What's that? It's been a while.

Yes it has been a long time since I last posted but here are some pictures for all the grandparents who are far away. Kolby turned 1 at the beginning of January. He has gotten so big and walks all over by himself. He is in to E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.NG. But we still love him. He is a pretty happy baby and laughs a lot! 

My sister had her first baby end of January. They named him James and he was over 2lbs smaller than my smallest baby. He looks a lot like her and his daddy. My mom came to help her with the baby and then we got to enjoy having her here for a few day. We love it when she comes and enjoy getting to go out kid free whenever we want!

My sister in law Katy got married to a great guy, Nick. The kids really like him and he is so nice to them. At their reception it was cute to see McCall get shy about going and saying HI to aunt Katy. We also got to see Mo's other brother and sister and their families. It was nice to see them since we never get together. The kids loved having all the family around and all the attention they got! Thank Celeste for braiding mccalls hair, she loved it.

I was also put in as the 2nd counselor in Young Women's a few months ago. I get to work with the Beehives again. They are a fun group and all get a long really well which makes the calling more fun. Mo starting his adjunct professor job at BYUI. He really likes it but would like the opportunity to teach a different class as well. His background, education and love is in Epidemiology (disease prevention) but so far he hasn't been able to do much with it. He has applied to several jobs over the years and actually just interviewed with 2 of them in 2 other states just these last few days. I think even if another job is offered we will probably stay where we are a little longer. We like where we live but know we won't be here forever. I guess we are waiting till we get a call back from that perfect job. We hope everyone had a good Valentines Day. My kids made out with TONS of goodies. Brayden received a girly Valentine with a cat on it. When he showed it to me he exclaimed, "that valentine has ruined my life!" Apparently he didn't want anything girly.
A little while back we had a "weather day" which means no school because it is to dang cold to be outside. And the snow drifts were covering the bus routes. The boys were busy playing air hockey, building a happy wall on their beds, painting, and they even washed the dishes without complaining!

We went to IJump for an FHE activity. It is a place with trampolines all over and foam pits. Who can play dodge ball and go crazy. The kids loved it. I learned that I am not as graceful as I once was when trying to do flips. Brayden however can flip quiet beautifully!

Promised pictures

I believe I told some of you I would just post pictures on my blog and well I never did. So a recap of the last two month. We went out on a beautiful saturday several weeks ago and tried ice blocking with the kids. They had a blast. I think they need to make ice blocks for adults because my behind didn't fit as well on the ice as the kids. McCall had a hard time staying on and Tanner tried several times to stand on his way down the hill. 

We had a lot of fun at halloween. We did our neighborhood trunk or treat and then went to a few houses. Since Mo and I had dressed up previously for a halloween party I just did a simple bathrobe, pjs and curlers for the trunk or treat. I got a lot of laughs but my favorite was from a kid who exclaimed, "I know what you are, you're a stay at home mom" Yes I guess that is what lots of people think moms look like.

I was just recently released from 8 year old scouts and put in a the 2nd counselor in YW. I think it will be a lot of fun especially since we have a large group of girls and they all get a long really well. I also started going to our elementary school one day a week to be their duty aid for a few hours. Basically I just watch kids at recess and help them if they need it. Today I had a little boy face plant it on the cement and he got a really good gash on his nose. He was bleeding everywhere. Mo also just agreed to become an Adjunct Faculty teacher for BYUI this next semester. He is going to teach just one class called Health Communications. He really enjoys teaching and since he was offered the opportunity to be a professor he decided to try it out for a semester. The school was really needing someone to teach and the day after Mo agreed to teach he already had students signed up for his class. Hopefully it will be something he enjoys.

I don't have a title.

So we have been trying to enjoy these last few days outside before it is blustering cold. We went out to one of my favorite places, Mesa Falls. The kids were kind enough to let me snag a few pics before they all ran off. I love all the fall colors.

Mo participated in this years Race for the Cure 5k. He also ran last year and came in 2nd place but this year he came in 1st! It was so stinkin' cold, like 29 degrees but he still did great! Kolby was all bundled up and just sat there the whole time! Kolby is also in to everything. He has been trying to get into this drawer in my kitchen for a long time and the other day I heard his little cry only to find he had made it into the drawer and couldn't get out!

Tanner has been wanting to start an ice cream club and he invited 17 kids! (That's a lot of ice cream.) Since it is getting cold I suggested doing a hot chocolate club. So he printed up some invitations and so kindly decided to break up all the kids into smaller groups to invite over. We baked up some chocolate chip cookies and made a batch of hot chocolate to serve his guest. Who would have thought it could get so loud with only a few people. They had a blast dancing and playing outside. They even made a haunted house in my food storage room. Since I didn't have any scary music they settled on playing an EFY CD for scary music!

