Carving Pumpkins!

For family night tonight we carved pumpkins. Tycen and his "friend", Lauren joined us.

This is a pretty bad pictures of the pumpkins, but you get the idea.

All I can say is...."Wahoo!!!"

I'M GETTING GRASS!!!!!!!!!!!

Some really sexy guy came over to drive the tractor, so I thought I better take some pictures.

The view from our back porch. I love it, but it will be even better when there is green instead of dirt.

Bret tried to act like it was work, but what guy wouldn't want to play tonka trucks for real?

Red Neck waterslide!

For the past ten years I have served in one relief society presidency or another, with only a 6 month stint in young women's before we moved to Nibley. As soon as we got to Nibley I was called back into relief society. Well about three weeks ago I was called back into young womans and it has really been fun. For one of YW activities we went to this man made waterslide. We had so much fun and Bret and boys decided they needed to be one of the young women. I feel really bad I didn't get any pictures of Cade and Alec, I thought I did! I think it looks like a fun place to have a family reunion...

It doesn't look that steep but once you got to the top it was pretty scary.




Dawson's face says it all...he was pretty scared.






And...here is a picture of the bagel, it has been requested often. He is actually quite proud of it, he's says the girls think it's cute. I'm not quite sure I believe it, but we'll let him live in his fantasy world. :)

Judy Lange headstone

For those of you that are not able to visit or have not had the chance to visit Judy's/mom's grave I thought I'd post a pic for all to see. I thought it turned out very nice. Thanks Jill for get'ner done!

Summer dayz...

I couldn't get the video to post within the post so here it is above...

So, summer is just flying by and we have done some fun things as a family. As our kids start to get older we realize there are fewer and fewer activities that we ALL want to do at the same time. Aaron would prefer to go cliff jumping (which consists of him doing a back flip off a 60 foot cliff) at the lake. Alec on the other had would prefer to engage in a rough game of flag football. Cade would prefer riding his bike down the street to sift through the dumpsters to see what treasures he can find. Dawson likes to spend time with his "girlfriend" (don't ask) he and Sienna like to swim in our pool, ride her horse and ride their bikes. One activity we all agree upon is a good firework display. Our little town was celebrating heritage days and they put on a little firework show. We were lucky enough to have it go off in our back yard. We all sat in the swing and watched the fireworks from our back porch. Bret was in Kansas helping a friend load some books, so even though I was missing him like crazy we still had fun. I decided to get out my camera and try and get some shots of the fireworks. I adjusted my settings and placed the camera on a tripod so I could get a "perfect" firework picture. After a while a gave up and gave the camera to Cade. WOW, this is what he got, Aaron took a couple too. We are having them blown up for their rooms. I thought they did a pretty good job at catching some abstract, cool, artisitc pics! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

A walk down memory lane....

This is where I got to spend my week! I was lucky enough to be the stake photographer for girls camp and I got to spend a week at beautiful Porcupine dam. I shot over 1700 pictures and loved every minute of my "girl" time.

But this lake does have sentimental value too. Not only is it one of my favorite lakes, this is also where Bret and I spent our second date all the way back in 1990. He packed a picnic, loaded the back of his truck with leftover 2x4's from the lumber yard he worked at and headed to the lake. Against my better judgement he drove right up to the edge of the lake and we "accidentally" got stuck. Hmmm... how convenient. :) We spent the next couple of hours talking about where we saw our lives going, little did we know then; we would go there together. After staying out much later than we should, we decided we better try and get out. I posted a couple of pictures of us trying to get out. Thank heavens we had all that lumber to help us get the truck out.

Here is a picture of Bret and the way we slid the lumber under the truck to try and give us some traction.

Here I am covered in mud, nevermind that I bought brand new black leather boots for the big date.

Spending the week up there thinking about that date we had that night made me think about our lives and our marriage and how it's been a lot like that date we had when we were young and naive. Our lives might not have gone as we had planned, we have gotten stuck many times along the way and we sometimes get tired and dirty, BUT we have created a lot of great memories
and it has been so worth it.

Luau!

Two weeks ago we went up to Bear Lake for a Luau and despite the rain, we had a great time. I only wish it could have lasted longer, seems like we are always in a hurry these days. Below is a picture of the food, it might not look that great but mmm, mmm, mmm it was good. We had a restarant in town called Pounders cater it and it was delish. Kalua pork, teriyaki chicken, sticky rice, macaroni salad, fresh pineapple, coconut bread (made by Jill)




Here are the kids playing games, they did not want it to end.



Here are all the grandkids in order of height not necessarily in order of age. Yeah, I know, Alec is a shrimp.


