Grandpa John's

This was my favorite thing about visiting my Grandpa's. The boys found this wagon outside and started playing with it. I noticed some little exhaust pipes on the back and started thinking it looked familiar. I realized it is the same wagon that I played in as a little girl! My dad added those exhaust pipes years ago! I love having a picture of my boys playing with it too.



My grandpa made the boys some stilts to have fun with.





Dallin of course was too small to use his so Brian gave them a try.


My dad came down from Oregon to visit too. So of course they were doing the guy thing of standing around a car and chatting.



He brought his huge dog, a great dane, too. That dog thinks he is a kid. So he jumped in and rode around the back of the mowers just like my kids.



One of the things Blake was most excited about was playing poker. My grandpa had been saving up his coins, and the boys played poker with Grandpa John. They loved it! And luckily it didn't really matter who won. It was just about playing and having fun.



On our last day there, we went to a fish hatchery. It was neat to see these big pools of water with so many fish in them! There were so many you couldn't see the bottom.



When the boys threw a handful of food in, the water churned up so much from all the fish.





It was a great visit and I know the boys will remember this for a long time!

Off to California

My grandpa decided to have us come on out and visit him. I am not much of a fan of flying (like I have panic attacks), but we packed up and off we went. He lives in Northern California, so we flew to the Sacramento airport.

Understatement alert, it is not easy to travel with kids.

We had so much luggage! All necessary stuff. We left super early on a Friday morning and were doing so good on time when we pulled into the long term parking. We started to kind of relax, got the kids some snacks, got our baggage out really slow and sauntered on over to the shuttle. Then the shuttle took forever! 45 minutes went by from the time we got on, to when we got to the Southwest check in. By the time we made it through that line, we were getting warned that due to our late check in, our bags were not guaranteed to get on our flight.

The kids were already getting restless since we had woke them at 4am, Dallin was asking to pee, and we still had to get though the security line. I looked over at that line and realized it wound around all the way down to the baggage claim area. There was no way we were going to make it. But southwest had alerted them that we were coming and a security officer was waiting for us. They pulled us to the front of the line and had us scanned in no time at all. Miraculously, we made it to our flight.

We flew from SLC to Las Vegas, then on the Sacramento. When we landed in Vegas, the plane cleared out almost entirely. So we moved to the front of the plane for more leg room. The stewards and pilot were taking their break and chatting there at the front too. They saw our boys and invited all 3 of them to the cock pit to sit in the pilots seat. They let them push all sorts of buttons. They were awesome and the kids loved it!

A second take off and landing later, we made it to California. I was feeling a little nostalgic seeing all the agriculture of that area. After a couple hours of driving, we pulled into my Grandpa's place.

He got a bunch of lawn mowers ready for the boys to drive around his property.





The boys loved it! They loved the space, and seeing my Grandpa. Brian really liked being so far out in the boonies that there was no cell phone coverage and no internet. I liked the no cable TV thing. It was also kind of fun to see this:



When I was 15, just shortly after my grandpa bought this property, he poured some concrete and let me write my name in it. It was still there! Along with my handprint. More to come....

Trick or Treating

We have been so busy lately, I am finally getting around to posting these.

Kyle and Blake were originally going to be Star Wars themed this year so I got Dallin a Yoda to match. Then they changed their minds and were both super heroes. So I got him a Captain America instead.

Dallin had a cute little Halloween party at his preschool where he got to be dressed up. He was sure cute!







Kyle and Blake's school always does a parade for the parents so I headed on down for that.



Finally, the moment the boys had been waiting for! CANDY TIME! :)





At the last minute, I decided to dress up too. I got on pinterest to get some fast/easy/cheap ideas. And one idea from pinterest stuck out. I was pinterest.



Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving!

Halloween is so fun with the boys. Earlier this week we got our pumpkins carved. Wow, that was a mess! We grew our own pumpkins this year. Last year, when we carved pumpkins, we did most of it outside on the porch to save on clean up. The seeds got tossed out into the flower bed and a pumpkin plant grew there! I also grew some intentionally in the backyard.

One of the pumpkins was so hard it was like cutting wood. Brian used his dremel tool for cutting it. It turned out pretty good!



