Emma can ride a 2-wheeler!

The kids and I have been riding bikes around a lot. Today, just spur of the moment we decided to try to teach Emma how to ride without training wheels. It was a little scary for Mark and I because we knew she would probably fall, and we never let our kids get hurt willingly like that. We held on to the bike for about 5 minutes before I convinced Mark that we had to let go. And she did it. Just like that. She is getting so big, and we are so proud of her. She is so thoughtful and kind. I am so grateful she's part of our family.

Catch-Up

Wow, I have fallen into a blogger black hole, but I'm back now. In my defense, we have been busy. We have moved, gone on a week long vacation, my camera broke and I am without my own computer. So...yeah. We have moved down to St. George, while we wait for our house to sell *cross your fingers*. So here is a quick catch-up on our family happinings. Before we left, Emma was in a grinch play at her school. It was cute and simple, and not worth the stress of the morning trying to figure out what she was going to wear.


Our kids have loved living at Nana's house. It comes with perks like having a dog; since Grandpa is up at 5:00 every morning, Gabe gets breakfast whenever he wants; we have twice the square-footage, and half the cleaning; and right now there's no snow! And of course, my kids get to spend lots of time with their grandparents.





Just before Christmas, Emma decided to do a little hair cutting. Remember how excited I was for Abigail's pig tails? Well they are no more. Abigail had one pig tail on her head, and Emma cut it off. She also did a little on her own hair, adding bangs, and a big chunk from the back. We asked her why she did it, and she said, "Because I thought it would be fun." Who can blame her, cutting hair is pretty fun.

Christmas. (I know it's February) I actually wrote this a while ago and never posted it. I was waiting for pictures. In my defense.

Wow, Christmas just came and went this year. We spent it at my parents house and had a great time. For the first year in a long time, I was way more excited about what I got than what the kids got. I haven't published this post for a while because I was waiting to take a picture of my bike, but the time is well past. So here is a stock photo of it from the internet. It's sweet.

I love it. Since Mark and I are going to be in St. George for a while, we plan on doing a lot of Mountain Biking.

We spent a week in California as well. It was great to see the family. It seems we get together less and less as our family gets bigger and bigger. We had a day at the beach. We timed it perfect with the one really nice day of our trip.


I finally went with Grandpa Ward to feed the bunnys at the college, and wow, I had no idea there were so many. It was actually kind-of cool. Abigail was having so much fun feeding and chasing rabbits around, until she stuck out her finger (which in the rabbit's defense, looks just like a carrot) and the rabbit bit her. So that was the end of the rabbits.
I wish I had my camera. IT BROKE!! Sad, I know. Mark says when we sell our house, we'll get a new one. So PLEASE someone buy our house!!!

Back to Christmas. It was a very nice traditional Christmas. Nothing crazy or unusual to report. I am looking forward to getting back to any sort of schedule.



Gabe got his leapster. yay.


Abigail loves this doll, and has to sleep with it. It's so cute. My other kids never had an attachment to a toy like that.


Brian and Chris modeling thier traveling packs. I know- it's a little freaky.


Our little princess

The Best Vacation in the World

If I could pick my dream vacation, it would not be laying on a beach somewhere, or visiting historical sites in Europe. I would want to something that I love, and that would be snowboarding. For my birthday, Mark and I got to spend four days and three nights at a resort in Park City. It was a blast. Okay, I guess if it is was really my dream vacation, I would go somewhere like Chili or even Canada---somewhere that is more than 45 minutes away. It was great though. We did miss the snow by one week. But it was snowing while we were there so we had plenty of powder, just not plenty of mountain. Because of this, we got creative and worked on our "craft". The ski in/ski out accommodations were fantastic. It's was so nice to walk to our room after a long day of boarding and sit in a jacuzzi, watch a movie, and do whatever we wanted. I'd love to do a group trip sometime with friends or family. Maybe next year :)

We used a disposable camera and the pictures didn't turn out very good.

A Self-Portrait (after almost 7 years we are getting pretty good at these)




If you look really hard you can see me. It is kind-of like an I-spy.


Mark in the trees. I love the trees.

Santa

I know - the pictures turned out... interesting.

Because we are moving soon, I have not decorated at all for Christmas. This kind-of bums the kids out so I have been trying to go out and do Christmasy things with them. Tonight we went and saw Santa at the mall. I have never done this with my kids before because it just doesn't seem worth the wait in line. But after 45 minutes of waiting we made it. Abigail did not like it at all, and Emma and Gabe were very shy. Emma asked for a leapster for Gabe for Christmas and a candy cane. Gabe asked for a leapster. Just to clarify Emma's selflessness. She already has a leapster and we think she wants Gabe to have one so he'll stop playing hers. :) I love Christmas time. I can't wait to get where we're going and really get into it.

Elf Yourself

Here is our Elf Yourself video. These just crack me up.

Click Here To Watch

Halloween

Life doesn't stop, especially when there are kids involved. They are always doing, growing, learning, and creating. So, life goes on, and with it goes Halloween. We took a short-notice trip down to St. George the week before Halloween. Thus, we were not completely prepared, but that was easily remedied by one trip to Wal-mart. Emma didn't want to come with me to the store and when I told her we were going to pick out a Halloween costume, she told me to just to get one and surprise her. :)





We went to a ward block party where the kids got to dress up and parade around. They enjoyed that. They got to carve pumpkins with Grandpa, who is the world's best pumpkin carver. I wish I could learn this trade. I can never figure out what to cut out to make it look like I want. Trick or treating this year was so fun because the kids were so excited. I felt like it was the first year where I was trying to catch up to them instead of me nudging them along. It did help that we were in sunny St. George instead of freezing cold Lehi. They were so hyper and excited. You would have thought they had had a whole bag full of candy when in reality they had had none. Mark had to work so he missed out for the second year in a row. He'll have fun with them next year, hopefully. We went to the McDermot Mansion where the kids got to go on a spooky train ride. That thing hauled, it seems like a law suit waiting to happen - very dangerous. Anyway, by 8:00 the kids were begging to go home, which we did. And then I chowed down on candy for three days.