The "other" Don

We were especially grateful to be able to visit Don's grandparents while we were in Utah. Don's grandmother has been in a nursing home for about a year and has suffered the debilitating effects of a stroke. It was bittersweet as she could not communicate well, but we were glad the children got to give her hugs and see Great Grandpa Carlsen too! We love you guys!

Treehouse

On one of our last "Utah" days we visited the Treehouse Children's museum in Ogden. This place was amazing and made our local Children's Museum look like a McDonald's playplace in comparison. The kids had fun playing on the little play fire truck, playing in the rodeo room, the farm room where they practiced milking a fake cow, the music room, the doll's room, the midevil knights room, the states room, the oval office room, the train room, the doctors room, and especially the Lego room. My boys are addicted to Legos - something Snata has been made aware of this Christmas... All in all - great fun!

Temple Square

We went to Temple Square while we were in Utah. It was fun to be back in Utah...and a little wierd. The kids had a hard time walking "so far" and the cold weather gave the boys no small amount of asthma problems. I am glad we did it though. As you can see, the boys came home afterwards and crashed....

Snow Bunnies

Sledding for the very first time. The kids had a great time discovering snow and all the things you could do in it at the park outside my Grandpa Jackman's house thsi past November. They only lasted about a half an hour - but it sure was fun!

"The Loot"

When I asked Ryan what he wanted to be for Halloween this year, he said, "A KNIGHT!". He cuoldn't wait to get last years costume out of the box. I tried to convince him that he could pick somthing new, but then slapped myself when I came to my senses. Recycle costumes, well, OK. But only because YOU want to. Wyatt decided the same and Mia said, "Whatever you want me to be, Mom". I kid you not. Where are these agreeable and frugal personalities when we're begging in the stores? Well, I had an angel costume that I had purchased a couple of years back on clearance and the fabulous trio rose out into the night. They went up and down two streets and came back with LOAD of candy. I let them pick at it for a few days and have stashed the remainder for good use. Bribery? Christmas Stockings? The possibilities are endless - and so is the candy.

Birthday Fun

We ended up postposing Ryan's birthday party a couple of weeks due to sickness and by the time we had the party, it was quite a bit cooler than we had expected. Nevertheless, the kids had a blast witha timed obstacle course, pin the treasure on the map, decorating cupcakes, and (Ryan's only request), a small ghost pinata. We don't have parties every year, but it was fun to do something this time. Yeah for SIX!

Aqua Linda Farms

We took a trip to the local pumpkin farm and petting zoo with our co-op preschool. The kids had fun, although the long serach for the pumpkin (carrying two large ones is not easy) and dealing with "What else are we going to do fun?" questions in the midst of said fun left me fairly tired and cranky. It might me a while before I go with my kids again.

The Best Present Ever

I'm the luckiest girl in the world to have my very own life size doll!

My apologies

Overheard today at a birthday party:
Another Mom: Come on off the bouncy castle, its time for "Pin the tail on the donkey!"
Ryan: Uh, I can't, I'm allergic to dogs.

How did a month pass by already?

OK, yes, I'm a sucky blogger - I try to get it in once a month so people know I am not dead. But in my defense, I am going at this alone - unlike every single other sibling I have, my husband does not contribute to this in any way. Never mind that I am doing this for the good of extended family members who need to be reminded of how cute our kids are on a regular basis. No, he says, "Hey, you started it, its your thing." Ha....I am never going to let his mother look at the blog again, and we'll see who laughing now....
Ahem. Now back to our regular blogcast. Things are crazy now that Ryan has started school. I am volunteering every week in his class, hosting the twins preschool group every third week, and participating in an exercise co-op every morning (we watch each others kids one day a week so that the other four we can go exercise alone). Add to that birthdays, soccer, sickness, camping (and sickness while camping), and cub scouts and you'll be able to see that we haven't had a lot of "down time" lately.
However, here I find myself with the chance to clean the kitchen after six kids ate dinner (I watched Miranda's kids while they slowly move things into their new house) or dink around on the computer with some pictures. Ergo, here I am. Below are some of the things we have been up to in the last couple of weeks.

Huh?

Sometimes I catch Mia and Wyatt doing the wierdest things. Here they are playing "Salon" - Wyatt's getting made up for something. (Probably a good sound beating when he is 12 if anyone ever sees this picture)

Presents

Thanks Gramps and Grandma for our fantastic presents!

Camping at Mt. Lemmon

Ok, sop we went camping in a technical sense - we slept in tents with sleeping bags. The fact that there were electrical outlets, colvered pavilions (with lights), great potties, and built in grills was only incidental. Although, I do maintain that with kids, this is the only way to go. We took advantage of cooler temps for a couple of nights and went camping with about eight other families with small kids too. They only snags we ran into were skunks...a lot of them prowling around our food in the evening time. That's the one animal you don't really want to scare away... The kids watched us make homemade rootbeer and we encountered the biggest marshmellow we had ever seen. Great fun!

4 Years Old!!

Oh the joys of birthday parties. We didn't have one last year, so we decided to let them have one this year. We had water balloon games, but the water balloons wouldn't pop. You could throw them really hard at someone and all that person would get was a bruise - it was funny. So the kids just all started throwing them at Don. We put the sprinkler head on the trampoline and basically made the kids as messy as we could get them.