McKinlee 1st Day of School - 2nd and Last Year of Preschool

McKinlee started her last year of Preschool this year. She goes Mon-Thurs for 2 1/2 hours each day. She's going to Happy Day Preschool again (the same preschool Tucker attended) and she loves it! I've been very impressed with their preschool for anyone who is looking for a recommendation in this area. They have lots of fun with the kids, but they are always teaching and emphasize early reading. They take each student at his/her own pace and won't go any faster than the child/parent wants to go.

McKinlee is a very, very smart little girl and started beginning reading last year in her 3-yr old class! She's doing well again this year! I am so proud of McKinlee and for her excitement to learn! It's contagious and it makes me proud to watch her!

Lazy End of Summer Fun

We went up to Kolob with Sean & Lesley to get away and spend a night up in the mountains! It is so beautiful up there and I only took one picture the whole time we were up there! :( I was too busy stuffing my face and chatting away. We headed up to Kolob without Yates because he was playing cops and robbers with the marijuana gardners.
Lesley's parents have a cabin and a big shout out to them for being so gracious and letting us come crash their pad every once in awhile. I really like her parents...we got to spend time with them at our Disneyland trip last year too. They're GREAT!
It was Yates and I's responsibility to do dinner that first night and we had decided that we wanted dutch oven chicken, potatoes and cobbler. I always help prep and prepare, but Yates is ALWAYS the one who tends to the actual cooking. He thought he might make it up, but wasn't sure so we waited as long as we dared wait and then started prepping and getting stuff sliced, peeled and getting stuff going ourselves. Just as we got to the point we were going to have to get stuff into the dutch ovens and get them cooking, guess who drove up??? Yates, and he had some good stories to share with us about all his adventures that day while we finished dinner! ;) Dinner turned out great, although we haven't quite perfected the cobbler yet...we're getting closer. We had lots of fun and the kids ran around and got plenty dirty. We got them all tucked in for the night and then us adults went outside and told stories and laughed until late late. What fun we always have when we get together!
Had a scrumptions pancakes and bacon breakfast the next morning and then we just hung out and let the kids play some more before we grudgingly packed up and headed home. It was a great weekend!
Here's little Maci and Titan enjoying the swing! THIS is the only picture I got...haha!

Tucker 1st Day of School - 2nd Grade

Holy moly! Second grade? For real?

Our oatmeal on the 1st day of school tradition...THEIR request...at least he has a shirt on this year! :)

Lookin' Good

At the bus stop with Draygen

Heading off

Tucker's New Hair Cut and a Close Call

Tucker got a new buzz for school this year. He loves it! I can't even honestly remember why, darn me for my blog update procrastination, but he just about split his head open the day before we took him to get the buzz. Sad that I can't even remember the story! I'll have to ask the boys and see if they recall and update if they remember what happened.

Play Dates

McKinlee has received the short end of the stick when it comes to play dates. There really aren't a lot of little girls her age in our ward and absolutely none in our neighborhood. She always ends up stuck having to play with Tucker's friends as a tag-a-long or just with her brothers. I tried to make a point to invite a couple of girls over this summer for play dates. McKinlee had a blast with both girls! Lots of silly giggling, teasing, dress up and pretend tea parties...something she rarely gets to do! We made sure to have a fun little photo shoot at each one and boy do these girls have some personality!
Don't mind that McKinlee's wearing the same clothes! She has her favorites, and it isn't unusual for her to dress herself the same every day until I finally put a stop to it. At least she's got the matching down, we're still working on that with Tucker. :)

Cute Chloe and McKinlee:

Cute Aelie and McKinlee:

Kellie Stilson Photography

This amazing photographer is having a giveaway for a free family photo contest on her blog at http://kelliestilsonphoto.blogspot.com/
Check out her photos and enter to win...but not too many of you so I have a better chance! LOL!

A Sure Bet that Summer is Here!

This is what you will see if you visit the Wright household during the summer months. My little lizards out sunning themselves on the cement after a dip in the cold water of the swimming pool. :) It always makes me smile!

Burned!

We had a little scare this summer. We tried to head off to have a dinner with the Adams family up at Red Cliffs Recreation Area, but when we got up there found out the road was closed and we couldn't make it. We weren't about to waste a dinner trip so we headed to the Leeds City Park instead. The park is actually very nice. It is very big with big grassy areas, a little cooler than here with big shade trees and the sun goes behind a little hill creating shade in the park quite a bit earlier than dusk. They have a big fire pit set up for use as well.