Cory and Liz had a cook off to see who could make the best Guava cake. That's right you heard me, Liz did indeed want to be included in a cook off. It was intense and you could feel the tension in the air between this husband and wife. Who won? Hey, it's cake, they're all winners in my book. yay for cake.



Guy and Jill with Bella. Jill looks stunning in her mu mu. We actually had matching mu mu's but I didn't get in any pictures.

Baby Ali....so stinkin cute!

Kayli and Aaron. Kayli loves my boys and my boys think she is about the cutest thing around. She knows how to work it already with the boys, she gets whatever she wants.

Aaron is such a carbohydrate addict. This is him shoving his face in a bag of cold rice and loving it. I have no idea where he came from... :)

Ground hog day!

When I got home from school the other day the boys came running out to meet me telling me there was something I just had to see. When I saw the back of the dog kennel I thought for sure Bret had given in and got the boys a black lab, but I was wrong. They found this poor little ground hog and chased it around until they caught it. It was wet and shivering in the cage, so after admiring the the poor little thing for a while we let it go. Check out Copper in Alec's arms, he is rip raring ready to chase that little ground hog back into his hole, even though copper is 84 years old in dog years. It does kinda creep me out thinking there is a groundhog in our yard and he could emerge at any moment and gnaw my legs off. The joys of having boys.

C.C. and Dawson

Bret's brother and his wife made a surprise visit over memorial weekend and I just had to post these pictures of Dawson and his cousin C.C. The two of them are inseparable! When they get together they play so hard by the time they actually lay down to go to sleep it only takes a matter of seconds before they are out. This is a series of pictures I took at the Mountain man redezvous. The two of them were running a race and they are receiving instruction on how to win the race from Bret. After Bret the left, the two of them came up with their own strategy. I have no idea what they were saying (I was pretty far away), but from the look on their faces I can only imagine. They are pretty tight and yes....I cut Dawson's hair :(

Four

Only four years under his belt and yet he seems to rule our world. We call him our little "pet" and he gets whatever he wants. He brightens our house and he can get away with so much because he makes us laugh. Yes, he gets candy everytime we go to the store, yes he sleeps in the middle of mom and dad every night, yes he get's whatever he wants from his brothers. He is spoiled and he knows it. He is curious, smart and adventureous. This picture of him from top to bottom seems to say it all... We all agree that we cannot cut his hair because his big hair is who he is, so his big shaggy hair will stay for now. A dirty shirt usually worn inside out or backwards. His favorite pants (size 2T) because he said they are just "really comfy", I've tried throwing them away, but he always digs them out and pulls them back on. His velcro fastened "fast shoes" that smell like wet dog because he never wears socks. And last but certainly not least I can almost guarantee IF he has underwear on, it is on backwards because it just "feels better". But despite all these four year old isms we love him more than one could ever imagine. He learned to ride his bike today and we've had a hard time convicing him to get off and take a break. I love four year olds and he just happens to be my favorite.

Alec turns 12!!

I cannot believe my sweet little, perfect, innocent, angelic, favorite, great student, obedient child turned twelve. (just kidding Aaron, cause I know you're reading this) But he is a pretty darn good kid. Alec had his birthday on tax day and he received the priesthood that following Sunday. Here is a little poster I hung up around his school. I always need to embarrass them in some way!

Here is Alec opening his Wii. Who do you think is more excited?? This is really Aarons face when he saw what was inside. Never mind that this photo is blurry either, it's just the first shot I took with my new lens. yeah, I'm so glad I had to sell one of my children to buy this thing and this is the picture it took? I finally figured out all the settings and it was worth the money. Aaron still doesn't know he's the one I sold to buy it. They're coming to get him next week......kidding

This is the family playing the wii later that night. I have more but I just couldn't bare to post them because my house was so messy I didn't want the world see how we really live :)

Easter fun

We had a great Easter weekend and it totally helped that it was also spring break! We colored easter eggs on Friday night at about 10:00 p.m. I love this picture of Bret cooking the eggs, he was so tired and tried to talk the kids into waiting for the next day, but he just couldn't look at their faces and tell them no.

As soon as Bret saw me with the camera he woke up, looked happy and sucked it in...
Awe, isn't he handsome :)


Alec coloring eggs...

Dawson and Alec's friend Kelton

Easter morning Cade, Dawson and Alec. Aaron is asleep on the floor wrapped up in blanket, aparently 11:30 in morning is just too early to get up, even for candy. Good thing church doesn't start until 1:00.

I just love this picture of Dawson, the look on his face, the bunny's eyes eaten out . Just makes me laugh. Imagine the jingle from the movie The Christmas Story...only change a couple of words "he'll eat your eyes out, he'll eat your eyes out" poor bunny... ok, I need sleep.