Julia's Fourth Birthday

I can't believe it's been four years since that little girl changed our lives forever. She's such a little cutie. Just this morning she said the cutest thing. She was kissing her "babies" and "aminals" good-bye when we were on our way out the door. I commented on how she will be such a good Mommy some day, and she said, "Yep. And when I'm a Mommy, my kids will have plenty of aminals to play with." How does she know the word "plenty"? Such a little character.

I had surgery (I had my deviated septum on my nose corrected and a tonsillectomy. Not fun.), so while I was still recuperating, Lindsay threw Julia her birthday party. It was so fun. It was a Princess Party, of course. They read a story. They played games. They had face-painting and fishing for prizes.

Lindsay reading "The Frog Prince" to the crowd. Such a cute book about how beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

They were out of the Rapunzel and Princess Cake Kits at the grocery store, so Dad took her over to Dairy Queen. The gal made this one right Julia's specs.

Rileigh, Emma Sky, Emma G., Julia, Kirsten, Khloe, Sofia, Andie, Ellen

The Princess with all of her Princes and the Dragon:
Luke, Noah, Samuel, James, Max, Miles, Dane, and Wesley

Halloween 2011

I'm finally catching up. Here we all are on Halloween.

Here we have the 3 werewolves, a monkey, a princess, and an octopus.

Here's the car-ful of Trick or Treaters on our way to the "good" part of our neighborhood. Lindsay had a few friends join us. It was a party!

I chuckled when I saw Tim taking a picture of this skeleton made entirely from milk jugs. It reminded us both of my Dad. One year he made the most awesome Darth Vader mask for my brother, Matt, out of a Clorox Bleach bottle.

We had a fun Halloween. The three olders weighed their candy bags when we got home. They each had about 7 pounds of candy. I'm glad we have a great dental plan. As usual, I was the worst behaved. I just want everyone to stay together, be perfectly well-behaved, etc. Sigh. It was hard to sort of let Lindsay go off with her friends. I even tried to sort of "guilt" her into staying with us: "Don't you want to see Calvin trick or treat?" Sad. Another highlight was watching Calvin. He got seriously into it. He insisted on knocking on the door himself. And he had to put the candy in his bag after each door. So cute.

My Trip with Tim

We had the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. We figure it was an early celebration of our 15th wedding anniversary. We got to spend about a week in...Can you guess from these pictures?

Yes, it was Florence, Italy!! There is actually something dental in Florence: a laser manufacturer. They make a seriously cool CO2 laser that dentists use for gum surgeries. All of the pictures of the two of us are on his small computer at work, so I'll add them later. We had a great time.

Fall 2011

I thought I'd keep with the season theme. "FALL". So much has happened since our trip to CA this summer.

Our Owens Cousins came to visit us on their way to drop off Lynette at BYU-Provo.

The kids started school. I'm one of those horrible moms who actually looks forward to school starting: the routine, less sitting around fighting, less frequent utterances of "I'm bored", etc. But every year I get blind-sided by how hard it is to get us all on that schedule. I was so pro-active this year. I took each school aged kid out by themselves to get their supplies (is anyone else perplexed at how every year that list gets longer and more expensive?) and have some lunch together. But even with the head-start, I still felt like it took us a good two weeks to get on the routine. Here they are on their first days. I've now got 2 in Middle School, 2 in Elementary School, and 1 in Preschool:

And 1 at home.

I love the four seasons. It somehow adds a rhythm to the year. So, after we've settled into school, we start looking forward. We notice the days get cooler. Then, we have to go get our pumpkins at the pumpkin farm.

Lindsay got her braces off.

You can see she has like 3 pairs of bands in just to try to make sure that the teeth really would be ready. 

And, we carved the pumpkins.

Sorry for the long lapse in blogging. We're all still here.