Autumn leaves

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year.  I love to rake the leaves and then let the kids play in them.  The only problem with that is then the leaves break into a million little pieces.  This year I raked them acrossed the street and let the kids play in them there and that worked out great.  Mason loved it the most.  He layed there and had me bury him all the way with the leaves and then he just layed there under them, Tyler wouldn't let me do that to him at that age.

Elly even got in on the action.  She liked the leaves too.  She followed the leaf pile all over the lawn and was mad when I took it acrossed the street because she couldn't get to them any more.

Tyler had to wait until he got back from school to get to play with us.

The rest of our leaves have fallen off so now we get to do it all one more time.  The kids keep wanting to get me back out there to rake them up another pile because the wind blew the last pile away.

Ten months

Elly is ten months old, I know this happened so fast.  I told Jay it mkes me so sad to see her growing  up.  It seems like I was just fat and preganant.   I wish all the time that the first year would go a lot slower.  She has started letting go of things when she stands by them.  She doesn't last very long before she grabs back on, but it last longer every time. She has been a lot of fun and is a really happy baby.  She is very funny about her space, she doesn't like it when the boys get to close to her.  I can't say that I really blame her.  She learned that the hard way. 

Incase anybody thought that she was so happy while I took these here is the proof that she was a stinker.  Infact I was surprised that I had any good ones because she was so bad.  I thought that even the bad ones looked cute though and I like to have pictures like this for the day when they think they were always perfect.

Halloween

We went to visit my famly for Halloween because we were going to watch my brother play in a football game that day, it ended up getting moved to monday. While we were there the kids decorated sugar cookies and they did a great job.  Those cookies were eaten so fast.  This is one thing that my kids love to do.  What kid wouldn't love to shake sprinkles on a cookie?

Here are my little Trick or Treaters and some of their cousins.  My mother painted my kids faces and they loved  the way they looked.  When Mason saw himself in the mirror he didn't know what to think.  He just stared and stared at himself.  It was pretty funny.

Elly didn't love being in her costume.  She didn't like having the hat on.  I carried her with us for some of it but most of the time she just rode in the car and ate the treats te kid brought back to her.

Here is everyone after hours of running from house to house.  The kids had so much fun and it was perfect weather.  Tyler would sit out for a house every now and again, but Mason thought it was so fun.  I loved hearing him say thank you to all the people, it was amazing that he would do that because he really doesn't talk to people that he doesn't know.

Mason got these teeth atour ward party and brought them with him to Grandma's house.  He loved it when he put these in and looked in the mirror. 

We trie the witch wig on Elly and she sure didn't like it.  She looks so different with hair.

My little sister was a witch for Halloween and I just thought that her costume was pretty cute.

My little brother was a mummy for halloween.  My mother put this costume together as we were walking out the door.  I thought that it turned out great.  We all kept looking at him all night because it just didn't look like him.

Carving pumpkins

Carving pumpkins became a family tradition for us while living in Ohio.  We started to do it with our friends and have continued to do it since we moved.  We still think of them everytime we do it.  I was wishing they were her to help me now that I have three pumpkins to do and their children are older now.

We decided to do it one night when I didn't have enough time to do all three so I just did the two one night and Elly's the next.  The boys each picked out their pattern and I carved them.  It was fun to see if they were going to help me clean them out.  Tyler was great at it he helped me clean them all out and stayed with me the whole time.  Mason put his hand in one time so I could take a picture and that was all he wanted to do.  Apparently it is really sick inside of the pumpkin. 

I loved to do this with the kids and it is a great activity.

I didn't take on Elly's until a couple days later, but I did get it done in time.  Tyler wanted me to do a hard one but I told him I was ready for an easy one, so Elly's said Trick or Treat. 

Tyler is showing Elly how to clean it out.  I was surprised that she didn't even want to put her hand in.

The finished product.  Mason loved it when I would light the pumpkins because then he would go out and blow them out, then tell me that I needed to light them again.

Another fishing trip

We took the boys fishing again since we had so much fun the last time we went.  We didn't catch as many but we still caught a few.  It was a perfect night so Elly was even able to be out with us.

I love this picture of my boys just watching their pools waiting for a bite.

It is surprising that the fish live after what the boys put them through so that I can get a picture.  This fish jumped out of Mason's hand so he had to chase it down, so he is really holding on to it tight.

Elly loved being outside with us but I would have to say that her favorite part was when we ate.  She went crazy for tinfoil dinners.