We had brought tin foil dinners so we got the fire going and cooked up our food. We finished eating and played around in the park for quite awhile before we decided it was time to head back home. I'm sure anyone who knows Tucker knows that he absolutely CANNOT stay away from fires!!! We've joked about it before, but have gotten upset with him plenty of times. We were packing up the trucks to head back home and Tucker decided he wanted to throw one more tiny little stick into the fire...not just anywhere in the fire but in the "perfect spot" in the middle. The fire pit is kind of tall and a cement encircled ordeal. It sits in the middle of a pad of red square "tiles". There were some small pebbles from the parking lot that were all over the tiles and when Tucker leaned over to put his stick in the middle his feet slipped on those pebbles and dumped him into the middle of the fire!!!
Brandon and I saw him about the same time, but he reacted much quicker and hurried and ran over and grabbed him out of the fire. Tucker had instinctively put his right hand down to catch him when he fell and his knee had stopped him as well. We tried to turn on a hose by the fire pit, but the water must have been turned off...no water came out! Brandon rushed him over to the back of his truck and opened up a cooler full of ice he had brought drinks in and shoved his hand into the ice...anything to try to get the heat out. His warm-up pants he'd been wearing had melted, but thankfully not to his skin. We kept some ice with us in a bag and headed home to wait and see if it was going to need to go into the Dr. It ended up not being as awful as I anticipated and his hand healed really well and never ended up getting infected. We actually still had some stuff at our house from when Titan had burned his hand on my parents' stove so we immediately started putting that stuff on it and keeping it covered until it healed good.

I just remember being sooooo scared!! I know Yates was too, because he got really upset with Tucker and started yelling at him while his hand was in the ice chest about what a horrible decision he'd made and even spanked him in the back of the truck. Tucker was so scared he ended up pee'ing his pants (both because Yates was upset and because he was scared about what had happened). I don't put that in here as a negative against Yates at ALL! We were all scared and anyone who knows Yates and Tucker knows that if anything ever happened to Tucker it would be a life-altering thing for Yates to deal with.

Lots of talks about fires and what COULD HAVE happened and we'll see if Tucker changes his ways. Hopefully he'll be a lot more careful in the future!

Sleepyhead

My kids can fall asleep in the wierdest places at any time of the day. You can tell when they've truly had enough. Case in point:


Titan just thinks I'm weird for thinking it's worth taking pictures of.

My Baby Turns 2!!!

Titan turned 2 on June 5th. I couldn't even begin to tell you just how much I love this little character of mine. He came packed with so much personality in such a little body and is starting to talk so well and clear that it makes me sad to see that he won't be my baby much longer. He's never really been the most cuddly baby...he'll hug and give kisses but he doesn't just want to snuggle up and STAY THERE. Heck, he doesn't stay ANYWHERE for very long. He's busy and on-the-go and I love him just how he is!
We were in Kanab this year again and just had a little birthday celebration over at JD & Jeri K's house. So much fun and it was so cute to watch McKinlee and Tucker give Titan presents they had picked out for him themselves.
Titan Craig...Happy Birthday little boy! We love you!

Tucker and Machine Pitch Baseball

1st post back...feelin' good! Let's begin where we left off, which was Summer 2010. Tucker played Machine Pitch baseball this year for the first time. He really enjoyed it actually. There was one game where the machine was being a little crazy and it actually hit Tucker with a pitch right in his hands! He had tried to duck and put the his hands up (holding the bat) to deflect the ball. He was a bit wounded for awhile, but it was toward the end of the game so he didn't miss too much. He played quite a few different positions this year: catch, shortstop, first base and in the outfield a little bit. He liked shortstop and outfield the most, but he was the BEST at catch and first base because he does well at catching and keeping the ball. It's so fun to watch the boys grow and progress through the years. I kept trying to encourage him while he was playing catcher because he did sooooo well, but he said it made his knees and the muscles in his legs hurt. I just laughed and then groaned remembering the same thing!!! The boy has a point!

Ahem...a little problem

I've been complained at for lack of keeping up...AGAIN! However, I thought I better at least explain a bit. We are lacking in the computer/internet arena these days at the Wright house. I have tons of pictures and tons of stuff to post and no computer to do so. My kids are still cute, my life is still crazy and I'm still in love. How's that for an update? LOL!

