My Aunt Susan

Only picture I have of us and it's blurry!

 I have awesome aunts. We always have so much fun when we are together. We are loud and crazy. My Aunt Susan has lived in Vegas since I was 14(I think). I remember her watching us while my parents were out of town and letting us watch Melrose Place. Oh man, that was so cool. She was and is still a fun aunt. She always came to Sunday dinners. My kids loved seeing Aunt Susan. She was a single mom for a long time and so my family kind of took her in. That all came to an end a couple weekends ago. Susan met a wonderful guy named Kim. He is great and treats her so well. We are happy for her and her new adventures. The only drawback is that her new life has taken her to Aberdeen, Idaho. So far away! We are hoping we get frequent visits from her. We miss her so much and lover her!

Sammy and my dad chillin

9th Anniversary

We celebrated our 9th Anniversary on the 23rd. I am so glad we found each other. He puts up with me and I put up with him. It's perfect! We of course went out ready to party out on the town.

Before we left my mom jokingly told us to look into each others eyes. We tried but it was a fail.

 Then on our way to dinner Luke surprised me with an iPhone. My phone was dying on me and he knew how much I wanted this. It's wonderful but not as wonderful as my husband.
 
Can't wait for next year. We are hoping to go on a nice long trip sans kids for our 10 year. Happy 9 years to us!!

Brothers and My Man

This is a totally random post, but sometimes those posts are the best. Just some things I wanted to document. These boys are active 24/7 and this is what they do most of the time. I would say about 99% of that time someone ends up hurt and cries. Funny thing is they don't stop and keep doing it again and again and again. Boys!! So glad they have each other(even if some days I wish I could turn one into a girl so Sammy can have a sister).

Can you say twins? Holy cow! People have always told Noah and Parker look alike. I see it but I also see my other kids in him too. These boys really do have a special bond. Noah follows him around everywhere, and does everything he does.

Now onto my man. How handsome is he?

About a month ago he was called to be a seminary teacher. I almost had a heart attack when he told me. It was for pure selfish reasons. I run 3-4 times a week with some friends. It's my therapy. I knew this calling would mess it up. Luckily our stake does team teaching so it's not to bad. The weeks he teaches are hard because I don't get my normal workout in but really it's not as bad as I thought. He gets to be with us on Sundays and during the weeknights. Which was not the case with YM. Luke relates with the youth really well. I'll never forget my friend Emily Richardson and I had a crush on our seminary teacher Brother George. I think he was about the same age as Luke is. So weird to think we are that old. I'm excited for him. You know people say you see so many blessings when you have callings. Well I am hoping one of them is for me to magically lose this weight. You since my running is not happening as much as I like. Ha ha...kidding. It would be nice though.

Flag Football

Nick tried out flag football for the first time. Normally he plays soccer in the fall but he decided he wanted to do something a little different. I personally LOVED watching it. Again I was the crazy mom on the sidelines. I get so into it. Normally Nick goes into a sport being on the same team with a friend or two. We signed up late so we were just put on a random team. It was a good and bad thing. The bad part about it was that the coach was awful. His plays and attitude were bad. I don't know football very well but seriously these plays he had were bad. No one had ever played before and there were only 2 kids on the team who could throw a football. Nick being one of them. I don't want to be a bad sport but basically his team was not good. Especially compared to the other teams who played like NFL players. It was crazy. They won their first game and we were stoked. We thought, hey we could be pretty decent. Um yeah we lost the rest of the games pretty bad. Wait, there is good about this too. The good part is that Nick was the best player on the team. Which meant he played the good positions and even played offense and defense in the same game. It also meant he was picked to go to the pro bowl. Each team picks 2 kids to go play in this big end of the year game. Nick loved it and then I think at the end he got a little discouraged because they lost so bad. Nick is VERY competitive. I'm glad he had this experience. I have to say he was the cutest football player out there.
I love this picture. They are some of his best buds. Kai(the one in the Steelers jersey) played Nick's team so I brought some of Nick's other friends to cheer him on.

