Gringos con Motos!

Merril, Wade, Ryan, and Darryl went down to Mexico. 13 people said they were going but a ton dropped out because of a funeral. I love how Merril has wood strapped to the back of his motorcycle. Merril said it didn't want to burn.

Ocean! 

They went and watched the Baja 1000. It seems like there were more pictures but I can't find them anymore. 

Crinkly smiles...

This boy is a crack up.  I love when he smiles with really squinty eyes. He's been doing so well at preschool.  He's really growing up.  I can't believe he's 5.

Nativity at Tuacahn...

This was the 2nd year we've done the nativity out at Tuacahn with the Laubs. I feel like we were better prepared because we knew what to expect. It wasn't as cold either, which was nice.  It was the first performance of the season so it had some niggles. Most of us were angles and there was so much stage smoke when we appeared that we couldn't breathe very well. Still fun. 

Crushing on my man...

There he is. Out there getting it done! Fixing stuff and bringing home the bacon! He's looking good while he's doing it too!

He must be flexing his arm just for me. Okay, he's not, he's really working.

And my little man wanted to make Jell-O. There's an assortment of gummy bears and starburst in the Jell-O. He was proud of his creation and was excited to present it at dinner. 

Black Friday!

Black Friday with my girls! I can't stay up like I used to. I was dead by 10 p.m. It's fun to have little partners to do dumb things with!  :)

Maxine gobbled...

Maxine needed to complete a race for her online PE course. So she ran the Gobbler with the Campbells. Jody's family, Justin's family and Grandma and Grandpa ran/walked.

I came to support. It's expensive and we're saving money for Japan so Maxine is the only one who ran. Happy Thanksgiving.

Maxine finished first out of the fam! Swimming is such great exercise and she's in shape!

Cedar Swim Meet...

There she goes! She's so blurry. Oh well. The littles and I came up to watch Maxine swim in Cedar. The first event her goggles came off and she swam the whole thing with her eyes in the water. She was fighting but I could tell she was struggling. Darn. 

JoLyn's Farewell

JoLyn is going to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Tokyo, Japan! We might see her when we visit. Maxine and I sang with Jo Anna, JoLyn, Jeannie, and Jessica. There were 3-part harmonies in the song medley If You Could Hie to Kolob and Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. We came up early for a Thanksgiving dinner. We saw lots of family and Maxine snagged this picture on Sunday. She'll be a great missionary!

Now Jack is 13! What?!?

Holy cow, all my Fall birthday children got really old all of a sudden! Jack is 13 and it's blowing my mind!

Opening presents! Legos like always.

Jack's birthday was a rock climbing birthday. We took a mix of girls and boys out to rappel. Jack wanted a donut tower instead of a cake. We couldn't get candles to light so Jack is just pretending to blow out candles.

All the kids did well! Happy birthday dude!

I'm pretty proud of Jack because he made the H.O.P.E. squad at school. The H.O.P.E. squad raises awareness for depression and preventing suicide. You can't just join, you have to be nominated by other students and faculty. Peers felt that Jack could be someone they could talk to. Wow! He's always had a sensitive streak. He wears his H.O.P.E. squad gear with pride and I love that about him.

Don't give me that look....

I was messing with a setting on my camera and got the faces of Julie. What a dork!

SHE'S SIXTEEN!!!!!!!!

She made it! She's finally 16! She had a birthday party in the basement that I didn't have to do anything for except for toss down some snacks. 

On her actual birthday she opened more presents!

Received balloons that we tied to her backpack so everyone would know it was her birthday!

Promptly went to the DMV to receive her driver's license.

And we went to Sakura for dinner and they brought her a singing cake.

This was the day after her birthday. Climbing into her blue car like a boss!

And away she went!

She went halvsies with us on the car. She's practiced for a full year and I feel like she's a pretty good driver. Maxine had more practice than I did before I got my license. She did all the things necessary to be ready for her license on her birthday! Awesome awesome awesome! 

She can sleep in later because the darn bus comes so early and now she doesn't have to make it anymore. She can drive herself to swim team instead of catching a ride and she can drive herself home too!!! Her best friend Ellen is moving from Zion to Hurricane so she'll be able to drive herself over any time she wants! 

It's possible I could be more excited about this than she is. Ok, probably not.

