Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken this year. I think they turned out pretty well, even though Ashley chose to laugh her way through most of the shots, and it was pretty cold once the sun started setting. It snowed on the first date we had scheduled, so we felt fortunate that it was as warm as it was that night.

 

We took this picture of Ashley and Lula before we left since we didn't take her to the photo shoot with us, but Ashley still wanted a picture with her.

Halloween

 For Halloween this year, we had Woody...

Mickey Mouse...

A BYU Cougars fan(she dressed up to match her friends. I love how Alyssa always chooses practical costumes that she can continue to wear after Halloween is over)...

And a K-9 Police Officer with her dog(and yes, she did actually take her around trick or treating with her)

We had a pretty big group of trick or treaters this year. It was hard to keep them all together. We did end up splitting up before the night was over. We ended at the morph suit boy's house after trick or treating for donuts and cider. It was a fun night with cousins and neighbors.

We carved pumpkins this year.

Camden's

 Ashley's

 Tyler's (He is obsessed with the Forky trademark one eye bigger than the other. He has been doing it on every face that he makes since he saw the movie this summer).

 And Alyssa's

Halloween week brought us record lows with highs barely going above freezing that week. The kids didn't even notice it was cold. They ran from house to house in their costumes and I followed behind, bundled up in my sweatshirt, coat, boots, gloves, scarf, and beanie. And I was still cold.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

Camden got to go to a pumpkin patch for a preschool field trip. The weather was really nice that day (before it turned really cold a few days later). He had a lot of fun.

We went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point (the biggest pumpkin patch I have ever seen). It was a Harry Potter theme this year. It was a busier night than we would have liked, but we still had fun (except for maybe Alyssa who had a bad headache and Danny who was starting in with a cold that night).

 Ashley enjoyed watching the dog show and then meeting one of the dogs with it's trainer afterward.

The boys had fun climbing on all of the different tractors and parks set up throughout the pumpkin patch.

 Tyler loved the pink tractor the best.

It was a fun night and it didn't get too cold, until the sun went down. That was when we discovered the warmth of the corn pit and it's bright lights.
We only got a little bit lost inside of the corn maze this year.

Lula Had Puppies

Lula had her first litter of puppies on Veterans Day. She had 7 puppies. We knew she was due to have them sometime that week, but she surprised us by having them a few days earlier than expected. She has been staying with the breeders, since they have a nice warm set up for puppies and they know how to care for them better than us. Ashley misses having Lula at home and has been going over to visit her 2 times a day ever since it happened.
Ashley was also hired by another family that breeds Labradors to come and help care for their litter of puppies. Their dog had her puppies in Mid October, so Ashley has been going over there 3-5 times a week all through the month of November. Those puppies are almost all sold, now, but she has loved having so much time with so many different dogs. Here is a picture of Tyler with almost all of that litter of puppies. There were 12 of them.

We sure wish that we could keep one of these puppies for Ashley, but Danny and Alyssa are both pretty allergic to dogs, so in order to have a Labrador again, it would have to be an outdoor only dog, and we would need a warm dry place for the dog to escape to in the winter(which we do not have right now). But these puppies were so cute!

One Last Camping Trip

This year, when we planned out all of our camping trips for the summer, we had chosen the last week before school started in August for our final camping trip of the year. Well, Danny got pneumonia in August and wasn't back up to his full strength when the chosen days for our camping trip arrived. so we looked at our calendars and decided that we would push back the camping trip to the last week in September, instead. We chose Scolfield, UT for our destination. There is a reservoir there and we thought it would be fun to borrow some kayaks for the trip. As the weekend approached, we noticed snow in the forecast for that weekend in the mountains, and Scolfield state park is the state park in Utah with the highest elevation. We were concerned about the weather, but went anyways and hoped for the best. We packed games and movies with the intention of pulling them out if the weather didn't cooperate with our plans. The weather actually ended up being really great while we were there, with highs in the 60's. There were sporadic rain showers, but nothing to ruin our plans or fun.  We had a campsite right on the lake and the tree colors were amazing!!!

One advantage of going so late was that we pretty much had the campground to ourselves.

The kids loved kayaking (well, at least, Ashley did. Alyssa wouldn't go out on the water for the first few tries to get her to do it. Tyler loved it, too, but got bored of it. Camden did it once and decided after that that he did not like having a wet bum afterwards and wouldn't go out again).