Brayden has been playing soccer again this year and is quite the stud. He's made a lot of goals and with only one game left his team is undefeated so far. He definitely has some talent and the coaches wife has told me the coach wants to coach Brayden again because he loves the talent he has!!! If youre looking for an overly confindent, talented, fun loving cutie patootie I got one you can come visit. He is definitely fun to have in our family and never leaves us with a dull moment or a quite one!

We retrieved our photos!!!!

So a little while back Mo hooked up the camera to upload pictures onto the computer and all of a sudden all of the pictures disappeared. AAAAAA! We had our family vacation and McCalls birthday pictures on there. Long story short we gave our camera to our computer genius friend and he was able to get the pics back!!! So here it goes. We had a family vacation with all of my family at the Aspen Grove camp in Utah. All of my family members were able to make it which made the vacation all the more fun. This place is totally awesome. It's up in the mountains and you and your kids are entertained and fed the whole week. There were different age groups for the kids to go to. So in the morning we dropped them off (even kolby) and then we picked them up for lunch, returned them to their groups and then picked them up at 4:30. They were fully entertained with hikes and swimming, crafts, rock climbing etc. It was awesome to let someone else watch the kids and for us to get a break. They also had a full schedule for any adult who wanted to participate. We did the rock wall, ropes course, archery, paintball, hiking, rifle shooting, swimming, fishing, tomahak throwing and other fun games. I didn't even have to cook at all the whole week. They had a dining hall and feed you all 3 meals. It included a baby food bar as well. It was lots of fun and the cousins all had fun playing and running up and down the halls of our lodge.
McCall also celebrated the big 3! When I asked what she wanted for her birthday every time she would reply "cookies and cupcakes"! My kids are so easy to please. (Unless they get really really upset or tired) McCall has the same birthday as my brother in law so we had him and my sister over to celebrate.  I learned something about making cakes this time. I can do objects or animals alright but not people. His poor superman turned out with one arm seriously more buff than the other one. Ryan was nice enough to invite us to his family's farm. He let us all ride on the tractors and let Tanner drive it by himself. It totally made Tanner's day!
School also started this week. The boys were excited to start and they like their teachers. I do wonder about brayden's teacher a little. He says they color the whole time and that today they played duck duck goose with the teacher not during recess but just for fun. They also get out of class early. This is her first time teaching kindergarden so I hope they learn something and not just how to color!

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Summer in a nutshell

So the last month it seems we have been pretty busy with swimming lessons, summer movies, roasting dinner over the fire, watching the garden grow, playing with friends, going to the lake, the circus.

We celebrated Brayden's birthday and had snakes for our theme. The kids got a little excited about the snake idea. Our neighbors house is empty and so the weeds in back have gotten really tall. We had some friends over and they all heard a bug making a noise from the neighbors backyard. Convinced it was a snake they drug the trampoline ladder over and all 5 kids climbed on top and commenced throwing rocks into the weeds to get the snake to come out. They had a great time trying to coax it out and gratefully their rock throwing never produced any animals. I tried my hand at making a coiled snake. Definitely not my most favorite cake I've ever made but the 17 kids we had here could have cared less and they ate the whole thing. (It was 2 cake mixes to.)

 We also headed home to Houston for my brothers wedding. We are so excited they got married and the kids just love their new aunt. It's always a nice visit when you get to go home. All of the cousins were there and they had fun staying up late and waking up early, sleeping in my sister's big closet, making a HUGE mess out of baby powder, swimming, visiting the butterfly museum and riding bikes. Many thanks to my sister Kolby has finally started to eat solids while we were there. I had been trying for like a month and a half with no luck. She sat down and he just all of a sudden started eating!

We also got some family pictures taken. Our friend Spencer was so nice to take some for us a few days before he moved. I'm not sure what the problem was but McCall screamed the WHOLE time. Minus a few seconds here and there. She literally rolled around in the dirt. Considering she cried the whole time I was pleased with how our pictures turned out! I love this family picture to. It make me laugh. I think Brayden isn't quite sure about Kolby.

I'm not sure what Mo is doing here! Everyone else finished singing.

Most of the cousins at the Butterfly Museum

Have you ever seen mating sticks? Now you have.

My Dad with grandkids!

Our garden is growing strong we picked tons of peas and have a lot of food we are about to harvest. We planted strawberries this year and look at them everyday to see how close they are to being picked. We just picked our first one. Do you know how to share a strawberry with 5 people? We do. Everyone wanted a taste so we cut it 5 ways.