Last visit to Crown Center

 This was to be our last visit to Crown Center for Christmas. It has been one of our Christmas traditions while in Kansas City. It's always so fun to go and play on all their larger than life cars, trucks and trains. We will miss visiting this place.

Nate's 11th Bday

My boy just turned 11!!! He is getting so big! This is his final year in elementary, yikes! He has made some good friends. I was able to eat lunch with him on his birthday and he was able to invite some friends to eat with us so I could meet them. It's a group of 4 of them, 2 boys and 2 girls and they seem to all get along really well together. He's at that age now were he'd rather be with them than have his mom there at school eating with him. But I don't care, I'm gonna go eat with him anyways cause I love him (even if it embarrasses him.)

Look at this boy-he's huge. I can wear his shoes!

Danny presented him with a nice pocket knife. It was his gift for earning the arrow of light but we're just slow like that. 

He was excited to get this 20 question game cube that he really wanted. 

He is a book nerd just like his mom. So he got a couple of books.

And of course what could be more perfect than combining legos and minecraft. 

Birthdays are  a family event around here. Everyone likes to be involved. 

I promise I really wasn't choking Nate, it just looks that way. I just wanted to give him a hug and he was pulling away from me. 

He spend most of his birthday evening doing lego's and minecraft origami. 

Nate with his cake. I know this doesn't look that great but it tasted great. He chose a cheesecake this year. I added some decorative cool whip to it to spruce it up but by the time I got some pictures it was all melted away. Oh, well. It was a delicious oreo cheesecake with a lego chima to top it off. 

I wonder if his wish came true. 

We're so glad to have Nate in our family. We expect a lot from that boy because we know we can do it. He's a very smart boy. He is growing up and gaining a testimony of the gospel. He gave a talk in primary on how families are strengthened when they work together and he wrote it all himself. Danny and I came in to hear him give it and I was so impressed with the talk that he gave. It was a beautiful talk. He loves to be a leader and I know kids look up to him especially at church. He's involved with a lot of church activities but also school activities. He's getting ready to participate in a lego robotics competition with SAGE, he's on the student council at his elementary and participates in other activities that they have. He started piano lessons with Melissa this year and is picking up on it rather quickly. He started working on primary songs and he frequently goes over and starts playing those songs all the time. He's growing into a great young man but he's still my boy because.even though he was pulling away from me for a hug, we can always count on at least 2 hugs from him before he goes to sleep each night. We're glad we have our Nathan.

Halloween 2014

 Halloween 2014 was a pretty cold one. It looks nice and sunny but it was cold. The kid were lucky enough to be off of school that day. So were able to get ready early and be ready to go the minute Danny got home from work. We do it the lazy way and go to Zona Rosa, an outdoor mall, to get our trick or treating done. We were done before 6pm so we ordered pizza on our way home, picked it up and spent the rest of the night watching movies. But even the short time we were out it was super duper cold so we were ready to be inside.

This was about the best shot of them all looking at the camera.

I told them to make silly faces and this what I got. Nathan and Josh's faces don't change. 

I thought this was so cute of them, I liked how Audrey is looking up at her brother. 

Nathan is dressed as some Gothic zombie thing. Don't ask-he chose the costume. For some of our other events I managed to get black eye makeup on him. That really added to his look. 

Josh is dressed as "Willie" from Duck Dynasty. Easiest costume ever!

Colton is dressed as our black ninja.

Audrey is dressed as the beautiful Cinderella. Her hair was darling in person but you can't see it from this shot. 

AUDREY'S PRESCHOOL HALLOWEEN PARTY

A few days before Halloween the preschool puts on a small festival for the kids. They have a great time with activities then all the parents line their cars up and the kids get to do a small trunk or treat. For this party she chose to go as a cheerleader. I really didn't care if she kept changing because she was choosing things from things that we already had. And I think she makes a darling cheerleader. 

Each of the kids got to choose a small pumpkin

She is getting ready to get some art done on her hand.

Making a jack o lantern craft. 

Her finished product

This is Audrey's class-the blue Dolphins. 

In line to trick or treat.

Trick or treating at Melissa's van. I think she may have grunted trick or treat but who knows with that girl.

