Christmas Sing-a-longs

Corinne and Paige had their Christmas sing-a-longs at school this week. This is definitely one of my favorite parts of the season.

And here is Claire...table dancing.

Don't Blink!

Wow! School started and two months of my life seemed to disappear into a black hole of cello lessons, violin lessons, orthodontist appointments, and the never ending mountain of homework that finds it's way to our kitchen table every evening. It's busy...that's for sure...and my kids don't even play soccer!! We have, however, had a few moments here and there to take a deep breath and enjoy one another. Here's a little recap:

Somehow, I forgot to post one of our most important events in August. Our Paigie had her 6th birthday! She chose to have a bowling birthday party at the Fun Park, and it was very fun indeed! We love you, Paige!

Labor Day weekend is a big celebration in our town. We celebrate our Founder's Day (complete with an oh, so politically correct Sham Battle--worth a look-see once in your life!) We enjoyed the parade, the pit-beef dinner in the park and later that evening the Little Buckaroo Rodeo for the kids.

Nicole and Corinne riding a float.Spencer and Paige waiting for candy

It must not have turned out the way they hoped...

But Claire looks happy!

At the rodeo, Paige participated in a critter chase. Here is what she caught, and therefore, got to bring home. "Clucky" joined our family for a few weeks until he was invited to live somewhere else, where he could be very happy with lots of hens.

Here is a picture at the temple the night that Dad was set apart as a sealer. This is Mom and Dad with 14 of their 25 grandkids!

Nicole, Corinne, and Paige all lost teeth on the same weekend! They put them under their pillows on the same night. Talk about a banner day for the tooth fairy!!

On Sunday we went for a little hike in the "hills" above our house to see the fall colors. Gorgeous!!

And this picture, titled "Rabid Claire", shows what was left from her cupcake the other day!

First Day of School

Well, summer flew by and here we are headed back to school. Nicole is in Middle School this year and even though she says she's ready, I'm not sure I am. I'll be very glad to get her home this afternoon and see if she survived! : ) An hour and a half after I took Nicole to school, I made my way with Corinne and Paige to our (thankfully familiar) Elementary school, and they were very excited to go. Paige was especially excited to eat school lunch since this is her first year of full days. Nicole ready to go, bright and early!

Corinne with her teacher

Paige all ready for 1st grade!

Four more kittens!

This is Corinne and I wanted to tell you about

our four new kittens! Nicole, Paige, Spencer,

and I each have our own. Here they are.
Pepper is Spencer's
Snowball is Paige's
Polka (polk-a-dot) is mine
Roo is Nicole's

Hungry, maybe?

Funny Claire! She loves foraging in my kitchen drawers and cupboards. I spend half my day putting away things that she gets out. Well, the other day I came into the kitchen and found an empty bread bag next to the open bread drawer, so I went looking, and this is what I found!

What choice did I really have? To the victor go the spoils...

Brace Yourself!

We entered a new phase of life this week as Nicole got braces on her teeth. She has a long road ahead of her because of an errant tooth that decided to turn right when it should have gone straight. She'll get the bottom set on in about 12 more weeks but for now she is enjoying her new look!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Summer Vacation

Last week our family took a vacation! We spent two nights camping in Yellowstone and then two nights staying with friends in their cabin in Jackson Hole. We had a great time! We saw the sights of The Park, fished a little, picnicked a lot, applied mosquito repellant, had plenty of smores and hot chocolate, visited the souvenir shops, got dirty, took over 100 pictures, canoed in the shadows of the Tetons, reapplied mosquito repellant, saw buffalo, elk, deer, chipmunks, and birds, waited in construction jams, reapplied mosquito repellant, heard coyotes howing at night, watched the Jackson Hole shootout, and arrived home Sunday afternoon with plenty of mosquito bites as evidence of a great outdoor adventure. We can't wait 'til next year!

Hot chocolate around the campfire
Spencer and Claire enjoying their breakfast

Nicole, Paige, and Corinne at Lewis Lake

The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River

Buffalo, buffalo, and more buffaloOur lunch spot on the Firehole River (just upstream from the above buffalo herd)

In Jackson Hole

Paige at String Lake

The cabin we stayed at in Jackson. (You can see the view we had from our bedroom windows reflected behind the kids.)

