Hannah's Blessing

We are so grateful to have sweet little Hannah as our cousin.  She is a doll and will be a fun buddy for Rockwell (they are 8 weeks apart in age).  We were able to attend Hannah's blessing on November 4th.  Have I mentioned that we love living close to family? yes? well we do. :) 

After the meeting we enjoyed breakfast burritos back at Corinne and Stu's house.  Lots of fun conversation and the kids were excited to be able to play with Anniston, Lauren, and Solomon.

Hannah you sure are a sweetie and we are excited to be able to watch you grow up! 

 

Halloween 2018

We did quite a few Halloween activities during the month of October that by the time the actual Halloween day came around I was a little like... "Is it STILL Halloween?!"  But in the end it was a special day and ended on a relaxing note that helped me enjoy it. 

We started out Halloween day by going to Addie's school for the Halloween parade.  Not sure how I am going to continue going to the parade each year because dragging my other 4 kids to the school to watch her was a bit of a nightmare for me.  But how could I miss it?  After the stressful and exhausting parade experience I was happy to leave all of the other kids at home with McKay while I went to school with Jensen to help in his class party.  I brought the game Don't Eat Pete (Halloween edition) and they all seemed to really enjoy it (plus it was easy to prep). 

After school we invited Corinne and Stu over for Pumpkin pizza from Papa Murphy's and some trick or treating around the neighborhood. 

This year Addie was Jasmine, Jensen was a Police officer, Declin was Superman, and Magnolia was Supergirl.  Also if you can't tell from the photos Solomon was Dash and Hannah was Minnie Mouse. 

We got all of the kids costumes on and pictures taken and then Corinne and I sent the men off with the kids. Corinne and I sat and chatted while we held babies.  It was cold, but the kids lasted for almost 2 hours going house to house. 

Of course when they got home the candy dump and sort began and they all had sticky faces and hands.

By the end of the day I was exhausted from trying to make it a fun day for the kids.  What a special/crazy/busy time of life this is!  Happy Halloween! 
     

We Have Leaves

We really like our new backyard yard and how the old owners landscaped it.  Honestly neither of us have lived in a place with such nice landscaping before and we hope that we don't mess it up too much. 

One of the big perks of having lots of trees and bushes is all the leaves in the fall.  So much potential for lots of leaf fun!  I had TONS of leaves in my yard growing up and had such a great time playing in them during the fall.  Leaf houses anyone?!  This year we raked big piles and crunched around in them, but honestly they didn't really get it yet.  Don't they know how much fun they could be having?! (they have never had a yard with leaves before).  I think it is going to take a few years until they fully figure it out.  Plus we still need to buy a rake they can use.

So here's to the first year of leaves!  May there be many more!

 

SeaQuest with Idaho Friends

When we lived in Idaho we truly lucked out with the BEST backyard neighbors.  The house behind us and our house practically shared a backyard.  We never put up a fence and we just used it as a extra big backyard for the kids to play in.  We had 3 different neighbors in the 7 years that we lived there and all of them were seriously the best.  They all had kids with similar ages to our kids and we had so much fun running out and playing with friends all the time.  The last set of neighbors that we had were so sweet.  They had a little girl that was a couple months younger then Addie and her name was also Addy (just spelled slightly different).  They became fast friends.  Addy is such a sweet girl and even my boys adored playing with her.

Addy's birthday is in Oct and they like to come to Utah to celebrate her birthday each year.  This year they invited us to come join them.  We surprised the girls and they were so excited to see each other when we met up.  We went to SeaQuest at the Layton Hills Mall and had a great evening seeing the fish and animals.

They loved the sting rays and the mermaid shells.  I loved those little fish that eat the dead skin off your hands (I forget what they are called).  Jensen loved being aloud to put his hands in the water and was soaking wet by the time we left (never wear long sleeves there).

This night was the perfect thing for Addie who had been missing her friends from Idaho a lot.  So grateful for awesome friends.

 

Fall Family Pictures 2018

We had Cascio Photography take our family pictures on October 24th in Logan.  She did a great job at dealing with our little crazies and took some fantastic photos.  I LOVE having these memories (although I am exhausted from two family sessions in 4 months, definitely excited to not have to do them again for another year).  

We did the kids yearly individual photos during the session to hang on the wall.  I am still amazed at how much Magnolia has grown up this year from last year.  She has definitely changed the most out of the older kids.  

Adalyn: 7 years old

Jensen: 6 years old

Declin: 4 years old

Magnolia: 2 years old

Rockwell: 4 months old (I usually like to do 6 month photos so these count for that)

McKay and I even got some photos together.  We will be celebrating 9 years of marriage on December 15th.