Little Fire Chief

I'm not sure where we got this hat, but since it showed up at our house Beck can't stop wearing it.  He looks so darling though I can't resist those chubby cheeks!

Urinal

Josh took the boys to the bathroom at Costco and they thought these toilets were the coolest.  I love seeing these little buns peeking out at us!

New haircut

Keen's showing off his new haircut and how handsome he looks.  I was pretty sad to cut off his long hair, but it is actually a great change.  And he looks so cute with his shorter hair!  Perfect cut for the winter months!

Josh's ankle

Josh plays on an indoor soccer league with Andy.  They've been playing for about 6 months now but just recently they've had a string of injuries that makes me wonder if they should keep playing.  The latest one happened this week in a late night game.  When Josh was leaving the house I told him to try not to get hurt.  When he got home this is what his ankle looked like.  

 And this is what it looked like after 2 days.  Poor guy had sprained it so bad that the bruising and swelling went all the way up his calf and down to his toes.  We got some crutches for him and he's been getting around on them pretty good.  Oh how I wish he would just listen to me!  Here's to a quick recovery...

Muscle man haircut

Josh just gave Liev a haircut then had him pose in the mirror.  He is the skinniest boy with his ribs showing and underwear hanging off him!  But we love him showing off the muscles he has and his new haircut!

Rease's report card

Rease's teacher Miss Buker told us that she loves having Rease in her 3rd grade class.  She is a great leader and helps so much around the classroom.  She is also in the School of Rock for reading and the Monster Math group.  We are so proud of Rease and the good student she is!

Rhen's report card

We had parent teacher conference and Rhen's teacher Mrs. Woolley had only good things to say about her.  She said she is a great student and is becoming such a good reader.  She also says she is very respectful and fun to have in class.  She challenged her to get to level J reading so that she can join the School of Rock for reading.  Rhen is totally motivated to get working on that now!  We're so proud of her and her good grades!

Rease's piano recital

Rease has had such a good year with piano.  They had their year end recital tonight and she got to play a Harry Potter song "Hedwig's Theme."  She has been working very hard and even though it was a hard piece, she did really great!  I am so proud of her and all her hard work!

The Big Sock

Keen is pretty good at getting himself dressed in the mornings.  Besides the occasional inside out underwear and pants on backwards, he does good.  Today he put his sock on both feet and said, "look mom I got a big sock on!"

Volleyball

Rease played in her first volleyball league this year.  She was so excited to be old enough to play.  She had a fun little team and a great coach that was really positive and good with the girls.  He taught them each to serve overhand and Rease got to love setting the ball.  It was a fun season for her and I look forward to many more ahead.  I think she could be a great player with her height! 

The kids all loved going to watch her play too and were so excited to go every Saturday morning to her games.  Keen lovingly called it her "volleybally" games!

James Bond

Greg got us tickets to see the premier of the new James Bond.  The boys had to pose just like James and act like they were just as cool.  

Liev's school work

Liev loves his preschool class and teacher Miss Melanie.  He comes home almost every day with some sort of artwork or project he's done in class.  It is right up his alley because he loves to color and draw.  Here is some of his best work, including his name that he has recently learned to write on his own.  What a kid!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  The kids have been so excited for this day to come and it's finally here!  We made a batch of homemade root beer and they thought the dry ice smoke was awesome.

 The kids were all super heroes this year.  Fun for them and easy for mom!

 And Mr. Beck was the cutest turtle of all.  So cute in his little cape!

 It was a perfect night for trick-or-treating.  The weather was great and warm enough to wear just a jacket.  The big kids said they wanted to go on their own and run to every house in the neighborhood.  Our neighborhood is safe and not too big so we decided that would be great.  They took off in a flash and Josh and I took the boys around.  We went down our street and up one other one then headed back home.  It was the perfect amount of time and they boys were happy with the candy they got.  

I love this picture of them at the doorstep of the Liddle's house.  Our big turtle boys!

Rease school artwork

I love this picture Rease made at school.  Creative and just in time for Halloween!

Garth Brooks

Josh, Andy and I went to the concert of a lifetime this week.  We were lucky enough to get tickets to see Garth Brooks!  I have wanted to see him in concert since I was a teenager and I finally got the chance.  And to make it even better, we had great seats.  The day tickets went on sale, I went online to get tickets and while I was waiting to get them for the Friday night show, new shows opened up and I grabbed our tickets for Thursday night as quick as I could.  We ended up with 4th row just to the side of the stage.  It was awesome!

