Thanksgiving in Arizona

This year for Thanksgiving we traveled to Mesa, Arizona. My sister lives there and the rest of my family came too. We were all there together. It was great!! The weather was beautiful. It was in the 70's during the day and only got down into the high 40's at night. We were able to go to the park, take outdoor family photos, and we even ate Thanksgiving dinner outside!! We had a great time.

The family photo attempts didn't go too bad, but as you can see Brayden didn't want to smile and my nephews always had a silly face on.

We went to the park the day after Thanksgiving and rode down the hills on "summer slides". They were so fun!! We even got my mom and dad to do it. That was a sight. :)

This was Ellie's only ride, but she seemed to like it.

It took a little coaxing to get Brayden on it but once he tried it he didn't want off.

Laying on Pam's lawn on Thanksgiving night. Like I said the weather was gorgeous. These are all the cousins.

They could even jump on the tramp. It was nice to be able to send the kids outside when the adults needed a little peace and quiet.

Here Aunt Megan is showing the kids how to make some cute Thanksgiving turkeys for everyone.

Tyler eating all the oreos for the turkeys.

Ellie and her cousin Luke with the cute turkeys they made.

Getting ready for the big dinner.

Ellie and Grandpa

Here is my brother, 2 sisters, one bro-in-law and my parents eating the yummy dinner. Notice the pool in the background. It wasn't warm enough to get into, but Tyler jumped in for $10 from his uncle Ryan. He said it was freezing!!!

Grandpa and Ellie sitting on Luke

We went to the Mesa temple to see the lights. It definitely wasn't as cold as seeing the lights on Temple Square in SLC.

October Happenings

October brought the end of football season for Brayden. His team had a great season and went undefeated: 16-0. Way to go boys!! He had a great time playing tackle this year. His team won both tournaments they entered after the regular season. He had great coaches and teammates. He is #39 on the front row above and he is hiding in the middle of the pack below.

October of course bring Halloween and pumpkin carving!!

We grew 3 humongous pumpkins in our garden this year. They had to have weighed about 100 lbs. each. The kids and Bryce had fun carving them.
Tyler even tried a bit and said it wasn't too bad.

Halloween isn't my most favorite holiday because I am not too creative when it comes to costumes. But this year wasn't too bad and I only had to buy Tyler's costume. I even dressed up for school. All of the 5th grade teachers were "Alice in Wonderland". I got to be Alice. Sorry but there will be no picture however.

Ellie was Tigger!! She was afraid of this costume last year but was excited to wear it this year and I love how warm it was too. Brayden was a football player. Pretty easy to put together because we had everything from football season this year, except pads, but we borrowed some from a neighbor. Tyler had a hard time deciding what to be this year. He wanted to wear a carved pumpkin on his head but we talked him out of that. I found this pirate costume at Wal-mart for only $20 for everything. The good thing is Brayden can use this costume in a couple of years.

Isn't that cute?

" Down, Set, Hut"

Ellie had a fun Halloween party at preschool. I had to work that day so I couldn't go and take pictures or see the kids sing their Halloween songs. :(

Marathon Relay

Normally I don't blog about myself, usually just the kids. But this time I am going to do a little bragging. On Sept. 11, I ran in a marathon relay in South Jordan. I never would have thought I would do a race with the word "marathon" in it. Regardless, I didn't run the whole 26.2 miles myself, but I ran 1/5 of it or 5.2 miles. I don't love to run but try to do it to stay in shape.

A few months ago a neighbor of mine wanted to get some teams together for this marathon relay. She put me in charge of one team, and I got our team members registered. Then came the training. I tried to run about 3-4 days a week, sometimes it was less, but overall I was pretty prepared. Amanda, one of my teammates and I started running together in the mornings. We would normally do the circle around Remuda which is about 2.5 miles. Occasionally we went a bit further.

I was nervous the day of the race but excited too. My goal was to finish in under an hour. I made it in about 54 minutes, not the fastest on the team but I didn't care. I had made a goal, prepared for it, and accomplished it!!

This is our team: "Relay Running Moms of Farr West"

Johanna, Kristen, Amanda, me and Jenny

I am almost there

Yea!! I made it.

This is the majority of our two teams

Appleseed Academy

Ellie had her first day of preschool on Tuesday. She is going to Appleseed Academy which is in the neighborhood. She was so excited!! The first thing she said when she got up was that she was going to preschool today. I wasn't able to take her because I worked but I got to take her on her second day of school. It was really nice to drop her off and then go run errands. I was able to go to Winco and Smiths and unload my car full of groceries before I had to pick her up.

She is definitely growing up and I love how excited she is about school. Hopefully her attitude stays!!

1st day of school

Summer is over and the kids are back to school. They were excited to head to school for their first day yesterday. Ellie wanted to pretend that she was headed to school too, but she gets to start Preschool after Labor Day.

Tyler is in 6th grade this year. I can't believe it! Time flies!! I am not too excited for Jr. High next year.

Brayden is in 3rd grade this year. He loves school and is excited about his teacher. At first he had heard that she was mean, but after back to school night and the first day he says she is nice.

1st Football Game

Brayden had his first football game of the season on Saturday in Logan. He was so excited and has been loving football so far. He has a great coach and a fun team. They did a great job on Saturday and ended up winning 14-0. Brayden usually plays safety on defense and the tight end on offense. I don't really know a ton about football, but he basically has to block on offense and on defense gets to go after the guy with the ball. I am hoping he will get to run the ball more because he is really fast!! It has been fun watching him and it is a change from our regular sport- baseball.

His brother Tyler got to be the water boy and take the kids water during time outs. He thought that was pretty cool!!

Swimming Lessons

The kids took swimming lessons the first 2 weeks of August at the Peak in Brigham. This is where the boys have went the past several years and this year was Ellie's first year. She was a bit shy and some days didn't want to get in at all. Bryce had to take her a couple of times and wasn't very patient with her. The first day she cried the whole time and didn't get in the pool at all so he ended up getting in with her the next day.

She never got her whole face/hair in the water but we did end up getting her to go down the slide a couple of times and blow bubbles in the water. She gets her water shyness from me.

Isn't she cute in her suit?
Ellie riding the horsey

Kicking on the side of the pool. She didn't like this much because she got splashed.

This was when I was coaxing her to get into the pool. I think she would have rather stayed on the step and watched.

Brayden doing his front crawl. He did great this year and is moving on to the next level next summer.

Tyler doing the butterfly. He is an awesome swimmer and wants to join a swim team. He definitely doesn't get his great swimming from me.