Seriously though, I promise I'll take some "off-work" time to come into the office and use my work computer to try to get stuff updated. Just not today (and probably not tomorrow)!

A Forgotten Tradition

There are lots of posts again. I'm trying not to get behind, but struggling, so this is a catch up of the last month. Enjoy!

My little sister Ashley used to be the cook in our family. Out of all of us kids, she had the passion and was good at it. We used to always make soft pretzels together in all sorts of shapes. When I say always, I mean we made either those or homemade breadsticks on a VERY frequent basis.
I was needing a fun idea for something fun for the kids & I to do and I thought that would be perfect! I sent her a text message asking for the recipe and after a few days decided to try calling my mom to see if maybe she had it. I had to leave her a message and while I was waiting for her to call back, Ashley called me with the recipe. Right after I got off the phone with her my momma called me back with the recipe as well. She said Ashley had called her for it and she didn't even know where the recipe was, but Ashley had used it so often that even after all these years she could tell her exactly where to go find it. LOL! I'm an impatient imp...it's okay...I admit it.
So we broke out the aprons my Momma made for my kiddos and got to work. We had so much fun with the dough and the mashing and the general mess making that ensued. I had forgotten just how tasty the end result was too!

New Easter Outfits and a trip to Kanab

We went out to Kanab for a weekend birthday excursion. My birthday, Nick's birthday and Roxi's birthday's are all within just 5 days of each other. We always have a good 'ole time scarfing our faces full of yummy food and just shooting the breeze. This time was no exception.
We stayed at Nick's house on Saturday night and when we woke up on Sunday morning I decided to have me a little photo shoot. Please ignore the fact that I was probably the only LDS blogger alive NOT to have posted something cutesy about Easter outfits. It's not that I didn't HAVE the cutesy little Easter outfits...I'm just a lazy blogger. :) So, here are my kids in all their Easter outfit glory! Yes, I went with a matching theme this year. I think it's partly the anal-retentiveness in me, but I think they all looked so danged cute together! It was pleasing to my eyes and thus the matching! The end!






After our shoot Tucker decided he wanted to take the camera and have himself his own little photo shoot. I told him he could take 5 pictures. This is what he came back with. Was I impressed? Heck yes! I did adjust contrast and color on a few of the pictures, but most are SOOC (straight out of camera).

In observance of my big 3-0, I wanted to come up with a witty post like my friend. I have been laughing my can off at her post since reading it, and have gone back many a-time to go get another chuckle. I love her wit and wisdom and she has a talent with words. So, instead of having to actually work hard and create my own witty post I called and got her permission to just re-post hers. It's a cop-out I know, but seriously you'll love it!

Disclaimer: The below section was NOT written by me (with slight editing to save privacy), although many of the events and thoughts may have hit a bit close to home. :)

Today I turned 30. To celebrate, I'd like to take a look back at my last ten years with a quick review:

Age 20: Graduated from Dixie College, worked in Kanab, went one semester to the University of Utah
Age 21: Moved back to St. George, met husband, got engaged
Age 22: Married husband, moved to first home
Age 23: Finished college at SUU
Age 24: Baby #1
Age 25: Ran my first marathon
Age 26: Baby #2, moved to current home
Age 27: Baby #3
Age 28: Can't recall anything, survived?
Age 29: Ran second marathon

But being the realist that I am, I have to concede that while these were all pretty big events in my life, they weren't without some hardships, as well. So, since I HATE blogs about perfect husbands, children, hobbies, color schemes, and yummy treats, I have to interject some realism into my "20s List" (to help out all those folks that, like me, need to know that everyone else does NOT have a perfect life).

