Pumpkin Patch

Jonathan and the "not scary haunted house".


Our daughter the giant. She is almost 4' tall and only 5.


I can't believe how big he has gotten. He will be 3 next month.


Kayley, Jonathan, and my dad as "monsters".


Kayley and the "Haunted House". Jonathan wouldn't get anywhere near it.

Our Little Girl is 5!

It seems like just yesterday that I was holding her in my arms for the very first time. In some ways she is still very much my "little" girl, but in other ways she can be so grown up.

Recently Kayley watched me dealing with her little brother in the grocery store (Jonathan was in full blown stinker mode). She said to me, "Sometimes being a mother is really hard huh." I replied that it is, but that I love it. She then asked me if it was fun sometimes. I said it was, and she wanted some examples. She paused for a moment and then said, "You know. Sometimes it is hard to be a kid too." She was almost shocked when I agreed and mentioned several things that can be hard about childhood.

A different day, she insisted that I write down the phone number of the police (She has already memorized our phone number and grandma and grandpa's. She likes to dial the numbers herself). I thought that maybe it would be good for her to learn about 911, but then I had a feeling that she had an ulterior motive. I decided to put her off for the time being.

As we were driving to the store, we passed a police car. She said that she would like the police officer to take away her brother because he would not listen to HER. I asked her if she thought the police should come and pick her up when she doesn't listen to me. She didn't like that idea. We then talked about what police officers actually do. I still don't trust her with that number yet.

Well, Happy Birthday my sweet daughter. I love you!

Lake Powell Trip

We leave for Lake Powell next Tuesday. My husband had won a houseboat trip in May and now we are finally going to take it. I'm a little nervous because I'm not in the best shape right now. My knee still is working at about 85% of what it can normally do, and well as most of you know I'm quickly approaching being very pregnant. It should still be really fun. I may just have to cut back on all of the hiking that I want to do.

If you've been to Lake Powell, where was your favorite place to go?

Neal E. Boyd Has Real Heart

This young man sings with his whole soul. How could you not love him? I adore him.

Nuttin But Strinz Rocks

These guys are incredible! I'm so amazed at how they have developed their talents in such a unique and entertaining way. I would be thrilled if they won. I really like Neal too. Their stories are just so compelling.

Utah State Fair

My camera was having an identity crisis (I think it wanted to be an iPhone), so it wasn't working yesterday. These pictures are actually from last year's trip to the fair.

This is K and J standing next to the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit. It was really cool. They take a basket and and apron and proceed through different parts of the "farm" doing chores. They put the "products" of their labor into the basket. At the end, they sort the things in their basket into their designated areas.




They are then "paid" for their labors with a paper $1 coupon to be used in the "Farmer's Market". They could chose from cereal, chips, apples, milk, cheese, and other food. K chose strawberry milk and J chose chocolate milk. They loved it! The whole experience didn't even cost us any money. The exhibit was totally free. Cool huh?!




They also loved riding the ponies. I wish that I had been able to take a picture this year because K looked like a total natural while she was riding. She still says that she wants to be a cowgirl and a vet when she grows up.

It's a .....

GIRL! We had our ultrasound today. Everything looks great except that the placenta is lying a little lower than they would like. Also, they pushed back my due date to February 5th (It was January 29th.). Oh well. We actually expected that because my due date was also pushed back with our other two children too.

Our daughter is SUPER excited that she will have a sister. :D Her little brother is just happy about the idea of not being the littlest anymore.

How Many Flashlights Does It Take?

How many flashlights do you think a family of four (soon to be five) needs. Four? Five? Ten at the most? Well according to my husband, we do not have nearly enough.

Please don't be too concerned though. He counted them recently and we currently have 56 flashlights (not including our little LED keychains) spread through our our home and vehicles. Oh, and we also have four lanterns.

Now you are probably asking yourself, yes they have plenty of flashlights; but do they have the batteries to go with them. Mr. Emergency Preparedness (aka my husband) has also made sure that they all have fresh batteries plus he has enough batteries on hand at all times so that the majority of them have back up batteries.

If your power goes out, your welcome to borrow a flashlight or two, or ten. My husband will be happy to lend them out, but he may be a little disappointed if your power is out and his is not. He'd hate to be missing out on the adventure.

Our Dog Ate Our Fiberoptic Cable

.... no really he did. It's ok, you can laugh. We laugh about it too now that it is over.

Max ate a section of the cable sometime on Monday. The result was that we were without a phone and the internet until about 1:30PM Wednesday. Thankfully, Max seems to be fine after eating it, and they didn't charge us for the repair.

Swing Vote

We were able to see a special screening of Swing Vote last night. I actually liked the movie a lot more than I thought I would. My big complaint about the movie is that Kevin Costner's character swears a lot. It is part of who his character is, but still could be very offensive to a lot of people.

The girl who plays his daughter was absolutely brilliant! She was completely believable and absolutely adorable.

The movie did have some very poignant moments and you may even find a tear or two sliding down you cheek as you watch it. If you can stomach the profanity, I would definitely recommend that you go see it.