Pumpkin Guts!

Happy Halloween 2009!

Food Storage!

It is that time of year - the case lot sale. Time to stock up. Good thing I have lots of helpers to haul all of that heavy food! Just look at their muscles bursting through their shirts!
What a helper!
The old "bucket brigade". Truth be told, I think they had a lot of fun unloading all of those cases of food. They made the work fun. Even conned cousin Jeff into "having fun". They got it done in no time flat! Good job guys!

Now, if someone could just schedule a disaster at the end of fall, when the pantry is full - instead of the spring or end of summer - that would be nice! Not that I am asking for one- mind you! Great. I think I just jinxed the world. Better get that food storage!!!

Bed Head

The girl has been getting up rather late now- a -days for school. She just doesn't have the extra time to primp that she obviously needs!
Happy Halloween!!!

Cookies!

We decided to make some family home evening sugar cookies. Brannen had a great time - and I got to clean up a BIG mess.
Reese is always the best helper in the world!
Rae is pretty good too!

Keeping it real! Go Viks!

Fall Football Fun

We love Fall! We try to get outside and enjoy the weather when we can. One of my kids favorite things to do is go to a high school football game. Much fun is had.
Brady spends his time - playing half of the time, and watching the other half.
Reese plays the entire game. Running around with friends - what's better than that?
The boy loves it too. He just loves being outside - the football watching is a big bonus!

Happy Birthday Rae

Our girl turned fourteen on Thursday and I can't believe how time has flown. I know every parent feels like this - you blink and your kids are older. Kelly and I were just looking at a movie he made for his media class entitled "A Day in The Life". It basically just showed a normal, average day in 2002 for Kelly. It was so fun and strange to see how little our kids were, and how much our lives have changed. Makes me interested to see what is to come.
Anyway, Rae had a great birthday! Notice her new hair do! Highlights for the growing up girl. She is really getting older. Wow.
On her birthday, we had a message left on our answering machine by a teacher at Rae's Middle School. She didn't know it was Rae's birthday, she just called to compliment Rae on her behavior at school. She said what a respectful, fun and kind girl she is. She also really wanted to tell us how nice Rae is to students who have a harder time fitting into some social aspects of school. I guess that talk Grama Chris gives at the beginning of the year has been sinking in! Way to go Rae! Thank you Grama!
We had Grama Chris, Grama Marge and the other birthday - Grampa Barry - over for dinner on Rae's b-day. I made Rae her traditional un-cooked birthday cake, and Grampa's tradional carrot cake. Yum -O!! We had such a fun time being with them. Brannen sure wished that Grampa would have stayed all night long and played catch with him until the sun came up! He had a great time, as we all did.

Another year down! Time sure does fly!

School Pictures

It was picture day today for the kiddos. I actually thought it was only picture day for Reese, so she looked beautiful with her perfect outfit and perfect hair - but apparently it was the day for Boo too. He came home with his mostly wrinkled kind of strange football shirt on, hair in most definite need of a cutting and said - mom it was pictures for me today too. Well, that might be interesting.
Anyway, because we live in the BOONIES, I always take my toddler into the school to get their picture taken too. (Yes, I live 2 hours away from the nearest Target or Wallmart portrait center. No thank you-- kids are always dirty and cranky by the time we have driven 2 hours!) So today I took Bran to the school freshly scrubbed and combed. He was really cute. Entertained him until it was our turn. He was all grins and happy. Set him on the picture stool - you know what happens next - mad face, tears. So I proceeded to find his favorite person in the world to make him smile. Reese! It did the trick. She came, he was all smiles and happy yet again- until his tiny bottom hit the dreaded picture stool. Tears again. Why do children all over the world torment their parents on picture day?? Is it part of their training in baby school?? I think it might be.
So here's the real kicker. We get in the car and I give him the talking to. Buddy - why won't you smile? You smile so good. Can you smile for me?
The little stink smiled all the way home. On command. Every time. He just took years off of my life with the stress of jumping around making stupid faces, trying to get him to smile. What can you do?
So I came home, and got some proof of the smile. I may print this picture and hang it next to the terrible one that the school will give me in a couple of weeks. Sounds like a plan. Proof of his smile.

