Visiting Santa

On Monday we braved the crowds at the mall for a visit with Santa.  Nobody was scared and we didn't have to wait too terribly long it was good.  And nobody surprised me with their request from Santa.  Here is the cute picture we got.

Decorating for Christmas

On Sunday Jake brought out tree up from downstairs.  The kids have been dyeing to decorate for Christmas and finally on Sunday we found the time.  It was fun to watch them decorate the tree, even if they put all the decorations on the same side of the tree.  We eventually got it all evenly decorated.  (but I am thinking that I am in need of some new ornaments)

         

Sleeping Angel

Abbie has been trying to give up her nap for a while now.  Most days she is not successful.  We struggle and struggle to get that nap in, sometimes it happens easily and some days not so much.  Today was one of those days that she just wasn't going to go to sleep.  Her cousins were here for the first time in a long time and she was much too interested in playing to sleeping.  Well here is how I found her when I turned around while making dinner.  She had sat up to the table hoping that dinner would be ready soon and all the playing caught up with her.

Disney On Ice

Thanks to this great website... SMMART IDEAS I won four FREE tickets to Disney on Ice.  I ended up buying one extra ticket so that we could all go.  We went last night and had a wonderful time.  It had Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Lilo and Stitch, and Abbie's favorite Peter Pan (because she LOVES tinkerbell).    This is literally how my kids were through out the entire show.    No one said they were bored, or asked to leave at all.  They were glued to what was going on on the ice, for two hours.

We let the kids each pick out a souvenir... Lexie said that she really didn't want anything (which just shows that she is getting too big!) But we did get a WAY too expensive lemonade.

 Ashton picked out a light up spinny thing 

and Abbie picked out tinker bell wings. (imagine that) They were pretty cute and I am thinking that she will be tinker bell for Halloween next year if this love of hers continues.  

Here's a few action shots of the show.  They are little blurry it was the best I could get.

More Pictures

Got the kids all ready and went to take some more pictures of the kiddos yesterday.  My plan was to take them up the canyon by our house and hope that there was still enough good color left to get some really good pictures....  when we got to the mouth of the canyon it was closed.  Plan B drive around and look for a good place to take their pictures.  We ended up at Gardner Village and got GREAT pictures.  Lexie needed some that better matched the other kid's pictures. We just got back her school pictures and they were cute, for school pictures but they definitely weren't the greatest pictures ever.  And I wanted some of all three kids together to maybe do Christmas cards with.  Well here is what we got.  

Fun stuff

Photo Tinks by WiddlyTinks.com

Photo Tinks by WiddlyTinks.com

Picture a day...

I have decided to start a picture a day blog.  The link is over on the side of this blog.  Hopefully it will get me taking more pictures of every day life instead of only the big stuff.  Take a look, hope you like it.

FINALLY- GOOD PICTURES

It has taken me 6 MONTHS to find the time to take Abbie's two-year-old pictures.  I have been busy but not that busy, I just haven't made the time to take them.  I have taken other peoples pictures just not my own kids. (Thats sad, really sad.) Well they turned out so cute, I'm so happy and it was really easy.  I also took some of Ashton and he is a little harder to get a good picture out of, he loves to pull this funny smile where he really isn't smiling just gritting his teeth.  His preschool pictures were terrible, and that is being kind.  He wasn't even looking into the camera on most of them.  Oh well these are super cute.  Now to get some of Lexie, she was as school while we were taking these but it couldn't be helped.....

Remember these??

Well they have grown into these HUGE things....

The plant took over my front flower garden but it made some of the biggest pumpkins ever. It was even kind enough to make three, one for each kid. Can't wait til its time to carve them.

Ashton in Ashton

Going to Yellowstone while we are visiting Jake in Idaho Falls has become one of our families favorite day trips.  Since it is only 2 hours to Yellowstone we get up early and drive to Yellowstone for the day and stay until it is too dark to see anything in the park and then head home.  One of the little towns we pass through on the way is Ashton, Idaho.  Ashton thinks that it is weird that a city (town) has the same name as him and doesn't think it is very funny when we start telling him that "he" is coming up in 20 miles or however far away it is.  Well this time we needed to make a pit stop there so we decided to find "his" sign and take his picture by it.   What a good sport.

What a girl needs

I have been potty training Abbie for a little while and she had been doing pretty well.  She was having WAY more dry days that accidents.  Things were going so well, then when she filled up her last "potty chart" (about the same time she had her bladder infection that definitely didn't help matters either) I didn't bother to make another one because I thought that she was doing so well that she didn't need it.  Well things have been going down hill from there.  I was getting very frustrated, well today I had the brilliant idea (duh!!) to make her another potty chart to see if that would help motivate her to use the potty.  What a HUGE change it has made.  Putting a sticker on a piece of paper holds some sort of magic I am sure!  I think the potty chart will be here till we are done with potty training for good!!

picking out the sticker... I went all out and got big smiley faces this time, she loves them.

all these stickers are from today!!!  No accidents here!!!

