The cat is out of the bag!!

We are super excited that we are pregnant with our fifth child!! So far so good, so by the end of June 2010 we will have a new baby.

Pictures

Chloe's pictures from her recital back in August came a couple of weeks ago. I can't believe how different she already looks!

Alex was sick on picture day this year, so he missed out. Hopefully he will be feeling better in the Spring!

A Honor Roll

a little wrinkled thanks to our good friend Cooper!

This morning I met with Nick's teacher for our parent- teacher conference. I knew he was doing well in school, learning just comes so easy to him, but I was excited to see that he is on the 'A Honor Roll'. That just made my day! His teacher said he is a good boy and does really well, he is just a talker. So we are going to try and work on that, but otherwise I am SO proud of him!

Happy Halloween!

SUGAR OVERLOAD

On Wednesday we went to a Halloween themed party. So the kids got to dress up again! Three of the four kids opted to pick something else out of the Halloween bucket to wear instead of their costumes for this year. They thought it was totally awesome to be something different! Chloe was a cat, Alex was Bumblebee from Transformers, Cooper was a scarecrow, and Nick stayed Darth Maul. Even though it was kind of chilly they spent most of the night out in the bounce house, it had a slide. On the way home they told me that was a real fun party.

Thursday was their school parties. When I took Nick to school we stayed in the parking lot for a bit to see what Chloe and Alex's teachers were dressing up as. So on the way home Alex and Chloe decide that I should dress up for their party too. I decided to be a 'cool' mom, so I gave into their whim. It was fun and all the kids at school got a kick out of it!

Nick, Chloe, and Alex all had their party at the same time and they all wanted me to go to theirs. So Cooper and I were party hopping all afternoon. Cooper got to have treats in all 3 classes. I think he had 3 cupcakes! They had a costume parade, played Halloween games, made some cute Halloween projects, and Alex's class even got to go trick-or-treating. It was an afternoon full of lots of sugar and fun!!

Today we enjoyed a lazy day with NO school and then headed to my dad's office party. I think that Halloween is definitely their favorite holiday, they went all out!! We went from office to office trick-or-treating. There were themed areas which made it super fun for the kids. After they loaded up on tons of candy they headed outside for lots more fun. This was the best Halloween party ever! They had pony rides, a bounce house, face painting, lots and lots of food and treats, and the best part was it was all free! All of their cousins were there. They had fun running around together and Grandpa had fun showing off all his grand kids!

Halloween Memories

Yesterday on the way to school the kids started asking me what characters they have been since they were babies. So one by one I went through each child telling them everything they have been, so I though it would be fun to do post about it. Kind of funny too!

Eeyore

Superman and a Hunny Bunny

Batman, a Hunny Pot, and a little bee

Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and Roo

Dorothy, the Lion, the Scarecrow, and Captain America

Handy Manny, Cinderella, Jango Fett, and Roo

After going through all my pictures to get this post together my goal for this year is to get a 'good' picture of all 4 of them together. Easier said than done!!

Trunk-or-Treat

This last Tuesday was our ward trunk-or-treat. Of course the same day a cold front came in, so it was freezing! Luckily we got to have our soup potluck inside, so that was nice. We could all sit and chat and actually see what we were eating! After dinner we did head outside quickly for a trip around the parking lot for some treats. I think I whined more about being cold than the kids. But as always we had a good time hanging out with good people!!

Chris got a new camera for his birthday, so he was the photographer for the night!

Carving Pumpkins

For Family Home Evening on Monday we carved our pumpkins. They had all picked out their own pumpkins and we started figuring out who wanted what on theirs. Chloe wanted Minnie and Cooper wanted Mickey and neither would fit on their pumpkins, so dad donated the "BIG DADDY PUMPKIN" (that is what the kids have been calling it) to them and they shared. Nick cleaned out his own pumpkin by himself and then offered to clean out the big one. Because it was so big he was pretty much in it up to his shoulders. He said he was starting to itch and his arms were covered in hives. Poor guy must be allergic to pumpkins. He asked me if he will always be allergic because he had alot of fun!