Nate's Arrow of Light Ceremony

Nate worked really hard and earned his Arrow of Light award for Cub Scouts. He was able to have a joint ceremony with his friend Jacob Lewis. Prior to these two getting this award, we hadn't had a boy get it since maybe 2009. They had some great leaders helping them along the way. Without Sis Barnes help, our boys would not be earning what they do. She does a lot with these boys. We had their ceremony outside because we found a program that we like that involved fire. It was a really well done program. We had hot apple cider and pumpkin cinnamon rolls and arrows made of donuts. I made all the treats but not the drink. I wish I had taken a picture of the goodies.  We had a great turn out and alot of younger kids there so hopefully they'll remember this and want to follow in their footsteps. 

Nate with his friend Jacob before the ceremony began.

 Prior to the boys shooting their flaming arrow their dad's each shot a flaming arrow as well. It was really neat how they had the boys following their dad's lead. I wish I had got a picture of Danny doing his but he was too fast.

Nate is lighting his arrow.

Getting ready to shoot. They practised the Saturday before on their shooting skills. 

Pretty good accuracy, just missed the bulls eye. 

Of course parents have to come up front and receive recognition. And I hate being in front of people. 

Nate is pinning me with a pin (don't really even know what it was-I'm bad cause I don't pay enough attention)

Nathan his ceremonial arrow as his keepsake. And not too bad of a picture of all of us. 

Uuuggghhh.......

So, I am completely clueless in how to even title this post. The pictures will speak for themsleves. I want to call it Idiot, Wierdo, Creeper, Annoying,  you get the picture.

 The story goes like this: We have been selling a bunch of things to come up with some cash to eliminate some of our debt. Danny was selling a tree stand that he doesn't use so this guy comes to the house to buy it. Well, it's out in our shed and Danny tells him that they can walk it up but the guy is complaining that it's too far to carry it. So, he suggests he can drive his truck down and get it. The guy didn't want to do it but we told him that we drive back there all the time. (Seriously we do it all the time. In the winter well go do donuts back there for fun. Or sometimes well just drive back there and do a u turn)

 Anyways, they get it loaded up and the guy guns it to get out of there. Come to find out, he told his wife he'd be home early that night so he was in a rush to get home. Well, gunning it just got him stuck.  The minute Danny saw he was stuck he came in to get the keys to his truck to tow him out but while Danny was inside the creeper guns it some more and more and more. He's freaking out just digging himself further. Danny hooks him up but unfortunately gets stuck too. 

Well, this guy really starts freaking out and acting really weird and strange. I see that Danny is stuck and think nothing of it because in all our married life he has never once not gotten out of something. I had all the faith in the world that he could figure something out. But, alas, nothing he did worked. He tried a few times but he quit when he knew he couldn't get out and called a tow truck. Now this guy is seriously freaking out. He was so negative, a know it all type that was dead wrong in all his assertions. I spent 10 minutes outside with Danny and him while we waited on the tow truck and I couldn't stand the guy. I just got this yucky vibe from the guy. We honestly don't think he was even suppose to be buying the tree stand, or be in our neck of the woods. Cause he was supposed to be working in St Joe, a city an 1 hr north of us. He grated on my nerves the wrong way.

 So long story short, the tow truck came and got them out. But several times Danny had to get after him to let the tow truck do the work because he was tearing up our lawn more and more. We had big ruts in our lawn because of this idiot. So, we got the money from the guy and paid most of it to the tow truck guy since we convinced the dude to go back there, then Danny gave the dude some money to pay for a car wash, and then we used the rest on bags of dirt to fill in all the ruts. And in the end, I believe we LOST about $10 on that sale. And in the end we realized a few things, #1-not a good thing to drive on our lawn after a 3 days of solid rain and #2 don't give into peoples laziness-make them walk! But it's a story we'll always remember.

Can you tell how bad the "idiot" is tuck?

He is seriously stuck up to his hubcap on the drivers side.

Another shot of them being stuck. 

Josh Flag FootballNNRun

This year Josh chose to play flag football for his sport of choice. I think he really liked it. He was one of the littler guys out on the field. I enjoyed watching him play out on the field. I think he learned a few things about football so that's all the matters. So all of Sept and Oct you could find us at Happy Rock park on Mondays and Saturdays. I have a bunch of pictures of him here but I can't honestly tell you what he's doing exactly. So, just look for him with the #3 on the back. 

Josh looks prepped to run. 

He's running somewhere.

He's in a team huddle. 

He was on the sideline so I made him stop and get his picture

Running a play

Ready, set...

Running after the ball

Look how little he looks against the boy in front of him. (the one in the hat is a coach)

Josh and I are not good runners but we try.