Andrea's First Marriage Rejection

A couple of weeks ago, we had just come home from church and I was in the bedroom putting my scriptures and stuff away when I overheard this conversation in the living room:
Andrea: "Landon, when we get bigger will you marry me?"
Landon: Pause, pause . . . then a chuckle . . . "No"
Andrea didn't say anything after that. I guess the response was pretty straight forward.

I guess Andrea thought Landon was pretty handsome in his suit and tie. Poor Andrea. Not even her brother will have her. :) Hopefully she'll have a little more luck with men when she gets older.l

Snowed In!

Our car was just a little burried :) Good thing we didn't have any where to go that day!

The Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving we had quite the snow storm. School was canceled both days and, with the wind, it was hard to even see the neighbor's house. The kids were sure excited to have their Thanksgiving break extended by two days. Thank heavens things cleared up for us to drive to my sister Kristi's house the day after Thanksgiving.

Raking Autumn Leaves

The kids had a contest to see who could rake the biggest pile. Of course, Alexa won. She was the only one really raking.

Landon was pretending to be a scarecrow rather than raking any leaves.

That little pile of leaves was about all that Andrea raked, but at least she was trying.

"Helping" Daddy put all the leaves in the wheelbarrow.

It's hard to believe that we were out raking leaves just a couple of weeks ago. Now everything outside is covered with about a foot of snow.

Halloween Dinner

Joe was really getting into this scary dinner thing!

Because Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, we had two spooky dinners. One on Saturday nitht when all the Halloween festivities were celebrated and one on Halloween night. We had mummy dogs, slugs (mandarin oranges), witches fingers (cheetos), and witches brew (orange kool-aid with dry ice in it) on the first night and mummy meatloaf with sweet potatoes (because they're orange) on the second night. The kids had a great time and actually ate their dinner without us having to constantly harp on them!

Halloween Costumes

Here's a shot of all the kids together

Alexa was a witch (We tried to make her look like an ugly witch, but she was still beautiful!)

Landon was a SCARY vampire


Andrea was Alexa's black cat

Rylan was a cute little lion (He, however, hated this costume. Right after this picture we had to take the hood off because the mane was driving him crazy.)

Halloween Festivities

Carving the pumpkin and decorating Halloween sugar cookies . . . always fun, but always an absolute chaotic mess! The kids went a little overboard on the candies that decorated the cookies. Oh well, hopefully Joe's home teaching families enjoyed them and realized that our kids did the decorating.

Boys will be boys!

A couple of weeks ago, we were on our way to church. It was a rainy Sunday morning. Joe is in the bishopric and so Sunday mornings are always a little hectic for me to get all the kids ready for church by myself and out the door to be to church by 9:00 AM. We are always running late, and so when Alexa informed me that Landon had a worm with him in the car, I had to just laugh. He had found a worm in the driveway as he was getting in the car and decided that he was going to bring that worm to church. The thing that makes me laugh is that he could not understand why I wouldn't let him bring that worm into sacrament meeting. He said, "Mom, he's quiet." We had to let the worm go free in the church lawn on our way into the building. After church, he remembered his worm and tried to find it before we went home. Of course, he was unsuccessful (much to my relief!) Because I grew up with all sisters, this whole boy thing has been quite an experience!

My birthday/ Conference Weekend

This year, my birthday fell on the Sunday of Conference weekend. We had my whole side of the family over to our house for the whole weekend. It was pretty crowded and chaotic with all of the cousins running around, but we had a really great time. It's these memories that my kids will remember. Here are some pictures of my birthday celebration. My neice, Bella turned one two days after my birthday, so we had a cake for her too. The picture of all of the kids on my bed is all of my neices and nephews watching a movie in my bedroom. They were so cute! Notice the picture of Joe and my brother-in-law, Boyd really getting a lot out of conference. They claimed that they were still listening, but they looked pretty relaxed to me!

More fun at the Blackfoot Fair

Eastern Idaho State Fair

On Labor Day this year (yes, I know, I'm a little behind on my posts), we went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot. We try to do this every year and we always have a blast! The weather was perfect and the kids had a really great time riding rides, petting the animals in the petting zoo, eating cotton candy, and of course enjoying the famous tiger ears. What a great way to top off the summer!

Big Elk Campground

Shortly after school started, my sister Tiffani invited us to come and spend the day with them at Big Elk campground up by the Palisades reservoir. We took the kids down to the reservoir and found what we thought looked like a great beach. However, it was just a huge mud pit! The kids had a blast playing in the mud, but they were sure hard to clean up. We ended up going home right after this because I hadn't brought my kids any swimsuits or spare clothes and even though I told them to only wade in the water, they completely got drenched and filthy. The shirt Andrea was wearing never came clean, even after spraying stain remover on it and washing it. Oh well . . . I guess they had fun!

First Day of School

I'm finally almost caught up on all the happenings of the summer, so I am now able to post the pictures of Alexa and Landon's first day of school. They have been going to school for several weeks now, so these are a little old. However, there's nothing quite like the first day of school, so I had to share these pictures.

Garder Snake!

At the beginning of August, my kids were playing out in the sprinklers in the back yard when Landon knocked on the french doors in my dining room. When I went to go open the door, I saw him standing there with a huge smile on his face, holding the tail of a much too long garder snake. After I screamed, I yelled through the door that there was no way on earth that he was bringing that thing in. He was planning on bringing it in and putting it in his bug box. Boys! However, even my girls came over and were interested in the snake. They did not get that from me! I hate snakes!