Age 20: Was so confused about where to go after Dixie, I felt lost
Age 21: Felt like I had to compete for husband's affection, I won, but what was this, "The Bachelor"??
Age 22: Felt like a failure for not getting married in the Temple
Age 23: Gained a significant amount of "we're in a comfortable routine now" marriage weight
Age 24: Did not know what the joys of motherhood were all about with a new baby that screamed for hours and hours every night for two months
Age 25: The year of the mouse invasion in our home - I didn't sleep for weeks
Age 26: Found out I was pregnant when Baby #2 was 5 months old, cried for months because the smells in our new home made me want to vomit and I felt like the old owner's dirt, and bird droppings, would never leave no matter how much I cleaned
Age 27: Threw a flower pot at my husband in front of his friends because I was very emotional
Age 28: Was consumed with three little kids, two of which weren't ready for Nursery at church
Age 29: Ran a marathon and didn't lose a damn pound

Life's not always great, but I am so thankful for the opportunities I've had to finish my education, have a family, and live in a place I like. As Tim McGraw would say I'll "drink a little lemonade and not so many beers, huh, maybe I'll remember my next 30 years." OK, so the beers haven't been a problem, but I can always "do it better in my next 30 years."

Okay, Crystal back again! :) That was funny huh?!? I am so grateful for ALL the ups and the downs honestly because, for the most part, I'm very proud of where I am. It's never an easy road and each day brings its own challenges and rewards, but as a man very dear to my heart just told me, "We're making it!" So here's to mid-life and all the great times we are to have. I hope you're ready for me, because I'm about to own it!

P.S. Forgot the picture. Yates had to work (boo!) so he brought home Chili's To-Go and I ordered my favorite treat! All that chocolatey-gooey deliciousness topped with ice cream and sticky caramel was all I really wanted for my birthday! The kids were more than happy to do the honors and help me ring in the big day in style!

Soccer 2010

Tucker played soccer again this year and loves it every year! He still is a little timid and kind of waits for someone to hit the ball to him instead of just running right after it and being the aggressor. He did better toward the end of the season, but my favorite thing about this summer was his coach. She was great! Tucker came home one day and said, "Mom, my coach's name is Inger...like finger. She told us it's okay to call her finger." I laughed and asked if he was sure that's what she had said. I highly doubt she gave permission to be called finger. She was super great with the kids and they all clamored for her attention and praise. She was free to give positive comments to each and every one of the players. Soccer is now over and it's baseball season. So far it's been an eventful one. Tucker's 1st year of machine pitch.

1st Grade End of Year Performance

Tucker had an event at the school where they dressed up like animals and did a little dance. I rushed to get there from work and didn't even think to grab my camera, so I didn't get any pictures. So, for the end of 1st grade presentation to the parents I failed to neglect my duties as a good mother and took my video camera AND point and shoot! My luck continued however, because I just may have had a dead battery on the video camera and had to stand at the back of the lunchroom near the wall outlet so I could get ANY video at all. That didn't stop me. He did great, but he must not have seen us come in because he didn't smile ONCE! I did notice that he was surrounded by girls. I know there are boys in his class, but he was stuck plum in the middle of the females...lucky boy!
I can't believe there's only a couple more weeks left of 1st grade!

All Caught Up!

Alright, I've spent the most part of the last full day getting caught up on here! I better be getting calls of praise! LOL! Only kidding!

There are a LOT of posts so grab a drink and put a pillow under your toosh and enjoy catching up with our little family!

I have changed it so it is NOT private FOR NOW! I WILL be changing it back. If you could get into it before nothing will change...I still have your email addresses. If you would like to be added please either email me or leave a comment with your email address.

Please also remember that you can click on each picture to make it larger and see more of the details in the picture collages! :)