Planting a Tree

This spring our stake president asked each family in our stake to pick out and plant a fruit tree in our yards. He made an analogy to Captain Moroni's Title of Liberty.  "Instead of writing the words on a torn coat as Captain Moroni did, families are invited to select and plant a fruit tree.  As it grows, so should our commitment to God, family, covenants, and country. As we begin to see the blossoms and the fruit appear, so should our commitment begin to appear.  Then, as we enjoy the fruit and happiness that comes from it, so should we enjoy the blessings that come from our improved relationship with God and family, and the strengthening of our testimony through the covenants we make, as well as from our love and support of this great country."  Well we went looking for our tree this weekend and found what Ashton called the "perfect tree".  It is a fruit salad tree, it has 4 different fruits grafted into the same tree, apricot, plum, peach and nectarine.  I hope that it can grow and produce fruit for us soon.  We also got a peach tree. It was a family effort to plant our trees.   Here are a few pictures that we took:

Digging the hole, in Herriman this is like digging in cement.

Picking out the rocks,  there were LOTS there always are, its what grows in Herriman, rocks.

Measuring the hole.  

Filling in the hole with dirt.

Adding a little water.

The planted tree, this is the fruit salad tree.

Picking out more rocks, for tree #2

Abbie found some...

Adding some fertilizer.

The little peach tree.  It will be a while before this one produces any fruit.  Patience will be key.

WOW We were watched over.

I don't know where my friend got this picture but it shows a lot of the fire path.  I think it was taken Monday morning due to where the visible smoke is.  Most of the homes on the edges of the fire path have little to no damage to their homes.  It is truly a miracle.

Lisa's (my sister if you don't know who that is) house is just to the left and down from the lake right at the edge of the photo.  My house isn't in the picture but would be in the bottom-left corner if the picture was a little bigger.

Just found out that the fire has picked back up and some neighborhoods in the right hand side of this photo are being asked to evacuate again on a volunteer basis.  :( 

This is the house I was talking about....

ksl.com - Firefighters pleased with progress made on Herriman wildfire (Gallery Viewer)

Fire

Sunday afternoon we began smelling smoke.  I really didn't think much of it because I had heard the tell-tale sounds of training going on at Camp Williams on the other side of the mountain.  This would not be the first time that some of the ammo has started a fire on the range.  But it is rare thing to have it come all the way over the mountain, and to have houses in danger and be told to evacuate the area has NEVER happened (in the 6 years we have lived in our house.)  Well as darkness began to descend and the wind picked up even more than they already were, you could see the fire advancing down the mountain with the wind blowing it directly towards my neighborhood.  Well about 9:30 my neighbor (who also happens to be the elders quorum president) knocked on our door and told us we needed to evacuate.  We went to my mom for the night.  Me and the kids, Jake was already on his way back to Idaho Falls for work.  Today its been hard to know exactly what was happening out that way and when and if we were going to be allowed to go back.  In formation is spotty and changes it seems right after they announce something.  It is a miracle that only three houses were burned.  There are countless places where the fire came right up to houses only to be stopped by dedicated fire fighters risking their lives.  We, as a community, were truly blessed.  I wish that I could post all of the pictures that I have seen showing the evidence of the fire but there are too many.  My favorite is on ksl.com  's picture gallery of the fire was number #13.  (The house that had fire on every side of it but it is untouched.)   This was the view from my front yard today when I went back to have a look..

Disclaimer: This picture makes the fire look like it was  a lot closer to our house than it really was.  There are at least 3 or 4 road between us and the fire line on the hill.  But still WAY to close for comfort.

Birthday Party Times FIVE

How many times can you celebrate the same birthday?  This year I think we ended up going a little party crazy for this little boy, but he sure did feel love.  It  has taken me a little while to finally get these pictures uploaded to my computer, but I have been busy; first, trying to figure out why Abbie was so sick, then why she wasn't getting better and then, finally, how to treat an allergic reaction to antibiotics.  Thankfully, now (Sunday night) Abbie is finally starting to feel like herself and things are returning back to normal at our house.  So back to Ashton and his birthday.
His first party was on Saturday, a friend party.  It was a lot of fun for everyone and there were at least as many two-year-olds and 4 and 5-year-olds at the party.  We had a bounce house for the kids to play in and I couldn't get them to hold still long enough to take very many pictures that weren't blurry but I tried.

We had a transformers theme, with a military transformer cake.  Lots of fun and being silly.  It was a good party.

Then Sunday evening we had cake and ice cream for family (#2).  We also put the bounce house back up for all the cousins. Ashton had a few more presents to open and lots more family to celebrate with.  It was a fun night.

Monday (#3) found us miniature golfing and eating lunch at Sizzle.  Ashton's new favorite place to eat.  (He loves the shrimp there)  It was a fun day especailly since because of the holiday we got an extra day with dad.  (sorry no pictures)

Tuesday was Ashton's actual birthday and we had to celebrate again (#4).  We went to dinner at the Mayan with Grandma and Grandpa.   Then had a little more cake (for good measure) and had the birthday bear sing to Ashton.  There are pictures of that but I don't have them, my mom was behind the camera then.  (this was the night that Abbie started getting sick and the week went downhill from there.)

And if that wasn't enough he took treats and they sang to the birthday boy Friday at preschool (#5).

Hey you only turn five once, you might as well celebrate with FIVE parties, right?  Just don't count on having six parties next year.

Happy Birthday Ashton

Can't believe my little boy is 5 today.  It seems like only yesterday that he was only this big and we were bringing him home from the hospital.

He is such a sweet little guy, always trying to do what's right and to do his very best.  I love you so much.  We have been really busy this weekend celebrating with Ashton and there will be more picture to come of all of the festivities but I wanted to make sure that I acknowledged my little man on his really special day.