Halloween 2008

This is making me laugh...posting Halloween pics at Christmas. I swear I will stay on top of this someday! I wish someone would tell me when life will slow down so I can plan for it!

This Halloween Dax wanted to be a Ninja, but not just any Ninja, a black Ninja. We found the costume with the matching swords that crossed in the back (which were broken within 15 seconds of buying them and they were $10! ARGH!) But Dax was thrilled.

Gage wanted to be Goofy because he had chosen a Goofy hat as a souvenir at Disneyland in the Spring and thought it would be fun to dress up totally like Goofy. He made an awesome-lookin' Goofy.

Hailey wanted to be a cheerleader with her friends, at her age it's all about dressing up with friends.

They all had great fun at school and then went trick-or-treating with dad while I handed out treats at the house with Aunt Ashley. It was a warm night so the kids lasted a lot longer than usual!

HOW TO....mow a lawn

So I don't mow the lawn. I never have. I had a dad and a brother who did it while I was growing up. Once I was married, my sweet husband always did it. He enjoys mowing the lawn and says he feels funny having me out there doing it cause he wouldn't want the neighbors to think he was a slacker husband. So I have really never mowed a lawn per se. I have played around with the mower and tested a few runs but never have I done the job. Well with Tom gone for two weeks and the job needing to be done, I thought, "How hard can it be to mow a lawn?" Ha ha ha...yeah...

1. Start the lawnmower. MUCH easier said than done. After trying to start it a few times (after pushing the button 3 times like it said) our good neighbor across the street ran over to see if I needed help. Much to my relief (and utter embarassment) he saw some spark plug wire and fixed it so the lawnmower started right up.

2. Mow the lawn. Really? Is that all? So after it starts and I am on my own again, I ran a few passes over the grass and the mower dies. It keeps dying when I start mowing. Out comes the neighbor again. Thankfully. (And mortifyingly.) The mower keeps getting clogged. This I actually figured out on my own. But how to fix it....after the neighbor looks it over (and comments on what a nice mower it is) he says it must have an attachment that shoots the grass out the side. Of course! I run into the garage and find it, he puts it on, and away I go. Until the neighbor comes back moments later and says the mower is cutting it so short and because the grass is so long it's still getting clogged. So he adjusts it up a few clicks and phew...that's the last I see of the good neighbor.

3. Finish the front yard. With relief I finish up the front yard (and it looks pretty good actually) I head to the back where at least there won't be anyone watching to see me struggle with this chore anymore, I can mow without being so self-conscious. Yeah!

4. Start on the backyard. So much harder than the front. And it's huge, have you noticed that too? Trying to get around window wells, tree stubs, the batting cage an oh, Comcast left a huge cable running across the ENTIRE length of the backyard, resulting in me lifting it to go under it at three different points in the lawn mowing pattern I started.

5. Watch out for obstacles. Ignore the little bits of newspaper flying around one corner of the yard because I just found out that no, the lawnmower isn't much like a vacuum and the newspaper I ran over won't just disappear! *Note to self* Pick up the other two pieces of newspaper on the back lawn!

6. Use this opportunity to teach a child something new. Might have gone better had I had a better grasp on the task at hand. It was a little like the blind leading the blind. After half a rotation, the poor kid gave up and ran in crying because I might have freaked out when he got the lawnmower a little too close to the batting cage and one of the long ropes got caught up. No worries, the batting cage was left unscathed during the entire event. But my paranoia and lack of lawnmowingness was too much for the little guy to deal with. He will benefit much more having his dad teach him this particular task.

7. Finish the back yard. I wish I could say I did. I was ALMOST done when the lawnmower died. Although I knew why instantly--no gas. And there was only a trickle in a container in the garage which got me a little closer to finishing, but not quite. Under the swingset, under the batting cage, and a sweet strip down the middle of the back lot is what is left. There was nothing more I could do.