Wrestling

Wow! Wrestling was a lot more stressful this year than the last couple. Hurricane participated this year in the Bantam wrestling program instead of through Dixie State College. It was just a lot more traveling, but was a lot more competition for the kids. All of the tournaments were either Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings. Then he had 2 hour long practices each week. Tucker's in 1st grade and this is his 3rd year of wrestling. He started the season out the middle of February really really well. Yates and I were both impressed at how much he had retained, how much quicker he was and how much he'd seemed to just sense on his own what he needed to do.
Throughout the season, he had some ups and downs. Some tournaments he did really really well and some he really struggled. There were a few times he just cried and told Yates that he never wanted to wrestle again and he wanted to just go home. :( When he was up, he was really up. When he was down, he was major depression down! The times he struggled were mostly times that he'd beat himself mentally before he ever got out on the mat, so that's something he's going to have to work on. In reality, a few kids were better technically than he was and would beat him legitimately, but for the most part when he lost he beat himself by not trying.
That was the most frustrating thing as a parent is to WATCH him lose his confidence and not be able to do a darn thing to help him out. I've never been a fan of wrestling to be honest. I've always thought wrestlers as a whole were just smelly and gross...lol! I have completely changed my outlook. There are so many life lessons to be learned in wrestling and I think it's important for kids to learn how to graciously win AND lose! It's hard work and sometimes the better wrestler doesn't always win. Your success depends on the effort you put into it and even if you do your best it doesn't always work out how you pictured it. What an important lesson for kids to learn these days!
Tucker finished his season this last Saturday, April 10th. Their Bantam State Tournament was at Canyon View HS in Cedar City. I was amazed at how many kids there were. The tournament itself got off to a shaky start. They were supposed to start at 9:30 and ended up not starting until about 10:45. About 8-10 matches in, on EACH mat, they called a halt to the tournament and announced that about 5 wrestlers who had registered didn't get bracketed due to a glitch in the system and they were going to have to re-bracket everyone and start completely over. They ended up re-starting the whole tournament around 12:00 and we weren't finished until about 5:15 pm! It was a loooooooong day (and NO NAP for Titan)! It was a little frustrating...Tucker was one of the wrestlers who had wrestled before they stopped the tournament. He got pinned by a kid we've never seen before (they combined 1st & 2nd grade in this tournament) pretty quick. How fair is that to the kid who beat Tucker to have to wrestle him again and possibly lose the 2nd match-up? It WAS a good thing for Tucker. He hit rock bottom after losing so quick that 1st match and had a chance to start completely over. His bracket ended up not changing at all so when they re-started he was wrestling the same kids. He pinned his 1st guy and the light came back on for him! He just needed a confidence boost. He came out to his 2nd match and wrestled a kid that was pretty evenly matched with him and beat him in 3 rounds by points. He was on top of the world! Then he had to re-wrestle the kid who had beat him. He did a lot better the 2nd go, but in the end still got pinned by him (which to be truthful, like I've already said, was fair in my opinion).
He ended up taking 2nd place and I am soooooo proud of him! He ended his season on a good note and felt a lot better about himself and his achievements!

Easter

Easter was good for us. We went out to Coral Pink Sand Dunes with Yvonne and camped one night and met Nicole, Roxi, JD & Nick for dinner and let all the kids run around and play and got so so so dirty. There was a big wash next to our little campsite and it was pretty steep-walled. The kids decided to make it their personal dirt slide and went head first, feet first and rolled somersaults down. You name it they did it. We had to give our 3 kids baths before we dared let them into their beds in the trailer. McKinlee asked why she had to bathe in brown water after the boys were done...LOL! The kids got lots of rides on the "cycle" in with Daddy and loved it. That's the last thing Titan cried about at night and the first thing the next morning he wanted. What a kid! We tried to make Anakin sleep outside because he'd been swimming in the cow poo pond, but he was FREEZING literally. It was really cold overnight, so we reluctantly let him come in the trailer and had to clean it out the next morning. :( Poor Anakin! Then the next day Tony & Linda, Ryan & Miranda, George & Lonnie, Kirk, Natalie, Connor & new baby Paislee, JoeB, Staci, Jaci and new baby Brynn came out and we had a big Easter lunch and spent the day together. We had to leave a little early because Yates had to get home to catch a few winks before working a graveyard shift that night. It was fun and it's been a few years now that we've missed out on the annual Wright Easter gathering so it was fun to see everyone! Thanks to Jeri, Staci and Nat for the pictures I may or may not have stolen off their blogs...I didn't get group pictures of everyone and they did. :)













Then I continue my lameness...I didn't get pictures of all the kids with their baskets. Yates had worked a grave the night before so we woke him up for the Easter egg hunt and the basket hunt and then we sent him back to bed while we played with all the new toys and listened to conference. It wasn't real easy because the kids were wired, but we did our best. Titan was so cute! McKinlee had gotten new roller skates and he put them on and walked around for a LONG time...he'd been quiet for awhile and I went to check on him and he'd plum tuckered out and fallen asleep leaning over onto a down comforter on the floor of sissy's closet. The picture of the bunny cake was a creation the kids and I put together for fun. They had a blast helping frost and decorate it!