I Love this next picture of Nick. His whole team did the black under the eyes.

 Here he is in action. He is on the right with the blue jersey on, and getting ready to throw the ball.

 

A visit

Way back in October Luke's parents came to visit the kids. I can't even tell you how excited they get when we tell them they are coming. We hear about it forever and it can't come fast enough. We love when Luke's parents come. They were able to come to one of Nick's flag football game. Nick loved that. We wish we could see them more. I have said it before and I am going to say it again. I really do have great in laws.

Halloween 2011

We had a great Halloween. I loved the kids costumes this year. We had many festivities for the family. First we had our ward Trunk or Treat. This was the only time Luke and I dressed up together. I love dressing up with Luke. Even though he gives me a hard time every year. Nichols really wanted to be a Steelers football player. I thought it would be awesome to dress him up as Troy Polamalu and put a bunch of black yarn under his helmet so he can his awesome hair. We didn't find any Steelers costumes that were in our budget. We did find a Cowboys one and that was fine. He looks like the real thing, don't ya think?

Sammy wanted to be Cinderella. I was at Ross one day and decided to just look at their costumes. It was my lucky day because they had an adorable Cinderella costume for super cheap. Look at how cute she looks. She is a natural.

Parker's costume was a little harder to find. He didn't have anything in mind. So we searched the stores and he found this awesome one. I loved it! He played the part pretty well. He was so obsessed with his black eye. He kept asking me every 30 seconds if his black eye was still on. Don't mess with him.

Noah was a spider. This was a hand me down from Nick and Parker. It's warm and cute. He loved it and loved trying to play the part. Cutest spider ever! In the 2nd picture I told him to act like a spider. I love how accurate he got it.

Luke and I were high school sweethearts back in the fifties. He was the star quarterback and of course I was the head cheerleader. It's seriously just like real life! I really wanted to Luke to dress like Danny Zuko from Grease. We compromised with a football player. I do have to say he looked mighty fine.

Then Halloween night finally came and Luke and the 2 older boys came down like this. Really? I went through all the trouble of finding costumes and this is what you are on the real night. Remind me next year to not buy any costumes at all! They did look cute though.

Sammy kept her Cinderella costume on and rode around like this. I loved seeing her riding around in her dress.
 
Then of course Noah had to do it too.
 
My parents came by to see the kids and go around to a couple houses. It's a fun little tradition.
 
At the end of the night we lost Nick to his friends. I am not ready for that to start. Luke brought the kids back looking like this. Tired and too much candy!
 
Noah was so into his candy. Like really possessive. See?

 
 And this is what happens when we take it away for the night.... Happy Halloween!!

Good Old Pumpkin Patch

We all know how I feel about our pumpkin patches here. This year I really wanted to take our family to St. George where I have heard they have a really fun one. It didn't workout. I did tell Luke that next year it WILL workout. So off we headed to our magical pumpkin patch where I swear one of the workers was drunk. I took a quick picture of the kids as we pulled out of our driveway. This is what I got. Nick is in this awkward stage. Can you tell?
 
Of Course we had to take a family picture.


Then Nick and Sammy remembered how they stood at the top of the haystacks last year, and just HAD to do it again.

Parker wasn't feeling well. Being the mean parents we are we dragged him with us. It was the only time we had to do this family activity. We pretended to be animals.
 
Did some rides, and I swear I thought Noah was going to fly right out of them.

Tried to get another shot of the older kids before they went down the slide. Can you say "AWKWARD"?
 
Then I saw this amazing pumpkin with an awesome stem. I wanted it. I looked at the price and just asked Sammy to take a picture of me with it.

Kids had fun, Mom and Dad had fun, and Noah walked away with this because one of the workers couldn't resist him. Don't worry, it was the "drunk" guy. Till next year!