Reflections

This year Amber and Les entered the PTA Reflections contest at school. Amber entered 3 different categories, and Les entered 2.

The awards were given last night, and Les came away with a first and a second place. The theme this year was WOW!, which really made it easy to fit almost anything into a category somehow.

This is the robot that Les made of recycled things from around the house. It was quite and adventure to get to this final product, but WOW is all I can think of to say about it. With his robot, he took first place in 3-Dimensional Art!

This is the photo of a deer he took a few weeks ago while we were on a drive up near Snowbasin, and we pulled over to watch them. When we stopped to see them, he said wow, so I suggested that he take some pictures of them for Reflections. I guess it was a good idea because he won 2nd place in photography with it!
Amber wrote a great little poem (called a cinquain) about the seasons for the literature competition. She didn't win anything, but she did a great job on all of them!

This is a picture that she took of a waterfall that we hiked to in the summer. It was beautiful, and she took a really good picture of it.

Last but not least, she created this dog out of Legos for 3-dimensional art. It was really cute, and very creative.This is just another angle of the dog that shows it a little better!

Good job guys, you are very creative!

Pumpkin Carving

All three kids carved their own pumpkins this year. Amber did hers all by herself, and Zak and Les needed a little help, but for the most part they did it all by themselves. they turned out really good.

Amber just did hand prints, but it turned out pretty cool! Les did a skull, but he said that he put a pirate hat on it.

And Zak just wanted to do a pumpkin that was spooky! The kids had lots of fun and I was glad I could take pictures without getting slimy!

Duct Tape Guy...to the rescue!

Let me preface this post by saying that I have been learning how to use the manual settings on my camera. For these pictures, I was using an automatic setting, but I must have changed something that I need to change back, and so a lot of these pictures are blurry, but you can still get an idea of how goofy my husband is!

As promised, here are the pictures of Brian and Bill cruising around town on their scooters as super heroes. It was SSOOOOO funny. I think that several of the people in other cars got whiplash from the double takes. As I followed behind them, I could hear people laughing from other cars. I wish I had a digital camcorder to show you all how funny it really was....use your imagination!

Brian decided to be Duct Tape guy because it matches his scooter!

This is Brian's buddy Bill. Brian got this idea from because Bill did this last year. His scooter is blue, so he matches his scooter too!
Off they go to save the day! They got stopped at the stop light. You should have seen the stares, honks, waves, and laughs...
maybe this will give you and idea.

This guy was actually yelling to them,
This was the car right next to me, they were talking to me in between stares, and laughing very hard.
This person wasn't even watching where they were going...
And this guy just looked at them like this the entire time they were at the light.

Back to Bill's house. No more laughs for now I guess, It really was funny and these two really are crazy, but they had a lot of fun. Thanks Bill for humoring and entertaining Brian for the afternoon!

Trick-or-Treat

This year our costumes were pretty simple. We have been going so many directions that I didn't have time to make anything fancy. Les is a Lego....

Amber is a pioneer, I had fun making the bonnet from a pattern that I found online....

And Zak is Bob the builder!

I am was having trouble with my camera taking pictures that weren't blurry, so some of these aren't the best pictures, sorry about that! The kids got so much candy that we are going to have to save some of the chocolate in the freezer for another time.

Ward Carnival

This year our ward did a Halloween carnival. I didn't get to go, because I had to work, but everyone else had a good time. I guess this is a little sneak peak at this year's costumes. Zak is Bob the Builder, Les is a Lego, Amber is a pioneer girl with crazy eyes, I guess, and Brian is DuctTape man. Look at what I live with. (A note to others, never agree to help your husband DuctTape his clothes.)
Some people will do ANYTHING for a donut....

Keep posted, on Halloween, Brian has a date with his buddy to cruize around town on their scooters with their super hero costumes on....I'll have to follow them and get pictures of peoples faces!

Pre-school fieldtrip

On Friday, Brain took a sick day, but he was feeling well enough that he went with Zak on his fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch and farm.

Zak's quest for the perfect pumpkin.

Thwy also got tho see and feed some of the farm animals. Zak said this is a bock-bock-bgock!
Zak and Sam petting the rabbits.

Zak and Sam on the Teeter Totter.
The huge pumpkins! WOW!

Finally, a turn to ride the tractor!

This little farm is so much fun! Zak had a great time and was very excited about getting to cut his own pumpkin off the vine.

