Fall leaves

The girls and I ventured out for a walk and saw a lovely heap of leaves.  We started throwing them up and then katelyn said, "we could do service!"  With that she bolted home for some rakes and recruited some neighbors.  The end result...great memories and shared love.

First attempts

With a little help from recruits

Even our littlest guy wanted to help

Hard at work

Jumping in

Etney even joined in with her dress

Never too old for leaves

Shower of leaves

Buried in the leaves

Life has been good to us

It's been awhile people but we will have another go.  Here are some family photo updates:  we now have little Andrew in our family, we've added on to our home twice in the last 12 months, and I am trying to catch up on journaling our adventures in between.

Andrew in st. George enjoying the warm sand in February this year

Katelyn in her baptism dress this spring

Abby 4

Sarah 6

Some good ol fashioned giggles

Mommy snuggles before katelyn grows up too fast

Last summers Eskimo kisses with Sarah when she didn't want to have family photos taken

Seattle last weekend skipping rocks

Andrew was trying to skip like daddy

Andrew this spring enjoying the apple orchard blossoms

Abby and Andrew cooking in the kitchen 

Before kitchen (this is the whole room)

Taking out exterior walls and adding much needed space in our favorite gathering place

Well here's to being a little better at keeping life recorded.😉

Dr. Seuss Party

I was scanning through my facebook and saw Heather had posted a photo of Dan's cute Cat in the Hat shirt he had made for Grace to wear at school and realized March 2nd is Dr. Seuss' birthday!!!  I almost forgot.  So I quickly called the neighbor kids and we threw together an impromptu party.  In the end we had 17 people celebrating with us so I never got any photos of the actual party.  We had books, cartoons, ate green eggs and sausage (I was all out of ham but I figured it was close enough), blueberry muffins and swedish fish for red fish, blue fish.  We colored pictures, played pin the eggs on the platter and read the girls seuss books All About Me.

Christmas Candids

Christmas Dresses

 Abby just wants to hold the camera...

 Painting with Goop and having a ball

 Snuggles with Doggy

 Sarah's last day of Preschool before Christmas Break

Taking out the Trash

There is something about crawling into confined spaces that toddlers can't resist.  Nate adds a little humor by threatening to dump her in the trash can...

 The sisters get in on some sliding car action

 Never a dull moment

Student of the Month

Katelyn has had a big month of awards.  She had a reflections/literacy night display at her school and her sunflower drawing was chosen to go on to Council (to be judged against all the other elementary schools in the district).  She received a ribbon, certificate, gift card to an ice-cream parlor, a fun day at the Kangaroo Zoo and a ceramics day with all the other participating kids at her school.  She also found out she was chosen as Student of the Month for November and was invited to come back to school for a special assembly (she's in half-day kindergarten).  I will post images of her entry once we get it back but here are some shots of her ceramics day and awards assembly:

Katelyn with her Friends

Getting a hug from Mom

Busy Painting



My mom joined us for our afternoon at Kangaroo Zoo (indoor bounce house playland) and pizza lunch (you order pizza but it's really just placed through Dominoes and then delivered...smart).

And Katelyn at her Awards Assembly by her class paintings

 Hearing her name announced

 Accepting the Award and listening to all the nice things Ms. Vandyke wrote about her

 Showing off her award certificate

Way to Let your Light Shine Katelyn!!

Temple Square Lights

We took the girls down to enjoy the lights at temple square.
 A few tips:
      a. dress warm
      b. arrive early before the lights are on so you can see all the visitor center stuff first and then enjoy the lights.
      c. hot cocoa is a must have
We hung out in the visitor's center and the girls were absolutely amazed by the little house display that had television screens for windows playing mormon ads.  They could have been content there alone.  Next of course is the open model of the Salt Lake Temple.  Nate and I were married here so it was fun for the girls to see the miniature rooms like a dollhouse display.  We walked past a model of Angel Moroni and Katelyn exclaimed, "Look it's the whistler!!!"  We had a fun filled night watching Abby stare with open wonder at the Christus Statue and adoringly squeal, "Neigh" at all the horse-drawn carriages.  Sarah mostly snuggled and of course they all were oohing and ahhing over the lights.

Sarah gave up on walking early in the night...

 Katelyn taking in the lights

 Everyone is starting to really feel the cold

 the light display

it looks like there is fire coming down...

 Slowly kids are making dibs on mom's layers

 in the restaurant where it's nice and warm

finally peeling the layers

Ward Christmas Party

After the storm passed the food from the Relief Society Dinner was added to the Ward Christmas Party.  The delicious Chicken Primavera was happily eaten by all.

Darling Primary Reindeer Craft

Sarah couldn't look at the camera because she was studying dessert.

Katelyn singing with the Primary

Abby attacking everybody else's plate