Mom and Dad had to finish the craving after they went to bed. So we ended up with 2 bats and Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

Another Pumpkin Patch

Last week we got invited to go on a 'field trip' with Alex and Chloe's old teachers. I was surprised to see how NOT afraid of the animals Chloe was! The slide here was super slippery, so you flew down, and as you can see, Cooper was not a fan. It was fun to see Ms. Bonnie and Ms. Mary and let the kids play.

Masquerade Murder Dinner

Katie turned 16 this month and for her party she decided to have a masquerade murder dinner. I was helping out with the food, so I volunteered to do a part if they needed me. A couple of people backed out last minute so I joined them. My mom told me I could dress up for my part if I wanted to, but I figured that all these teenagers wouldn't really get into it, so I wore my regular clothes to be "Blondie Hawn", a has been actress. I brought food over to my mom's early and find my sisters all dressed up, so Jenny decided she would dress me up too! I was very impressed to say the least! All the kids came dressed up for their parts. My mom had given them their parts a couple days before the party and a mask and they all decorated their masks to match their character.
We had appetizers while mingling and sharing our clues. Their were a couple of games in between courses to get everybody all hyped up. We ate pasta dinner and then somebody was murdered. I had to leave early, so I am not quite certain about the rest of the night. But it looks like the kids had a blast. My mom wants to do it again for adults, so that will be fun!

Happy 16th Birthday Katie!!

Annual Halloween Dance

To follow tradition the youth in our ward had their annual Monster Ball. I talked Chris into coming with me last year, but since he is in YM now he had to come! I was watching Hayden, so I went through the costume box and found something for her to wear too! Erin DJ'd and we had lots of fun! Chris was on the dance floor a little with some of the kids while I hung out with the other leaders by all the treats.

Soccer

Alex and Chloe started soccer in September. They have had 3 games now. I am helping a friend of mine coach, so that is fun. But I definitely understand why we moms generally leave the coaching of sports to the dads!! It is hard and frustrating when you are trying to be a coach of 10 3, 4, and 5 year olds and trying to take care of others kids too!!
Alex and Chloe love it though. I was a little worried after the first game. Neither one of them really wanted to play, but I think that they just weren't feeling well. They both played almost the entire game last Saturday. Chloe is liking taking turns as goalie. When she pays attention she is pretty good too! She throws her whole self on top of that ball!! I am glad they are having fun learning to play soccer and they get to do it with a lot of their friends and even Hailey!!

{little mama}

Chloe's love for babies has been quite apparent for a long time, but it is fun finding out what a good little mama she is! Everybody knows that her baby goes pretty much wherever she goes, she sleeps with her and I am the designated babysitter when she has to go to school. But give her a real baby and she is on cloud 9! We have been watching our niece Hayden lately and I really don't even have to do anything. She feeds her, changes her, rocks her to sleep. She just gets it and she is only 5! She is going to be the best babysitter when she turns 12!!
A couple of weeks ago I was in the shower and had a load of clean laundry on my bed, waiting to be folded. She came in asked if she could fold it. Sure! Why not! I though I would be refolding it before I put it away, but she did super good and even had it all sorted to each person, just the way I do it!! She had never done it before, definitely not something I taught her. She is just good! I love the way she mothers her little brothers (most of the time!) and is so willing to take care of anybody smaller than herself. Cooper will sometimes be yelling "MOM" over and over when I finally answer, he says, "my Chloe mom!!". She is the sweetest!! I love her!

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weeks ago we made our annual trip to the pumkin patch with some good friends.

As usual the kids had a blast going down the slide and riding the rides. And we had fun hanging out with our friends!

Happy 27th Birthday Chris! I love you!!

