So I was trying to think of where to take my kids on a little trip. We had talked about going to Four Corners on our last trip. The kids were really intrigued with the idea of being in 4 states at once. So I decided to take them there and on the way go meet a new friend I have. I also want to take them to a couple of National Parks.
Notice the MP3 player on Eden. My kids are way more into their players than I thought they'd be. All of them.
It was a really kid friendly place. You can see that by looking closely at this picture below.
I also met my friend today and her husband. I got a photo of them, but I don't know if they'd be ok with me posting it as she's a private blogger and he's shy with cameras. This is the first time I've met her in person and she was even better in the flesh than online. Super cute little boys too. She's awesome and I have been grateful to her for our friendship. We have both been through similar baby heartbreaks this year and she's helped me with that and I've tried to help her as well. If she comments here and gives me permission to post her photo, I will totally do it. 
This too. It's tradition when I go on trips without Steve to send him pictures of myself. He loves it. This one is mild, so don't get all excited.
ith 4 rowdy kids all week while they are out of school on vacation. We will have fun, but we will NOT be breaking the family rule. (Our "family rule" as we call it is: We are not allowed to have too much fun when we aren't all together.) We'll keep it at bay honey. Thanks for working hard to support our family. You have always done a fantastic job of providing for us. And your voice message I got on my cell phone while my service was down tonight, made my heart melt. I will listen to it again and again and try not to cry when I do. Thank you.
They did each get $25 Amazon gift cards from G&G Waite and $15 cash each from G&G Bishop plus a candy bar. We used the Amazon gift cards to fill up their players with music as well as the online library to put books on them. The Church website had Primary songs too to download for free - so they are all set and have been walking around the house like their mom listening to something or other on their players all day. 
And here are all of your lovely Christmas cards you sent us on proud display. Thanks a lot everyone! Don't read into their placement on our pantry doors, we just put them up in any old spot as we received them. 
You bet we did!!!!!
Oh mommy is was tasty!
It made me want to make Steve play the piano more and get back to where he used to be.
Playing in the white stuff:
Micah's bday celebration:
New Sunday dresses and seeing Anna lead her ward choir:
Then dinner with all the Bishops with no images :( But good times.
Yeah, she changed into a dress and put a crown on . Case closed.
I've never read the book, but I figure she'd have to learn something from it. She agreed to read the book but said she wants to finish reading "Jane Eyre" and the 7th "Harry Potter" book for like the 4th time before she reads Dr. Laura. I hope she gets done quickly! 
Chris Stewart is a genius! I'm reading the 6th and final book in the series "The Great and Terrible" and he already had me in tears at page 30-something. The first book was ok. The second book in the series was better. The third book and on rocked! He's an LDS author and the series follows a group of people from the premortal life and up to the 2nd coming of Christ.
At Thanksgiving they had the tables decorated with some of these really cute pumpkins. We were sent home with one. The kids wanted to make a pumpkin pie with it so we did. I love making pumpkin pies from scratch, but it is time consuming and a lot of work, so I hardly ever do it. This time I decided to teach the kids how to do it. It was pretty fun!
The kids scraping out his guts.
One of the finished products. This pumpkin gave us enough glop for 4 pies. But I just made two and saved the rest to make some pumpkin cookies and pumpkin cheesecake. Oh mommy it's gonna be good!
Not just used, but used with tons of reps and trying to keep up a rhythm to the music, benching, curling, shoulder press, you name it. It's nuts. And I'm getting stronger. I love it. I've also ran half marathon distances again recently and that's gone well. To top it all off, I've been dieting for almost 3 weeks now and I've nearly gotten all my vacation weight off. That is like record time for me!
Along the same lines, I have to put these images up. Each morning I drive my kids to school. The school is only 3/4 mile away and in our subdivision, but I still drive them now. I don't want them to freeze their little tooshies off walking. Anyhow, I LOOOOOVE the view we get every morning of the sunrise. Check it out.
That's the lake there too. This image below was taken at the same time, but of the view a little further North. The mountains just stretch all around us. Gorgeous. The school is the buildings you see right in front.
And here is Becca with Santa Claus. Our three oldest children already know the truth about Saint Nick, but Becca is still a believer. So she was the only one patient enough to wait in line to sit on his lap.
This is Eden with her little singing group the "Rising Stars". Anna is their director and she is AAAAMAZING! You should have seen their performances, I was super impressed. Eden is on the front row on the far left. Blythe is 2nd to the right on the front row. Micah is in the middle in the back. (cousins)
We have had a couple of fun Family Fun Days. Here's a couple of shots at the museum a couple of weeks ago at the hats in history station.
And for the remainder of my post I will tell you about the doctors visits we had the last couple of days. If you have a weak stomach, I recommend you sign off at this point.
That's her mattress pad that she apparently had not only ripped apart, but shoved up her nose long ago and it began to ferment. Then he found clumps of something else. I couldn't tell you cuz I don't know. Finally when he thought he was all done, he took one final look then pulled out a folded piece of either paper, a band aid or something like that that was fairly large too. I was freaking out! So she is all better now and she doesn't stink at all. We are so relieved that is over and I feel bad it took that long before I took her in to see what was wrong!
Which isn't incredibly handsome, but not as bad as this:
I took this one this morning after he got up. It's pretty blurry, but be grateful, it is worse in focus. 
Benjamin's grave looked nice with the Fall leaves all around it.
After that we said hello to Robyn and the Hodges. (Our kids love their kids!)
Here are Celeste, Connor, Sammie and Eden getting ready for the big family photo.
And here's that big family photo. Told you there were lots of us there.
Day #8 we had a Swenson Family temple trip to do a lot of family names. I did initiatories and enjoyed that a lot. The Hodges were sweet enough to watch our kids for us and Steve ended up having to do a service call for work.
We had such a great time. I'm posting both pictures because some of these ladies wanted to rip them off my blog and I wasn't sure which one they would like better. That bright light through the windows kind of washed some of them out; darn.
And this is me with my dear friend Megan and her baby.
Then we drove home. Steve drove almost the entire way giving me a break from all that driving I had to do earlier.And that's all folks for the vacation posts!
This is my kids minutes after my order to not to get in the water in their Sunday clothes.
We left pretty quickly after I realized, they weren't going to be able to stay out of the water.
But I got some photos real quick first.
We spent the rest of that day hanging out with family at my parents house.