Utah trip 2014 part 1

I figured it was time that I added some of the many pictures that I have of our fun times in  Utah. There is  a lot of pictures and most are really cute ones. I decided that I'd just post a bunch of them. There are like 100 of our camping trip alone. So, I'll start with our Browne Lake days.

  To begin with, I got a shot of each of the grandkids at some point in time up there. They are just candid cute shots of each of them.

Nathan 

Josh

Colton

Sophie

Audrey

Wiatt

Ruby

Gracee

Bridger

Brooks

Hudson

Pop, Aaron and Jason cooking up some grub for all of us. 

Some of us enjoying the good grub. We for sure ate way good the whole time. Everyone made some delicious meals! We all end up waddling away from the table each meal. 

I loved this cute shot of Ruby getting ready to go for a ride on the 4wheeler. Man, that 4wheeler saw some miles this trip. All the kids LOVED taking a ride on it. We need a few more grandma and grandpa. (one for each family)

 Audrey petting Missy. She loved having Missy and Maggie around to pet and play with. What she wouldn't give for a dog. 

Keeping the kids caged with a movie in the car while others of us shoot guns.

This is "Danny's Range" He found it a day earlier and got it set up for us to come out and shoot. I think majority of the group actually shot a few times.

A picture of me shooting. It proves that I was actually on this trip.

Danny showing off his skills.

My three guys with their own bb gun and their own range. They look all hot and sweaty. I think this would look awesome enlarged in black and white or even sepia. 

The range master giving grandma some tips to shoot a rifle.

What is camping without the kids hanging out with their cousins. 

Audrey was such a grandma's girl up there. And not just up there up the whole Utah trip. She even abandoned me for grandma, which is crazy because of how attached she is to me. 

Yes we took a walk down this run-off dam while the family fished. The lake was really low and well, the fishing kind of poor. 

Second picture as proof that I was there. We were standing where there should be water, the middle of a river.

The sunset and scenery was so beautiful at this time of day, and I wanted a beautiful girl in the shot too. 

I really liked this wooden fence for a picture. Some of us walked back to camp from the lake so we stopped for a picture.

This is at our camp site. This was the kids very own range for their bb gun and my air soft pistol. Tilisa is helping Mr Wiatt with a gun. All the kids enjoyed shooting. 

Ahh, grandpa is surrounded by a group of grandkids, always. 

Can anyone argue that these two are spitting images of each other?

Audrey all over grandpa. Nate playing cards with grandma. Pretty much a typical camping trip for our family.

These are our family camping shirts. So easy and fun to make. We all chose an animal. Dan-donkey, Jen-owl, Nate-dragon, Josh-two bear claws, Colton-wolf howling at the moon and Audry has butterflies.

We surprised grandma and grandpa with one. Grandpa got fish and grandma got a cat. (Sorry your eyes are closed mom)

Grandma bought all the kids a water gun and they loved it. And it worked out perfectly since we had a stream right in our campground. 

All the kids got into it, even the little ones. The big kids were enjoying spraying each other. 

Eventually things turned south for grandma. And she began getting attacked. Colton literally chased her all over the campground trying to spray her. It was hilarious. He even lost a sandal at some point during the chase but left it because he was determined to get her. And let me tell you, where he lost it was full of old pine needles and poky sticks, it had to hurt but he was full of adrenaline. 

And the water fight continues on. Uncle Aaron is  hiding out in the outhouse. He knows the kids were out there waiting for him. Honestly they were being quiet and waiting him out. He'd slyly open the door and they'd wait for him to emerge. After several attempts at sneakily opening the door, he finally burst out, leaving the kids standing there. But they soon pursued him. 

Daddy leading his boys to a good fishing spot

Ahh, look at that beautiful smile. Such a happy girl. This shot made me think of how big she is getting, babyhood long gone, and now toddler years have disappeared, leaving me with a little girl now. 

Dirt, dirt and more dirt. Camping was not complete without kids covered in dirt.

The girls table doing their craft. Grandma bought the girls some beads and string to make necklaces and bracelets. The girls really enjoyed it. Thanks grandma. 

Two things to take notice of here. First she is showing off her jewelery and secondly, look at those hands. That was everyday, all day long occurrence. 

The boys craft table. Excavating for dinosaurs

Colton is showing off his dinosaur. Pretty cool. And each boy got one. 

Josh cocking his bbgun. And Danny helping Grandma with the air soft pistol. 