Random Spring Happenings

I was forced to go into Tucker's room and deep clean and was getting rid of things while he wasn't looking...lol! I came across this rock and he caught me trying to get rid of it and started crying and carrying on and throwing a major fit. I told him I'd keep it for now and put it down. Later, I went out and handed it to Yates and told him to take a picture of the front & back and take it out to the garbage can outside. I'm so mean, but honestly! There is a story however...We went down to Grandpa's Pond just a few blocks from our house to let the kids run around one day. Tucker picked up this rock (and it WAS HEAVY) and wanted to keep it. We told him that he could keep it if he wanted to carry it all the way home, thinking it would deter his desire. NOPE! That kid hauled that big-A rock ALL THE WAY back home and named it Sheldon...lol! I caved and got some paints out and we had a little project while we painted the silly rock. He wanted him to sort of look like Spongebob, but with pink. LOL! I have absolutely no problem with the fact that my son wanted a pink rock. I just don't want him to live at my house FOREVER!











This next picture was just after Easter. McKinlee and Titan were being so silly. They crawled inside the blinds and were knocking on the window and giggling and squealing at the dog outside...which threw him in a frenzy if we're being honest. I thought it was so cute though. It's so indicative of their relationship. They fight, but they really do have SO MUCH fun! Don't mind the jammies that Titan is wearing. Yes, they are sunflowers on a boy. They're special jammies for our family and they've been worn by all my kids. They were Mia's jammies, our special little angel cousin. I think sunflowers are gender neutral...lol!

Spring Break

Spring Break is always busy for us! We're grateful that we live in a warm sunny place because it means we always get lots of visitors in the Spring looking to escape from the cold...and we LOVE having people come stay!!!

First, the Murray's from Rhode Island came to visit. It's been 3 whole years since we had last seen them. We went out to Rhode Island 2 summers in a row, but things have been crazy and we haven't seen them in way too long!! Their daughter and her family live in Arizona so they flew out to come visit and made a trip up here to visit us as well. It's ALWAYS so much fun when they're in town and they really have a special place in our kids' lives! Our kids have adopted them as grandparents and they love on our kids as their own. We went to Zion Canyon to the Imax and watched "Treasure of the Gods" and dinked around the half empty Springdale (tourist season isn't quite in full swing yet). We also went and visited the ghost town of Grafton on our way, which is always a cool thing for me...I'm a sucker for old stuff like that. The next day we drove over to Kanab and went to Moqui Cave and then up to the Sand Caves. As long as Yates and I have been together (almost 10 years now) I have never been to either one of those places!! It was a fun, touristy thing that you don't do unless you have people in town, so I was totally excited that we got to go. (P.S. I have to give ALL credit for the pictures to Momma Murray! I was lame again and took my camera but never did get any pictures, so these are all stolen off her blog.)













Then a couple days later my parents came down to visit for 10 days for THEIR Spring Break. We took Tucker out of school one day and went out to Warner Valley just south of Hurricane to just have a day-out trip. We took the trailer just in case the weather turned bad and for a place for Titan to take a nap. It was nice to have, but Titan ended up getting so upset at naptime that he threw up all over the pack-n-play and that was the end of that. He wasn't sick, he'd just worked himself up so bad NOT wanting to lay down!















Jared came up from Vegas one day just to hang out and we all went to eat at Irmita's. Dax was soooo funny! We all were just feeding the little kids off our plate or splitting the quesadilla we had for Tucker & McKinlee. Dax wasn't having any of it. He's a really good eater normally, but all he wanted while we were at Irmita's was the SALSA of all things! He did end up eating rice & beans and some other stuff. It was so funny though, he was just sipping the salsa right out of the little holding cup! We were laughing so hard and trying to make sure he kept his bib on and stayed clean! Then we came back and the two little boys (Titan & Dax) spilled some popcorn on the kitchen floor and kept giggling in there. When we went to check on them they were sucking it up OFF the floor! They'd suck up a piece and then just kneel up and giggle. What little hams!

Ice Skating

St George got an ice skating rink this year. We never did make it as a family to go, :( sad that I can't remember why we didn't make it happen. Tucker was able to go on a field trip with all the 1st graders and go ice skating for the first time. We all had to work so I have to thank a couple friends that were volunteer mom helpers that sent me this picture. I asked Tucker when he got home how he did. He said, "Mom, I was so good. Lots of the kids were falling down all the time, but I didn't hardly fall at all. I went fast too." Needless to say I was impressed...until...I talked to one of the mom's who said he was crazy on skates. He'd just get his speed up and go really fast until he slammed into a wall to stop! LOL! Now, THAT sounds like my boy!

