Field Trip

Daylen had his first preschool field trip. Kate, Brooks, and I tagged along for some fun. It was COLD since Winter decided to show its face all of the sudden yesterday, but the kids still had fun. We went to the Red Barn pumkin patch in Santaquin. We rode the tractor hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, looked at all the pumpkins, the kids all played in the cute maze they had set up out of apple boxes, took some pictures, and headed back!

Daylen's cute preschool class!

Shout out to the Spanish Fork Library!

I just felt like telling you all how much I LOVE the Spanish Fork library. The children's section is AWESOME. I love that my kids love to go to the library, of course I'm sure the biggest reason is the super fun computer games they love to play.

Our library routine consists of first going down the elevator, (way cool for kids, and adults in my opinion) as soon as the door opens, booking it to the computer to play a couple of games, (as long as they are open) while the kids play a game I peruse the books checking to see if any of our favorites are there first, (ever read the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Williams? Definitely our favorites) after games we look for more books depending on time, sometimes we pick up literacy backpacks, like we did today, (so cute for the kids) then we go check out. Check out not only consists of checking our books out, but the kids get to pick a stamp for each hand, love it! After this has been accomplished we head back to the elevator (otherwise known as the "alligator" before Daylen could actually say "elevator") then we check out the DVD section upstairs. They have all kinds of movies, including new releases, and getting movies at the library is even better than Red Box, it's free and we get to keep it for a whole week. If we find any movies we are interested in we check those out and head on our merry way!

This is another reason I love the library...as soon as we walked through the door today, Kate and Daylen plopped down on the floor, inspecting what cool treasures they could find in their literacy backpacks. Daylen picked one purposefully that had a puzzle in it, the kid LOVES puzzles. So of course Kate is getting in to puzzles now, so she ran and got her favorite one, Curious George and put it together as well. I loved just watching them do their thing, "read" their books and play with puzzles while I was doing my thing.

Brooks can be so contemplative and serious. He frequently examines his hands for lengthy periods of time, you think this could mean he may actually have somewhat of an attention span?


He also has a great smile when he's in the mood to share it with us. It's becoming somewhat more frequent. I've never had to work so hard to get my child to smile, Daylen and Kate smiled anytime anyone just looked at them! We still love him to pieces though, can't complain too much about this one!

God Bless Texas!

If you read Rachel's blog, you can skip most of this, it'll be a repeat. Rachel is faster at getting her blog updated than I am. Last weekend Brad, Brooks, and I headed to Texas for the very first time. Brad had some meetings in Dallas for work so Brooks and I tagged along so we could visit Rachel, Tyler, and Austin in Ft. Worth. I wasn't sure what to expect of Texas, and I loved it! You hear of Southern hospitality, and it's a real thing. The people there are so friendly, especially if you have a cute baby, and we had 2 when we went out!

Our first stop of the day was Historic Ft. Worth, the Stockyards. They do a cattle drive twice a day and we wanted to be there in time for the first drive and barely missed it, we could see a few of the cattle from the car, who are apparently quite famous. Rachel blamed our missing it on the 2 babies, I blame it on our late night game of "The Farming Game". The Stockyards were fun to look around all the same.

This was a huge belt, we just couldn't resist a picture.

Here we are in front of the White Elephant Saloon. This is where they filmed some of "Walker, Texas Ranger", my dad is a HUGE fan. This is for you dad!

Our next stop was the Water Gardens in downtown Ft. Worth. This is part of the "Stage" I thought its set up was perfect for a jumping picture, don't you think?

The guys thought so too.

Everywhere we went people asked us if these 2 were twins. Don't know where they got that idea. :) No, they are 3 months apart and Brooks is as bald as can be, while Austin's hair is growing in quite nicely. I don't think it's very fair Rachel's first is a red head, and I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever get one myself!

This little boy is such a cute, smiley boy! I love this face!

Rachel and our cute boys!

While in Texas I was lucky enough to get to visit with one of my best friends, and college roomate Sydne. She lives in Dallas now while her husband is going to dental school, she just a baby 5 weeks ago and he is a cutie!

Look at that cute face! Don't you think I need a red head, we fit well together.

My wonderful sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Mandy and Tyrel, watched Daylen and Kate for us while we were gone. We missed them so much! We got home Wednesday, and I left Thursday morning to drive to St. Anthony (Rexburg area) to pick them up, came back Friday. Needless to say it sure feels good to be home. We brought the kids a little bit of Texas back with us.

