Britton's 10th birthday

We celebrated Ms. Britton Halee's 10th birthday on Dec. 9th as a family. We had a quick party after her favorite dinner of tacos and chocolate cake and ice cream.

She got a new coat because she is always freezing! (go figure) It has 4 layers, so I'm sure she will be plenty warm. The great aunts got her a stuffed bear and a cool snowflake necklace.

Mamaw and Papaw sent money and I found a beautiful Christmas dress!!

I think she felt celebrated. We sure love you!

Ethan's holy smile

Ethan recently lost his 4th tooth. It was hanging by one piece and I begged him to let me use some floss to pop it out. After a while of telling him it won't hurt, trust me, he let me work on it. Well, I didn't plan on the tooth sucking back into his head and taking the floss with it. Talk about a sad little boy. ugh... But thankfully, after a while of tugging, twisting and crying, we got the tooth and the floss out. Note to self, leave teeth alone! :)

visit to Great grandparents House

Over Labor Day weekend, we packed up the kids and headed over to Lander, Wyoming. It is about a 5 hour ride, but we visited Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Nicholls, Eric's mom's parents. We had such a great time. They live on a lot of land and have sheep and a fun fourwheeler. We also went and visited a place called, Sinks Canyon. The river goes under the ground and then comes back up about 1/2 mile down the road. We hiked down with Great Grandpa Nicholls and saw this really cool find in the earth. The kids loved crawling around on the huge rocks, and then we went down the road and found where it comes out of the ground again. It was a fun weekend for all of us!!

School pictures

These are this year's school pictures.

Dallin-preschool 3 1/2 years old

Ethan- 1st grade 6 years old

Jeffrey- 3rd grade 8 years old

Britton- 4th grade 9 years old

(Halee has decided to go by her real first name this year)

Halloween fun

We had some famous characters come to our house on Halloween. We had Daphne from Scooby Doo, Mario from Nintendo, Indiana Jones and even Thomas the Train! We went through town during the last hour of school to trick or treat through the businesses with the elementary. That's a huge crazy chaotic mess, but it's fun for the kids. Then we went to the trunk or treat which is pretty big and lots of people show up for that. A great way to spend Halloween and the kids like the easy candy. Dallin especially liked it this year. He was pretty excited to fill his pumpkin up with candy!

Eric's thumb

You can't really tell from the picture, but Eric really smashed his thumb the other day bringing in a door for the downstairs. It hurt him so bad, and he was in so much pain! He had his brave mom (because neither he nor I could do it) stick it with a hot paper clip through the nail to relieve the blood. Well, blood exploded all over the bar, but eventually it felt better. Crazy how something little like that can cause so much pain!

Pumpkin fun

It was a pumpkin carving FHE last night. It was fun, but Eric and I got to de-gut all the pumpkins. Noone wanted to touch all the gooeing ooeing parts of the pumpkins. Everyone did design their own pumpkins, so that was fun. We roasted some pumpkin seeds afterward and kids took some in their lunches today. This is a fun part of the year, except for the snow of course!

A "peaceful" Saturday

Eric and I finally were able to get to the Idaho Falls temple today! It is a two hour drive each way, but it was worth it. It is an older temple and doesn't have live sessions anymore but you still move. It was a great morning, and the workers new it was our first time at that temple and they were very helpful. I needed to feel peace and quiet for awhile and it was great to have Eric there with me. Always great to be reminded of what is important, and hopefully we can get back there a lot more often.

Wow.

The neighboring farmer "Bob" brought this cabbage over last night. Holy cow! What do I do with this and how did it get so big? He said, that's what a true cabbage should look like. He has brought us yummy zuccini, squash and the sweetest peas and carrots and green beans from his garden. He sometimes lets the kids pick peas for him. I still am in awe of the cabbage!!

more outdoors

more camping

We pretty much had a fire going the entire weekend. Jeffrey was very proud of his perfectly cooked hot dog, Dallin liked the fact that he needed a "doat (coat)" and Britton (Halee) spent the day collecting rocks from the river.

Camping weekend

Last weekend we had a family camping outing in the behind the mountains that surround our house. We decided to have one last camping trip and wood gathering trip before the weather starting turning. We had the best time!! The kids loved being in the outdoors where they could run and scream as loud as they wanted and just be kids. It truly is a beautiful place we are living in, and it was really fun to explore it. The kids loved roasting marshmellows and hotdogs and smelling like campfire.

Eventually with boys, everything is turned into a gun. They were gathering wood for the fire, and found "gun city." A place with a million little sticks of all sizes and shapes. Some truly were shaped like little guns. This occupied them pretty much the whole night. Dallin was even loving it and running around saying "Stick up!"

Karaoke??

Yesterday we stopped off at the doctor's office to pick up some immunizations records for Dallin. Eric went in to get them and me and the kids stayed in the car. We were on the way to meet the teachers. They were more than excited and they all started to sing to this song. I got a good chuckle out of this and hopefully you will too.

It's finally time!

I walked in to the kids' room this morning to wake them up only to find 3 pairs of eyes saying, "is it time yet?" So, I think they were ready to get back to school. I am excited about Jeffrey's teacher, she taught Halee last year and is a nice but firm teacher. Halee (she's going by Britton this year) has a male teacher for the first time. He is the nicest guy and is in the ward that meets before us so we see him at church all the time. He should be fine and a funny teacher. Ethan will do well no matter who his teacher is, he thrives at school. Hopefully they will all get off the bus together today!

Jeffrey and Catboy

The kids all made up superheros this summer, and they turn in to them every now and again. Jeffrey's superhero is "Catboy." He is convinced that he really is Catboy because Catboy's super power isn't flying. Ethan's superhero is "Ethanman." Halee's super hero is Foxgirl I believe. They have been making up comic books, coming up with episodes and so on.. They have been asking and asking me to video them and then put the video on my blogs. Summer was summer and I was busy. So today, i showed Halee how to work the digital camera and here is the attempts to make the movie "Catboy." While watching these, I was laughing so hard I was crying. Please notice all the commotion in the back ground, the craziness of the dogs and the noise that never ends!! They took 4 tries to do this film. The third try was inside so there was no dogs. They were filming this the same time Ethan knocked out his tooth. Enjoy these because I sure did!!! Gives a good glimpse at all that happens at our house.

Ethan's "knock out"

While I was sitting at the computer this afternoon, Ethan runs up and says, "my tooth is bleeding." He fell on the corner of the couch some how and knocked out his front tooth. The good news is, it was a baby tooth and it was already getting loose. Still don't know how he managed to knock it out on a pretty puffy couch, but he did. Now let's just hope the tooth fairy doesn't forget! She doesn't have the best record for remembering in our house!

newest pictures

The baseboards are now done upstairs,and the outside of the house is just about completed. Thought I would post the newest pictures.