SO Much to Catch up on!

Addi's First Haircut

Addi was SO EXCITED to get her hair cut.  She had gone with me when I took the boys to get their hair cut and decided she wanted her hair cut too.  She wants to be just like her brothers and thinks whatever they do she needs to do (or at least should get to do).

I kept asking Addi how she wanted her hair cut and she would grab all of it into a pony tail and say "like this".  I think she was ready to cut it ALL off!

Luckily I had the last say...and we just trimmed it up so it was all even.

Addi was so adorable and LOVED her "new"haircut.

A Fall Tradition

I am definitely a SUMMER girl.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the heat and would rather be by the water playing in the HOT sun than anything else.  HOWEVER, I also love this time of year when the weather isn't hot but isn't quite cold enough for a coat.  I LOVE that each year I can look forward to a day of acting like a kid again, playing and jumping in the leaves with my kids.

My parents have a HUGE maple tree in their yard and each year it drops thousands of leaves.  The pile of leaves usually starts out bigger than the kids and is an endless playground for burrowing, jumping, and disappearing.

This year Britton and Gavin played "Hide-and-Seek" with Addi.  They each took turns being burried in the pile of leaves and then had Addi try to find them by digging through the pile until they were found.

I LOVE that my parents join in the fun.  My mom waits, almost in anticipation, for the kids to come up and play.  She and my dad are great sports and rake the leaves into a pile time after time so we can all play to our hearts content.

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Some of my FAVORITE Pictures

I LOVE these pictures of my parents and my kids.  My heart smiles everytime I look at them.  They truely show how much fun my kids have with their grandma and grandpa and how much they are all loved. My only regret is that Gavin isn't in them.  He had to stay home the day these were taken and came up the next day to have fun in the leaves.

My kids and I truely are lucky to live so close to my parents.

It SNOWED!!!

My kids have been looking forward to the snow for sometime now so when it snowed a couple of weeks ago they couldn't contain themselves.

Addi made one snow angel after another, and rolled and played in the snow until she was too wet and cold to move.  She FINALLY came in "needing" hot chocolate and telling me how "yummy" the snow tasted.

Britton and Gavin immediately hit the slopes with their sleds, sandboard, and snowboards.  It wasn't a GREAT hill unless it had at least one JUMP on it that allowed you to "catch air".

I smiled all day thinking about how much fun they were having.  BUT, I am NOT ready for snow!!!

Halloween Traditions

Cookies at Grandma's

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween Treat

Fun Halloween Dinner

School Halloween Program

Contacts

I realized on the previous picture of Cindy and Greg that you couldn't see Cindy's AMAZING green eyes. Hopefully now you can see them. Very Cool!

Party at the Pump House

Every year my sister-in-Law hosts a Halloween party at the "Pump House". Cindy LOVES Halloween and always goes all out when it comes to decorating and making it fun for the kids. This year was no exception. She had once again spent at least a month decorating the entrance to the pump house, created a haunted maze in the reeds by the lake, and set a pirate ship in the water on the lake near the boat dock. Her decorations are AMAZING!!! - Next year I am going to try to remember to take pictures.

Kim, Jason, and Ryker came as "Pigs in a Blanket". Gina, Cory, Mason and McQuade were a Princess/Queen, Knight, Dragon and Court Jester. Lindsay and B.J. - Olive Oyle and Popeye, and Cindy and Greg were Wizards/Sorcerers. Take a look at Cindy's AMAZING green "cat-eye" contacts. CREEPY!

Jason and I were supposed to be the Prom King and Prom Queen. After spending so much time on Gavin's costume, ours got left until the last minute.

Gavin, Jayden, Britton and Tegan are cousins and best friends. They ran all night long back and forth from one room to the next and found new freedom this year at the Halloween party. They were "FINALLY", as they put it, old enough to run outside to the maze and the pirate ship WITHOUT a dad tagging along.

Addi and Mayci are always our little princesses. Addi was Cinderella and Mayci was Belle. We couldn't get pictures of them together at the party so we settled for Halloween night.

Addi was so cute getting ready for Cindy's party. She kept telling me she wasn't going to get scared this time at Cindy's party. As soon as we got to Cindy's, Addi saw Jason's cousin Jake who always dresses really creepy. This year he was a very scary clown and as soon as Addi saw him she grabbed me and said "I don't like him". Then, as we were walking through the pump house she started covering her eyes and trying to get out. When I said "I thought you weren't going to get scared this time" she said "I'M NOT, I AM JUST FREAKING OUT".

