Stories

I'm so far behind on this blog... But I wanted to put these stories in first. 2 years ago I posted Andy and Jakob's Halloween stories from Kindergarten. I wanted to do it again this year with Ashley's added to it.  Here are Jakob's, Andy's, and then Ashley's Halloween stories.  After that will be Ashley's Thanksgiving story about a turkey and 5 pilgrims.

Scary Pumpkin Patch

By Jakob

Once upon a time, a pumpkin named Jack went off to a camping trip. And he saw a bear. And it frightened him away.

He came back and he lived again in the pumpkin patch. All the pumpkins ran away in a storm that came. Then Jack was lonely. Then he found his friends.

When he found his friends, they went off on a bear trip. A storm came and they went on a boat. Then the storm got bigger and bigger and then their boat sunk. They found land and forever they went off looking for treasure.

They found lots of gold. They were filled with joy. And then they went off for another treasure hunt. And then they ended up in a forest. A bear found them. They ran away back into their patch.

The next day they explored again. They explored for giraffes. They found the biggest giraffe of them all.

The End.

A Scary Pumpkin Patch

By Andy

A scarecrow scares you away from the pumpkin patch. When you ask him to let you go, he lets you go. The patch is scary because there are scarecrows all around the patch. And the pumpkins are alive and they stare at you. But they are happy pumpkins because they like to be jack-o-lanterns. There are also happy flowers because they like to be flowers and like to be watered.

A Scary Pumpkin Patch 

By Ashley

Once upon a time there was a scary pumpkin that was a costume.  He was a boy. And there was a boy that was a pumpkin and he was wearing a pumpkin shirt. There was this little lady that he was in love with.  The girl let him play at her house. And they went in to the house and played with some toys. 

The girl and the boy went to the pumpkin patch. They were looking for a pumpkin. First they went into the haunted house and then they went on a haystack ride. They were riding for the pumpkins to see which ones they liked. They said stop and one person found a cool pumpkin. And the girl couldn’t find any so the boy went to go find one for her and the boy found a beautiful one for her. 

There was big noise that said “WAHAHAHA!!!”  The girl and boy were surprised. They ran out of the pumpkin patch super fast and went back to their grandmas house. 

The End. 

5 Pilgrims and a Turkey

By Ashley

Once upon a time there were 5 pilgrims and the turkey went over and talked to them. They were going to their house. They did stuff in there. And they played toys downstairs in their house. They went back upstairs and ate breakfast. The turkey and the pilgrims went in the living room and played the wii. 

Then they went to play outside in the snow. They ate lunch and then they went back outside and played on their bikes. They went back inside and played the Wii again and then ate dinner.

October 2010 (as written in November)

Well, I skipped October completely and here we are in November.  Here is how our October went in a short, condensed version.

The first weekend of October we went to St George to see my mom and brother-in-law run in the St. George marathon and see Steve's parents.  It was a great weekend! Except the whole stomach flu part but we won't get into that...  My kids love going to St. George and sleeping in the living room. There are a few battles of who sleeps where but then they cuddle up and fall asleep.

Saturday we got up and watched part of Conference before heading over to the finish line.  It was HOT. 95 degrees hot.  My poor mom had had a cold for over a week but ran anyway. This was her 13th marathon. Ben did great and even beat his time!!  He had to leave my mom near the beginning because she knew she wasn't doing well. 6 hours and 10 minutesish later she made it across the finish line. I was so proud of her! And relieved she made it in, unlike the thousands of people that weren't able to make it. Sad!  We walked her back to her car and helped her get her shoes off and flip flops on and we headed on to Wendy's for lunch. Its tradition for us to eat there after their race. :)  Steve had to run back to his parents to continue working on a project for his consulting job.  We enjoyed lunch and then my mom and sister and her family all drove home (in 2 separate cars).  All 8 hours after running for 6 hours....

 We went shopping afterwards.  My kids got to do a little service while we were out and about. There was a big nasty windstorm that came up and they all helped bring in all of the stuff from outside at Down East Basics.  And they didn't stop until it was completely done. I was very proud of them. It was Jakob's idea and he did a great job.  :)  We went and enjoyed a quiet evening with Steve's mom while he and his dad went to the Priesthood Session. It was a very nice night. Oh, I forgot the part about shopping for school clothes (love the outlets so we waited till we were down there) with 6 kids... That was fun. But we got some great stuff!

Two weeks later we headed off to Idaho for a nice, relaxing weekend.  We went on the potato harvester, pumpkin patch(where we picked out our own pumpkins!), Ashley played soccer with her cousins (and scored 7 goals), went to the school carnival, had a hot dog roast, played volleyball and relaxed.   Know those times when you wish the world would just STOP for a little so you could breathe? I got one of those moments that Friday night.  We were outside roasting hot dogs. It had been windy all day.  For just a moment the wind stopped and it just felt still and quiet and the world was good.

Halloween was wonderful - except for the part where we couldn't find the perfect Alice dress for me. But that's okay because I was Mother Nature, a princess and an 80's girl at different times during the festivities. Which ranged from Jakob's school's carnival, a party at our friends' house and trick-or-treating. Our poor little Gavin had a fever for Halloween so we did his trick-or-treating for him.  And sadly I didn't get any pictures for Halloween!!

Thus ends our October - it flew by quickly!  Here are some random pictures from the months of October. I wish I had more in St. George but my poor cell phone camera just doesn't cut it sometimes:

The kids had so much fun in St. George they were just plain tired!!  Ethan snuggled up with Grandpa and took a nice little nap.

