The stuff I find on my camera...

I was trying to get EVERYTHING cleaned off my cameras, the nice SLR and the little point and shoot.  I found a couple of funnies.

These are the gems.  Pretty much everything's fuzzy, overexposed or the same shot over and over.  Seriously Juliet, how many pictures of you pulling goofy faces do I need?

Fall Bike Ride...

I don't especially like to exercise.  I DO NOT like to run.  However, I do like to ride my bicycle.  It's not about the speed, because I don't go fast; it's about the ride.  I still feel like it's fun.  Fall is perfect bike riding weather.  It was about an hour until Mikayla was supposed to go to bed and she was kind of grumpy.  (She's cutting a tooth.)  Merril was working late so I loaded her up in the bike trailer and we went for a ride!  The blankets and pillows were supposed to help keep her upright, but being close to bedtime, she started to slump over towards the end of the ride.  She happily sucked her thumb.

 Maxine and Jack had a good time.

Juliet was good for the first half of the ride but then started to fade.

We ended up putting her bike on mine and walked/pushed the bikes and trailer home.

Even with Juliet kind of throwing a fit, I still had a good time.  And then everyone was ready for bed.  :)

Happy Halloween 2012...

Wahoo Halloween!  I like Halloween.  I've dressed up like a guy for the last 2 Halloweens.  This year, I decided to be a girl.  An awesome girl from the Avengers, Black Widow.  Merril was The Hulk.  Jack was a lego figure, Juliet was a cowgirl, Maxine was Hermione from Harry Potter and Mikayla was a cheetah.  This is right before the ward Halloween party.  

The school had a Halloween parade and Julie decided to ride a pony.

Jack was fun.

Maxine looked great!

This is Halloween night, right before trick-or-treating.

Maxine's costume was the hardest, mainly because I borrowed stuff for Jack's and Juliet's costumes and Mikayla's came out of the Halloween box.  I made Maxine's robe and tie.  I thought they turned out fine.  This year, Maxine wanted to trick-or-treat the neighborhood with friends, instead of the family.  So I gave her a cell and off she went.  I was out with Jack and Juliet.  When we would bump into each other, Maxine kept going on her own way.  She turns 10 on Monday!  WOW!

Pumpkins and Pizza...

For Family Home Evening, we made pizza and carved pumpkins.  This was our jack-o-lantern pizza.  :)

While scooping the guts out of a pumpkin, Jack's I think, I found this:

One of the pumpkin seeds had sprouted and was trying to grow!  I love carving pumpkins and in all my years, I've never seen one of the seeds sprout and try to grow while it was still inside the pumpkin.  Weird.  I didn't take any pictures of the pumpkins.  Juliet and Jack carved traditional jack-o-lantern faces and Maxine created a crow and carved it out.  Happy Halloween!

Spooky Hollow...

Our little town started a corn maze this year!  So we headed over and took pictures with the headless horseman.  

The kids got a free horse ride.

Mikayla rode around with Merril and had a good time.

Juliet liked the headless horseman.  She kept calling him the headless horseguy.  We went through the corn maze and bought some hot chocolate and glow sticks.  It was a fun and easy family home evening.

Camping for Fall Break!

Juliet wanted to go camping one more time before Winter.  Fall Break seemed like the perfect time and some friends, Darryl and Shauna, were camping out at the lake so we crashed with them.  

We got there in the evening and played in the sand.

Jack wanted me to bury him, but I said no.  So he started to bury himself.

It dipped down to the mid-50s at night, which wasn't too bad.  Jack kept rolling off the air mattress and waking up.  Then he'd wake up Maxine.  I put Mikayla asleep in the Tahoe so she'd be away from the noise.  When I got her at 7:30 a.m., her little arms were so cold!  Looking back, I should have had her sleep in between Merril and me.

Juliet trying to get out of the tent.

After we woke up, we made egg, bacon and sausage mcmuffins.  Oh yummy!  We had cantaloupe too.  Mostly so we didn't die of a heart attack from the muffins.

Mikayla warmed up and was happy.

The kids got dirty and had a great time.

Mikayla had fun helping me take down the air mattresses.