8. Put everything away and shower. After putting the lawnmower away I walk into the house with the shock that 2 1/2 hours had gone by! Good garbage our yard is huge! That is a long time to be out mowing. I head upstairs to get in the shower, with my head pounding and the scratches on my arms from the Rowley's trees stinging. I pull pieces of sticks out of my hair and try to bend my sore arms to wash it. Add to that achy, tired legs and a sunburnt forehead!

9. Make cookies for the good neigbor. Because after all, without him this entire event would never have happened!

So there you have it. I will forevermore leave the lawnmowing to my more capable better half. Although it seems now I have learned the in's and out's and could probably do it again easier than this, I just don't want to!

10 Things I missed about Tom during the trip to Asia

Well first off I should point out that Tom rarely goes anywhere without us. He doesn't have to travel for work very often (twice in 6 years) and he'd rather take us places than go with anyone else. What a good man! So we aren't without our dad/husband very often at all. This two-week stretch was quite an eye-opener for all of us and what he really does for us each and every day. We came to REALLY appreciate our Tom. He was gone for about 10 hours when the boys had already started to complain about his absence! Did I already mention what a long two weeks this was going to be!

Here is my list of specific things I missed that Tom takes care of that I didn't even realize he takes care of!

1. Grating ginormous blocks of Costco cheese (My arm is still recovering)
2. Taking the garbage to the curb. (Since I forgot Sunday night and are now paying for it!)
3. Mowing the lawn (I still may attempt this feat!)
4. Putting the toilet paper on the roll instead of leaving it sitting on top of the roller (which is where it is right now!)
5. Calmly handling kids injuries (and of course, I get two pretty good-sized injuries!)
6. Rubbing my shoulders when I have a headache (which I had one for three straight days!)
7. Company while watching shows (I actually talked to him out loud the other night, only to realize I was alone in the family room!)
8. Help running kids to all their activities so a parent is always at a kid's event (I missed Gage's game one night cause I had to get Hailey)
9. Getting the mail (how did I ever get out of that habit??)
10. Hugs, kisses, hugs, more hugs, more kisses, and that he always lets me lean on him whether it's watching tv or sleeping (Did I say HUGS?)
11. Bonus: Feet touching at night
12. Double Bonus: "Movie Night"
13. Last Bonus: Letting me take sips from your can of soda so I can get my pop fix without the calories of drinking an entire can!

UPDATES!!....and a New Year's Resolution

Riding an elephant in Thailand

So on the 18th of October Tom left early in the morning to head out of the country for work purposes. He flew to Thailand, Singapore, then Hong Kong. The trip lasted two weeks and was quite possibly the LONGEST two weeks of my life!

Tom was able to see a lot of the sights out there, he saw some cool Buddhist temples and even rode an elephant! He liked Singapore the best because it's so clean there. He says the government even outlawed chewing gum so the streets are spotless! He did have a scary night in Singapore though, he ate some fish dish at dinner and that night in the hotel when he was heading to bed he had a pretty severe allergic reaction and broke out in hives and his face and throat became swollen. It was very frightening. He just went to bed...typical man! When he woke up the next morning I noticed on the webcam that his face looked puffy and he told me what had happened and it made me very uneasy for the rest of the trip!

Hong Kong was fun because of all the shopping and cool stuff to see. He was able to pick up some neat souvenirs for the us that were a lot of fun. The kids and I missed him so much and were so happy to see him when he finally made it back on Halloween. Here are some fun pictures of his trip.

Tom in Hong Kong

Tom and McKay in Thailand

Scarecrow Festival

We are so happy that the Scarecrow Festival is at Thanksgiving Point. We have been going to this fun fall activity for years, ever since the kids were really little. Back then it was held at Gardner's Village and it was so great! A few years ago it had grown too big for that venue and was moved to some parking lot in Salt Lake. We went one year and were so disappointed that we never made an effort to go back. We found out that the last few years it has been held at Thanksgiving Point so we headed over on the 17th of October to check it out. The kids loved the bouncy slides, haunted house, and snowcones.

Riding go-carts was a hit

Hailey and Gage climbing the wall

Dax climbing - both boys made it to the top and rang the buzzer!

