Daddy's Turn

Lately Will has been climbing into bed with us at least a few times a week. I remember when Claire used to do that I would get up and put her back in her bed and maybe sleep with her for a bit in her bed, but now I just don't have the energy I used to or something because now I barely even wake up when Will comes in. I just move over and let him in. Usually he comes to my side of the bed, but the other night he went to Shawn's side. The next day I asked him why he went to Dad's side and he said "I needed to give Dad a turn". Oh my, I didn't know he thought he was doing us a favor by sleeping with us. Thank you Will for being equal with your middle of the night wakings :)

Worst Day Ever

Claire officially had her worst day ever the other day. Towards the end of the day I was picking up stuff around the house and she came to me while my back was turned and said "I'M HAVING THE WORST DAY EVER". Luckily my back was turned because I had to laugh a tiny bit to myself knowing that her day hadn't been too bad, but I pulled it together and channeled my inner 7 year old to remember what those worst days are like as a 7 year old and asked her what happened. We ended up having a really good talk, and here is the terrible horrible no good day that Claire had as a 7 year old.
It started out that we were running late so I was pushing her to hurry and eat her cereal which by the way wasn't her favorite kind of cereal. She had to run into school because the bell was ringing right as I dropped her off. One of the worst parts she says is that her class had to spend most of the day taking a math test that was SOOOOO hard (I think it was a evaluation test). At recess she couldn't decide which friend to play with because two different friends wanted to play with her. When she got home her mom made her do her homework and she couldn't play with the neighborhood friends, and by the time dinner came along there wasn't even time to watch any TV. There was no fun in the day at all.
The sweetest part is that she was so genuine as she was telling me this. She was heartbroken that she had a bad day. She actually said it was the worst day she ever had. Oh my sweet Claire. Maybe we should read "Alexander's Terrible Horrible No Good Day" again.

Our Tree of Thanks!

I know I said I would post family home evenings up on my blog, but I haven't for a gazillion months. We do have FHE, but I just haven't been blogging about it. I haven't been blogging very much at all. Anyway, we did have our family home evening last Monday, and it was so much fun I thought I would put it up so I can remember it. I made a Thanksgiving tree and then I made a whole bunch of fall leaves to put on the tree. That night we all took turns writing what we are thankful for on the leaf and then putting it on the tree. Here is a picture of our tree. The kids loved it! They kept coming up with great things to be thankful for. I am so glad they are thankful and hope they continue to see all of the blessings in their lives. If we all stop and see all of the blessings we have we will be much happier people! Happy Thanksgiving!

Super Halloween

Our family dressed up like super heroes this Halloween! Sorry that the pictures are sort of horrible. Apparently cameras do not like to be dropped. Who would've thought? So, Santa, if you read my blog, we need a new camera please!!! Anyway, here are some photos. By the way we had an extra fun time with our family that came over! We loved having you guys! I wanted to post a picuture of all of us together, but the photo I have is so blury. Send me one of yours if it turned out....

Our Super Family: Shawn was Clark Kent, I am Super Mom (my shirt reads 'It's hard to be humble when you're Super Mom', Claire is Captain America Girl, Will is Batman, Vivi is Super Girl!

Our pumpkins all lit up!

Our pumpkins!

Vivi was Bat Girl for about a minute, but it was too cold to keep her in this costume. Isn't she cute though. Will thought she was extra awesome for that minute, and now one of Will's friends keeps saying that he's going to make his baby sister dress up at Bat Girl next Halloween 'cause it's so cool!

Apparently you have too many costumes in your home if your kids can dress up like something different for a week before Halloween. Here is take two for Halloween Sunday when we visited Shawn's Grandma. Will is Iron Man, Claire is a Witch and Vivi is a bunny!

Family Pictures!

We had a friend of ours from our ward take our pictures recently. Here is her website http://www.ashleystilsonphotography.blogspot.com/ ! She is great!
Here are pictures of us!

Will's school field trip!

Will had a school field trip at the end of September! We got to go with him and my niece Liddy and nephew David got to come with us too! Here are some pictures!

Will's Friends at Preschool!


Big slide they have at the farm! This is Liddy going down.


Will going down the big slide!


They had this great corn kernell box (like a sandbox) the kids LOVED it!


They had cute tire horses too! Everyone loved them. Even Vivi!


The Cousins with the pumpkins they got to choose!


David going down another slide!

Fireball!

Claire's school had a big party the other day and we got to go! One of the big things that night was that the school was unveiling Fireball their Dragon Mascot! Claire was so excited to meet him. Here is a picture of her and Fireball at school!

Will's first day of Preschool!

Here is a picture of Will on his first day of preschool. This year he is going to a neighborhood preschool! We love that it is so close, and the friends in our neighborhood go to it! His teacher is Miss Nichole!

Claire's First Day of 2nd Grade

Can it be that we are well into the school year? Here is a picture of Claire on her first day of 2nd Grade. Her teacher is Mrs. Dailey.

Summer 2010 re-cap

Since I didn't do much blogging this summer I figured I'd do a quick summer recap before Halloween comes this weekend. Where does the time go???
We had a great summer! I really can't believe it's over. Here are some pictures!


We spent a lot of time going to different lakes around Utah this last summer.

We took the waverunner out a few times this last summer! It's always fun! Except for the one time my brother tipped Claire and my sister into the water.... not a good feeling for a mom to see an empty waverunner floating without her oldest daughter on top of it :) Claire thought it was fun though. I think it scared my brother and sister more than anything. Anyway, normally we love the waverunner, and we are glad to have it!


We went hiking. It's always fun to go up in the mountains when no matter how hot it is down in the valley the mountains are nice and cool!

Shawn taught Claire and Will to fish! They grew impatient though and kept asking "when are we going to catch a fish?"

We got to go to Cowabunga Bay one day with my niece Cassie!

Cowabung Bay!

We made homemade icecream on our porch! The kids thought that was awesome! It was so yummy too! We also went swimming at the neighborhood pool nearly every day, and we went biking all of the time too! Our whole family has bikes now, so we've gone around the lake a lot! So much fun. I will miss you summer! I can't wait to see you next year.

Car Seat!

Vivi is now in a forward facing car seat and she loves it!

Vivi's First Birthday!

My baby is one! As soon as she turned the big 1 she decided she wanted to be independent. She started walking and has never looked back..... literally she never looks back to see where I am or if I'm following. She is off on her own, and I am running after her trying to keep up and minimize the damage of her wake. Here are some pictures of her birthday! Thanks to all of our family for coming over, and thank you to my wonderful mother-in-law for making the cake! It was fabulous!!!
Happy Birthday my sweet Vivi! Your smile brightens my day- I love you!

10 Year Anniversary

Shawn and I had our ten year anniversary in May of this year! We decided to celebrate by going back to our Honeymoon site Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in July! My mom watched our kids and we were off for 5 days! We had a blast! Here are some pictures of our wonderful trip!




On the beach in front of our hotel!



Shawn boogie boarding! We loved doing this!



Eating a yummy all inclusive dinner!




The flea market in downtown PV



Downtown Puerto Vallarta



Downtown again :)



Downtown Puerto Vallarta!




Me in front of our hotel (the Riu Palace Pacifico) It was a beautiful hotel!


The pool at night!



Shawn at our hotel!



Me at our hotel



View from our room!