The lake was so beautiful.  The wind stopped not long after we got up there and so the water was as calm as could be.  Every now and again you could see a fish jump out of the water.  The boys really liked that.

Yes, Tyler is kissing his fish.  I was videoing them and all of the sudden he was kissing his fish.  I made him do it again so I could have it on my still camera as well.  What a crazy if you ask me.

Mason just loves to be out where he can run and get dirty with out me getting to mad at him.  Mason is one funny kid!

Fishing Family Night

After we had been gone for a week to Omaha Jay wanted to spend some time with us so he left work early on Monday to take us fishing.  They boys were so excited.  We tried to be ready to go as soon as Tyler got home from school, we weren't quite ready so we didn't get out of there as soon as we wanted.  As soon as we got to the little lake Jay built a fire and then the boys were off to start fishing.  When we first got there it was windy and Elly didn't like it to much so I fed her and put her in the truck to sleep.  She slept the whole time we were there, so that was nice.

Mason loved the fire and had to keep puting sticks and grass in it.  While they fished we had tin foil dinners cooking.  It was nice to have the fire so that the boys could warm their hands after touching their fish and getting their hands cold.

We caught so many fish.  The boys loved it.  This was Tyler and Mason's first time to catch a fish, not their first time fishing though.  Jay couldn't keep the poles both baited because we were catching them so fast.  This was definitly the kind of fishing that I like to see.  We caught a bunch and had a bunch get off before we could get them to the shore.  Tyler was so excited to catch so many fish. 

Mason didn't want any help getting his fish in, but he couldn't do it by himself.

Mason liked to watch Jay get the hook out of their mouths.  We didn't keep any.  We just put them all back.

The boys ofcourse had to each hold everyone of the fish that they caught and have me take a picture of them all.  I was surprised that Mason wanted to hold his because sometimes he is weird about things like that.  In that he is just like his mother.  Jay wanted me to help him bait the hooks but that is sick to me.  I am just there to take the pictures and cook the dinner.

We had a great time.  The boys fished until it was dark and then we had our tin foil dinners.  The boys had so much fun they asked Jay if they could do it again.  It was nice to get to spend time together like that with just our family.  It was a good memory for the boys.

Our fun Omaha Trip!

Tiffany and I decided to take our kids on a road trip to Omaha to visit our sister out there while her husband was gone hunting.  It was a 14 hour drive so we decided to break it up and got part away one day.  We got in late the first night because of the weather that we had.  The next morning we got to visit with our sister, Savanah, who is going to school were we stopped.  We didn't get to spend much time with her because we wanted to get to Omaha before it was to late.  It was fun to get to see Savanah even though it was only for a little while.

Here is what the van looked like.  We had six kids and six car seats.  Some would call this crazy, but we had a lot of fun on our drive.  The kids were great both ways.  They watched movies, or played games, ate snacks and talked to each other.  I really was surprised at how well they did.  The babies slept most of the drive, they weren't feeling the best, so that was really nice. 

When we got there the kids were so excited to be there.  They had every toy out in what seemed like minutes.  They played for a few hours before we put them to bed and then we got to visit and play some games.

The next day started with a favorite of all the kids, frosting sugar cookies.  Camille made a different color of frosting for each kid and they each had their own bottle of sprinkles.  They ended up trading with each other.  They loved seeing all the different cookies they could make.  This is always a great thing to do with a bunch of kids.

After we finished frosting the cookies the kids went out and played on the play ground that is out Camille's front door.  We let the kids play until we were to cold to stay out any longer.  The kids weren't cold.  While we were out there they took the toys from the play ground up to the top of the slide and then would send them down.  They thought that was pretty fun.

The next day was the nicest, weather, so we had planned to go to the zoo this day.  It was a perfect day for the zoo.  In the very first building that we went into there was this little monkey just sitting right on the railing.  The kids were so close to it.  It would just sit and look at them.  It came over by Elly and I and I was getting a little nervous that it was going to attack us or something because monkeys do that right.

The kids loved how close it was to them.

There was a cool rope bridge that the kids could walk acrossed.  Some of the kids were a little nervouse until they were about to the other side and then they all had to do it again.

This was our little group that we had at the zoo.  Three adults and eight kids, we were our own little zoo.

There were a lot of fun little places that the kids could go in to.  We saw some really neat things and this really weird animal.  This thing is like a mixture of a few animals.  Kind of weird I thought.