Stewart Falls

This Fall has been the most incredible Fall in Utah I can remember. Usually we get two weeks maybe at the most of mild temperatures and changing colors. This year has been amazing. It was 73 degrees yesterday! My boys wore shorts to school this morning! Finally all four season instead of the usual snow and freezing - straight to 100 degrees and melting.

To take advantage of the beautiful weather and the changing colors, we all headed up to hike Stewart Falls a few weekends back. We first took a picnic lunch to the park and played tennis and rode scooters. Then we grabbed some water bottles and headed up. We took some great pictures of Utah's beautiful landscape. The kids loved playing at the waterfall.

On the way up the trail

SO PRETTY

Hailey and I by a pink tree - we were loving the pink shades up there!

Taking a quick break on the way up

And Another Month Goes By....Shout out to Gage

Wow, I am not very good at keeping up on this! I will try and do better....

We have had a busy month this October. I think I will start by giving a shout-out to my boy Gage.

As I have mentioned, Gage has been playing flag football for the Orem Elementary 5th/6th grade team. A few weeks back his team, the Gators, were playing their normal Saturday morning game. Now, the Gators are halfway into their season and have yet to win a single game. The boys are troopers and trying really hard to stay positive and be sportsmanlike. But they really, REALLY want to win a game!

My sweet Gage has played football every year since the first grade and while he's fast, a strong, accurate thrower, and a great catcher, he has been known to be hesitant when it comes to rushing the guy with the ball and pulling his flags. Imagine my elation when during the course of this particular game he pulls 7 boy's flags! He was so excited and it got him pumped and jazzed throughout the second half. Well, the game was tied and it was the last play. The other team had the ball...not looking good for the Gators. Gage was between two of the other team's players and when the quarterback threw to the pair, Gage jumped up between them and caught the ball!!

All the parent's on the sidelines jumped out of their seats, screaming and cheering (I the loudest) while my sweet boy ran that ball all the way down the field, dodging in and out of the way of the other team, and into the end zone!!!!! It was AWESOME!

Cute Gage came running over to me, giving me an enormous hug and smiling bigger than I've ever seen. He was so excited he didn't know what to do with himself and kept saying over and over, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!"

The other parents were congratulating him and his team grabbed the big container of water and dumped it on the coach. What an amazing day for a group of sweet 5th and 6th grade boys.

We are so proud of you big man!!

Where did the last month go?

I just realized that it's been over a month since my last post. Sometimes that's the way life goes, what with getting the kids started back in school, changing back into the school routines of getting to bed earlier, making sure homework gets done, all while starting up the Fall sports.

Although I said last spring that we are a baseball family, which we are, we also really enjoy football. More as a spectator sport however. Gage has been playing on the 5th grade Flag Football team for the city so we've enjoyed Saturday morning games with him. Tom also has season tickets to BYU Football and he takes the kids to the games. We also watch NFL football and are HUGE Green Bay Packers fans. (And now a little bit of Jets fans which I still can't believe.)

So between school, Young Women's, scouts, piano lessons, football practice, Scera Youth Theater, bug collections for 7th grade science, work and church callings I sometimes wonder how anything gets done!

Add to that Halloween treats which are totally derailing my eating habits!

Oh and last weekend was NuSkin's Lagoon day which the kids had a blast going on everything but alas, there are rats at Lagoon. Not "rat" but RATSSS! Big, long, brown rats all over the kiddie section. SO DISGUSTING!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAGE!

Our second child has now hit the double digits! Gage turned 10 on August 14th. The Tuesday before his birthday we had a few of his friends meet us at Veteren's Pool for a swim party. We had yummy popcorn cake and then spent the day in the sun having a ton of fun.

Gage, Dax, and cousin Roman on the way to the pool

Delicious popcorn cake (Gage has Celiac too)

Cameron, Roman, Gage, Connor, Tyler, and Dad (who stopped by on his lunch break)

Dax was so tired from the sleepover the night before with Gage and Roman that he fell sound asleep at the pool and slept for a good hour and a half. He was so much happier when he woke up!

