Welcome to our World

What a treat to have some of Dan's family here for a major holiday -- that has never happened before!  Heck, most of Dan's family doesn't even read this blog.  lol.  It was fun getting the guest bedroom and places for the children to sleep all ready.  How lucky are we to have a home big enough to temporarily fit a whole extra family of five in it?!?  The whole thing made me think we could have 5 or 6 children...  just kidding, Dan!   Dan's sister, Stacie, and her family arrived late Tuesday night.  On Wednesday we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and saw the traveling Mythbusters exhibit.  (Walking vs. running in the rain, cliff hanging, and the dodging a paint ball seemed to be the top 3.)  Life is so much more fun with cousins.  We separated boys and girls in the cars and I'm sure Danny was in pure heaven with no sisters around.  Cinzetti's is even better when you have four adults to man the table, help get fo...

For Halloween of 2011 , my 2-year-old son informed me he was going to be Buzz Lightyear and nothing in the world I could do would change his mind.  We searched everywhere and couldn't find a Buzz costume in his size.  Long story short and thanks to Facebook, Dan's cousin Christy came to the rescue.  She mailed her son's Buzz costume from Vermont and even included a card and cheese and maple syrup.  Not only was I grateful my son's dream was realized, I was super impressed by her willingness to go the extra mile for a boy she hadn't even met.  Fast forward a little over a year.  When Dan and I were trying to find a name for our newest addition, we were looking through Dan's genealogy binder and decided Eliza Jane was the best name in the book.  Then we got Uncle Jim and Aunt Mel's 2012 Christmas card and were reminded Jane's first name was Eliza.  I wrote Christy and thanked her for helping narrow down the list.  She said she had fallen in ...

Here are a few photos I just had to include before saying I'm all caught up on the blog.  My parents' beautiful tree and Danny making snowballs with the first snow fall of the year. Natalie wearing one of the bows  I got to make her at the LHC Fabulous Friday craft night.  Tiffany and the Relief Society committee did a great job as usual.  It was so fun to be with friends and make things my girls all loved.  The ribbon wands get played with every day and the snap bags have been hidden from me.  The Ball jar soap dispenser has upgraded our main floor bathroom as well. Did I ever tell you about how it seems like all Kaelah's best friends move to the west coast?  Well, the F. family came back to visit!  Dia and Kaelah had a wonderful time together.  (How neat to see them happy after years of being apart.)  We are all hoping they can to move back here as soon as possible. Here's Danny pointing at his favorite activity poo...

After 9 years and at Michelle's sweet request, Meigo now owns a Halloween costume.  I thought the skunk was too perfect to pass up. Grandma Karyl came over and saved the day with the pumpkins at the last minute -- the day of Halloween.  Kaelah had to start removing the seeds first to show Danny and Michelle they could do it too.  Eventually I caved and handed M a spaghetti spoon to use.  lol. Grandma also made a cake and let K, D, & M decorate it.  Turns out my kids are BIG sprinkles fans.  So big, in fact, that when Dan saw the cake, he refused to try a piece.  lol. Michelle with her super scary haunted house pumpkins.  The house wasn't enough so we had to have snakes coming out the windows so it was scary enough for her. Princess Merida by her Cinderella pumpkin.  It got the most compliments. Captain America by his Angry Birds pumpkin.  His costume got the most compliments because I guess my son looks...

These sisters have been growing and changing so fast this month!  Let's go oldest to youngest: Kaelah is still loving having a baby sister.  She seems to have come to terms with the fact she has to go to school and it's not just to get rid of her for a couple hours a day.  That, to my surprise, took some convincing.  Long story short, I'm very impressed with her teacher and I'm very grateful for the time change giving us some extra time this morning.  I think it will be much easier to get my night owl to school on time when she doesn't feel rushed. K's artwork continues to amaze me and those around her.  Sorry it's showing up sideways.  Her attention to detail really makes them something special.  A kindergartener able to even draw the light switches and outlets in her picture of a bedroom when she's not even in the bedroom?  Amazing to me!  I am not as big of a fan of her first school picture.  I had an outfit picked out...

What a blast to visit a pumpkin patch with new friends -- especially when you only have to pay for the pumpkins.  Even though we've lived here for 9 years and the patch was only 1/2 an hour away, it took my new visiting teaching companion, Katie, to tell us about it.  We visit taught Fenna there and our 8 kids had a great time together.  Kae & D had a great time running around the hay & corn mazes with Linus & Michelle and Henry got along really well too, being curious about animals like the bunny and inspecting corn cobs.  They will be in Sunbeams together beginning in January, so it was fun to see them forming a friendship. I was also super mega impressed at K's ability to pull M around.  She's tough when she wants to be! Someday we are going to look back on this picture of Claire, Natalie, and Mary and wonder how the years passed so quickly.

Our family was hankering for a vacation since we didn't take a big one this summer due to the move.   We decided to take a trip to Colorado Springs over the three day weekend and had a wonderful time -- wish we could have stayed longer!  We visited the B 52 at the Air Force Academy and later the children said they wished they had spent more time there.  It was when we got out of the van there we realized Danny hadn't put shoes on at home.  So before eating dinner we bought $5 shoes at Wal-Mart and some Skylander socks... Danny was thrilled and will actually wear socks again without me begging.  lol.  He seemed to have a 24 hour stomach bug which luckily no one else in the family got but it led to a whole lot of puke clean up on Dan's part while I drove the car.  I have a wonderful husband! On Columbus Day we enjoyed visiting the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo -- the main reason we picked CO Springs.  It's a great little zoo and so clever as to how...