A Most Random Post: We're old, smugglers, and Squish

I found this old gem awhile ago. This is right before Kyle left to go on his mission.

My parents came down a few weeks ago and helped us pack up our house... well, really JUST what we had in the attic. We filled up this big 20 foot trailer and our house still looks the same.

(For those that don't know, we are moving to Utah in 2 weeks- bitter sweet). Anywho, when I looked in the trailer at this point, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh because it looks like we are diapers/wipes smugglers or cry because each of those boxes represent money that we've spent on a bunch of crap!

And this is how the two younger ones gang up on the older one. I'm guessing that the older one is thankful that we have spent so much money on those diapers about now.

Boo To You

Happy Halloween!!! We had our celebrations yesterday at the Ward Halloween Party.


Parker didn't want to keep the elephants head on his head.

Spencer wanted to be Darth Vader again this year. Makes for an easy year this year!

And Carly was Snow White.

School is Cool

Spencer had an assignment to write a report about someone. This is his report:

My Dad

My dad is my best buddy because he takes me out to get ice cream and bike rides. We like to watch basketball. It is really fun. He helps with my homework and he works hard for lots of money for our house. My dad is 6 foot 3 inches tall. He is also very crazy because he said, "I have a bald eagle beak." I love my dad and he loves me too.

The End

Balloon Fiesta 2010

Kyle's parents came down to visit us and we also got to go to Balloon Fiesta one last time. It was fun as usual and no matter how many times I see it, I get excited about it. So Fun!

Spencer trying out his camera skills.

Carly had to try out her camera skills as well.

His favorite balloon.

Waking up to leave by 5:15 AM is always worth it. Love the balloon Fiesta!

Pictures Shmictures

We went down to the Bosque yesterday before conference and took some family pictures. We just went with some friends and took pictures of each other. Fun AND free!

Love him!

Love him too!

And Her!

Parker was not being very cooperative, so I'm going to have to try to take a picture of him this week sometime.

And this weekend is the start of the Balloon Fiesta. This is one of the things I will miss about ABQ! These pictures were taken from my front porch. This one, I just thought the clouds looked cool.

We were all out front watching the balloons and this one yelled down to us, "Good Morning!" and were waving at the kids. We yelled back and probably woke up all of our neighbors. Fun times!

I was really hoping to capture a plane running into a hot air balloon and catching it on film to make my million, but this is the picture I got.

Just had to throw in a picture of his freakishly long eyelashes. I don't know where he got these, but I'm jealous!

On Friday, at Spencer's school, they had the balloon aloft. It's a program where certain schools get picked to have some balloonists come, before balloon fiesta starts, and launch their balloons from the school. Kyle took the two older kids. They were SO excited that they woke up at like 4:50 AM and got ready for it! They had so much fun, but were sure tired the rest of the day!

And Spencer took this picture of Kyle and me before our soccer game on Saturday. We are pretty awesome... actually, I have to resort to violence during our games to get the ball. I've never played soccer before in my life, so this has been a scary thing for me. But it's fun and I get good exercise!

Funlings

Carly started preschool last week. She was SOOO excited!

And these kids wait and wait and wait for daddy to come home from work every day. This is why.

Tids and Bits

I had preschool at our house this week for Carly. We learned about rainbows and Noah's Ark and weather. For the snack we colored bread for toast. Parker joined in on the fun and he was definitely having fun!

Spencer made the flower on the right and the beetle on the left out of these fun blocks. He wanted me to take a picture of him. I think he did a great job!

I took the 2 younger kids to the zoo this morning. First time I haven't taken the stroller to the zoo! It was SOO nice! Anyway, I decided we'd ride the train and this is a self-portrait of the fun times.

The new bridge off of the freeway opened up last week, so we took a family ride to it. It doesn't look like much, but it's pretty steep! We were all huffing and puffing when we got to the top!

We're getting good at self-portraits.

Doings of nothing

The kids and I were making personal pizzas for dinner when Kyle came in with the camera, snapped a few pictures, and then proclaimed. "You can use those on the blog." He was joking of course because he likes to make fun, but I am using them just to spite him. :P




And every Wednesday is our cleaning day. We've just implemented a new allowance and more consistent chore thing in our home, which has been working miracles! (It hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows, but it's working!)

The 3 rules to cleaning I have are: Do it right. Do it quickly. Do it happily.

Some kids do it more happily than others...

Others need to work on obeying all the rules. :)

And there you have it. Our doings of nothing!

Second Grader in Da House!

Spencer started 2nd grade today. He is going to a new school and was SO excited! He gets recess so why wouldn't he be excited? Kyle dropped him off this morning and said that it went well. Spencer was a little nervous, but it's a new place with new kids and he has never had lunch at school before OR recess, so it's all very new to him. I think in a couple of days, he'll be just fine and will be loving school.


First day of school picture

The last couple weeks of summer we were still trying to do some fun things so that they weren't going too crazy.

We took them to a spray park and they loved it.

The End

Celebrating the Utah Way

We had such a great trip to Utah! Lots of pictures ahead.


At Great-Grandma Chris's house.

At the Hinckley parade.

We were lucky enough to stay at Aunt Kelli's house for one of our nights.

Watching the parade

At the rodeo

Spencer was lucky and drew out to do the Mutton Bustin'. Here he is at the beginning.

And at the end...

We went to Kenlee's baby blessing. (And a pic of my new do)

Me and my cute dad.

Spencer and Grandma

We went boating one of the days. Here's Parker in the tube with dad. I took this picture from the shore- go camera zoom!

A bunch of us on this raft/floater thing on the lake. It was so fun to swim out to it and then hang out and try to push each other off.

Kyle and Brent on the tube.

Again.

Catching some air.

My parents.

Parker turned 2 while we were in Utah. We had a little party and then we went to the local swimming pool to celebrate.

The cute Nemo cake that Aunt Katie made for Parker.

Trying to figure out what we want him to do with those candles.

My family. It's been way over a year since we've all been together, so it called for a picture.

We had a lot of fun!