The party was once again a success, complete with several creative, amazing costumes.

Trick-Or-Treat!

Halloween 2009

Halloween couldn't have been over soon enough for me this year. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Halloween, but once again I was FRANTICALLY trying to MAKE another costume. I thought I was going to have it easy this year.

CINDERELLA

Addi decided to be Cinderella and she NEVER changed her mind. She was so excited when the cute neighbor girls brought over "her dress". She came running into my room all excited telling me "mom, my dress came!" After that, everyone that came to our house got to see her Cinderella dress. We even made her a cute necklace out of ribbon to match Cinderella's. The only thing she wanted that she didn't get was blue Cinderella hair. She has a Cinderella Barbie with a streak of blue hair and she decided the night before that I should spray her hair blue like Cinderella.

GRIM REAPER

After Britton's werewolf costume last year I was ECSTATIC when he said he wanted to be the grim reaper this year. I already had the make-up and the robe, I just had to make the robe a little shorter. The only thing I had to find for him was his scythe which only required a quick trip to Party Land.

LEPRECHAUN

Gavin, on the other hand, made Halloween very challenging this year. In March we walked into Target and he saw the stuff out for St. Patrick's Day. He got all excited and said he was going to be a Leprechaun for Halloween. So, I bought a hat and a bow tie thinking this will be great! What an easy costume right? WRONG!!! Have you ever tried to find stuff for a Leprechaun in October!?!?!

I made a trip to DI and got lucky. I found a very small pair of boys dress pants that were a dark, sage green. I found a green crochet vest in the women's department and another small cream colored vest in the boys department. I thought I could dye the small vest green. - DIDN'T WORK - the dark green R.I.T dye turned it khaki brown. SO, I got to sew once again and make his vest smaller, remover the buttons and sew on new gold ones, cut off the pants and sew elastic in the bottom of them, sew elastic to his hat to make it smaller, and try to make a beard. After looking at fabric stores I ended up at the Dollar Store and found an orange fuzzy purse that I cut off and sewed elastic to. To finish it all of he wore white tights - because I could NOT find any green and white ones, and we sprayed his hair orange with orange hair spray. He was a little upset in this picture because we ran out of hair spray Halloween night. He had already been in his costume 3 other times for a school program, a school parade/party, and his aunt Cindy's Halloween party.

Needless to say, I made several trips to several stores and was completely ready for Halloween to be over.

Britton , Gavin, and Addi were lucky this year. They got to trick-or-treat with two sets of cousins. First Kim showed up with Ryker and Haylee and the five of them took off around the neighborhood and then around 6:30 Jayden, Tegan and Mayci came over to trick-or-treat the rest of the night. Once the kids were done trick-or-treating, we headed over to Kim's to hang out and enjoy the rest of Halloween.

Flag Football

Gavin has been wanting to play football for the last 2-3 years and I have been extremely reluctant to let him play.
This year we decided to let him play Flag Football and OF COURSE he LOVED IT!!!

He Loved every minute of it. If he wasn't in the game he was off on the sidelines playing catch, practicing kicking, or tackling one of his team mates. Gavin is super fast, has a great arm, and can really kick the ball - in fact, he was one of the only kids on the team that could throw, catch and kick the football.

Gavin is an amazing little athlete. On this play he blocked, dodged, and outran the other team then ran the ball in for a touchdown. He is so fun to watch -always full of enthusiasm and energy. He can't sit still and he ALWAYS has football, soccer ball, baseball, or bouncy ball in his hands.

I have a feeling I am going to be watching a lot more football in the years to come.

Grandparents are the GREATEST!

Last week my mom and dad took the kids to Santaquin to the "Red Barn" for a little FALL FUN.
Nothing fancy, just a ride on a wagon pulled behind a tractor -
Destination: PUMPKIN PATCH!

Britton and Gavin immediately started searching for the BIGGEST pumpkins they could find, while Addie searched and searched for "just a little one. It was so fun to listen to them as they described what each pumpkin looked like or what it could become once it was carved or painted. They even found one that could be come a rat once it was painted and laying on its side.

Of course the day wouldn't be complete without ICE CREAM!
Blue mint, Vanilla, chocolate, Key lime pie, and Praline Pecan. Mmmmmm....Yummy!
Thanks Mom and Dad. It was a great way to spend the day with the kids.