Aaron helping Ruby shoot the bb gun. Little Ruby became instant buddies with Uncle Danny because he helped her shoot the bb gun many times and took her on the 4wheeler. She really enjoyed the shooting. What can we say, we start them young.

2014 School is here!

It's that time of year again. School is here. Summer went fast and furious. I'm sad to say goodbye to my sleeping in mornings and homework free nights. But it is time to get back to a better schedule and routine. And I think a few of them were ready to get back. 

Here are the boys holding up their respective grades. Nate is in 5th, Colton is in 1st and Josh is in 3rd. 

 This is my big 5th grader. This will be Nate's last year in middle school. I can hardly believe that he's starting his last year in elementary. Makes me kind of sad. His new teacher is Mrs Cox. Oh, and he's also going to be on student council this year. 

Mr. Josh is now a 3rd grader. Half way thru his elementary years. He is doing really good at school. He is a very consistent student. He got Mrs. Protenick, she was so enthusiastic at meet the teacher night. She was so ready to be done with summer and wanted to start school that day if she could have. She's had so much energy and just keep saying how bored she was and missed being with the kids. She thought Josh was so adorable. He should have a really good year. 

My little Colton is starting 1st grade. I look forward to seeing all the progress he will make this year because he came tenfold in kindergarten. I have no doubt that this will be an amazing year for him. He got Mrs. Bent. and this will be here 2nd year teaching. It's funny how easy her name is but Colton has had the darnedest time remembering it. 

Soon to come will be pictures of little Miss A starting preschool. Ugh, that will be a day of tears for me. We are already planning on Danny taking the day off to be there to comfort me. So not ready for this!

Nate's new do

 BEFORE:

  

AFTER:

 

I had to add this pile of hair to show how much we had cut off. it was a lot of hair. He has really thick hair.

 So, I think he looks very handsome with his new cut. Looked like a totally different kid. He was rather upset with me cause he thinks I cut it too short. Too him it was shorter than we had agreed upon- it wasn't. He only agreed to cut it because Grandma was willing to pay him. She started out with $10 for the cut. That was a no go. Then she bumped it up to $15 and that was enough to make him consider it. That being said it took him like a week to decide to make the commitment. He got it cut and immediately said he was growing it out again. That's fine with us. But he only has until he turns 12. He knows that when he gets the priesthood he has to have a short cut again. Not really sure why he likes it long but it's his way of controlling something. For now, it's not that big of a battle that we want to fight.

Our Cubscouts

This was taken a few months back. Here are my two cub scouts. This is Josh's first night for his den meeting. He has now earned his bobcat and is working on his wolf requirements. Nate is a Webelo. He has a ton of belt loops, more than any boy in his pack. You can't really see how many but there are a lot. People have commented that they enjoy seeing him in his uniform because he's so decked out. He only has one thins left to do, I think Art requirement and he'll have earned his Arrow of Light. He has worked really hard and we're really proud of him.

 Josh may look bare for now but we'll get him all decked out too. He'll earn just as much as Nate. Seeing them both in their uniforms made me a proud mom. I think they look really awesome! Very proud of both of them!

Side note, I kind of think Josh ends up looking like Leave it to Beaver in his uniform. And I forgot how long Nate's hair was before we cut it!

Josh's baptism

Our Josh was baptized this year. Wahoo! It was on April 19, 2014. It was a really good meeting. He had a lot of friends and family there to support him. Grandma and Grandpa Howell were there. Grandpa Fritz and Mari came out as well to be there. Jason, Tilisa, Sofie, Wiatt and Gracee also traveled all this way to support him. 

He chose to have Grandpa Howell and his mom to give the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost. I felt like my talk was all over the place. For his songs he chose, The Golden Plates and Book of Mormon Stories. Both songs were very short. He's not a singer. In fact a few Sunday's ago they were having a small group of kids sing, Love is spoken here, in sacrament meeting. Nate surprisingly was one to volunteer. Well, they had plenty of girls but were needing some more boys to sing. I happened to ask Josh if he'd go be apart of the group. He didn't even stop what he was doing when he just simply said, "Mommy, I'm just not a singer!" It cracked me up. His interest is definitely not singing!

After his baptism the family came back to the house and had a luncheon of pulled pork and salads and the yummy pudding dessert. Some of us had naps afterwards then headed to Jesse James Park in Kearney. It was a really nice day. I hope he's able to always remember the special feelings he had on his baptism day!

Josh and Daddy prior to him being baptised. Danny was the one to baptise and confirm him a member of the church. Josh is a spitting image of his father and has so many of his same personality traits. It's rather scary!