Woods Ranch

We're finally updated to 2010!!! I'd like to thank all my supporters in completing this achievement...lol...kidding! We took our kids up to Cedar Mountain on January 16th to have a fun sledding adventure. We met up with Brandon & Jessie and about 1 million scouts to sled. Well, the scouts weren't a part of the plan, but apparently the whole scouting district had their overnighter at Woods Ranch the night before and was just finishing up breakfast and packing up as we got there. Once they all left it was fine. We rolled around in the snow and Anakin chased sledders down the hill until he made one of them crash so we had to tie him up. :( He loves loves loves the snow!

An Incident

Yates and I have a treadmill which gets a fair amount of use (when we're ON the wagon lol). Sometimes it's the only way to get a workout in with our schedules because we can't leave our kids here at the house alone. Yates had taken to running on the treadmill with the kids sitting right next to the treadmill on our bed. Well, of course our kids don't sit still and sometimes they're running around and hanging on the treadmill WHILE he runs on it...it scares me to death! Anyway, one day he was running and Titan was sitting on our dog, Anakin, on the floor next to the treadmill. Anakin stood up to leave the room and dumped Titan face first on the moving treadmill. This is what the end result was.











I told Yates after that incident that he needed to stop running with the kids next to the treadmill. 2 more treadmill burns later (ALL TITAN I SHOULD ADD) that were much less severe than the one above and I think he's finally got the hint. Phew!

Christmas

This year was our year for Christmas in Idaho. I was so surprised when we got up there and there really wasn't that much snow. It didn't hardly snow while we were there either (it did, just not anything like I'm used to). My dad drove the kids around on the snowmobile a couple times, but there wasn't a bunch of snow to even go riding in. We spent a lot of lazy days just hanging out, playing games and having fun. We went out to IF and went to see Avatar all together one day and went out to Johnny Carino's (Yummy-yum-yum), but other than that we didn't have anything big planned. It really was nice not to have to run all over. All of us kids were home for Christmas and with the growing amount of grandkids we have, it just gets MORE fun for all of us!!!

McKinlee Birthday

4 years old! Life starts to go WAY TOO FAST at some point and I can't believe my little girl is growing up! She's sooooo smart! I'm not sure if it's just the difference between boys & girls, but she's super advanced for her age. She's in her 1st year of preschool and they have started sending her home with 1st grade pre-reading packets. She recognizes all her letters and their sounds and can make it to 43 before she misses a number when counting. She can't remember 44 for some reason, but if you help her past that one number she just keeps going. She's no wimp and holds her own in the middle of the 2 boys. She can often be found being forced to be Tucker's wrestling dummy for practice and Titan is sometimes just plain mean to her. She's still a petite little thing...she only weighs about 28 lbs (just a few more lbs than Titan), but she's healthy. We have struggles getting her to eat at mealtimes (even when limiting snacks during the day) and it's not unusual to spend an hour or more at the table getting down a toddler sized portion of food. Argh!
For her birthday she got a bike, helmet & pads and fell in LOVE with them. The next morning she woke up first thing and even though it was drizzly outside she went out and rode and rode and rode and you can see what happened when she was done...she plain crashed at the table eating her quesadilla. LOL! What a cute little girl!

November

Okay, seriously October was CRAZY for us! We had a LOT going on and we must have made up for it in November because I don't have much. We spent Thanksgiving at our house. We did a fried turkey (like we always do if we're in charge) and Yates injected it with Italian salad dressing and it was sooooo moist and good. We'll definitely be trying that one again!!! I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving (THAT is how lame I was getting...I had stopped even getting my camera out)!!! Anyway, here's what I have for November.

Halloween

This year Halloween was super fun! McKinlee got to dress up as 2 different things (one for her Preschool class party and the other on actual Halloween). She wanted to be both things so I just let her choose one for each. Tucker chose to be Zorro (after much debate), he could NOT decide what he wanted to be. Titan was the alligator costume that Tucker had when he was little. His little round chubby cheeks were so cute and I can't get over how much I love the little tail. We went to our ward trunk-or-treat and then hauled our kids over to Roberts Ranch (in Hurricane) to go around the big, nice neighborhood. THAT was really fun! We've never done that before because we're kind of crowd avoiders and that place is crawling with people. It was fun because some of the people really go all out and set up spook alleys in their yards/houses/RV's. There was one house that had a lady taking pictures of all the kids in their costumes. Tucker went to preschool with a little girl that lives in there and her mom was telling us they had already gone through 400 full size candy bars and she had to send her husband to the store for more!!! THAT is craziness to me. I joked that they better put something in the contracts for anyone who buys a house in that place warning them about holidays...I know that at least Halloween AND Christmas are like that in there!