Then on the 14th we had his family party. Many family members came to help him celebrate and he got a lot of fun things. He had hot fudge brownie sundaes for dessert..yum!

Gage and Dax laughing hysterically at a funny card Aunt Cassidy got for Gage
Sweet BYU t-shirt and hat Grandma and Grandpa Bringhurst got Gage to wear to the games
Kung Fu Panda on the Wii that the boys have been wanting FOREVER!

Another Bike (last year's bike was stolen from our house within 2 weeks of him getting it for his 9th birthday...this one was accompanied with a bike lock!)

Moving Day

So this is the reason I got really behind in my posting. We now have a new address!

After living in Provo for 11 years we finally made the long trek back to our hometown of Orem. In fact, we live in the same neighborhood as I did when I grew up, although not the same ward thankfully! But my kids attend the same schools I did which does mess with me a little, it's very strange, especially since Hailey has the same 7th grade math teacher at Lakeridge as I had!

So the story of the move goes something like this...we closed on the house July 18th and had to be out of our other house July 31st. We decided to remodel some of the new house, not knowing (cause we had never done anything like this before) that it takes A TON of time. Basically, we painted three of the upstairs bedrooms and one of the bathrooms, AFTER tearing down wallpaper for three days. Then we tore out a wall on the main floor and made two small rooms into a family room. Well because of the way it was set up, we had to rewire the entire room, so that meant having to sheetrock and mud and tape everything. The whole house project took more time and about twice as much money as we planned and because of the limited amount of time we had, Tom and I were working on the house 20 hours a day, for most of two weeks. I have NEVER in my life been so exhausted. It was SO crazy. Oh and in the midst of all this craziness I had to get Hailey packed and off to girl's camp and Tom's brother Steve got married. But now that it's been about two weeks, I can finally talk about it without going insane!

We absolutely could not have done it without the help of family. Without them we would have gone crazy and not gotten finished or settled like we were able. My brother Jared was able to help Tom with the new family room all day most days, and Lisa and the kids helped with wallpaper take down and priming. We had Tom's mom and sisters come and help a few nights with painting, staying until 2 Am even though she had to work early the next day. Tom's brothers Jared, Nate, and Stevo helped a ton, as well as my sis-in-law Ashley. My Dad came over one Saturday to help paint trim with me which I was so grateful for.

When moving day came we had everyone over either moving stuff or scrubbing the old house. Those that helped move were Kimber and Brian, Jason and his brother Mike, Tom's bro Jared, and Tom's friend Bart. My sister's and sis-in-law's Lisa and Ashley all helped with the scrubbing.

I cannot thank you guys enough for everything you did for us! We are forever grateful!!

And if anyone is in Orem you better stop by to visit!! :)

Scrappin' at the Cabin

At least once every summer Hailey and I meet up with Mom, Noelle, Lisa, Asia, Erin, and Kimber and we go up to Tom's grandparent's cabin in Timberlakes (which is just outside Heber) to scrapbook for the weekend. We always have such an amazing time, we go up Friday afternoon after loading up our supplies and tons of food and scrap WAY into the night. Then we sleep a few hours and get back at it all day Saturday. We have such a great time and it's such a fun girl's getaway. Here is us scrappin...
After the girl's left on Saturday, Tom and the boys and Jared and Roman came up to spend the rest of the weekend. We rode 4-wheelers, then went to Park City where we rode the Alpine Slide and the Coaster. After a quick stop for ice cream we were headed home to get some much needed sleep!

4th of July

Okay, I am way behind in posting but in a few posts, you'll see why...

For the 4th of July we thought we'd try the balloon launch out instead of the parade that everyone hates. Well we had to get up at 5:30 AM to go see them, Tom and I thought they were cool, Dax was thrilled and the other two...
Pretty funny huh??

We loved the pig balloon

After the balloons and a nap, my parents, Erin and her family, and Kimber and Brian came over for a picnic lunch/dinner. After we ate we played Rock Band for awhile and then headed for the Stadium of Fire.

