thinking your kids are the only ones doing boneheaded/nasty things you are not alone............bring on the weekend.

Happy Happy Birthday!

I can't belive our little girl is 1. I don't know where the time goes. This last year has been so much fun. She has been such a blessing to our family. It is still crazy to me that we have a little girl, even a year later but we love her to death and wouldn't trade her for the world. Here are just a few things that make her what she is and have made her so special to us. She has the sweetest personality and spirit. We are learning that she does have a temper, especially when little girls take the doll stroller away from her in the nursery, and she can hold her own around her brothers. She loves to carry things around the house...blankets, towels, clean laundry, dirty laundry, whatever she can get her hands on. She loves music and can booty dance with the best of them. She loves the piano and can't let me play without running to me and plunking at the keys she can barely reach. She makes her daddy's heart melt, even when she is a stinker. All she has to do is say "daddy" when he comes in the door and he softens right up. I'm pretty sure she has figured it out too since that is the only word she says anymore. She is a little farm girl at heart (maybe there is more of me in her than I realize). I can't go in our yard or near our garden or a baseball field without her getting away from me and heading right for the dirt. She loves the feel of it in her hands, and apparently it tastes pretty good too. She is a snuggler when she gets tired enough and she loves to touch bare skin. When she was littler I would rock her to sleep and she'd reach out with her little hands to whatever they could find. She even fell asleep holding on to my nose a few times. Now she will hold on to my arm (or try shoving it down my shirt at Tyler's football games). She may be small, but she has made a big difference in our lives. We are learning to be soft and to love pink (which wasn't as hard as I thought). Happy Birthday Allie! We love you so much.

It was a full and busy day with lots of family and fun. She loved her cake and didn't waste any time destroying it. She got so many fun presents and cute little outfits. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate!

Softball, softball and more softball

Ok, so for anyone that knows us you know that once the snow melts softball becomes our life. It used to be baseball, but now we are old and don't move very fast so softball is as good as it gets. This year we kept busy with men's league and men's tournaments, and even busier with co-ed. I hadn 't played for 7 years and forgot how much fun it was. It definitely filled our summer but I honestly wouldn't want to be anywhere else than a baseball field. We packed the kids along to early games, late games, all night games and more and they loved every minute of it. Eli's team ended up taking 3rd, and our co-ed team took first. It was awesome especially since I've never won anything before. Hooray! It only took me 31 years to be a champ! I've even got the t-shirt to prove it.

She doesn't do much at the games, but she sure looks cute and loves keeping Grandma busy.

Is that a baseball in your butt, or are you just glad to see me??


They practiced a few times to get the perfect shot. After they all checked it out, they decided this was the coolest one. They were right, it turned out pretty cool.

Jared at his finest. What can I say, the kid loves getting dirty.

Playin in the lights. I'm just glad our kids take after him when it comes to sports.



Tyler shagging home run balls at almost 3:00 am. It was great until he got about 3000 burs stuck in his pants.


What happens when you take the kids to an all night tournament. At about 1:00 am the gremlins come out!



Our funny little boys. I don't remember what they were doing, but they were up to something and had us all laughing our guts out.

When the cat is away....

...the mice will play...or in this case, when the big brother is away the rest will play. Now that school is back in it has been so fun to have more time to spend with Zach and Allie. It seems like when you have 3 kids, one is always getting over looked at some point during the day. They have had so much fun playing together and spending time with each other. They are my little fish...can you tell. Neither one of them is scared of water a bit. It is so fun to watch Alexis in the pool. She just crawl around and around and chases Zach back and forth.

My funny little Zach...loves teasing his sister.

Our little water baby.

They don't get much happier than this.

Flag football starts again!

My favorite time of year is back! FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL! And since all of my teams are sucking it up this year, I'm extra excited to watch my favorite little Bronco. Tyler is super excited to be playing again this year. Eli is helping coach again (and he is soooooo excited about it...just ask him). But they are the Broncos so it is helping ease the pain a little bit. It amazes me how much better he is from last year. They grow up too fast and learn too quick. He ran in a touchdown in their first game and grabbed a couple of flags. He loves it and it is so fun to watch him. He even made it through both games this time without getting tired and wanting to take a "time out." Funny boy!

What a little champ. I love how they

check to make sure you're watching.

A little blurry, but check out those mad skillz.

Sawtelle

A couple of weekends ago me and Eli ran up to Island Park to hang out with some good friends of ours. We cooked up some Elk Burgers and rode up to the top of Sawtelle in their Mule. On the way down we stopped so Broc and Eli could shoot Broc's gun. I forget what kind, but it is the biggest handgun you can own. I thought I had a picture of them shooting it, but only took videos so all I have is a picture of the tree Broc shot through...I'm still kicking myself for not trying it out. Going up there was another first for me. It was pretty and I was surprised at everything we could see from the top. It was a nice little getaway from the kids and a great time with friends. It seems like I want more and more of those once the weekend gets here :). It was kind of funny though because we thought we were getting away for the night, but once we were there we realized that us, our friends and back yard neighbors were all at the same campground at the same time.......small world!

Tablerock

After years of wanting to, Eli finally got me to the top of Tablerock. Laugh all you want but I didn't even know where it was until last weekend. He went with his dad and brother a couple of years ago and has been dying to get back. So we grabbed the family and headed up on Saturday. It was awesome. The way up was great and I don't think I'll ever talk about the way down again. All I know is next time I'm coming down the same way I got up.....no questions asked. I loved it though and it felt awesome to reach the top. We took our time and made sure all of us made it, no stragglers! We ate lunch on top and headed back down just in time to get stuck in a hail storm.....nothing like getting pelted on top of the world. Other than that, we couldn't have asked for better weather. We had such a good time and it was so pretty. Everytime we looked around it was different, and all of it was beautiful. We live in such a great place here. I'm so glad we took the time to go, and for the appreciation I have for the world around us. Becky...next year you are right there with us! I can't wait to go back. On another note, I realize that I have slacked big time with postings over the summer. Last week I meant to catch up and ended up getting one post on here..........aaaah! It is coming hopefully later on today. So much has happened in our lives that I don't want to pass by or forget so stay tuned.

Rigby Lake

Last month I finally got away and got the kids to Rigby Lake. We went with some of our good friends and the kids had a blast. The weather was perfect, and they have cleaned it up so nice. I would take the kids every day if I could. I remembered the life jackets this time and they had so much more fun...they were jumping in and splashing and swimming all over the place. Even Allie loved it. I took her out in a float and figured she'd start crying because the water was cold. I was so wrong. She wanted out of the float and in the water and only cried when I took her out. She is such a little fish, I love it.

The boys splashing around.

Allie trying to get to Sailee.

She is already a pop addict. If there is a can, she will find it!

Easton and Allie....he loves to hold her.