October 31, 2010

Trunk or Treat

This year we went to our ward Trunk or treat. It was a blast. My kids loved it! I loved it! It was the perfect evening for it too.  My whole family met up with us.  It was so fun to be all together.  I don't have much time tonight to go into detail but I will let you see our pictures to show you the proof of how much fun we had.  We had a tri-ward trunk or treat. They started off with dinner, then entertainment for the kids and then they taught us the Thriller dance and then we ended it all with a trunk or treat.  My kids went wild and were so excited about filling their buckets to the top that overflowed with candy.  Owen was my little horse this year and he was so content to walk around, as long as he had a sucker he was ok. I was ok with that too.  We had a great year and we had so much fun! Thanks everyone who made it such a great time.!













Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Just a side note.  Today in our combined third hour, our bishop and his counslers invited us to participate in a Media fast.  Let me explain.  About two years ago our Stake invited us in No T.V. for one month. It was really hard, but we did it and saw many blessing.  So our bishopric has invited us to put all the media away for only one week.  I hope we can do it.  It will be good for us.  So that includes... no tv, no internet, no music, anything that has to deal with media.  In doing this we allow the craziness of the world to leave our homes for a week and we focus on letting the spirit work within ourselves and within our families. This will be good for me. So you will not hear from me for a whole week. Wish us luck. I will report back a week from tomorrow. Have a great week! I love you all!

October 27, 2010

carving pumpkins

This was our second night in a row carving pumpkins.  We have collected quite a few on our doorstep and it was about time we carved them.  We had all of Lance's brothers over with their wives to help out.
We started the night eating homemade Cafe Rio.  It turned out pretty good too if I may say so myself.  Then we got to work and we just finally finished.  To end it, I made Lava cakes and we ate them with ice cream.  It was a great night.  Here is what we did..........
Carrie and Shelli carving their pumpkins. These two amazing gals are my sisters-in-law.  Shelli said that this was the first time for her to carve a pumpkin. That was unbelievable for me.  Shelli is the one of the far right.
John and Brantly were happy to watch on the sidelines.

John and Carrie carving their pumpkin

Brantly wasn't feeling very well and was kind of upset the whole evening. Poor Brantly! I hope you feel better soon. I sure love you!

My boys were so excited to light them up and see them glow in the dark. Nevermind Andrew, he always has a dirty face, even after bath time.

The three of us carving our pumpkins. Where were all the husbands? Oh that is right on the sidelines doing other things. So we took matters into our own hands and did them ourselves. It was fun.

Thanks for a fun evening guys! Let's have another party soon! I love getting together with these guys! They are so much fun.

October 26, 2010

What are we going to be for Halloween?

What are we going to be for Halloween?  That is a good question.  At one time both my boys wanted to be transformers. Can you believe that? What have I stooped to? I really miss the days when I could choose cute little costumes for them to dress up in. Not transformers.  One day they liked them.  Andrew still likes it but Keaton, well he wants to be a ninja now.  A ninja? Are you kidding me?  Owen does not have his costume on yet. He is going to be a really cute horse. I have a cute outfit and his grand apperance will have to wait until Halloween.  Look at my niece. Isn't she so cute? I think she makes a pretty cute tiger.
Wish us luck this week on costumes. We could be something completely diffferent.

Palmer's fall harvest party

Every year our friends the Palmer's hold their annual Fall Harvest Party. Its always on a Monday. Usually the Monday before Halloween.  My children look forward to it every year.  It is sometimes better than Halloween itself. They live right behind my parents home and when you park down the dirt lane quite aways there is a tractor with a hay wagon on the back that comes to pick you up. My kids loved that. The Palmers have a beautiful place. It is pretty large and it fits everyone.