 Alyssa and I went on a little hike one of the afternoons. We found this nasty pond...

 and this fun little pile of rocks to sit on next to the lake. Look at the colors in the trees on the other side. The picture doesn't do justice to how beautiful it was.

The kids had fun with their scooters on this little hill leading down to our campsite. It made us kind of nervous, and for good reason as Tyler had a pretty good fall one of the first times he went down the hill at full speed. His arm was hurting the rest of the weekend.

The kids especially loved our campfires and smores at night. It was a nice final getaway. We sure love our camping trailer and enjoying the outdoors together.

Camden's Intro to Sports

We have been exposing Camden to different sports since he turned 4. In May/June, he played T-Ball. We thought he would love it because he did so well hitting the ball off of the tee in our backyard, but I think he was indifferent about it.

Then in August, he played soccer. He wasn't super aggressive, even though he was bigger than most of the kids on the field. His coach never even learned his name, which I thought was weird since he came to most of the games and practices.

 I think he was happy when soccer season ended.

Then in October, we tried some football. He had fun with it, but it was a program geared for 3-4 year olds, so they did a lot of fun stuff, while teaching the skills needed for football. He was one of the biggest kids, so he was good at getting the other kids flags and running faster than them when they tried to pull off his flags.

In January, we will try basketball. I'm also trying my best to keep him entertained during the day since he has been missing Tyler this year. They play so well together and having Tyler at school all day has been an adjustment for all of us.

Alyssa's Smile - WOW!

Alyssa got her braces off on September 17th, after 2 1/2 years. It was 2 weeks after school pictures were taken, so we didn't even order them this year for her. She was glowing that day and so excited. The first few days, she was a little self conscious about it. She thought she looked weird and it definitely felt weird to her. I think she was also a little embarrassed by all of the comments she was getting from her friends about how amazing she looks. She got used to having them off though and is really good about wearing her retainers every night.

Before

After

First Day of School and Most of the First Half of the School Year

I know this is a little delayed, but the kids all started school again in August. I lost some of the pictures in the process of transferring them from my phone to the computer, but here are the ones that I have. Alyssa started 8th grade at Willowcreek Middle School. Here she is with her best friends Olivia, Josie, and Sara. She is having a good year so far. Sara, the one on the right, is in the hospital right now and has been since Thanksgiving day. She has a staff infection and Sepsis and pneumonia. She is finally seeing some improvement these past couple of days, but she had to have a tube inserted to help with breathing the first few days and has been in and out of ICU twice since being admitted. It has been a rough week for Alyssa seeing her friend go through such an ordeal.

Ashley is in 6th grade this year at American Heritage. She doesn't enjoy school as much as the others. She says 6th grade is hard and she doesn't understand or care much about some of the stuff being taught, especially the ancient Greek gods stuff they have been studying since the start of school. She will be happy when they finish the Greek history book they have been studying in literature and move on to a new topic. She got elected to student government this year which she has been really excited about. She also loves her friend group and enjoys recess and lunch time with them.

She got a manicure shortly before school started and the lady painted a flower on 2 of her nails without asking permission(or maybe she did and Ashley didn't understand her thick accent). Anyways, we were worried that the school would make her remove the polish with the flower designs, so we took a picture of it before she went inside for her first day. She spent the first week of school hiding the flowers from her teachers, but no one ever said anything about it. She was happy to leave the polish on as long as it lasted.
I don't have a picture of Tyler, but he is in first grade at American Heritage this year. He loves his teacher and he loves learning. He is doing really well this year, despite having a bit of a slow start with kindergarten. He is reading really well, and he especially loves science.

Camden is in preschool this year. He loves learning and is so smart. Before starting school, he already knew all of his letters and their sounds. He can count to 100, and maybe higher. He can also do some simple math, like adding numbers that are less than 10 and adding doubles(like 4+4 or 7+7). I catch him singing songs that he learns at preschool and primary all of the time.

 This is a picture of him with his best friend, Cameron. They have fun together (and yes, Camden sported a mo hawk for the first few weeks of school, thanks to Danny giving him a haircut with out me being present. He finally let me shave it off after a few weeks of it).