Staheli Farm

Each fall there is a working farm that does a Corn Maze and a bunch of activities for kids & families. I'm ashamed to admit this last fall is the 1st time that we've ever taken our kids. It's kind of expensive just to get in, and then you have to pay for the different things after you get in, but it was a lot of fun for the kids to experience! We ended up having a lot of fun!

Miscellaneous October Happenings

Enjoy some random pictures of the craziness at our house:

Dax-Man

A couple days after we got back from the big hunting camping trip Jared and Kylie headed off to Moab for a monster team mountain bike race. We watched Dax and had a blast! Titan & Dax are only 12 days apart and are the bestest of friends. We all had a lot of fun. We found out Titan is a little bully (which continues to be true) and wanted to play with WHATEVER Dax was playing with at the moment. He didn't want to take it away, but he wanted to play WITH him. Dax wasn't always happy about that...lol! When he was riding the trike, Titan just HAD to push him from the back so Dax would move over to the 4-wheeler. Sure enough, Titan would go crawl on right behind him. Dax would lay down on the floor and Titan would start trying to wrestle with him. At times, I think Dax was happy to have to lay down for his nap just to get away from him! LOL!

Elk Hunt

The 1st week in October we went up by Bryce Canyon to go on the Spike Elk Hunt. Yates had a tag and it's always a good excuse to get a good camping trip in. My parents drove down from Idaho so come spend the weekend with us. I know it was a long trip for them and it was rather unfamiliar territory where we ended up camping so they found us luckily in the middle of the night. We're so glad they ended up making the trip...it was a lot of fun!

Yates and my dad mostly ended up getting up before the crack of dawn and spending most of the day out hunting, would come home and grab something to eat and head back out for the evening. We did get some fun family time in though as well. It's always worth it to take the family out and let the kids run around free and get dirty...they sleep SOOOO good! It's nice to have the trailer with kids around. Yates and I used to go tent camping a lot, even after we had Tucker, and we loved it. After Tucker started going with us at a few months old, it became a little more difficult. He ALWAYS slept AWFUL and would get sick from the cold. We bought the trailer a few years ago and it's nice to have a place to get out of the rain, but it's soooooo worth it to have the kids sleep good at night.



We headed over to Bryce Canyon the day we were leaving. My parents had never been to the park and we were so close that it would have been a wasted opportunity to not go. It was rather blustery (to say the least) and my Dad's favorite ball cap was blown off into the bottom of the canyon. He valiantly thought he'd be able to hop the fence and fall to his death to save his hat, but we talked some sense into him. A long drive into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, the loss of a favorite hat, no elk. Trip worth it? hmmm...you'll have to ask them! It was for us! LOL!!!

Tucker's Birthday

Tucker turned 7 on September 20th. He had a big birthday party with some friends over. He wanted to do "Cowboys & Indians" and I started planning a little late so we just did more of a Western Theme. I sent out invitations inviting the kids to a round-up at our house and then we had bbq hot dogs, chips and sasparilla (root beer) for dinner. We tried our hand at roping, they panned for gold and threw snakes into a boot. It ended up turning out really cute and the boys had a lot of fun. We tried something new for opening presents and it ended up working really well. We passed a boot around (kind of like musical chairs) and played music. When we stopped the music whoever was holding the boot got to get his present to give to Tucker. He always has made friends so easily and I think everyone had lots of fun.

On another note, 7 YEARS OLD?!? It's hardly possible. I love this boy so so much! He's my biggest helper. He has such a tender heart and is so good with little kids. A lot of older kids want to play with kids their own age (and he does too), but he's ALWAYS willing to watch over his little brother and sister and help make sure they have fun too! He keeps us on our toes and is the bad-word police at our house. ha ha. He lives for praise, loves to read, play games and do crafts with mom. He ADORES his dad and loves to do anything with him. Tucker...I'm so proud of you!