Little Baller

I think these last couple of games the kids finally got it! They have been hitting and fielding really well and they have won the last 4 games, so that has been exciting. Nick got the game ball on Tuesday night. He stopped a couple of good hits and got a couple of good hits himself. At last week's game he didn't strike out at all! he got 2 doubles and a triple. It was so awesome!!!

Writing the TRUTH

Look mom Im on the rocks. We dont have time for it. You are takeing for ever. I dont want to stand here.

Nick brought this writing home acouple of weeks ago. I just started laughing. He said, "WHAT? My teacher laughed when she read it too." It's funny, but kind of sad at the same time. I know I am always in a hurry. I guess I need to slow down a little and let my kids play in the rocks!

We have a playhouse!

Friday I came home from lunch with a friend and this is what I found. Chris decided to build the kids a playhouse. No instructions or plans. he just started building!

I am thoroughly impressed! I think that I am more excited about the playhouse than the kids!!

And tonight it is finished! The kids say that it looks like a barn, so it is their barn playhouse!

The kids had lots of fun playing in the backyard all week while dad was hard at work!

A New Do

Before

Last Friday I took Chloe with me to get my hair done. I was only going to have hers trimmed, but she talked me into cutting it off. She had almost 7 inches cut off and she was thrilled to see all of her hair on the floor. She had fun cleaning it all up! It definitely takes way longer to do it, but she does look super cute!

After

Our ADVENTURE!

Right before we started!

Amber, Jenny, Josh, Austin, Jordan, Jimmy, Chris, Me and Abe was taking the picture)

We started walking. We were on a trail/path (we could tell where we were supposed to go!).We were talking, laughing, having a good time. Austin has his GPS/watch that tells how far we have gone. It has been 30 minutes and we have already gone a mile and a half. Things are good! We have to hike 9-10 miles today, so we can get to somewhere to camp. That is no problem! We will be there in a couple of hours.

We stop for some pictures. It is B-E-A-Utiful! We are waiting for Abe to run and catch up with Jimmy, Jordan, and Austin. They went the wrong way. Still good! Just waiting and checking out the scenery.

Waiting. Having a little snack.

Still looking good.

And then Chris tell us we might as well get a head start. This is the way to go. Go where?! That is just a bunch of loose rock! No path! You are kidding! Right?!

And this is where things got a little tricky! At least for the 6 first timers!

After I fell a bunch! We made it through tons of bushes, just making our own path. And we get to this log/bridge. Pretty scary!!!! The picture doesn't do it justice. There is a canyon below it that drops down about 60ft. Balancing with a 40 lb pack is fun trick!

We climbed up this mountain and then right back down on the other side!

Getting going again! We took alot of breaks the first day. None of us knew what we were getting ourselves into!

And straight up this mountain. The guys each followed behind one of the girls, so if we did fall they were supposed to stop us from going all the way down.

We were hiking and hiking through alot of really tough spots, sliding on our butts alot beacuse it was so steep!

The guys realize that we aren't where we are supposed to be (A.K.A. We are LOST!). We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because we are supposed to be in the canyon on the other side of this mountain (They think!!).

They were right! Luckily! And we finally make it to the Grand Staircase!! Even though it was super steep and really scary we were very excited to have finally reached it. That meant we knew where we were and they had been telling us ALL day that where we were camping wasn't much further after we reached the Grand Staircase. WOOHOO!!

See this hole/crack. Climb in. Stay close to the wall. Take your pack off. Swing down and one of the guys will catch you.

Then up those boulders and back down. Take off your pack again and one of the guys will carry you across the water.

This picture was taken after our first repel in the dark, into black water. Pretty scary!! I think Jenny is smiling because she is still in shock. That water was sooo cold!

Then we come to a part that is so steep that ONLY Abe can climb it without a rope. Lucky for us he was with us or we would have had to swim down the river. At first thought it does sound like a way better idea. I was about to do it when they finally talked some sense into me. Your pack gets wet, it is super freezing and you have to swim, it is that deep. So I opted to be pulled up the mountain and repel back down into waist deep black freezing water.