Do not like this picture of me at all. But this is one of the few pictures we got of the three of us. We are very proud of Josh's decision to be baptized.

And well, this is after the whole program. This kind of speaks for itself. Audrey wanted her Grandpa Howell to keep holding her. She was being the biggest stinker and kept refusing to get in our family picture. She can be so stubborn!!

This was the cute little table display we had for his programs and treats. There were also a bunch of big pictures of him inside the Relief Society room on display during the program. For dessert we  stuck 2 white powder donuts on a stick for it to create an 8. And printed out a sticker on them saying something like: It's great to be 8. (I kind of forgot what I put on them.)

I am so glad the he is finally baptized. Prior to both, Nate and Josh being baptized their 7th year of life is so miserable on all of us. They are so argumentative, emotional, irrational, angry, mean, etc during this stage of life.Honestly, their not really likable at this age. I totally maintain that Satan is at their heels pressuring them with bad decisions so that they will not be baptized.He knows that being baptized will bring true happiness and means that they are one step closer to their Heavenly Father. He knows their potential to do so much good and he wants to stop them. This is just my personal opinion. But for us after they've been baptized they seem to mellow out and become likable again. They start making better decisions because they now possess the Holy Ghost. So, it was awesome to have him baptized and confirmed. Josh is a great boy! He's got so much good inside of him. One of his great strengths is that he's a protector. He gets worried and tries to protect all his siblings if he senses there is danger. I actually trust Josh above Nate to watch Audrey at public places. When we're at parks, I've had Josh watch Audrey and he is very vigilant and follows her everywhere. He forgets about entertaining himself he puts her needs first. While on the other hand, Nate will end up forgetting that he was even in charge of her. And it's amazing how much Josh has blossomed since his baptism. His prayers have really became heartfelt and his understanding of the scriptures have also become better. We are so proud of our Josh!

Colton is 6

 Our little buddy just turned six!  He just finished up kindergarten. He learned so much and came a really long way. He really did make great progress, we are really proud of him. He is doing summer school to help supplement his reading. He is reading basic beginner books and I"m so proud of him. He loves the Dick and Jane books right now. He's gained a lot of confidence reading those. His talking has progressed and improved over the year. We all can understand most of everything he says.  He is really good at math-it comes really easy to him. I'm so proud of all the hard work he did this year. He's also growing taller and that has lead to him thinning out. He has thinned out significantly because I am constantly having to tighten up his jeans. It's kind of funny cause he's constantly pulling pants up.

He's excited to get his very own letherman.

He just can't help himself in cleaning his own wrapping paper. Our rule is that everyone else but the bday kid picks up the trash but Colton doesn't like chaos.

Checking out his new set of neo tracks. He enjoyed playing with those.

Him and his cake. He's always making silly faces-all the time. Not my best cake but it tasted really good.

Yes, the candle is a #3 but I also added another 3 individual candles to make it add up to 6. At the time I couldn't locate my new package of candles but of course I found them a week later.

We had a birthday party with friends a week before his birthday. He had never had a party and I at promised him one. I had initially wanted to do a bunch of water type of games but our weather did not cooperate.It was mid May and the weather was rainy and cool not very typical.  We had pizza and bread sticks when everyone arrived. And afterwards we had a few activities.

 

They made tinfoil swords. They used lots of tinfoil but had a blast with their swords. It was a fun and inexpensive activity. 

 Then I sent them outside with their swords to rescue some army solders that were buried in the sand. However, it wasn't that easy to find them. I had sprinkled them on the sand and had Audrey and Colton cover them with sand but.....that's not what they did. They buried them rather good and deep. It was kind of funny next time I suppose I should stay and observe what they do.

 Our last activity was doing some building with marshmallows and toothpicks. They were able to create and make whatever they wanted to. It was an ok activity but maybe not the best for this age group. They ate more marshmallows than build with them.

And of course we opened presents and had some ice cream cones. They all had a pretty good time. Colton had a really fun time. I was so relieved it was over, cause it's not my favorite thing to host parties. I'd rather not to birthday parties but I do them for my children's sake.

Colton is such a good little boy. He does what he's asked to without complaining, well, about 95% of the time. He is such a big help around the house. He does enjoy order and cleanliness. He likes to play jokes and be silly with everyone. He is my momma's boy. He loves to sit on me and hold my hand and rub my thumb nail. We can't imagine not having this little guy. We love him so much. Not really sure what we did to get such an obedient little guy but we'll keep him.