Grandparents really are the GREATEST!

Just for you Sis.

I know it is a little early for Halloween pictures but my One and ONLY sister keeps reminding me that Halloween is coming and that she still hasn't seen my kids Halloween pictures from last year.

Every time I look at these pictures I just smile and hope that this year won't be so hectic.
I am reminded of what a challenge it was to find a cape for Gavin.  It shouldn't have been so difficult but we could NOT find a kids cape anywhere and finally found a short adult cape which luckily worked just fine. Plus, I borrowed a red vest that had to be tailored to fit. 

Then there was Britton who wanted to be a Werewolf - BUT - he didn't want the werewolf costumes in the store that had masks and "just made you look like a wolf."  So, after looking at every possible Halloween/Costume store, I ended buying fake fur, ripping a pair of old jeans and a flannel shirt, and SEWING, his costume together. Then, we had to put brown make-up on his face and glue, yes GLUE fur to his face.

I am actually really proud of myself, because I am not a seemstress.  What should take no time at all or looks like it should be really easy takes me FOREVER! 

Regardless, their costumes were super cute and they LOVED them.

The other reason I can't quit smiling when I look at these pictures is that little Addi was
TERRIFIED
of her brothers.  It took a long time to convince her that they were not going to hurt her and that they were "nice monsters".  In fact, it took a lot of convincing for her to believe that the "monsters" were actually Britton and Gavin.

On your Mark, Get set, ...

Go!!!!!!

The Pinewood derby seemed to sneak up on us this year.  In fact, I looked at the calendar and was shocked , actually panicked a little, when I noticed that the pinewood derby was in just 1 Week!  Normally Jason and Britton work on Britton's car for weeks trying to get the design AND paint just right.  However, when I, in a panic, told Jason he only had 1 week until pack meeting, he calmly said, "Hmmm, you are probably right."

I, of course, wasn't so calm and really had to work hard to keep my mouth shut.  HOW in the world were they going to get a car done in less than 1 Week?

Despite all of my innner turmoil, Britton and Jason came up with an AMAZINGLY, Fun and Unique car.





YES, it is a pencil and the lead really does write.
The cub scouts got to name their cars.

The No. 2 Pencil became...

"Do Your Homework"

Jason and Britton had so much fun working on this car together.  It was fun to see them both get excited about the design and find ways to make it into a real pencil.

Way to go Britton!!!

FRUSTRATED!!!!

What is going on with the formatting on my blog posts?  It is driving me crazy because when I type the posts the formatting is very different than when I actually post it.  I am super frustrated because Addisyn's birthday layout is all squished together without spacing.  However, when I was typing it, there were a lot of spaces between paragraphs and pictures.  AHHHHH!!!! Obviously I am still an amature blogger and it still takes me forever to get a post done so it is even more frustrating when it doesn't look right. 

Happy Birthday Addisyn!

Addisyn turned 3 last Friday, September 11.  Her Favorite book right now is "Alice The Fairy" by David Shannon so it was really fun to celerate with all of her friends by having a Fairy Party.

I was lucky enough to find matching fiary wings and fairy skirts so each little girl was "transformed" into a fairy when she arrived.

After their wands were decorated, we played "fairy freeze dance"

while they danced to the "Tinkerbell" soundtrack.

They were all SO cute and had so much fun dancing and pretending to be real fairies.

Did somebody say FAIRY DUST?

Hopefully the sugar rush wore off before bedtime.

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The Cake

After the party the race was on to get Addi's birthday cake done.  I had invited Addi's grandparents and great aunts over for dinner and cake and ice cream but it all had to be ready in time for people to eat, Britton to get to soccer practice, and for my parents to get to the airport.

Thanks to Gina - my amazingly talented Sister-In-Law - helping me all afternoon, I was able to decorate this fun Tinkerbell cake.

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Family

Addi and Mason had so much fun playing all day.

They couldn't stop giggling and laughing and thought everything was Hillarious.

All throughout the day on Wednesday, Addi kept whispering to me "I want princess music". 

 It was so cute to see the expression on her face when she opened her Disney princess CD.

Addi was spoiled with Barbies, music, movies, money and dress-ups.  I think Gavin had as much fun with the dress-ups as Addi.  He was being so silly and dancing all over the living room.  He is such a good big brother and so willing to entertain and cater to Addi.

Happy Birthday Monkey!