Here is Blake, showing me the guts! :)



Dallin had a great time poking the pumpkin with the carving tool. He wanted a moon, and he wanted a scary face. Then he wanted a happy face. Though he kept changing his mind, he ended up happy with what he got.



Kyle picked out the largest pumpkin of all, it was huge! I am surprised that it stood upright. It turned out amazing! And Blake wanted to do Frankenstein. Everybody's turned out pretty good.

Soccer

Blake had a great time playing soccer this year. It was fun to watch, usually it was the highlight of my week. The blur in the middle wearing the blue shirt is Blake.

This was a different year for him because there was a goalie and he was on the bigger field. So he learned a lot.
He was pretty excited to be the goalie himself. His first go at it was a steep learning curve. But at his second try, he did amazing! He stopped probably 20 goals.
My favorite thing was this little dance he did when he first got to be goalie.




Here he is stopping a goal.




I have a few hundred more games just like this to attend with my boys. How lucky am I?

Dallin still sleeps in his pack n play. I should probably move him out, but he is so happy in there. He is a great sleeper and why mess with that?
Well, I need to mess with that because when he stretches out, his feet touch one end and his head touches the other. I guess at the start of the new year, we will go ahead and move him to a big boy bed.


I love the little imprint the mesh on the side of his pack n play left!

My Little Helper

Kyle has many nicknames. And they seem to evolve. Before he could say Kyle, Dallin used to call him Ca-Ca. And Blake called him Ki-O. For some reason, Brian stared calling him Cackle, which changed to Shackle, which became Shaq, that changed to Shaquille ONeal. He has a few other nicknames too. Basically, he answers to anything. One name that I have always called him is My Little Helper. That one fits him well.

He has started mowing the lawn. Even though I am not entirely convinced that he is old enough, Brian is confident in him. And I have to admit, he has been doing a great job! He seems real proud of himself too.




I am proud of you too, my little Shaq!

1st Day of School

Kyle and Blake's first day went really good this year. I was forbidden by Kyle to take any pictures once he went any closer to the school than this. And I was expressly forbidden, tears were involved, to take pictures once we entered the building. So, I negotiated and here is what I got:


Blake didn't mind me going in with him though. At the end of the day, I met Blake in the front. I snapped this picture right after he saw me. I love this expression on his face! He was so happy to see me!





Kyle allowed me to take another picture at the end of the day. Guess he figured that any friends of his were already long gone and the sight of his embarrassing mom wasn't going to have negative social repercussions for him. Sigh.



The boys have great teachers and are excited for a new school year.

Caterpillar

The boys found a cute little fuzzy caterpillar.







I guess you get used to bugs being brought into the house when you have little boys around. :)

Brothers

Preschool!

Dallin started preschool this year. That has actually been making me a little sad. He is getting so big!

I do love who he goes to. Rose Mary is his teacher. She did preschool for all my boys.



I love how I have this same picture of each of my boys. Here is Dallin:


Here is Blake:


And here is Kyle:


Dallin did really good. He went right in and seemed comfortable. He had a great time and most days he asks to go again. He loves wearing his backpack, probably because his older brothers wear theirs. When I picked him up he was totally happy. I love how he ran up to me.

Front Door

My Mom is always into things before they become cool. She found out about Feng Shui a long time ago. In fact, she pronounced it "FENG SHOE WEE." It is really pronounced more like "Fung Shway." Anyway, she is really good at creating things, so I was asking how to better my house. She says that an entry way to a home should be welcoming and warm. Here is what it was. Blah.



I had been wanting to do something for my front door forever. I wanted to paint it but couldn't decide what color. So she took me to home depot just to buy me a new welcome mat. We could easily start there. And we found the perfect one!



So she got this for me! It was so nice.

Well, doing one thing makes you want to improve other things. So, I really wanted to paint my front door. This mat helped me pick a color.



Then I wanted all the weeds in the front dug out and looking nice. We got some new perennials and here is how it looks now:







Then, I didn't feel like the curtains that were on the door when we bought the house looked right anymore. So, I made some new curtains. I saw this material months ago on Joann's website. And right when I wanted to make these curtains, they were on sale! Ta-da!



So here are my curtains. I love them. And now I love my whole front door area. So nice.