Having a Boy!

Hey everyone, Thanksgiving photos are coming, we are just still in California, so I will post about it when we go home in case anything really exciting happens in the next two days that I just HAVE to post about.

I thought I'd share my typical "boy" moment. Scott found a caterpillar in the back yard and brought it in, he was letting it crawl on his arm. Here's how the conversation went, "Mom, look I found a caterpillar outside."

Me, "Oh, wow that's neat!"

Scott, "He wants to live inside with us."

Me, "Caterpillars can't live inside they have to live outside."

Scott, "Why? (I'm sure you are surprised by this question, Ryan)"

Me, "Because all their food is outside, they don't have anything to eat inside."

Scott, "No, he needs to live inside with us, because he is a nice caterpillar and I will share my food with him."

It was just a typical, what you think of when you will have a boy moment. You know, like they will always get dirty, like bug and sports and boy things like that. The ending to the story is that the caterpillar did go live back outside.

South Carolina

About a week ago we went to Myrtle Beach California with my parents and my younger sister Kaylee. We had alot of fun. We went to Sumtner which was where my mom lived when she was in Junior High and High School. It was neat to see where she grew up. I'd never been to that part of the country before.

We flew into North Carolina and went and visited the Duke University campus, it was really pretty with lots of trees and really cool looking older buildings. We visited a beautiful garden in the middle of campus.

Another fun thing we did was go to Ripley's Aquarium(Pics Above). We got to pet sting rays and touch these other weird crustacean things. I don't remember what it was called. But it was a really fun place, the kids loved it. Scott is giving the diver in the tank five in one of the pictures and Stacey is doing excactly what I've told them to do by putting her fingers in her mouth after petting the sting rays.

These pics were taken at Fort Moultrie. It is a fort that is at Charleston, which was a really cool town to see. It had tons of huge houses right on the bay which were huge (one was 24,000 sq. feet, puchased for 200,000 back on the 1700 or 1800's), because they were all owned by rich shipping merchants back in the day. We also ate at a yummy seafood restuarant and some yummy crab. Scott was the one who really wanted to go to the crab restaurant and have crab ( I think he learned to like crab when we went crabbing in Oregon). Needless to say Greg, who is a seafood hater, is not too thrilled for Scott's new found love of seafood, and didn't really enjoy the crab restaurant.

We also spent alot of time swimming at the hotel pools and the beach. I don't have any pics of these (I'd always forget my camera). We had alot of fun!

Halloween!

Ok, so here's my kids in there costumes! It's early in the morning and I'm feeling sick, so this probably won't have any interesting commentary, feel free to look at the pics and move on.

We went to a trunk or treat on the saturday night before Halloween, and then of course trick-or-treating on Halloween with a bunch of our friends.

Stacey was a fuzzy chick and looked hilariously cute when she ran in her costume, and Scott was a dragon. I am just glad to have kids so Halloween is fun again! Next year maybe I will get more into the spirit and dress up too!

Spooky Spokane

Okay, okay so Spokane wasn't really that spooky, I'm just trying to get into the Halloween spirit. Here are some things we really on our trip:

Is there a kid on the planet who doesn't like Chuck E. Cheese?

We drove down from Spokane to visit my Uncle Denny and his family. Denny and Rebecca took us to Chuck E. Cheese and Scott thought he was in heaven because Denny got 200 tokens! He just couldn't believe that eveytime he kept coming back to the table we would give him MORE tokens! Greg and my cousins, Tyler and Zac, figured out how to win like 100 tickets at a time from this one machine if they played it right. Scott ended up getting a pretty cool toy (relative to Chuck E. Cheese toys), when I was younger the biggest thing I could buy with my tickets was the parachute guys with a death wish (have you seen what their parachutes do?).

We had alot of fun seeing Denny and his family!

Park Fun

We all went to the duck park one day with half of the Daines and half of the Romneys. We had alot of fun, although the duck pond was somewhat stressful because you had to worry about your kids getting too close to the ledge. I swear I took more pictures of this activity but this was the only one I had!

Game Night

I know Ryan and Jessica had somthing really cute planned for this blog, but I just know I can't live up to their blogging expertise (I couldn't even figure out how to delete a picture, so I tried to make it really small so you wouldn't notice it. I really struggle with this blogging thing sometimes), so I'm just going to give you the highlights of game night.