Trip to Declo

What? Never heard of Declo, Idaho? I can't imagine why not seeing as there is a whopping population of 338. It's right by Burley and this is where Brad's brother, Randy, lives with his family. We went over Conference weekend to visit and watch some of the boys play in their football and soccer games. Saturday we went from game to game. Football game at 8:00 am, soccer game at 10:00 am, another football game at 12:30 pm. My nephews are the stars of their perspective teams, seriously, it was so fun to watch them.

Here is Dustin playing soccer, it's a nice shot of his back huh? Go 27!

Brett and Tanner play on the same team, can't tell where they are in the picture, but they are the orange. Ya Declo!

Brett, Garret, and Tanner.

Randy coaches Garret's team and Brett and Tanner get to help play defense when they are short in numbers. So we got to watch all 3 play. Garret has money hands, this kid has a talent when it comes to sports. We'll see who wins out when he gets to be college age, BSU or BYU? I'm sure you can guess what my vote is.

We had blast spending time with Randy and Holly, Mandy and Ivan were able to come as well. After the games Mandy, Lori, (my sister, she hitched a ride with us as well) and I went to check out DI and we actually scored big. I have never had so much fun shopping at DI. I LOVE a good deal! My favorite was my American Eagle jacket for $6. Love it!

Canning Weekend

Still playing catch up...

Back in September I decided to take a trip to my sister's (Jamie) house in Caldwell, Idaho and do some canning since she has amazing resources. So I loaded up the 3 kids, kissed Brad goodbye, and while Brad worked I canned! It was such a fun trip, my mom and youngest sister, Kara, met us there and we made a canning party out of it. The kids did GREAT in the car both ways. The only tricky part was stopping once at a rest stop for a potty break and to feed Brooks, but thankfully I was able to manage it pretty well.

The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and thankfully Kara was willing to come and be the favorite aunt by helping take care of our 7 children. We wouldn't have been able to get done as much as we did without her or the SPEED of my mom. I am so grateful for a very knowledgeable mother and older sister to teach me!

These cute boys are only 5 days apart although Benson is MUCH bigger.

Need I say more? This picture sums up Jamie. I can't believe how much this girl does.

This picture doesn't even show everything we canned which was sweet 'n sour sauce, peaches, pears, pear sauce, steak, and pork.

The peaches weren't all ready so I took home what we didn't do and canned 5 more batches at home. I've been canning on my own for a 3 or 4 years now and I've decided it's much more fun to do it with my mom and sister!

Brooks and Kara playing.

Nathan, Kara, Daylen, and Lily taking funny pictures for Kara's phone.

Grandma and Brooks

Grandma with 7 of her 8 grandchildren.

Summer 2010

Since I have been terrible about updating our blog this summer you get one big picture overload. Between visiting family and family visiting us, playing with friends, and just living life, summer FLEW by! I have decided that life with 3 kids is just busy anyway and I wouldn't have it any other way. Here is a very brief overview of some of our activities this summer and random pictures.

Miss Kate continues to keep us on our toes. She is our crazy, funny, way too independent, bundle of joy.

Little Brookster is the sweetest baby you will ever find. I just love him to pieces! He makes having 3 kids seem much easier than I thought it would be.

Daylen is our smart, funny, BYU fan who keeps us laughing with his infectious smile and facial expressions.

Kate loves to dress herself and change her clothes often. The following pictures were all taken in 1 day. I missed her first outfit of the day however.

Backwards, insideout, it's all good!

Love her cheesy smile btw, don't know where she got that from. :)

Exploring around Spanish Fork Canyon and found red rock! How long have we lived in this area now and never knew we had red rock so close!

We decided to take Tyrel, Mandy, Ivan, Garret, and Brett exploring with us.

Kate also loves dancing, (as does Daylen, I'll have to post some video of their moves), here she is sporting one of the cute tutu's Aunt Mandy made for her.

Why are cribs so fun after we outgrow them?

I took the kids to the Hogle Zoo one day with some friends. The kids had fun, and this little guy did amazingly well. (Ok so I guess it's not that amazing he would do so well.)

Eating popcicles on the porch was an every day, multiple times a day, activity at our house.

Swimming at the ward party. Love those blue eyes!

Hiking the Grotto up Payson Canyon with friends.

We are still here loving life and doing well. Maybe with Fall and Winter coming on I'll be better about updating.