  Everyone was worried that the weather wouldn't hold up but to our luck it did. It has been raining all day long and then later on in the afternoon the rain stopped and the clouds parted alittle, enough for the sun to peak through for the sky divers.  To start the party right, Batman and Spiderman always parachute into the party.  The kids were going crazy.  I bet there are at least 200 + people at this gathering and they are waiting patiently for them to arrive.  Here is what we saw......
Then after the superheros landed another plane flew above dropping candy for all the kids to get. The plane flew over about 5 different times. Most of the time the candy landed right on top of us. Imagine candy dropping out of the sky, falling really fast and hiting you. It hurt and it hurt some of the kids. My niece Ava got pelted on her cheekbone and it also caused a bloody nose. But nonetheless, the kids had a great time. I apologize right now for the pictures.  Owen would not go with his dad and Lance ended up taking the pictures. So we will have to make do with what we have, which isn't much. Sorry!
It was really cold.  I was worried that the kids wouldn't stay warm enough but I think we did pretty good. Owen loved sitting in his stroller, as long as it was moving, and he stayed pretty warm and cozy.
There was face painting, food and tons of games for everyone.  Since it starts at 6 p.m. we don't stay late because Owen goes to bed at 6:30 and he will get pretty cranky. We stayed until 7 this year and he did pretty good.
We look forward till next year. Thank you Palmers! We had a great time!

October 23, 2010

Playing in the leaves

Friday we took a trip to my parents house to spend with my grandma who was celebrating her birthday.  She lives right next door to my parents.  My parents have a lot of leaves as well as my grandmother's house.  It was a beautiful day and the boys were itching to play oustide.



I have to explain this next picture. My son Owen is really obsessed right now with the riding lawn mowers all around us.  The first thing he wants to do when we get in our garage or get out of the car at my parents is go straight to their shed and starts begging for a ride. When Owen says lawn mower, he rolls his tounge over is teeth and starts to mumble. It is really cute. I need to get it on video. So this is Owen with his obsession in the back.


Field trip

This was Keaton's first fieldtrip with his Kindergarten class.  They made a trip to the Star Fire Department.  I voluntered to go.  I am so glad I did too. What a sweet group of kids.  Since the budget for the school was cut there were no buses to help transport the kids, so we all had to walk.  It's not that far but when it is 9:15 am and only 45 degrees outside, it gets really cold.  But we did it and it wasn't bad.
They had the kids watch a video about fire safety, they also took them to the back room where they keep all the firetrucks in the garage.  One of the firemen got into his Turnout and the kids loved that. They also let them get up into the fire trucks and move around and see what it was like inside. I think they had a great time.  Here is the proof to show for it.....








Thanks Keaton for allowing me to be apart of your class. I have really loved watching you in class. You are so smart and so quick to learn. I love that about you!

October 19, 2010

The Flu

Dear Mr. Flu,

Please stay away from my home.  You are nasty, you smell bad and I absolutely hate cleaning up your messes all over my couches, floors and bedrooms.  It stinks.  Please leave my boys alone.  They are sad.  They are lazy and it is no fun.  I hope you know you can leave anytime soon.
I am praying I will wake up tomorrow and things will be 10 x's better than today.  GO AWAY!

From a mom that cares

October 17, 2010

Fall is here

I absolutely LOVE fall! I love the colors, the smell of chimney smoke in the air and all the fun holidays that start showing up in the stores and especially in our home.  My boys love it! They love everything about it. Even Owen loves looking at the pumpkins on our fireplace. It all makes me happy!
This evening we went to my parents house for dinner.  It had been quite awhile since we had dinner with my parents at their home.  It was nice.  I didn't realize just how much I missed it until we were there.  Since we have had family living with us we usually have them over to our home for dinner.  My mom invited us all over for lasagna tonight and it was soooo good.  The weather wasn't too cold so we adventured out into my parents back yard and here is what we did this evening......
Lance and I took our picture together in front of this amazingly beautiful tree. Unfortunatley you can't see the tree too well.
Owen was pretty content to just run and be free

It still amazes me how fast this boy is growing. He is excelling really fast in school and continues to amaze me with his questions. He loves to be his own unique.

This is the entrance to Moon Valley Ranch. This is right behind my parents house on this little old country road. It is so beautiful. We spend a lot of time back here.

This is me right now. As of now, I am the skinniest I have been since having children. Weight loss is down to almost 10 lbs.  I still have a little more to go but man, I am feeling good and loving it. Still there is always room for improvement. Thanks to everyone who has cheered me on. It has really been my motivation in all of this.  No, this is not a kimono, it is a shirt I found while shopping in Utah, LOVIN IT! No it is not a maternity top either, and yes, I am going back to my natural color. Slowly but surely.