1. The food - of course! I claimed that I was completely stuffed to the brim at dinner. But it's funny how yummy desserts are put in front of me and my stomach can grow 3 sizes (kindof like the grinch's heart that Christmas day).

2. The game where the punishment for losing is spelling you name in the air with your butt. Needless to say I tried VERY hard not to lose at this game. I'm not a shy person, but one of the LAST things I want is 8 people staring at my butt while I am attempting to shake it. Luckily I did not lose and we quit after Grant lost.

3. Grant writing his name in the air with his butt. He did it in Ryan's face, you had to be there!

4. Pirates' Dice (Otherwise known as liar's dice) - Why is pirates' dice so fun? You'll have to play for yourself to see why! (I like this cool pirates cups and dice with skull and crossbones, it makes me feel like a real pirate)

Thanks guys for the fun night!

We did alot of other fun things in Spokane like going to the Children's musuem and eating lots of yummy food that we didn't have to cook!

To the Daines and Romneys, thanks for letting us come!

We're Baaaack!!!

Sorry, about the long lapses in blogs, we have been out of town on and off lately. Here are a couple photos of our trip to San Antonio when we went to see Ryan and Jessica (who came to see us after their cruise), and the Sherrills (Matt, Janelle, Caroline & Talmage) who live in San Antonio.

This is the kids in the car. Stacey fell asleep so we took a picture of her (I couldn't figure out how to rotate it)and Scott wanted us to take a picture of him asleep. You can tell he is in a deep sleep . . .

Here are some pictures of the things we did in San Antonio. One of them is at the Alamo, and the other pictures are on a boat. The boat is in a river at a cool place in San Antonio called the River Walk. It's this man-made river with hotels and restaurant all around it. It's fun to let the kids walk around and see the ducks andride the little tour boat. We had lots of fun and no one fell in the water.

We also went to Spokane for a week after that, but Jessica taught me about blogging and she said that she only posts about once a day otherwise people won't read your other blogs, just your top one. So you will just have to sit on the edge of your seats until tomorrow or the next day until I post a blog about our Spokane trip. I know it will be hard, but I will try to make it worth the wait.

P.S. Can you rotate pictures in this blogging program?

Ode to BYU!!!

This picture was taken last year in Las Vegas at the Mountain West Tournament. I posted this picture to help you understand just how big of a fan of BYU my husband is (even though he only went there for a year and didn't graduate from there!)! The reason I posted this picture right now is that Greg is currently in New Mexico for the BYU game there. Two weeks ago we drove to Tulsa, OK for the BYU game there (which was really, really sad). So even though we don't live in Utah, he has been to 3 BYU games this season.

I'd just like you BYU graduates (especially that live in Utah) to really take a close look at yourselves, and ask "How many BYU games have I attended this year?" If it's less than three, don't you think you should really make some changes in your life, and really focus on supporting your school. You can call Greg if you need any moral support. It's just something to think about.

Also, since Greg was out of town we had TV dinners for dinner. The kids thought they were in heaven, mostly because there were star sprinkles to go on their pudding. They didn't even like the pudding, maybe I should start putting star sprinkles on other things (veggies) . . . Audrey, it's something to think about.

Lazy Me!

I just recently discoved a new lifestyle change that's really working for me, it's called wear a hat 3 days a week = only have to wash your hair 2 -3 times a week. Seriously though, since I am a mom, I HATE getting ready. By the time I shower, put my makeup on and blow dry my hair, my kids have:
1. Taken every cereal box out of the pantry and taken the inside bag out of the box and spilled cereal in almost every room in the house.
2. Put my makeup, lotions, deordorants, etc. in various rooms in the house.
3. Emptied all the clothes out of at least one drawer of my dresser.
4. Smeared one of my lip glosses into the carpet.

Okay, so this doesn't happen everytime, but my kids do at least one to two of these while I am getting ready! Props go out to you mom's that get ready everyday (and give me some tips)!

One other good thing that has come from the new hair washing/hat policy is that whenever I wear a hat Stacey wants to wear one too! Then I don't have to do her hair either!

P.S. What is a good way to get an 19 month old to sit still so you can do her hair?