I always knew he would put on a great concert but I don't think any of us knew how great it would be.  He is an amazing entertainer and had so much energy all night!  Plus he played all the good old stuff which is the best!  My teenage years were filled with Garth Brooks music so I have loved his music for a long time!  So great to hear it live and be entertained!  He was amazing!

Halloween Activities

There's always so many fun activities going on at Halloween time!  One of our favorites is the pumpkin patch and finding that perfect pumpkin to carve.  The boys thought it was so awesome to have their own wheelbarrows.  

 We joined mom and dad for their ward trunk or treat this year.  So fun and such cute costumes from everyone!  Plus the kids got to trunk or treat and they thought that was pretty cool!

 And the school did a Halloween parade so we could all see everyone's costumes.  It was a perfect day so they had the kids parade around outside while all the parents watched.  It was really cute to see all the costumes.  Then I was able to help at each of the girls Halloween parties and each lunch with them.  It was a great day filled with Halloween fun!

And of course Halloween isn't complete until pumpkins are carved.  Josh is the master at carving so he always takes this project on.  The kids love drawing their own face on their pumpkins and then watching dad carve it out.  So fun!

Beck

Beck is the best.  He's at such a fun, curious age and I can't get enough of his cute face!  These are three of his favorite things to do right now: get into the food in the pantry, climb into the cup drawer and put shoes on his hands.  So funny!  I love this boy!

BYU Football

We love having season tickets to the BYU Football games.  The kids have tons of fun and nothing beats a night at the stadium!  This year has been fun because the boys are old enough to come with us now.  As long as we keep them full of cougar tails and hot dogs, they are good!  I have such good memories of the games when I was a kid and I'm so glad we can keep up the tradition with our kids!  Go Cougs!

Funny Keen

Keen is such a funny boy.  I love that he's eating lunch with his bike helmet on.  That pretty much sums up how some of our days go.  Just hanging on and going with whatever happens!

Playing in the Sand

Having three boys in a row, I've realized that we need a sandbox in our backyard.  Josh told me that a couple years ago and I didn't really think it would be that important.  But all the boys want to do is play in the dirt or sand.  I took the kids to the park and Beck sat her for an hour just playing and throwing the sand.  I see now that Josh was right.  That will be our project next year.  

Gardner Village

This weekend we had Izzy and JT at our house and I wanted to take all the kids out and do something fun.  Hayley had Ranger and Paisley with her and was thinking the same thing, so we decided to take them to Gardner Village to see all the Halloween decorations and the witches.  It's a super cute place during Halloween cause of all the darling decorations.   I'm not sure what we were thinking though.  It turned out it was "Wee Witches Weekend" the day we went so parking was horrendous and the place was packed.  Not to mention that we had 14 kids under age 8 in our care.  We snapped these two pictures, got a carameled apple to share and that was about the extent of our trip.  It was just not the place to be on that particular day.  We'll probably think twice and do a little research next time we do something crazy with all those kids, but at least we got some cute pictures out of it!  Happy Halloween?

Play time at Barnes and Noble

I had to stop at Barnes and Noble for a couple things and was a little nervous about having the boys with me.  I hate going into stores when I know they're going to tear the place apart.  But we found this little block table for them to play at and they were happy as clams to play while I shopped.  It was awesome!  

Hangin with Uncle Greg

I love this cute pic of Liev and Keen on the trampline with Uncle Greg and Jax.  He is so fun to have around and the kids all love him so much!

Boys and their trucks

My boys LOVE to push trucks around.  They play all day long putting things in the back of their trucks, pushing them back and forth and just being boys with their trucks.  Beck has learned from his brothers and joins in just like the big kids.  This is what I find them doing most of the time when I pick them up from the daycare at the gym.  Such cuties!

Canning

I was a big slacker this year and didn't do much canning.  It was a combination of not having a lot of time this year and still having quite a bit left from last year.  So I decided to do just what I needed and use any produce that I got for free.  I needed pickles and jam for sure and am so glad to have a stock of those in my storage room again.  Then Aunt Caroline called and said she had 2 bushels of tomatoes if I wanted them.  I can always use whole tomatoes so I took her offer and canned those.  Then Jeanie's old neighbors in Roy called me and said they had a bunch of grapes going to waste if I wanted to come pick them.  So I drove up one night and picked those too.  We all love grape juice and I was so happy to have a few more bottles of that!  So that was the extent of my canning this year.  Just 4 little projects the whole season.  But I feel good about it and it was nice to have a little break this year!