This is the child I can't keep clean.  We were about to do some familiy pictuers but unforuntaley his older brother Keaton pushed him down and he fell head first into a pile of mud. Can you see it on his head? I could write a book and have it full of pictures of just how messy this boy can get.  But gosh, just look at him. I love this boy.


Today was our primary program.  I love these programs.  This was our first year to watch our two boys participate in it.  Every year BYU's homecoming has always landed on the same week at the program and we always miss it.  This year nothing major happened I am happy to report.  Andrew is the child we are just waiting to make his grand appearance.  Mother's day he did. Father's day he did and we were crossing our fingers that the program would be low key.  I am h appy to report that it was.  He just sat there so quitely with his classmates.  The only song he really got into was "In the Leafy treetops."  Keaton stood right up there in front and sang his heart out. It was so much fun to see them sing those songs.  Even though we sing a lot in our home they did a great job.  After sacrament meeting a sister came up to me and told me that she was "disappointed" that Andrew didn't do something comical. She said that she had been looking forward to that.  It is always nice to know that my kdis can put on quite the show and entertain these folks.
We are doing well. We are happy and most of all we are all healthy.  Thanks for your love, support and prayers. They are so much appreciated. We love you all and wish you a happy fall.

October 11, 2010

BYU Homecoming

Lance and I just got back from a really short, but fun filled weekend in Utah with the Snyder family.  Lance's family has the tradition of meeting up in Provo during BYU's Homecoming and having event after event. Seriously, the weekend was packed full of different things.  Lance and I left early on friday morning and drove up.  My parents were so kind as to stay at our home and watch our children.  Everyone told us that going without kids was the way to go so we thought we would give it a try and boy were they right.  It was so relaxing. I didn't have to hear kids screaming in the car, clean up barf from my two boys who get sick without fail almost every time, and worrying about what time it was and who was ready for a nap. 
We got into Provo around noon. Lance had a buisness meeting and so he dropped me off at a strip mall and I went shopping.  It was the first time in a really long time I got to go shopping just for me.  So I went crazy and I had a great time.
We had a fun pizza party, games, and late night conversations.  Then Saturday morning we went to Mapleton where Lance's Aunt and Uncle Clifton live. It is really beautiful there.  Before the meeting I took a few pictures of my in-laws.  They were wanting their family pictures taken so here is a little preview of those.  Lesa and Sharlene, dad will be bringing the cd of all the pictures back to Utah this weekend. They sure turned out cute. It was so much fun to be with you all!!!
                                The Snyder family (Paul, Lesa, Heidi, Kaylee, Emma and baby Janae)



The Knotts Family (Tommy, Sharlene, Cali, TJ, Parker and Tessa)




The tradition is to all meet for breakfast and then there is a devotional for the adults only. Grandma and Grandpa Ray usually make assignments about who they would like to speak. This year my mother and father-in-law were asked to speak about how we can build our firm foundations on Christ. I am pretty sure this was the first year I have ever sat through the entire meeting. Usually I have a child to chase after or another one that is too fussy to stay downstairs. I really enjoyed it. Thanks to my in-laws for your inspiring words.
Then after the meeting is over, we all head to Glen Canyon Park. It is up the Provo Canyon and it is absolutely beautiful this time of year. All the leaves are changing colors and starting to cover the ground. Lunch is and has always been provided.  The boys usually play football and the girls all sit and chat. It is quite fun to catch up with all the family members we don't see on a regular basis.  Then we all go the BYU game.  This year I am guessing there were probably 60-70 of us that went to the game.  I must say that the majority of the crowd was overrun by all the college aged cousins. It was so fun to see them interact with each other. They are truly best friends with each other.
Then the most amazing part~ all the cousins helping pull Grandma Ray all the way up in her wheelchair. Unbelievable. I had to take a picture of it.


 Lance and I were able to stay up until the 3rd quarter. We had to drive back home Saturday night to relieve grandma from babysitting duties and be back in time for our ward Sunday.
It has been a long time since I had one on one time with Lance.  Seems like this job has been a constant and it is hard to find time to even sit and talk.  So I thank Lance for the fun time we had.  Let's do that again sometime!