Hannah's Playgroup

Hannah is a Butterfly for Halloween this year.


I guess she is wondering what to do with Gherig's Buzz Lightyear Gun.


Snack time...very important at playgroup. From top left: Hannah, Lexi, Gherig, Courtney, and Fay



Coloring their bat pictures.



This year is Hannah's turn to be in a playgroup. We are lucky enough to live in a ward with both older and younger families, so we get the wisdom of the empty-nesters, but our kids have a good number of friends. Every Wednesday Hannah gets to go to someone's house for 2 hours and hang out with kids her own age. Plus it gives me a chance to have one-on-one time with Jace.

Today was their Halloween Party. Andrea asked the kids to come dressed in their costumes, since most of them love to play dress up anyways. They built a haunted house out of blocks, had yummy treats, and colored 'bats'.

You'll notice that Hannah of course has the passey. I always let her take it, even though I know she'll be fine without it. Somedays a couple of the kids have a hard time leaving their mom's, and if they start to cry...so does Hannah. It's better to be safe than sorry I guess. But I doubt we'll get rid of it anytime soon, it makes for a much more peaceful sacrament meeting. (And I promised Aimee that I wouldn't take it away before our cruise in February...she may REALLY need it then.)

Thank you Andrea for hosting a fun party for the kiddos!

Discovery Gateway

What a great way to end our day....we just loved the Childrens' Museum at the Discovery Gateway. There was so much to see and do, again we could have spent the entire day, but they do need to close sometime. It really amazes me how creative some people are in activities that they think up for kids. This is definately a place we will be atttending again. After a fun day, with the Clayson's we went to dinner at the Lion House Pantry. Yummy...yummy! I think the kids ate so good because we had ran them ragged all day, and they were ready to recharge!


Sometimes we have to get after Brady for teasing...okay not sometimes....a lot of times...but he is also so good to help little kids and play along with them. We always tell him that he is a great leader! Here he is with Courtney playing with the ball contraption.


Rachel and Caleb waiting for more balls to arrive.


Hannah loved the little mini kitchen. So cute inside there!


Zack and Brady working with the crane.


Cute little Jace!


Jace and Jake climbing the rock wall. This was a favorite of Jace's.


Hannah loved the cowboy hat and any peddal cart she could get her hands on!


They had a dress up/stage area that you could put on a show for your parents. Here is Zack clownin' around.


This is the contraption that Nate built with Magformers. His hand is inside the 'trap door'...all 4 of us parents were sitting at the table playing with these magnetic/plastic toys. They were kind of addicting.


A life flight helicopter that was just outside on the roof. What a cool thing for the kids to play on and around with.

Clark Planetarium

Friday afternoon we headed up to Clark Planetarium for a show. It's a great learning place, and I remember going in high school for laser shows I believe to the music of U2 or Pink Floyd...which they still have. We saw the 3D show...Bugs...a little gross in some parts, but that's nature right? It was fun to watch the kids...watching the 3D show and reaching out to try and catch the flying object from the movie



Hannah...jumping on the moon!


Clockwise from top left...Jace, Courtney, Caleb, Zack and Brady...doing the moonwalk!

Thanksgiving Point

Friday morning we were able to go to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. Although my kids have been there a number of times, they never seem to get bored with it. Especially the interactive display that the museum changes every so often. The kids could spend hours there playing with the hands-on learning devices. We only spent about 1 1/2 hours there, because we were meeting up with our friends, the Claysons, to head up to SLC to enjoy more attractions there.


They loved the static electricy ball. "Mom, why don't we have one of these at home?"

Building a dinosaur together.

Digging for dinosaur bones. Always a highlight!

Hogle Zoo

In talking with a bunch of friends on what they did over Fall Break, it seemed that everyone went to the Zoo. But amazingly, we picked the perfect time and the perfect day to go. We had almost 3 hours there on Thursday, and still only saw about 50 people (even some we knew), and it was wonderful weather. It had been a few years since I had taken the kids there, in fact Jace and Hannah had never been. And Nate remembers his last time going was in elementary school. We may need to be better about getting up there and visiting. Also one great thing that we noticed (along with the nice weather and small crowds in the fall), is that most of the baby animals had been born during the summer, and were still just as darling as ever. We saw a baby, giraffe, elephant, tiger and many others. It was such a great experience, I'm sure I can talk Nate into it again ;-)


There was this huge elephant made of metal that would make loud noices when people would step around it....You'll notice that we got all the kids to sit on the elephant's trunk for a picture...except for Hannah...the next photo will explain why.


"Get me OUT OF HERE!" I love parental torture!


These next 2 pictures are traditions of mine I guess. I have a few photo's from growing up drinking out of the same lion's head and standing next to the gorilla's silhouette to see how tall I was.