Winter time!

September 30 - our first snow of the year for 2009. We are okay with it. It is inevitable. It will snow, melt, snow and melt for a couple of months now. And it does give Bran a chance to wear his new coat - and really see snowflakes fall for the first time. He was really intrigued by it all. We had a couple of inches by morning - but it is all gone this afternoon. Tis the season.

Popsicle Season

We love MIGHTY MINIS! The best popsicle ever made for a baby! They are tiny and awesome! Brannen LOVES them. The sad thing is, our popsicle days are truly numbered around here. We have had a few weeks of warm indian summer and have loved every day. I just had to record this popsicle moment to remember all winter long.





What a great kid. I'm sure glad I have my little tag along plaything to keep me company all day.

Grover Fun

Our fun Grover Community Park just had a great fundraiser to buy some new playground equipment. My kids thought this carnival was the most fun they have had in a long time. I don't know if Brannen or Rae had more fun. But fun was had - for sure.
The duck pond was Bran's favorite.
All the kids participated in the chicken chase. Chickens are cool. So say the Bran man.
Rae, of course, won the chicken chase. Caught it in 10 seconds. We are so proud of her! : ) What a talented young woman we are raising!!
Cutie Reese!
Cutie Bran!
Rae's other talent that she is so very proud of is her pie eating skills. She won this too - 10 seconds flat. Found the gummy worm at the bottom, beat all the boys. VICTORY! Her life is complete!
What a silly girl!
Brady also won the hoop shoot competition - I didn't get a photo of that. Dumb mom. But he won a cool basketball, and his buddy Seth did too. They were fairly stoked. Awesome evening!

Beautiful Fall!

It is Fall in Star Valley again, and we are enjoying it. I took the kids for a fun bike ride this past week. Kelly was on a golf trip (with the school - he is the golf coach for the high school) yet again, so we decided we needed to get out and do something fun too.
I LOVE Swift Creek canyon. It is the canyon that is in Afton and ends at the Periodic Spring. It is so beautiful. We decided to haul the bikes to Afton and go for a little trek. We had a great time. It was a bit of a climb, so Reesie decided that she liked the way back better. Brannen liked the stopping to throw rocks in the creek. Brady liked taking some "off road" adventures.

We had a great afternoon. It is so nice to get outside and enjoy this place that we live in. Gotta soak it up to last through February!

Mom - update your blog!

Apparently I have been doing a bad job at Blogging lately. Each time one of my kids is on the computer I hear, "mom, you haven't updated your blog!" So I will update! Apparently my kids don't know what we have done until they see it on the blog!!!
Makes sense to me!

Lil trip

Over the holiday weekend we took a little trip to Idaho Falls. The boys wanted to golf, I wanted to buy Brannen a good stroller, Rae wanted to walk the mall in true teenager fashion. So we went. We had a great evening walking around the falls around the temple. The kids really loved it.
We found so many fun trails that we didn't even know about. Fun stuff.
Yep, the dad took the blurry picture. Well, it was better than the group shot that some random teenager took for us. That was too blurry to post.
Brady and Reese LOVED exploring the rocks and waterways.
You can always spot the "country folk" at Home Depot. They are the ones that think it is highly amusing to put strange objects on their babies heads, and then take a picture of it. We have surely "gone to town" now!!
Some quality time at the mall's play place. Once again, proof that the "country folk" are hittin' the big city!

TV

The boy has recently decided that tv might be kind of cool. Sesame Street is his current obsession - and I have to say that I like it a lot too. What a great show!
The other thing that helps keep his interest is the fact that I let him watch on my very tall bed. He can get off of it if he really wants to - but it is kind of scary. So it helps to keep him in one place. Rock on Cookie Monster!

Playing with the boy

I have such good helpers at my house! Brannen is definitely at the stage where he needs to be entertained all the time - he is such a busy little guy.
Brady and Reese end up with the brunt of the entertaining. Rae is so busy now - and always somewhere that is not here! These two do an AWESOME job with baby Bran though. He loves them so much. They are always finding something to do.
I don't know what I would do without my awesome big brother and big sister! They totally save me every day!