Moving

We did it! We made the long drive with little snow and one long, lonely stretch of highway. We drove down the Extraterrestrial Highway, but saw no aliens. Too bad!
Alli and Mary did run into a little trouble in Wikieup...

Sleepover

Over the Thanskgiving break, Alli and Mary had a giant sleepover with their cousins at Grandma Jan's house. They stayed up too late, of course, but had a great time!

Hazel turns 1!

Hazel had a big birthday not long ago. I can't believe that it was just a year ago that I was hurrying out of WalMart, hoping that no one else could tell that my water broke...awesome. We are really glad that Hazel is part of our family, she is so much fun! I can tell that Hazel already has a sense of humor. She loves to have her binky pulled out of her mouth. It cracks her up! She gives lots of kisses-the good wet open-mouth baby kisses that really probably only a mother could love. She also blows kisses and waves at everyone. If she hears someone on TV say
"see ya later", she will wave at that, too! Hazel is not walking yet (I'm told that is a third-baby thing), but can really move when she crawls. She does like to bounce to music, and does little donkey kicks for no other reason that I can think of than because it makes all of us laugh. Hazel loves being the center of attention.

Mary's Christmas Pageant

During Thanksgiving we found out that we were moving back up to Idaho-and quick! We had about two weeks to pack and get everything ready for Christmas. Mary was going to miss participating in her preschool's Christmas pageant so they had a rehearsal so that she could perform for me! It was really cute-my favorite is the "Chubby Snowman" poem!

Thanksgiving

We went to Idaho for Thanksgiving-we got a taste of cold weather and got to see my brother Brett fresh off his mission from Ukraine! Here are the girls having fun at Grandma Cindy's house.

We also went to Festival of Trees, which used to be a tradition for our family each year. Alli and Mary picked out the Star Wars tree as their favorite!

A trip to the fire station!

Mary got to go on another field trip, this time to the fire station!

Student of the Month

Alli was chosen as Student of the month, which was celebrated in an assembly today. As the name of each student was read, their name and picture come up on the big screen.

Alli walked up to get her certificate,
















and she now can eat free at a bunch of local restaurants!


Alli has really been looking forward to her assembly. As most of you know, last week Alli had a bad reaction to a virus and broke out in horrible red spots all over her body. Her biggest concern was making it to her assembly. She has recovered faster than I thought possible-the spots are supposed to take 2-6 weeks to disappear, but are fading faster than that. She was adamant that I not take her picture as a spotted lady, so you can tell how much better things are!

And, since we're talking about Alli, here's a funny Alli quip: we were waiting in the doctor's office while she was sick, and I called her Polka-Dot. I asked her if I could call her that from now on. Without missing a beat she replied, "sure, as long as I can call you 'Don't Call me Polka-Dot!'" I knew then that we had Alli back!

Catching Up-Pumpkin Patch

It still felt like summer, but we got ready for fall by visiting a pumpkin patch not too far from us. There were a lot of activities: corn mazes,
train rides, petting zoo, games, face painting, all kinds of fun things to do.
The girls all had fun playing in dried corn. Seriously, there were areas of corn to play in kind of like the balls at Chuck E Cheese. It was Alli and Mary's favorite part of the entire outing!

We also got to hold baby chickens-when they let us.













At the end we all agreed on a pumpkin to bring home.

Catching Up-Disneyland

As you know our camera wasn't working there for a while, so we had to use the backup old school camera. When I got the CD that I had made from the film I sent in, I discovered that our disk drive on our computer did not open up. My point is, it has taken way too long to get these pictures up, but I managed to get everything working the way it should again and so here is a little chunk of our lives that you all missed out on. I am sure you have all been suffering from the loss...

At the beginning of October we went to Disneyland. Jan came to visit and joined us on our trip. We were all looking forward to going and even made a chain of "disney facts" to help us count down the days.




Alli and Mary say hi to Goofy,







Alli and Mary at one of the parades. We were right up at the front and had fun having all the characters come up to us!
We had a great time-the weather was great, lines were short. Everything was decorated for Halloween and there were lots of characters to see.

Barnes and Noble

Today Alli had her first field trip of the school year to Barnes and Noble. Hazel and I met up with her class and had fun listening to Thanksgiving stories, making Thanksgiving crafts and of course, time for shopping (B&N aren't stupid). Alli had a good time and picked out a guinea pig that she named Lilly. What else would you get at Barnes and Noble?

Fun with D week

Mary's preschool class highlights a letter each week. This week was the letter "D" so they had fun excavating dinosaurs from plaster and making a "cereal-asaurus". Mary has had fun doing these things this week, but today when I picked her up from school, she was dressed like a dalmation. I thought it was so cute I had to take a picture.

Halloween

Ugh. No more candy. I am officially sick of Halloween, so I guess it's time to move on to Thanksgiving. Here are some highlights of our day...

Alli traded in her broom today for a different form of transportation. She had a fun party in her classroom which Quinn visited. Mary's preschool party was going on at the same time, so Hazel and I covered her party. Mary won the prize for "sweetest costume".






Halloween started to fizzle right around trick or treating time. Mary was done wearing braids, Quinn and Alli opted not to paint faces, and Hazel was so tired we didn't even bother dressing her up! We never did figure out wings for Arthur (who was supposed to be a flying monkey), so he became the cowardly lion. Keeping true to character, he wouldn't go up to a door that had a standing skeleton that glowed and made noises.
Alli and Mary had a lot of fun trick or treating. They got too much candy and now every few minutes they are asking if they can have more candy and are negotiating how many pieces they can have. Another successful Halloween!

It's a Love-Hate Thing

Hazel loves Arthur.Arthur does not care for Hazel.
He's never mean, he just gets up and leaves. Hazel just wants to get some fistfuls of fur and smack him on the head a few times. She has a hard time understanding why he insists on keeping a safe distance from her. You'll notice that it doesn't bother her one bit that his head is almost as big as her entire body!

We're baa-aack!

We now have a camera that works, thanks to Quinn. He couldn't wait until Christmas like we had agreed and surprised me with one today. I am very excited-especially since this was the first Halloween activity we went to tonight. Our ward had a party with a big chili cook-off, a mini carnival, and of course good old "trunk or treating". Alli and Mary thought it was great and couldn't get over all the candy. I was really happy that I could take pictures of everyone! It's kind of hard to tell in these pictures, but we are all characters from the Wizard of Oz. Quinn is the Tin Man (he wasn't wearing his hat), Alli is the Wicked Witch of the West,Mary is Dorothy, Hazel is Glinda the Good Witch ( I really wanted her to be a Munchkin but realized I had no idea how to put together a costume for a Munchkin), and I am the Scarecrow. Our actual Halloween pictures should be better!

Still Kicking

In case anyone has stumbled upon this blog and wondered if we are still around, I thought I would let you know that we are still alive and kicking. Our darn digital camera has decided it is done working and so we are doing things the old fashioned way. So check back in and we should hopefully be up and running soon!

Mary's first field trip!

Mary got to go on her first field trip last week to the Wildlife World Zoo. It is a fun place and Mary thought that it was great to be there with her class. To quote what she repeated the entire time we were at the zoo, "This is the funnest day I've ever seen!" So I think she enjoyed herself! Of course my camera was not working, so I had to take pictures using my cell phone. That means that the pictures are not high quality. The class picture is one the Miss Tracy, Mary's teacher, emailed the parents. Mary is the one on the far left.