ORCHESTRA CONCERT

Madi had her end of the year Orchestra concert last week. She decided she was going to play the violin this year. I was nervous because she had never done it before and I couldn't put her in lessons right now. But she has done AMAZING just from what she has learned at school. She is excited to do it again next year.

They have done a few concerts this year. It has been fun to go and listen to how much they have improved each time. This last concert they played a couple of familiar songs. One of them was Pacabell's Canon, very popular at Christmas. They did so good!! And another one, it was actually there little grand finale song, they combined with the 7th and 8th grade Orchestra and then the choir sang, but the song was "Hey Soul Sister." It was SOOOO AWESOME!!!

We are so proud of her!! :)

HAPPY EASTER

We had a fun Easter this year. Saturday we took the kids to the Easter Egg Hunt at the city park. It was crazy the amount of candy they had. They break it up into age groups. I don't know if it was cuz there was so many people or what, but we could not get Oakleigh to pick up the treats by herself. She would not let daddy put her down. I started helping her pic up the candy and finally she got down, she still wouldn't pick it up herself, but she did show me what she wanted in her bucket!!

She was such a GRUMPY GUS that morning!

But Sunday was a whole different story!! She couldn't wait to go out and find the eggs.

These little munchkins had so much fun lookin for eggs. Everytime they would find one they would get so excited and run for another one.

We spent Easter with my family this year. We had a super yummy dinner and then let the kids do the Easter Egg Hunt. It was such a nice day all they wanted to do was be outside. The little ones love jumpin on the tramp.

As you can see, grandpa decided to join in the fun. The poor guy!! Everytime he would try to stand up or get off the kids started piling on him!! I love watching him play with the grandkids!! They always put such a big smile on his face!! :)

OH BABY....

I know its been a few days since I last posted. Things have been so crazy around our house and so much has been going on. Right now I will update you with our latest news, and then maybe if I have a free minute, I can post about Christmas and Birthdays. In February we found out that we will be getting a new addition to the family in October. Not sure what to think right now......since this one is kickin' my butt. I have been pretty sick and dealin' with some things that I haven't experienced before. I'm hopin' that things will get better....SOON!! :) But for the most part, I am excited.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS!! WISHING YOU ALL A VERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!! :)

FALL/HALLOWEEN

I am trying my hardest to get this caught up before Christmas. Even though things have been busy, we were able to stop long enough to enjoy a little bit of fall.

Oakleigh LOVE LOVE LOVES the trampoline. She would jump on it for hours if I let her. She is a little stinker though, cuz she doesn't want to share it. She wants to jump by herself.
Home grown pumpkin!!

The kids making some Halloween cookies!! I think the frosting was their favorite part!!

Mom and G-Ma enjoying their cookies!! Oh, and don't forget that Coke!! :)

We took the kids to a couple of different Halloween parties. We went to the one at Wyatt's school and then the one in Rexburg at the Nursing home. I love going to the nursing home. The residents all sit outside their rooms and the kids go up and down the halls trick or treating. The kids love it cuz they get a ton of candy. But I love to see the smiles on the faces of the residents when the kids come up to them. PRICELESS!!

This year Madi was a "Drama Queen". For those of you who know Madi, know that this was PERFECT for her!!

Oakleigh was Elmo. She LOVES Elmo!! She had a little party at daycare and for that she was Tinker Bell. I wanted her to be Tinker Bell on Halloween but I just couldn't get her to put it back on.
And Wyatt..........well, he was a Cowboy.....AGAIN!!! :)

The weather was GREAT this year. Not too cold!! Made it a little easier for our Trunk or Treat at the church!!

PARK CITY

We made our annual trip to Park City the first part of October. We love this trip and look forward to it every year. My parents have a condo down there. Mom and Dad go for the whole 8 days and then us kids all take turns during that time and go down for a couple of days. It just so happened that we all had to go the same time this year. At first I think we were all kind of nervous because there was going to be so many people all at once and so many kids. But it turned out to be so much fun to have everyone together. Bryan and I were able to stay for 5 days this year. It was GREAT!!! We loved every second of it. The condo had a bunch of different activities each day for the kids to do. So on the days that we just stayed at the condo, we took the kids down to play so they could get out of the room. This picture is of Madi, Oakleigh, and D'Andre doing picture frames.

We also did a lot of this!! Just sitting around and relaxing. I LOVE the shopping but this is also one of my favorite things to do.

Oakleigh and D'Andre playing hide and seek!! :) These two are the best of friends!!

This was another one of the activities. They did bead fusing, where you put a bunch of beads on different shapes and then iron them together. This one was fun, but such a pain. The beads were so little, it took forever just to make one shape.

I think this was the kids favorite part of the whole trip!! SWIMMING!! :) The condo has 8 hot tubs and a great big swimming pool. We spend so much time in the water. Our room over looks the pools so Madi and Wy will just go out and I can watch them out the window. Which is nice, then they aren't cooped up in the room.

But Oakleigh and D'Andre are just as big of fish as Madi and Wy. These two were constantly wanting to go to the pools. :)

My little fish!!!

Has anyone ever seen the movie Big Daddy with Adam Sandler? Yupp!!! I call Wy my Scuba Steve!! Ha Ha!! :p

I LOVE this boy!! This is my nephew Creed!! He was enjoying all the treats that were just sitting out on the table.

And it wouldn't be the same with out our annual trip to Cabella's!! I think this is the Guy's favorite part of the trip. This and the gun shows. We always have to plan to spend a whole day in this store. It takes the men that long to look at everything.

I on the other hand, spend the whole day doing this with the kids...............

The shooting range and walking around looking at all the animals and the fish aquarium. Oh and lots of trips to the bathroom because of all the refills they get on their drinks!!

We had so much fun this trip. I think a lot of it was because we were a little more relaxed and less rushed cuz we had more time. It was nice to be able to take our time shopping or even just spending time at the condo. We are already looking forward to next year!! :)

CANNING

So I know I haven't blogged for a REALLY LONG TIME. And I don't really have a very good excuse, other than the typical "Things have been super busy" the past couple months. So I am going to do a quick catch up with a lot of pictures and not so much talk.

I did some more canning this year. Not as much as last year because I still had a ton from last year, so we just tried to eat a lot of fresh and save the canned and frozen stuff for the winter. It worked out well!!

I did do a couple of things this year though. I did peaches again, because my kids LOVE them and they are great for pies and cobblers. And I tried a couple of new things too. I did pears, which were a HUGE pain, but worth it cuz they are super yummy, and then I did apple juice, which is WAY YUMMY too!! :)

Oakleigh had fun helping me pick our apples. I think she ate more than she put in the box!! :)

My mother and father in law have this way cool juicer. All you do is wash the apples off and throw them in the grinder and it chops them up and drops them into the bucket thing with a cheese cloth like bag. Once the bag is full you put the lid on and start cranking and out comes the juice!!

Sorry about these last couple of pictures. I forgot to turn them.

After your bowl is full you just dump the juice in your pots and boil it. Then you pour it into your jars, put the lids on and wait for them to seal!!! It's AWESOME!! I LOVE it!! The juice is so sweet that we don't have to add sugar or water!! I am definitley doing this again next year!! Even the kids had fun helping.

And these are my pears. I will probably do these again next year too. Along with everything else since my food storage will be empty!! :0