Frog Hollow 2018

The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow mountain bike relay is something that Merril looks forward to but to me just sounds like torture. It was cold and windy. The guys said it made it hard in some sections of the course.

We were there to see Merril take off.

And come back!

Merril was on a team with Logan P., Adam F., and Bob S. Merril did 5 laps total, Logan did 6, Bob did 5 and Adam did 3. Poor Adam. He fights with Crohn's disease and it makes it hard for him. 

Max and I came back out for midnight pie! I forgot something I was supposed to bring for Merril and so I decided to jet home and get it. Blazing down the dirt road, I got a flat tire. I pretty much changed it myself. A guy that was a little high stopped and helped me tighten the lug nuts and tried to ask questions about where the dirt road went. His companion in the car was like, "Dude! We gotta go! We gotta go like now man!!" It was pretty comical. They weren't scary, just wasted. I told them the road was completely closed off for the race and they'd have to turn around. After the midnight tire change, I just drove back to the race and watched Merril come in. We chatted for a bit and then Maxine and I came home. 

Merril stayed and slept and raced. Fun times.

Happy Halloween...

Yay! It's time for Halloween! Mark got a helmet for his birthday and loves to wear it.

 

I wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood and convinced Merril to be the Big Bad Wolf. I loved how his wolf constume turned out! Sorry it was so hot babe!

That furry material was super annoying to cut and sew. It had to be combed so one didn't cut all the fur off. It looked like I skinned an animal in my bedroom. I ended up making my shirt, skirt, and vest. I purchased a red cape. I end up making Halloween costumes because it's almost impossible to find anything modest enough.

Mark was a ghost.

Mikayla was Shine from a cartoon about genies called Shimmer and Shine.

Mark's had too much candy.

Juliet wore an inflatable unicorn costume that made her look like she was riding it. Jack was an auto mechanic with awesome looking coveralls and Maxine was a member of the Hufflepuff house from Harry Potter. They were all super cute and I don't have a.single.picture. #momfail 

Baby ghost pumpkin...

After all these years of gardening, I've finally grown a pumpkin I could carve! I had to catch and relocate 4 squirrels to make it happen! 

Birthday #5 for Marky Shark!

Mark is 5 years old today! We woke up early to open presents so that no one would miss anything by catching the early bus.

Mark requested that we go to House of Jump for his birthday.  We had the place to ourselves!  Unfortunately, Mark hurt his leg after being there a short time and had to sit out for a while.  After some Tylenol, he was jumping again, although he kept favoring his hurt leg. 

 I can't believe what a sweetie he is sometimes.  He always says, "Thank You." which is so nice for a Mom to hear. Life just keeps getting better and better!

Update on my SI joint...

Update on my SI joint: I've done my stretches twice a day for about 3 weeks and I'm experiencing slow but steady improvement. Driving the car caused a lot of pain and so did getting up first thing in the morning.  I had a few really bad days and then the pain slowly started to improve.  Driving became easier and then getting out of bed. I'm hardly experiencing any pain at all but I'll continue my stretches because I feel like they are doing me good! I'm glad I have a body that recovers and that I feel pretty amazing most of the time. 

Owl City Concert!

The kids and I went to an owl City concert. We've been waiting for Owl City to go on tour for quite a while. When I finally saw that he was coming to Salt Lake, I got tickets for me and the four older kids. We hopped in the car Tuesday afternoon and drove up to the concert. We got there just in time to stand for our general admission seats, there were no chairs.

A concert without chairs presented a problem because with everyone standing, Juliet and Mikayla could hardly see anything. So I had them stay put and I walked around the side to see if I could get a better view. I walked clear to the front on the left hand side. There was room for us and it was a clear shot of Adam Young. I went and got the kids and with us repositioned, we enjoyed the rest of the concert. He was so close, maybe 30 feet away. Mikayla got tired quickly and ended up falling asleep on the floor. The rest of us listened with our earplugs! I don't know why they have to make concerts so loud.

Adam was a lot of fun to watch because he plays so many instruments. He would loop an instrument and then go play another one and loop that until he had all sorts of sounds going.  Then he would sing and play the guitar or sing and play the drums. He's a really good musician and we had a great time!

My Boys in Moab

Merril and the boys are in Moab this weekend for Search and Rescue Training. It looks like they're having a good time!  This picture of Merril and Mark is my new favorite. I'm ready for them to get home because I miss their silly faces.