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.

Water Back-Up

Well Saturday night, about 10:00, after all of the excitement in the yard with the trees, rained out soccer games, and a long day at work, I went downstairs to change laundry. Just as I got to the laundry room door, I sensed something was wrong. The next step I took was into soaking wet carpet. Just what we needed I thought, a problem with the washing machine and an overflow. Well, that is not what it was. We called our neighbor who is a plumber, and he came right over. After looking things over, he decided that we must have a backup in our drain pipe for the kitchen sink, and that the water had come up through the drain in the floor. Brian had washed potaoe peels down the sink when he was making dinner. So they clogged the pipes, and when he was doing the dishes after dinner, the water had no where to go. (Yes Brian made dinner, and did the dishes afterwards...I am so spoiled) So we got the drain cleaned out, and everything seems to be OK for now. Another example of the great neighbors that we have. They are willing to help even at 10:00 on Saturday night.

Trees Everywhere

This weekend we cut down all 4 pine trees in our yard! Other than a few branches Brian started trimming off that you see on the lawn, this is what the trees looked like that were in the front yard. It is only one tree, but years ago it split into two main trunks near the very bottom, so it is almost the size of 2 trees!

And these are the 3 trees in the backyard. They are not nearly as big, but we feel like they are way too much for our yard, and we have other things we want to do in that corner.

This is the big tree from the front yard on top of my new flowerbed that I just got in this year. I went to work this night and left the boys to take care of things. I hope my flowers aren't completely ruined, but I am grateful that it didn't go over on my house and all of our friends that came to help and to play with the chainsaws went home with 10 fingers, and there were no injuries.
This is what 4 pine trees looks like in a front yard!
This is the After picture with the pile of stumps from the front yard.
This is how tall the pile of branches is, you see my goofy husband so proud of what he did. He had lots of fun playing with the chain saw, and I think he is even more excited to have one sitting in the shed that he can use whenever he wants. If you know Brian, you know that he loves power tools....he must be related to the Simmons!

Here is the after picture of the backyard. I guess that one of the trees went down on the fence that divides us and the neighbor. She laughed and joked about it. Thank goodness for a good sense of humor and a cheap chain link fence. All that we are going to have to replace is the horizontal pole that supports the top of the fence. It seems as though they cleaned up the back yard much better than the front. Really though, we have a big dumpster being delivered today to put all the mess in I am sure that our neighbors will be relieved to see it show up. At this point, I'm sure they are wondering how we are going to be getting all of the mess out of here. I keep waiting for the city Code Enforcers to knock on our door and give me a citation for the mess in our yard.

Thank you to our awesome friends and neighbors who helped us with this project. We couldn't have done it without your help and know how! We truly appreciate you guys, We have a great neighborhood.

Les's spelling test

Wow, Les had his first spelling test yesterday! He got 100%! We worked hard on his words and I was so proud of him. he is getting to be a great reader. He is starting to recognize some of the hight frequency words when he sees them, instead of having to sound them out. He even started on his first chapter book. We are reading it together. All the words that he can sound out or that he knows the rules to figure them out, I let him do. Then I read the ones that are harder so that he doesn't get too frustrated and give up.

Amber is also doing amazing with her reading. She has to read AR books, and has to do the comprehension test on the computer when she is done. She gets a certain amount of points depending on the difficulty of the book. She is required to get 10 points a quarter. She currently has 25 points, and it is only mid-term. She amazes me. I don't even like to think about picking up a book. She is probably a much better reader than I am.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Wow, I can't believe how busy I seem to be since school started. I though that I would have some quiet time to stay home and get a few things done without the kids distracting me. I was very wrong. I have put more miles on my van in the last month, and gone through more gas than I did during the summer. I hope we all get into a schedule soon, so we can slow down a little. Soccer only goes for a few more weeks, and that will free up about 6 hours a week. I'm sure that it will be filled with something else. I seem to only update my blog with the weeks events on the weekends, instead of each day when something happens. Oh well, so is life when you have kids!

Father and Son Campout

Friday night was our Stake Father and Son Campout at our stake's property. Most "camped" in the lodge. We were one of the few that toughed it out and were in our little tent. The rain came down, the wind blew and the lightning and thunder went wild. We survived and only got a little wet. The boy's actually slept through most of the storm.