Merril had some work on Friday so we packed up and headed home to veg.  Then we went back out to the lake with the boat and dinner.  It was a good time!

Mikayla is 8 months old...

Mikayla is 8 months old and last month I was able to add everything back into my diet that I've been avoiding: dairy, chocolate, and corn.  I've also been able to phase her off the Prevacid for acid reflux.  How do you think she's doing?

Yep, she's a happy kid.  She's down to 2 naps a day and sleeps from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.  She's just starting to get some anxiety when I leave the room.  She's so good and seems always content no matter what we're doing.  We won the baby lottery with her.

Merril's Mt. Whitney Hike...

Merril has wanted to climb Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states, for quite a while.  Months ago he reserved a permit and it was time to hike on October 3rd!  The peak of Mt. Whitney is 14,505 feet about sea level.  He was a good husband and even took some pictures of the hike!

Merril on top of Mt. Whitney.

Merril's friends, Darryl and Ryan, went with him.  Darryl is pictured below.

Merril said there were little lakes along the way.

Merril trained well for the hike and said he was hardly sore afterwards.  He did comment that his lungs hurt when we got home.  I told him he can't ever climb Everest because I can't arrange to air lift him out if things get dicey.  But Mt. Whitney is just fine by me.  :)

Living like it's 1970...

For Young Womens, we had a modesty fashion show through the generations.  Girls dressed up like pioneers, 1920s, 1950s, 70s, 80s, 90s and current.  I got the 70s.  This was my hippy look for Young Womens.

My hair sat in spongy rollers for most of the day and boy did it have some volume at the end.  I'm wishing curly hair would come back in.  My hair digs curls.

Maxine on a wakeboard...

I don't remember how it happened but Merril convinced Maxine to try wakeboarding.  To my surprise, she popped right up.  Then Merril started looking at the end of season deals and scored a kid wakeboard.  Maxine's pretty good at it!

The rest are just lazy lake pictures.

Jack's not really going anywhere on the jetski.  He just likes to think he is.

Mikayla is a crack up to me.

Having a good time!

Maxine chillin' on the tube.

Sadly, lake season is coming to a close.  :(

Grandma's rocking chair...

Grandma C. has a rocking chair that's for little kids. When we were up for Sunday dinner recently, Mikayla was sitting in the chair in her Sunday dress. The dress looks vintage and her cousin took a picture. It inspired me to borrow the rocking chair and take a few pictures back at the house.

I think some of them are absolutely adorable!

I don't know why but I really like this one of her looking down.



I can't believe she's 7 months already! She started inching forwards on her tummy the other day. She's actually achieving forward motion! Unbelievable.

The perfect picture...

I decided to take some pictures of all 4 kids together. It's quite the feat. But the kids and I set off after dinner to get some pictures taken! The first one fired off was pretty great! I swapped Mikayla's head because she smiled better the second shot. Hooray.

Here was another good one, except for Jack. He was done by now and didn't want to participate. He was swapped out and looks pretty good.

The kids wanted to take pictures of me and Mikayla so I agreed, mainly to keep them cooperative. I like this one.

The overall experience was good. Even without photoshop, I would've had some pretty decent shots.

No wonder people didn't smile in the old days; it was just too hard when you had 19 kids.

Juliet's Dance Class...

Ever since the summer Olympics, Juliet has decided that she's a gymnast. A flyer came around for the community center and offered ballet classes for $18 a month. Jules was all over it. She begged and begged to go. So I signed her up, bought all the cute ballet clothes and she's in love. This is from the first day of class.

She's been living in the ballet clothes ever since. I just have 2 rules, she can't wear them to school or eat in them.

She's also gotten really good at cartwheels and surprised me by doing backflips on the trampoline! How did she get so big?!

Hula hoops and 500th blog post! Wahoo!

Juliet got a hula hoop at the dollar store yesterday. She's been having fun practicing!

Hiking Oak Grove...

Merril and Ryan R. took the kids hiking up Oak Grove trail.

 I remember hiking it and thinking it was pretty steep but the kids did great!

Ryan and his kids brought stuff to camp out but Merril turned around with our kids after about a mile.  Good job kiddos!