The beautiful Teton mountains

Happy Birthday Claire!

Has it really been one year already? Our little sweetie turned one year old on Friday. We have loved every minute of her and are so glad to have her in our family. Here are some pictures of Claire with her cake. She didn't quite grasp what we wanted her to do with the candle, but she LOVED it when we sang to her. She just laughed and laughed and made the best faces. So we did it twice!

Play hard...sleep hard!

Spencer just loves to play and run and get dirty and stay busy. But when he decides that he's tired, he knows how to sleep! At bedtime when we tuck him in, he is usually out cold almost before we make it out of his room. Lately though, he's taken his napping abilities to a new level! Here are a couple of examples.

WALKING!...(sort of)

I just wanted to share these cute little first steps of Claire's. I love the "Frankenstein walk" that they do at this age! She loves to practice, but usually she gets so excited that she starts laughing and falls over. It's very fun!

A Memorable Memorial Weekend

What a fun weekend we had. We worked some and played some and just enjoyed spending time together! On Saturday I finished planting all of my flowers, and I was SO glad for that when we got an inch of rain on Sunday! We had two big events that made this weekend extra exciting. First, our cat had a kitten. And yes, I emphasize the word "a". She only had one, which, if you ask Matt, is awesome. Except now the kids all fight over who gets to hold it. The kids were SO excited when they found it on Sunday morning. I thought that Nicole and Corinne were going to hyperventilate!

The second big event is that Paige can now ride a two-wheeler. She LOVES it!! She couldn't wait to ride to school this morning. As a matter of fact, she didn't wait. She left Nicole and Corinne and was already to the corner before they even had their bikes out of the garage! Do you remember in "Forest Gump" when the kids were chasing him and he's trying to run with those braces on his legs, and then the braces break and fall right off and he just takes off? Well, that's kind of what it reminded me of taking the training wheels off of her bike. Maybe we shouldn't have waited so long! I hope you all had a great weekend as well!

Here is Ginger with her new kitten, "Tygee-Tigger". (I'm not sure if I spelled that correctly.)

Nicole and Claire at the park. It's like looking back in time a decade--or forward!

Corinne, Matt, and his mom at the reservoir.

Wellsville Mile

Yesterday was the Wellsville Mile. Of all of the wonderful things that I love about living in Wellsville, this tradition is right near the very top! Every year all of the 4th and 5th graders from the south end of the valley run a mile race that is hosted by Wellsville Elementary. There were over 1200 kids this year! They do 12 heats (6 for each grade, girls then boys). The cross country and track teams from the HS come run with the kids to help pace them and encourage them. And the streets are packed with parents cheering them all on. Nicole did great!! She has been training for the last 6 weeks, running a mile every day at school. The last few weeks she really worked hard to shave seconds off of her time each day, logging a personal best of 9:47 last week. Well, yesterday she came in 14th in her heat (of around 100 other 5th grade girls) with a time of 8:20! She said she felt like she was going to faint and throw up. I told her that means that she did a great job. We were so proud of her for doing her best. That is what I love about this race. All of the kids just work so hard and get such a great feeling for accomplishing something so difficult. Here are some pictures of her at the starting line and just past the half mile mark. The video is at the finish line and you can see that she didn't have much left to give.

Happy Birthday Corinne!

Okay, so I'm a couple of weeks late with this, but trust me...we had a great birthday! Our sweet Corinne turned 9 two weeks ago, and she chose to celebrate with a Birthday Luau. From the time that she could barely talk, Corinne has LOVED birthdays! She doesn't even care so much about getting presents, she just loves to celebrate. She plans for it all year long and then presents me with lists of what we are going to do on the big day. And let me tell you...with that much enthusiasm, it's hard not to comply! So it was a big day and I think that she had a lot of fun! We sure love our Rinnie, and are very glad that she is in our family!!


Here is the hula girl cake that I thought I would attempt.

How low can you go?

Corinne taught all of the luau guests the fine art of hula dancing!

Instead of cutting the hula girl cake for the party, each girl (and Spencer) had their own volcano cake!

And here is a video of Corinne showing off her hula skills. It's hard to hear her, but she says, "Sway the hips, and dig..." Fun stuff!!