As with most campouts, The fire was the best part. They really liked the s'mores that our Bishop shared with us and thankfully someone told me(before we used them) that the sticks that I cut to cook the marshmellows on were dogwood and it could have made us sick.

Zak thought that we were really roughing it out there and thanked Heavenly Father for letting us be in the "Wilderness." You can see in the picture that we were really "back country" with the CRV parked next to our tent that was set up on grass. Not to mention the fact that we were only 300 yards from the highway and 15 minutes from Maverick. But hey, that is the wilderness to him!

We had a great time and we made it back from the wilderness in time for the busy day of soccer games, team pictures and canning fruit!

Pictures I've Taken

I entered this picture into the Roy City art show, and won an Honorable Mention this week. I thought that it was a great picture, and was excited to have it recognized at all.

Also, this was a picture that I took just Saturday as the storms rolled through. It isn't very often that you see a full double rainbow. I sent it to 2 News, and they also put it on their weather segment! That was pretty cool!

Primary Program

Well last week was the annual primary Sacrament Meeting Program at our ward. I'll admit that it isn't always the most spiritual Sunday for me. But last week, was different. The program started out with Amber singing a solo of I Am A Child of God. She did an amazing job. She obvioulsy gets her singing talent from the Simmons family....NOT me. Les said his part so clearly that he could be understood very well. Zak was a different story. He practiced and memorized his part, and amazed the Primary presidency when he said his part without any help in practice the previous week. But then during the program, he reverently waited for the Primary president to wisper the words in his ear, because that is what they did for everyone else. He is such a goofball.

All I Want For Christmas is my 2 Front Teeth

At last, Les has 1 of 2 front teeth. It is on the side where that deformed extra tooth was. It is such a relief to see that it is generally in the right place and pointing the right direction. It is hard to tell exactly where it will end up, but I don't think that the dentist expected it to be that close to the right position. I also don't think that the dentist was 100% sure that there was a real permanenet tooth there. It was hard to tell in the x-rays that they took. Now he should get that other one soon, and have a full set of teeth again. It has been almost exactly a year since he had them pulled.

Soccer Begins

Well, the soccer season has started at our house, and Saturdays are hectic. But Amber and Les are having a great time playing. The first game of the season was a little slow, but their second games were great.

I think that Amber is really enjoying playing this year, but she is not an aggressive personality, so we have had to work a little on that. She is going to be a good player with some practice.

I am not sure that she likes playing against her close friends though! She would much rather be on their same team.

Les is still loving the game of soccer, and is improving each game. He is quick, and more than anything he loves having 11 other boys all his age to "play" with each week.
Brian is coaching Les's team this year, and I think he enjoys it as much as Les does. He was very excited when the boys applied what he taught them at their last practice and improved dramatically in their second game.

I am glad that they are learning to love sports and having fun too. They all love to go to soccer practices and games, and love to practice in the back yard. It gets crazy trying to get to 2 games on 2 fields, sometimes at the same time, and coach one, but it has been fun to watch them play. And the season is just beginning. We play until May!

Zak turns 4!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZAK!!!

Well today my Zak is a big 4 year old. I can't believe he is growing up so quick. We had a little birthday party with 3 of his friends, and he had the time of his life. I love when he is so entertained by simple, easy things. We had a great time. We love you Zakky!

What a Week

Wow, what a week we have had. Brian, Amber and Les started school, we have had all 3kids to the doctor, medicine for 2 of them, Amber to the dentist, and some really weird diagnosis. Les finally seems to be doing better, although not completly there yet. Zak just had a minor rash that is almost better now. Amber has a funny lump in her cheek. We took her to the dentist becuase we thought it might be a tooth problem, but he said there was nothing he could do for it. He said that it was behind her jaw, probably her parotid gland. So off we went to the medical doctor. He confirmed that it was her parotid gland that was swollen, but that there is no reason to know why. He put her on an antibiotic in case it was caused by a bacteria, but said that if it was caused by a virus or a plug, that wouldn't help...I guess we just wait and see. It is pretty tender for her. I only hope this isn't a sign of what the school year is going to bring for us. I still don't have pictures of the kids heading to school for this school year.

Zak will start school on Wednesday, and is very excited. Hopefully we won't have anymore stragne illnesses that keep him out.