Soccer

This soccer season has been really fun. It has been neat to see both kids improve. Amber had never played a sport before, so it took her a little time to figure it out, but she caught on fast and has become the main goalie for her team, but has earned a few awards for being good all over the field. Now, we just have to teach her to be agressive. She likes to back off and give the girls on the other team room. She is just too nice!
Les has an amazing kick. He kicks so hard, that this is always the position that he ends up in after he kicks. This is the first year that his age group has had practices, so they are also improving noticeably each week.

A Fun Weekend

UEA weekend was lots of fun for our family. The kids got to go to Greg's house for a 2 night sleepover, and one of the nights, 3 of Scott's kids came! They had lots of fun, and stayed up way too late. But, if Auntie Marsha is the one who gets to have them, she can choose the bedtime, and how grouchy they are the next day!

Brian and I had a weekend to ourselves!! It's been a long time. We just stayed around Salt Lake, but got to go see some things that we have never seen before. My favorite was the Thanksgiving Point garden. It was amazing. I can't even imagine how beautiful it is when all of the flowers are blooming in the spring.


I took some pictures, here are a few of my favorites....

This is a picture at the big stone Gazebo, looking straight up through the top.

This is also at the Gardens.

This is the doorway into the Secret Garden. I have got to take Amber here sometime. The Secret Garden is one of her favorite books, she would love it!

We also went to dinner at Gardner Village. The Wee Witch fest was going on. It was lots of fun, but definately somewhere to go with the girls, or the whole family. I don't know if Brian enjoyed it or not. But dinner was amazing!

These are pictures that give you an idea of how they had the area decorated for the holiday!

We had a great time!

Crazy Heads

Once again, it is Red Ribbon week at our house. Brian gets into it at his school, because he is in charge of the whole thing. Tday at his school was Radical Red, Crazy Head day, so Brian is always willing to jump right in and do something ridiculous.

So this year, Les decided to follow Daddysexample and shave his hair too. He has crazy hair day tomorrow at his school.
No, that isn't a wound in the center of Brian's head, he used Red hair gel to make it Red. Les is going to spray his orange!

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

I guess winter has officially hit! When we woke up this morning, we had 4-6 inches on the ground. It continued to snow huge flakes the entire time we were at church, and by the time we got home, we had 8-10 inches to shovel. 2 News reported that we recieved 11 inches, but we have seen a little more since that report

The two trees in the backyard that we didn't cut down are not in the greatest shape. The one in this picture, has 2 large limbs that are broken, and will have to be cut off completely. The other one lost at least one branch and is partially on our roof. We are not sure if it is broken or just weighed down. Brian did his best to get the snow off of the trees, but some was just too high or too dangerous to stand under.
One of our neighbors had a branch almost fall on him as he was trying to get the snow out of this tree across the street.
I can't wait for mid week when we are supposed to be back up in the low 70's. I for one am not at all ready for winter yet.

Is this Better?

OK, that other background was TOO busy, and it was hard to find any colors that you could see on it, so I went seasonal. I like it and it was a lot easier to look at and read!

Changes to my Blog

Wow, I thought that I would make some changes to my blog, but it is going to take some adjusting. Sorry, It is hard to see rithg now, but I will return later to fix it!

Family Pictures

This year, I got brave and decided to do my own pictures of the kids instead of buying school pictures. We found some great spots to do pictures up at SnowBasin last year, so we thought we would try again this year. We also found another perfect spot in Mountain Green, now I just have to figure out how to get good pictures. Anyway, after general Conference, we ventured up there, and here is what we ended up with.

The colors this year aren't quite as pretty as they were last year. It has been a long dry summer. but the kids are still cute!
If you look closely, you can see that Zak's pants are wet. His shoes were too. There had been a big rainstorm that ended just before we got there, and there were some pretty big puddles.
Les has grown up a lot this last few months.
You can't see it in this picture, but Amber has lost 3 teeth this week. I'm not sure how she chews her food right now.
I think this picture turned out pretty well for using the timer and then running to be in it before the picture was taken.
We also saw some deer as we were leaving. There are 2 doe and 2 fawns. They were all fairly small. I think even the doe were pretty young.
You can see all 4 Deer here.

Zak can be SO cute when he decides to be.

I'm not sure if I like this picture or not.

Cute, Cute, Cute!

One last picture.