This picture is taken right before we repel down. We aren't looking so pretty. It is probably 8 or 9 at this point. We weren't supposed to do any hiking in the dark! Right after this picture is taken I cry! I am done. I am scared and am very much worrying about leaving my children parentless!

No pictures were taken after that until the next day! We got lost! AGAIN!! We were wet! We were freezing! We had 4 flashlights for 9 people! It was very slow. The guys would split up and try and find the easiest way over the mountains and boulders. We were right on the ledge of some cliffs, we didn't even know it for the longest time beacuse most of us were walking without light, just looking at our feet. There was a lot of whining, complaining, cursing...and alot more praying. We did an extra repel that we weren't planning on and we FINALLY made it to our midway destination at 2 o'clock in the morning!!! We ate dinner, it was the first meal for the day. We only snacked figuring we would eat at about 6 or 7. It was a nice sandy spot. It was lovely to be able to take off our shoes and wet clothes. We slept good!

Chris and I slept in the little tent with 1 sleeping bag! He fell into one of the water spots and his sleeping bag got wet. Luckily it wasn't nearly as cold as the first night. Jenny, Josh, and Amber slept in the other tent and everybody else just slept in the sand. Luckily for me, Chris doesn't like sleeping with creepy crawly things either!

This is what we woke upto. It was a pretty little canyon to camp, fresh water running right through.

Everybody drank all their water on our 17 hour "hike" the day before so we had to purify and refill all our bottles before we could get started again.

We started off right away with 3 repels in a row. I love repelling in the day! I love to see where I am going and it was nice not to have to repel into anymore water.

The second repel was kind of tricky. Half of us ended up flipping completely upside down. I had a harness, so I thought it was so much fun!! The rest of them only had nylon, so when they flipped they had to spread their legs quick so they didn't fall right out onto their heads. Josh was the most hilarious! Words will never be able to explain. You just had to be there!!

The last repel was down the side of a waterfall. It was fun!

And then it got tricky again! We had to follow the river down. It was so nice being dry, but it didn't last very long!

In the water, trying to avoid the moss covered rocks. Out of the water around the boulders. Climbing up the mountain to avoid the waterfalls that had major drop offs.

Everything is okay. Not great, but okay. They tell us that we will be to the car around 1 or 2. It is just around this mountain. Not too much further! I can't tell you how many times I heard that!

It sucks now!! I fell off a small water fall into the water. Chris is behind me and jumps down to help me. He slips and lands on my ankle. I am crying! I am SOOOO done!! I race off. I don't care that my ankle is throbbing. I am done!! I want to go home!

Me: You know me! WHY would you think I would want to do this?!?

Chris: You had a such a good time at Girl's Camp I thought you would have fun.

Me: Yeah beacuse YOU weren't there!!!

And then I slip and fall on my face. I guess that is what I get for saying that! Chris snaps a picture and we both start laughing.

I was miserable. Only looking down to try and avoid falling as much as possible. It sucked to not be able to see all the scenery, but these little frogs cheered me up. And then I got delerious enough that I started catching them. It was fun to watch ALL of them hop away as we walked by.

And then the picture taking stopped again. I didn't stop again. I was on a mission! I was going home!! It is just up here. A little more. Don't worry. When we get there it will be a "real trail" up to the car they say.

Not really! At all! Can you see a trail? I can't. I guess it is kind of a goat trail. Do I look like a goat?!! Don't answer that!! But just when I thought we were almost there we would reach another ledge and the mountain would continue up, and up, and up, and up....

But we made it! At about 6ish. While we were on the hike I said I would NEVER do that again! But now that I have feeling in my feet again, and my memory of my misery is fading, I think I would do it again. It was alot of fun! VERY, VERy tiring, both physically & mentally. But I am proud to say that I did it. 18+ miles (we don't know exactly how much extra hiking we did when we were lost the numerous times!) of hard hiking in 2 days!

GO US!!!