little moments.this is our life.

that one time when all the kids took a bath together...That one and only time!

I told the kids that if we made the first day of Fall Break a Super Fall Cleaning Day and got a huge list of projects done, then the next day could be Super Fun Day, with no chores.  Only fun.  And they did great!!  they all worked super hard for about 2 hours, then we took a break, then during Owen and Maris' nap time the girls worked for 2 more hours and we were done.  I felt like little cleaning fairies had descended on my house!   

I love kisses from my Maris!

And apparently we take a lot of selfies!

that one time when Owen wrestled a box for at least half an hour!  #boysarefunny!  And cute.  The best part may have been his theme music all the way through!

I (finally) got a haircut!  

Before front:

before back, check out my birthmark blond streak!

After: not too much shorter, but I LOVE LOVE the layers!  thanks to my awesome friend Sara Olson in Santaquin.

that one time they were all playing nicely together for like an hour... yes that ONE single time!

Katie made this super cute Scrabble board so I took a picture before I made her clean it up. :)

Maris is my 4th child to sleep comfortably in this awesome stroller!  9.5 years of use and it is going strong!  I sent this picture to the girl (Katherine Chipman) who organized my baby shower with the Provo Track Team.  Pretty sure her parents paid for most of it, so kind!!

Okay this one's crazy.  My friend Becki Rogers (now Lee) from high school-- water polo star, top 10 with me, tons of honors classes together, Senior Ditch Day and Grad Night Disneyland buddy Becki, who I haven't seen and barely had contact with since, (15 years!) came to stay with us for a couple of days!

Her husband dredges for Gold in the Bering Sea in the summers, so they are spending this winter touring the U.S. with their camping trailer and their 2-year-old daughter Amber.  Crazy and awesome!

It was a little awkward, especially for Eric obviously, but he was very gracious and overall it was a good time!  I took Becki and Amber to the Grotto one of the days.

Love these little cuties!

It was Maris' first hike not in the backpack, and she LOVED it and walked the whole way!

Becki's husband Andrew showed us some of his gold- I am holding thousands of dollars in my hands!!

That one time when Owen rode his bike around the van literally 27 times!  I think it was raining or windy outside so he wanted to stay in the garage, hilarious!

Poor kid with too many sisters rides a pink bike, at least until Christmas!!

One time the girls painted their nails and Maris wanted hers done too. :) 

I couldn't believe she held still long enough and let me do it!  And she kept saying "pitty" for pretty, so cute.

being silly one day.

use #145 for the pizza cutter...

I told you we take a lot of selfies!

Cold weather has brought the return of various horses/cows to graze on the field behind us, and the kids love to watch them! (or occasionally feed and pet them over the fence!)

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE running on leaf-strewn paths??  The crunch and the smell take me right back to California fall and Cross Country.  This is the Spanish Fork River Trail, my favorite place to run here!

Took the kids to see Beauty and the Beast (Eric was on a campout).  Kate and Whitney loved it!  Owen and Maris loved the first 5 minutes. :)  And Owen's face is awesome.  And Whitney was in a bad mood hence she is not pictured.

Spidergirl, spidergirl, the amazing spidergirl.... Maris loves to wear this hat and run around!  I could not get a good picture of her because she would not stop moving!

until it was dinnertime.  She wears this all the time haha.

and the little cute-face has started to love coloring!  She can say "coloh" for color and proudly shows me her pictures!  She is getting so big.

The return of the blog!

Um, okay, wow.  Apparently I don't blog anymore??  I guess I just kind of forgot how behind I was. :)  But now I"m thinking about Christmas and making another blog book, and I would like the months of October and November to be featured in it.  Plus tons of great stuff happens every day and week and I take a fair amount of pictures of it... so I would really like it to be documented forever on here!  Even if no one reads it anymore because we see all of our family members like every month now it seems-- which is great obviously!  But I digress.  Here's where we left off.

Halloween Activities.

 Took the kids to Jakers Pumpkin Patch while Eric was on a campout.  Not the smartest because we had a hard time getting the pumpkins to the car, but thanks to Katelyn's resourcefulness climbing over the hay bale fence and me handing them to her, we made it!

Anyway it was fun.  I let the kids take turns choosing which activity we went to .  Here's Owen's hay bale maze:

 Whitney picked the petting zoo of course, and got to pet a kangaroo!

 She really does love animals.  And this pig was GIANT!

 Then Kate picked the corn pit!!  Such a funny/gross/odd thing!

 silly ostriches.

 Owen trying to copy haha.

As you will see in the end of this post, it was the year of many costume ideas.  Here was one of Owen's.

 Dad helped him make this great Batman pumpkin!!

 I made Maris a cat.

 And unlike I think any of our other kids at her age, Maris LOVED the pumpkin guts!  She wouldn't stop playing with them!  So funny.

 Whitney made a cute face.

 And Katelyn tried to be real artistic with hers!

 For school the day before Halloween they could only dress up as things they were learning about in school.  So Whitney was a butterfly,

 and Katelyn was a medieval princess. :)

 New ward= new Halloween traditions!  We have never been in a ward that does a Halloween party on actual Halloween!  It was pretty fun though.

We ended up kind of dressing up in pairs:

Bruce Wayne and Spiderman,

 baby Jedi and Darth Vader,

 and McGonogall and Hermione. :)

 Kate and Brett ( a boy in my Primary class) were matching Darth Vaders :)

 Maris was obviously thrilled with the candy and kept asking for her bucket "buttet"

 Then she had a hilarious jumping around on the couch sugar high!

 Pics from before the party:

 My facebook post:

Happy Halloween! It's been the year of costume changes. Kate went from pirate to Darth Vader, Whitney was going to be a Japanese princess but switched to McGonagall for year 2. At the last minute Owen wanted to be Spider-Man instead of Batman, and I couldn't find the monkey costume for Maris and she refused to wear the elephant one so she ended up being a baby Jedi! Eric was Bruce Wayne and I got to be Hermione. I might be Hermione every year from now on haha!

 And Owen's candy organizing the Monday after. :)