Stadium of Fire was fun, we really enjoyed the Blue Man Group. Miley Cyrus was lame but hey, the teeny-boppers loved her!

This is the kids while we sat in a parking lot for 45 mins before we even got out after the Stadium of Fire. Long day for the kiddies!

Deceptively Unfit

So a few weeks ago at dinner, we decided that after we ate we should all go hike the Y. We live so close it's ridiculous we haven't gone before now. In fact, there is a trail that goes from our house to the start of the Y trail. So we really have no excuse. After we ate we loaded up on water and headed over. I had not hiked the Y since I was a teenager but as I remembered it wasn't a very long hike. Well I was right...the hike is short but it is STEEP! Much steeper than I remembered! We started up it and the kids (being kids) ran up ahead with Tom while I huffed and puffed my way up. The whole way up I kept thinking of the term, "deceptively unfit" which we heard one season on Dancing with the Stars. Basically, I am of average size, average strength, and I look like I could hike the Y fairly easily, but NOPE! I learned something that night, I am OUT OF SHAPE! I will be remedying that quickly! Here are some great pics from the hike. (By the way, Hailey wore sandals and her feet starting hurting (imagine that!!) so Tom had to carry her down piggy-back style! Thank heaven for dads!

Happy Birthday Hailey!

Wow, how did my baby girl grow up this fast? It doesn't seem that long ago that she was a little, smiley toddler running around, dancing and playing. I cannot believe my sweet daughter is already 12. 12 is a huge, monumental birthday. Young Women's, preparations for junior high, baby-sitting other families, night games with friends, it's all so exciting, yet I wish I could slow down time just a little bit.

Hailey turned 12 on Tuesday, June 17th. For her birthday all she wanted was for Tom and I to take her to lunch and then to Ikea for a shopping spree. After lunching at her favorite restaurant, The Training Table, we spent the afternoon shopping Ikea. Hailey found a lot of great stuff for her room and we had a great time running around, matching this and that, and getting a few items for the house as well. After that, the family came over for a piece of cookie and ice cream.

Here are 12 things we love about Hailey for her 12th birthday:

1. Hailey has a great sense of humor. I can tease her and mess with her and she just laughs and gives it right back. She's a lot of fun. (Dad)
2. She is really smart. She picks up on things really quickly, especially this year with her pre-algebra. (Dad)
3. She has a really great laugh. It makes you want to laugh with her. (Dad)
4. Hailey is really friendly to everyone. (Gage)
5. Hailey helps me whenever I need help. (Gage)
6. I love Hailey and she loves me. (Gage)
7. I love Hailey because she plays outside with me. (Dax)
8. I love to play Rockband with Hailey. (Dax)
9. Hailey makes me yummy food. (Dax)
10. Hailey is incredibly strong. She has a strong sense of who she is and she doesn't let people tear her down. She sticks by her values and is unwavering. She knows what's right and is an example to others. (Mom)
11. Hailey is really, really, REALLY helpful. She makes sure that her chores aren't just done, but done well. She is very responsible and ALWAYS looks out for her brothers no matter what or who is around. (Mom)
12. Hailey is beautiful both inside and out. She has a way of drawing people to her and she is friends with everyone. She makes friends easily and is very loyal. She is a happy person and when you are around her you can feel her sincere, warm spirit. (Mom)

I could go on and on but there it is...12 things we love about our Hailey.

Here are 12 unknown facts about Hailey:

-We call her Hailey May
-When she was around 2 if she heard you talking she would ask "What are you saying about?"
-As a young child (and even now!) she could fall asleep anywhere, even standing up!
-Hailey starting walking at 9 months
-Hailey got all her teeth before she got hair!
-Hailey has naturally curly, thick hair
-Hailey was the shortest kid in 6th grade!
-During her early elementary school years, she didn't do mornings...at all!
-Hailey was only 7 lbs, and 18 inches long when she was born
-She rarely cried as a baby, she just smiled at everyone
-She cut her bangs off when she was 2 and when asked if it was Barbie hair she said, "No, Hailey hair!"
-Hailey won't eat meat

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE!