Our Thanksgiving Weekend Fun

I actually was waiting for Tyler to post this because he said he might actually write a post on our blog, however after a while I thought I better do it for him. Besides I needed to post about our Thanksgiving too. After a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner with our great friends here,and might I add it was a really great dinner. Our friends have an 11 year old daughter who took care of all the kids eating in the other room, and even entertained them when they were done eating. We sat and ate our whole dinner without any interuptions. Amazing isn't it! It was so nice, great food and great company.
Anyway after dinner Tyler went out hunting with his friend Spencer, and they both got a white tail buck. It was Spencer's first time hunting and Tyler's first hunt in a long time. Tyler was so excited!!! It was so much fun to see him so excited, I only wish I could have been there to see him in action!!



Then on Friday night we got a babysitter and went out a spent the night with Spencer and Jamie out on her Dad's property where he has his ranch. It was so beautiful and peaceful, rolling hills, beautiful green pastures, and bare trees with their leaves all gone. It was so nice. I actually was amazed at how relaxed I was leaving the kiddos for the first time with a babysitter over night. We were lucky again to have great friends and knew they were in good hands.
Then on Saturday we just enjoyed a day at home with our munchkins. We definately missed them and it was nice to just play and have fun. We made a gingerbread house, from scratch which I have not done before. The kiddos had lots of fun rolling out the dough and cutting out the shapes, and of course decorating, and as if we hadn't eatedn enough sweets we finished it off roasting marshmallows in the fireplace and making smores. It was a great holiday weekend!
Watching the jollyranchers melt to maek the windows

Relaxing after our hard work

Our finished masterpeace, it did have a fence but Jackson got to it.

6 Years Old!

Friday we celebrated Sydneys 6th birthday!! I can hardly believe how fast 6 years has flown by. I feel so blessed to have my Syd. She is such a sweetheart and has such an earnest desire to do what is right. She loves so much to be a helper. This morning was a perfect example. On Sunday mornings her job is to help the boys in the car and help them buckle. She is so good with her brothers and it really makes her feel important to have this responsibilty. When I got to the car Sydney had pulled out a book to read to Jack to keep him happy while he was in carseat. I told her how nice it was that she took such good care of her baby brother and told her I was so glad she was happy to help because I might need her help when our babies come. She responded, "ya mom when you have your babies I can feed one while you feed the other one."
Another time we were writing letters and she told me she didn't know what to write next. I told her she could tell them how excited she was for our babies to come. she said," I am excited for one baby to come." I asked "Do you not want two babies?" She said,"I just think it might be alot to handle." It made me smile I then explained that we can just work together and we can do it. She responded,"Well I just think it will be alot to handle while I am at school."

How lucky am I to have this girl!!! I just love her so much!!

It was so fun to see how excited Syd was for her birthday she woke up Friday morning so excited for her special day. She requested "pancake balls" (ebiskews) for breakfast. After eating breakfast Tyler then gave her some special things for her lunch at school. She danced around saying, " this is the specialest day ever!" It was so much fun to see her so happy. She of course asked for a Hannah Montana cake, which I spent all of Jack's nap making. When I asked what she would like to do for her birthday she told me she would like to decorate shirts with her friends. I told her she could invite 3 friends. So we picked up her friends after school and they had so much fun. They were definately creative with their shirts and had so much fun doing it. She of course love opening presents and especially loved getting packages in the mail from her grandmas and grandpas, Thanks for those, that made her day extra special!!

Going Private

I decided I am jumping on the bandwagon and making my blog private. I feel bad doing this because I have reconnected with so many great friends. But I have heard some scary things lately so I think it is time. So if you would like an invite please leave a comment with your email address so we can stay in touch.

Sugar and Spice and Everthing Nice!

We had our big ultrasound today and it looks like two baby girls!! We are all so excited. Even Layton said he's "likes" the two baby girls. In the ulstrasound they could only see one placenta so there is a possiblity they are identical. Now we just need to think of two girl names. Any ideas?

Halloween Fun!

Halloween was so much fun!! I love seeing the excitement in my kids about getting dressed up and getting all those treats. We started out our Halloween day with orange pancakes. Thanks to my cute sister in law McKel who shared the idea of putting food coloring in her pancake batter to make it more fun,it's an easy way to make breakfast part of the holiday fun. Later the boys and I went to Sydney's school to watch her Halloween parade. They love going to Syd's school and are so excited to see her in her classroom. It was fun to see her excited to see us there too! We then went and did some trick or treating on base and then went to our wards Halloween party and trunk or treating. We all had alot of fun and the weather was great, we didn't even need jackets on. Tyler took the kiddos around trick or treating and I handed out the candy at our car.When he got back he was telling me all the cute things our "jack"o'lantern was saying, so of course I had to take him around again to watch my cute little guy. At each stop he would repeat what the person giving the candy would say like "there you go", and he said "thank you" after treat give away and then wait for eye contact from them to wave and say "bye". He has really taken off with his talking and it is so cute and fun to watch. Layton I think was just thrilled to wear his batman costume and all day he sang a song "Im going trck or treating!" Sydney had fun walking around the trunk or treat with her friends and made several rounds through the cars.
Tyler and I just got a kick out of watching them in all their excitement. It was a great night!!!

Pumpkin Patch and Pumpkin carving

I love this picture. This is how Jackson has started posing for the camera lately. He puts both arms up and say "cheese".





On Saturday I took the kiddos to the little pumpkin patch in town. It is nothing spectacular by any means but they loved pushing around wheelbarrows and being pushed around in the wheelbarrows and pulled in the wagon, climbing on the haybales and climbing up over a small bridge there. They had lots of fun!
Then for FHE last night we carved pumpkins. Sydney especially loved to stick her hand inside and pull out a hand the handful of slimy seeds and tease her brothers with it. Layton wanted nothing to do with the slimy stuff,and Jackson would stick his hand in and poke at it with his finger but that is as close as it got. It was fun to see all their different reactions. But they all loved telling Dad what kind of eyes, nose, and mouth to carve and watch their pumpkin turn into a Jack'o'lantern. I just love Halloween!! I think there are just so many fun traditions that go on this time of year, and Halloween seems to just kick it all off!!

Flooded!!

Unfortunately this past week has been CRAZY!! WE woke up a week ago Thurdsay at 5 am with water running out from under our kitchen cabinet. The water covered our kitchen floor and half of the dining room floor,as well as soaked the carpet in the hallway and living room and part of the family room. Tyler grabbed our wet vac and started sucking up water and I ran to the store to rent a rug doctor to help. Tyler worked for a full hour and a half, then got ready to go to work. I used the rug doctor and sucked up water for the next 4-5 hours. Ty came home from work at lunch to help out and worked for a while longer until we couldn't get anything more up then we pulled up the carpet to get air under it hoping it would dry. Well it didn't. And our beautiful wood floor in our kitchen and dining room was destroyed. We realized this was too much for us and we would make a claim with our insurance co. and called the professional disaster clean up guys. By Friday evening our home was almost covered with 26 big industrial strenth fans and 4 dehumidifiers, blowing out 120 degree air. We realized there was no way the kiddos could sleep in the house. We then went and got a hotel, hoping it would only be for a couple of days. By Sunday we were still in a hotel and Tyler unfortunately had an air force optometry conference he was leaving for that afternoon and would not be back until Wednesday evening. Needless to say I was not thrilled to be dealing with this on my own, and all the hormones running through my system right now definatley did not help. On Monday morning I checked out of our hotel because they informed us when we checked in the had no rooms available on Monday or Tuesday. I hoped we would be able to stay in our home that night. However when they checked the moisture levels in the home they felt they would need to keep the equipment in the home for 3-5 more days!! I was devastated. Monday night after searching all over town we could not find vacancy in any hotel. By 7:30 after driving around for a while I realized we would just have to stay in our house. We pulled up to our house and I gathered all the kids in my bedroom since it was the only room with the door still on (they had to remove all the other doors to put fans and other equipment. So I though we could keep the door closed and try and keep the temperature a little lower since the thermometers in the rest of the house were reading 95 degrees. I opened the door that goes outside in my bedroom help cool it down for a while. By this time I was crying of course and Syd and Layton asked me what was wrong. I explained to them that it was hard with our dad, and I was worried about finding a place for us to sleep that night,and I was even more worried that all my worrying might not be good for the babies in my belly. Sydney looked at me with a smile and gigling said "That's a silly thing to worry about!" I love my kiddos!! That was exactly what I needed to hear and we all started to laugh! It helped me get a grip and realize how blessed we were. Tuesday we woke up after not greatest night of sleep,and did our best to get find breakfast in our torn up kitchen and make Sydney's lunch o take to school. Amazingly she made it to school on time. I had a Dr. appt that moring and was relieved to find everything okay,and surprised that my blood pressure had not sky rocketed under the stress. The doctor gave me an ultrasound and said we might be able to tell what the babies are. But I asked him not to tell me so I could wait and find out with Tyler. Tuesday night my wonderful, fabulous,lifeavor friend let us sleep in their house. It was so nice!!!! We all got great rest and enjoyed some deilcious muffins her hubby made for breakfast. Wednesday Tyler got home and they removed most of the equpiment from our home because it had dries faster than expected!! As the drama settled down I realized how blessed we really are. We have great friends who fed us great lunches and dinners and allowed us to come hang out in their homes while we were homeless. Thank you all so much!!

This last picture is that cause of all our drama. One of the canisters attached to our reverse osmosis water filter obviously got a huge crack in it. Water was continuously flowing out of it. The previous owner bought an extended 10 year warranty on the filter but when we asked about it they told us this was not covered under the warranty. Oh well!!!