It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

Kindergarten Christmas Program

Today was Nicholas' school Christmas program. I love this time of year. There are so many fun things going on, and things to do. The kids did such a great job!

Nicholas and cousin Anna.

The kindergarten boys...(left to right) Micheal Greer, Preston Wilson, Nicholas, and Gage Heap.

Happy Birthday and Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was filled with more fun than usual. Our Audrey Catherine turned 4 on Thanksgiving day!!!

Here are the kids waiting for their turkey and dressing.

This year's cake was graced with Audrey's 4 favorite princesses!

Happy Halloween

This year we had one purple fairy princess, one pink fairy princess, and a crocodile hunter!

Nicholas and Preston are ready for the Halloween parade.

Sarah and Audrey are waiting to get the show on the road.


Here's the cutest part of our trick-or-treating pack. Starting at the left... Carly Wengert, Audrey, Aubrie Wilson, and Anna Tenney.


Even cousin Madilyn dressed up for her first Halloween.

Pumpkins Pumpkins Pumpkins

Last Friday we went to the Willis Farm in Snowflake to pick out this years pumpkins...

and to run through the corn maze like crazy people. We completed the course in about 45 minutes without a map, which entitled each of us to a--as Ryan would put it--very expensive candy bar!!!

And, yesterday we finally got to decorate our pumpkins...

Sarah wasn't much for decorating hers, but she loves her "punkin!"

GOOOOOOOOOOAL!

Soccer has come and gone...

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Tonight was Nicholas' last soccer game of the season. Thanks to his coach, Kami Avila, he has had a blast!

Guess Who's 2

Our little Sarah Ann is 2!!

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Ryan and I gave her a baby doll, and Nicholas and Audrey gave her a very special rock collection that they have been working on for weeks. Some of the rocks are from our backyard, some are from the Coronado school playground, some are from Grandma and Papa's yard, and some are from when we hauled wood. Not just ordinary rocks people! These were hand picked, washed, and sorted for quality! What quality I'm not quite sure of, but quality none the less.

And the cake... this year it was a strawberry sprinkle cake!

A Weekend in Utah

Last weekend we went to Utah to visit family and attend a session of General Conference. While my Mom, Ryan, and I were at Conference the kids enjoyed their much anticipated Uncle Ken Day! My brother spoiled and spoiled and spoiled them. They love Uncle Ken!

While in Utah we were also able to see Adam,

and my Uncle Jason, Aunt Jackie, Brittany, Haley, and Brayden.

I had to steal this picture of them because some how I got home without taking a single one. Ughh!

The County Fair

A special thanks to Grandma! She is the reason these kids had a great time at the fair and got to put in their entries!!!

These are Audrey's blue ribbon peppers,

her red ribbon butternut squash,

and her red ribbon asters.

This is Nicholas' blue ribbon spaghetti squash,

and his blue ribbon asters.

This is the picture Nicholas colored at school to enter in the fair with his class.

Here's Sarah enjoying the fair with her cotton candy bag in hand!

Nicholas and Sarah had a great time testing out the race cars too.

Labor Day Weekend

Ryan's cousin Corin, her husband Mike, and their 4 girls came to visit us last weekend. We all had a great time, and the kids were amazing together. You would think that with 7 kids in one house we were bound to have a few time outs or discussions on sharing and being nice. Not with these kids. Talk about playing well with others. It was unbelievable! All they did was have fun fun fun!

First Day of School

Today is Nicholas' first day of full-day kindergarten. He was so excited about going to school that he was up, showered, dressed, and awaiting his breakfast at 6am! We have got to invest in blackout curtains!!! Well, being the good mother that I am, I told him it was too early and that he should go back to bed and then I proceeded to pull the covers over my head... for a few more precious minutes of rest. Amazingly enough we made it to school EARLY. Nicholas is in Mrs. Udall's class and at lunch today he told me, "I like my teacher. She is very nice." So we're off to a great start of a great school year!

St. George, Utah

This weekend we went to Ola and Jessie Kaonohi's wedding reception in St. George, Utah. Before the reception we were able to tour the St. George Tabernacle, Brigham Young's winter home, and see the Pioneer Miracle movie at the visitor's center. I have never been to St. George before, and must say that it is a beautiful town, and the St. George Temple is absolutely gorgeous!

This is the inside of the Tabernacle.

These statues were around the outside of the Tabernacle.

Sarah and Audrey

These are two of Ola's three older sisters, and MY dearest childhood friends. Kaulana is on the left, and Kristy is on the right with her baby boy Coby. Toni, who is not in the picture, is serving a mission. These are the girls I grew up with, and I love them! I am so glad that I was able to see them this weekend. It was A LOT of fun! You really can't go wrong at a Hawaiian wedding!!!

This is Audrey and Kristy's girl, Kylan... or as Audrey calls her, "My friend from Hawaii."

And this is what Audrey and Kylan were doing while everyone else was cleaning up! You gotta love girls!!!

Breaking Dawn

As some of you are aware and waiting, this Saturday, August 2nd, Breaking Dawn will be released. It is the 4th and final book in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Thanks to Lora, I love these books and have had a lot of fun with them. I read Twilight with my book club girls, inhaled New Moon a week later, and then anxiously awaited the release of Eclipse by hosting a Twilight Prom with my fabulous friends...

Julie (in blue) and Keirsten (in pink).

That's right! We planned, prepared, decorated, and hosted our own Twilight Prom and had a BLAST...

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with family and friends.

This was by far the best girl party I have ever been to. There were 47 beautifully dressed moms, daughters, sisters, grandmas, and friends eating, reading, and dancing!