Here are the kids helping pick up rocks by the shrubs so we could move them to the fire pit for a hot dog/marshmallow roast. They had a lot of fun - the youngest loved to dump the bucket in the wagon!

Here are pictures from the pumpkin patch we went to. The kids LOVED picking out pumpkins by themselves!!

The theme for the Oakley carnival was The 80's. I had fun dressing us all up. :)

Gavin made a 'Snowman'.  He begged and asked and yelled and begged for us to go down and see. If you look closely you can see the crayon legs.  I love the imagination of a 4 year old!

This was at the school carnival in Saratoga Springs. The kids are gearing up for a donut eating contest. 

You would think this is Heidi's Halloween costume. You would be wrong.  Heidi had a lovely blowout at the store and I had to find SOMETHING for her to wear until Steve could get to the store.  I tried a handkerchief first but it wasn't quite modest.  Then I found the cape. It ended up as a dress of sorts. She didn't care. She had a ribbon to chew on! Luckily Daddy saved her from her mom dressing her funny just in time for Kirby Heyborne to show up for his front room concert that night!

AHOY Matey! This is the one photo I have of my kids for Halloween this year. Sad. But he's sure cute!!

Changes

Isn't it funny how you want blessings through all the messes you go through and then when you finally start getting the blessings, you're wondering when life is going to take a downturn?  We have been extremely blessed lately and we almost don't know what to do with ourselves!

Steve has worked at Oracle for the last 6 years. He started with Siebel and they were bought by Oracle. And downhill went the raises - as in NO raises.

We have many reasons to be mad at them such as mess-ups on paychecks, forgetting to turn in time cards on time, no raises, being forced to work graveyards, etc.  BUT we have many blessings from his job too.  Job security, amazing benefits for medical, dental and vision, and most of all work experience. He has 6 years of experience doing CRM OnDemand that very few people have. He has become very valuable. He even got a really cool trophy for his hard work.

So on to greener pastures.  Steve has been given the amazing opportunity to work for NEC as a consultant. He's THE CRM guy.  He builds and supports the application for them.  That means travel for the next few weeks and then he'll work from home.  Best news? NO MORE GRAVEYARD SHIFT!!!

In other news,  Gavin and Ashley both scored goals in their soccer game yesterday!  Ashley has scored at least one goal in almost all of her games but this was Gavin's first and it was awesome.  He ran with a whole group of kids following him and kicked it right in!

Jakob's doing well his soccer team and has done awesome in his ALL class(Accelerated Learning Lab). And he's almost as tall as me.

And Andy lost his front tooth!!! It was hanging by a thread (well, nerve) for a few days and I finally got it out.

Oh, and me? I'm barely sane but hey who needs sanity anyway?

Stuff

Hello. Its been a while since I last blogged so I figured it was time. Lots has happened. Birthdays, races, Heidi learning to push herself all over in the walker, awesome book signings at the store, flooding neighborhoods (we got missed)... oh, and I was made 1st Counselor in the Primary!  We also learned a little about prayer today.

Not to get into specifics, we misplaced a rather large chunk of money. I KNEW where I set it and it wasn't there later.  We looked through the whole house, cleaned out the toy room (big mess which needed done anyway) and then prayed about finding it.  I went down to tuck my 4 year old into bed and I found a $10 bill and a $5 bill in his bed.  Here's the conversation that followed:

Me: Uh, where did this come from? I need to know where the rest is!
Son: .......... ok.

He pulled back his pillow and it was all there - except the bag it came in. That, of course, was under his blanket.

Son: Look Mom! The money bag!

He was so proud of himself for 'finding it.'   Silly boy.  Anyway, here are some fun pictures that have been taken recently.  There are birthday pictures amongst them for all 7 of us (Heidi hasn't had a birthday yet so you got her newborn pictures earlier!) since I missed blogging about them all! The photos are in no particular order.

This picture is after trying to juggle forks, napkins, treat bags, my breakfast and a glass of juice while pushing an umbrella stroller on the grass. I hit a bump with the stroller,  my pancake fell on Heidi's head, and I laughed hysterically. My family couldn't figure out why when I got over and sat by them until they saw Heidi - and pictures were taken... What did Heidi do? Nothing. She just took it. What a "sweetie-pie".

Heidi's first time with cereal! She did great and loved it.  She ate most of it!

 

                                    

Don't ask because I don't want to know...

This is "Betty Girl", our newest family member that Andy got from his aunt, cousins, Grandpa and Grandma. She is much loved!

Ashley is my little princess! She got this photo taken during Pony Express Days at the park.

Heidi got 3rd in the baby contest! She was in the 3-6 month category - having turned 3 months old that day! She laughed and talked and cooed. It was so much fun!

       

Heidi's first time swimming! We went to St George in June and had a great time there. Heidi loved the water and I LOVED her new swimming suit!

We combined a few birthdays for this cake - which was YUMMY! Happy Birthday to everyone!

And now its time for bed. Good night!

Our Family Pictures

This is the last post of our pictures. Then maybe I'll get to our birthday posts!!!  These were done inside our store (except the first one that was done outside obviously).  Each child got to pick where they wanted to get their individual pictures done.  Ethan just plain didn't want to but apparently sitting on his daddy's shoulders worked because he was happy for those!!  These are some of my favorites because it shows what our life has been about for the last year!!