In the desert dome there were these melt lizzards sitting on the rocks.  Tyler was scared to touch them because he was sure that they were really.  It was funny watching him get the nerve to touch it and find out if it was really or not.

The penguins were probably my favorite thing there.  Mason would run up and down the glass by the penguins and they would swim by him.  They were faster ofcourse and they probably weren't really racing him but he liked it.

The tunel were we could walk under the fish and sharks was another favorite part.  They had lots of neat things in here for the kids to look at.  It was really nice that while we were in here there were no other people so that kids could run around and see everything they wanted without anybody in the way.

It was pretty funny when the kids were looking at the king crab Tyler was hanging on to Mason like that crab was going to get out or something so I just had to help out the situation and gave out a little scream right by Tyler.  That kid sure can jump.  We laughed and laughed about that.

These were cute little butterfly benches that we stopped to change diapers on and take a little break on, until we noticed that there were bees every where.

Mason, Tyler and Elly on the Girraffi.

Here are all the kids at the really giraffis.

Elly with the zebras in the background.  While we were down by the Zebras Mason found this big leaf, his aunt thought this would be a great picture.

Here we have our monkeys with their monkeys.

The kids thought this was great, getting to climb all over these monkeys.  We got some great pictures of the kids here.

The really monkeys were really fun to see.  The kids like following them around.  There was a baby monkey there that the zoo had in a diaper.  I think that the mom was hurt so they had to take care of it.  The kids thought that was pretty funny.

This was just a great tree that was screaming at us to take a pictures with it.  It had all these nice little seats for the kids to sit on.

Then we had the farm animals.  This was a fun spot too.  They had goats that the kids could pet and there were chickens running around.  You would think this would just be fun for kids that haven't seen chickens before, but no these kids had so much fun running around in here.

      

Tyler wanted to pet a chicken so he spent most of his time trying to get one.  He did pet one eventully.  He had Camille follow him around with her camera the whole time.  My camera had died by this time.  She was a very good sport and got a bunch off pictures of him.

Mason and Devan had fun throwing rocks and the chickens, that was until we noticed what they were laughing about.

We had to have the kids climb on this guy for a picture too.  The poor girls got eatten.

This spiders web was a fun thing to.  They loved climbing around on this and showing us their cool tricks that they could do on it.  We had to have them pull there best spider face.

This was just a great picture, we thought anyway.

Mason was just showing me these really cool birds that they had in there.  I thought you could see them in this picture, but you can't.

Everywhere we went the kids found something fun to do.  Here we are just walking over to see the Elephants and rinhos, that ended up not being there, and the kids are just enjoying everything we walked by.  They each have either sticks or leaves in their hands or both.  They gather things all day long.  Most of it did not make it to the car though.

The kids loved feeding the fish.  They were like this everywhere in the water.

This is the bridge were the kids would throw the food off of to feed the fish.

Another great picture opportunity.

We had the best time at the zoo.  We were there for seven hours and the kids were so good.  They never cried that they were hungry, or tired of walking and they never had any fights.  The kids ran from place to place and just had so much fun.  It really was the best day.

The next day that we were there we just hung out and let the kids play, that evening we went out and did a little shopping and the kids were pretty good for that.  I am sure while we were trying things on and the kids were having fun in the changing rooms the workers were thinking we were crazy to have brought our kids, but we had fun.

The day we left we decided we better have some pictures with all of us in it.  That was funny to watch I am sure.  We never did get one that was perfect of all of us at the sametime but since I am posting it I will be the one that doesn't look good.

Before we headed out we went up to see these train engines that they have there by the interstate.  The kids liked this place.  I was surprised at how big the engines are.  I guess that I am used to seeing them from the road.

I had to get a picture of Elly here because I felt like I hardly took any of her because she was sick and sleeping for most of the trip.

It was really sad when it was time for us to go Gracie started crying because she didn't want her cousins to go, she just wanted them to stay.  It would have been fun to stay longer, but I was trying to get back to my house by saturday night.

To bad we go snowed in in Cheyenne on the way home and they didn't open the interstate until noon the next day.  When we went to find a room that night in Cheyenne they told me I could have there last room that had a loud heater, which they would give to me at a discount, or I could try the churches around town, you can probably guess what we did.

We had a great trip and would do it again.  Thanks Camille for having us and I hope that we left your house in one peice.  Sorry there are so many pictures but it was hard to decide which ones to leave out.