Fun animals everywhere. This giraffe baby is the only baby picture that we got. But the Tiger put on a fantastic show while we stood in front of him. Hannah's mimmicking 'Roar' was too cute...to bad we don't have video of it.


Sara and the kids...seriously the weather was FANTASTIC!

Hannah waving goodbye, and finally agreeing to a shoulder ride from Nate. She actually walked about 95% of the time. So you can imagine the quite car ride home with her after walking nearly 2 miles on her own. She completely crashed!

The Living Planet Aquarium

Well Fall Break has come and gone, and WHEW....what a weekend we had. We were able to use our Salt Lake Connect passes for 2 days, which gave us a ton of stuff to do. I'll post each place individually since I havn't been that great at blogging lately.

The first day we went to the aquarium in Sandy. We hadn't ever been there, so the kids were way excited. Except for when I told Jace that we were going to go see fish, sharks, and everything under the sea...he said to me in a very concerned voice, "Mom I don't want to swim with the sharks." I don't blame him! I reassured him that it would be totally fine, and he would have a blast.

Here are some of our favorites that we saw:




Jace loved watching the turtles underwater.


All the kiddos!


Don't eat me Mr. Shark!


Nate and Hannah watching/petting the sting rays.


"Some day my prince will come!"


Zack is definately our dare devil when it comes to trying new things. He had no problem reaching in and petting the sting rays...the other's...not so much.


Hannah loved this little polka-dotted sting ray...it kept hiding up against the wall and then coming up against the glass suddenly. She giggled everytime, and would say, "Peek-a-boo" so we called it the Peek-a-boo sting ray.

Jace's Friend Party at Hee Haw Farms

I had to add in one picture of the kids actually wearing their cowboy hats.



The Birthday Boy!



Playin' in the Courtyard. Mini Pumpkins/Gourds were a hit.



They sometimes act like these animals.


Everyone got a horse ride.







When Jace and I started to talk about his birthday a few months ago, we came to the decision to have a Cowboy Party. My sisters, Aubree and Ashlee, have horses that they ride and take care of quite often. But instead of pulling the horses up to our house to take the kiddies for a ride, I decided to just hold the party down at Hee Haw's since that is where A and A board their horses, and then there wouldn't be much clean-up for me. Chalise was so kind in letting us hold the party there, it was great! I literally just showed up with kids, cupcakes and drinks. We could have stayed there for hours of course, but since we were trying to fit it in between General Conference Sessions, we only stayed 2 hours. The kids had a great time at the farm, but the highlight was to be able to go on a real horse by themselves. Thanks again Ashlee and Chalise for your generosity in making Jace's party a blast

Still Learning

Well I think this is the first post in October. YIKES! Where have I been...I'll tell you where, Hee Haw Farms. It seems like I am down there constantly helping Chalise with field trips, even though I love it, and my kids LOVE running around at the farm, it will be nice once it is over and I can get back on our regular schedule. Anyhow, I wanted to post something that happened tonight, just so that we can go back and laugh about it later. Last night I made a beef stroganauf for dinner. It calls for mushrooms, but since Nate and I are the only one's in our family that like mushrooms, I opted to saute them seperately and then we could add them to our own dinner. Well the sauce did have a few mushrooms in it, but I didn't think that my kids would notice. Of course they did and gagged as they scraped them to the side of their plate. Later, Zack had a couple of friends over while I was cleaning up the kitchen. One of his friends asked, what we had for dinner, and Zack said, 'A really bad dinner'. Instead of getting upset at Zack infront of his friends, I simply said, 'Zack, that wasn't very nice. I guess you can make your own dinner from now on.'

So tonight was payback....hehehehe...especially after Fast Sunday.....hehehehe.

I made BBQ spare ribs...which happened to cook in the crock pot ALL DAY...emitting their aroma to our growling tummies, baked potatoes and steamed carrots. (The carrots were highly anticipated, since they were what I pulled from our own garden just yesterday...my kids love to eat things that they've helped grow in the garden.)

As everyone started filling their plates, I kindly reminded Zack of our conversation the night before, and that he had to go and make his own dinner. We had a discussion about it...he came to tears, and it nearly broke my heart.

But my theory stands, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you." When I asked him what he was going to make he said, "I don't know 'cuz I'm not as good as a cook as you are." That was the closest thing to an apology that I could get out of him. I told him it was hard for me not to let him eat this good food, but someday when he is on his mission, he may have to eat strange food, and he will always need to be thankful for it.

Even while he was eating his bowl of Frosted Flakes, he started to chuckle about the whole thing. I told him that I love him, and I know he has forgiven me.