Oh dear, it's been a while!

So it's been a very long time since I last posted. Life has been so very busy and I haven't really been in the mood to blog or had the time. So now I will try to catch you up on what has been going on with our family......
Noah turned 10! Holy cow where has the time gone!?? It seems like just yesterday he was a little toddler learning how to walk and talk! He wanted to take a couple friends to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. We left the younger kids with my mother so it could just be Noah's day. The boys had a blast! I could tell they were all pretty tired by the time we left cause all 3 of them fell asleep on the drive home! Oh ya, it was snowing on the drive home so Noah was pretty excited cause that was his wish, that it would snow on his birthday. Sadly as we drove further north toward home the snow stopped. :(We came back to our place and opened presents and had apple crisp and ice cream.

Noah really enjoyed his science kits!

We did eventually get snow, lots of snow!

We built another igloo like the one we made a few years ago. This one was bigger though.

We had all the kids in the neighborhood helping us out!

It was a lot of work and the kids had a great time playing in it for a few days!

The kids and Bethany outside the igloo.

We had a couple sunny days and went to the park. Daniel is such a silly little boy!

Another thing that has happened this year is Jacob turned 18 months and now gets to go to nursery at church. This is him on his 1st day of nursery! He isn't a huge fan of it so far. He doesn't like being away from Kendall and I for 2 hours. But they have a wonderful nursery leader who is so great with him!Kendall's sister Bethany left us in February. She moved back to Utah. We miss her a lot! Before she left Kendall and I took her to Seattle and we went on the Underground Tour of the city. It was fun and interesting to hear about how Seattle got started.

There was a ward activity last month. They wouldn't tell anyone what it was and when we got there we found out it was sumo wrestling! It was a lot of fun! My neck sure paid the price for it for the next couple of days!

This is just a silly picture of Jacob being silly!

Oh, and since Noah's is 10yrs old, I thought it was time for him to learn "babysitting" skills. He's not a fan of changing diapers yet (but I'm a fan of him changing diapers!).

Okay, this has become my life! GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! In January we were at a girl scout meeting and Jennifer (troop leader) asks if any one wanted to volunteer to be the troop cookie manager. She said "oh, you just have to be in charge of collecting the money and handling the cookies for our troop." I thought how hard can that be, there are only 5 girls, and said "I'll do it!" I so should have kept my big mouth shut! It seems to rule my life right now!

But as you can see Emma loves it! These pictures really show her true character.....silly!

Silly!

Selling cookies! She has done pretty well. The 1st three site sales we did we both got very cold! Two hours is a long time for these 6yr old girls to be standing in the cold selling cookies, but she has done it and with minimal whining.

This is Emma at a site sale with her fellow girl scout Isabelle and her brother Diego.

Noah is a Weblos scout now. He had is 3rd and final pinewood derby race a couple weeks ago. He wanted to make his car look like a jet. He worked really hard and spent a lot of time on it!

Jacob really enjoyed the races!

And Noah took 1st place for the 3rd year in a row! I don't think he was expecting to win this year as he told me he just wanted to make a cool looking car and if it won then that would be good too.

Noah and his friends with their cars.

Daniel had a birthday in March! He is now 4yrs old! Time really does go by way to fast!

He got a remote control truck from my mom and a star wars lego set from us.

He was pretty excited to play with his new truck and Kendall had to kinda teach him how it works.

We had heathbar pie for his birthday.

Daniel and I sat down the next day and spent the morning working on his lego ship. I was impressed that he was able to put it together without much help from me. I just sat there and pointed to the directions on the little booklet and he figured it out.

So that's kinda some of the things we have been up to, besides the usual school, and normal everyday life stuff. Hopefully I will update a little more often in the future!

Our Thankful Tree

We started a new family tradition this year. About the middle of October I had my brother draw a large tree and we painted and taped it up on the wall in our living room. Then every night until Thanksgiving each person would write something they were thankful for on a leaf and put it up on the tree.

We had a wonderful time each night thinking of things we were thankful for. Our tree was beautiful and I wish we could keep it up all year round! On Thanksgiving day we took all the leaves off the tree and read them. We will definitely be doing this again next year!

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving with my mother and brother Joshua over for dinner. We had very good food and lots of yummy pie! I gave Kendall a piece of pie and he was busy talking when he noticed Jacob leaning in and snitching his pie.

Fall Leaves

Yesterday we went on our annual autumn leaf hunt. The day was beautiful! We went down to the Seattle Temple for our leaf hunt. They have the most beautiful trees!

Jacob was being so cute, I just had to put in all the cute pictures!

Such a happy little boy!

Emma hiding in the bushes.

The kids playing in the leaves!

I loved these flowers!

My silly little boys!

Emma and Jacob.

Noah was hiding in all the bushes and every time Jacob spotted him he would get all excited!

Jacob has finally started to show an interest in walking and decided to show off his new skills on this marble bench.

This red leafed tree was my favorite!

We used the leaves to make these wax paper window hangings. They turned out really well and the kids had fun making them.

Noah's leaves.

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all had a happy safe Halloween. Halloween was an all weekend affair for us. We had our ward Trunk or Treat on Friday night. The forecast called for lots of rain and wind, but we lucked out and it was perfect weather for us! Jacob dressed up as a penguin. He wasn't quite sure what to think of his costume and wasn't to fond of the head piece. But he put up with it for the night.

Daniel went as a horse. He was so worried about getting the horses front legs wet and dirty that he carried the front part of his costume all evening. He was quite proud of himself that he kept it clean and dry!

Bethany and Jacob.

Noah dressed up as a "shadow man" from his favorite book Fablehaven. He spent the evening "lurking about" in the dark.

They had a tractor train ride. The party was at the plant farm near our house and we had visited it the week before and gone on a train ride. This was a new driver and his driving habits were a bit crazy compared to the normal driver. This made the ride so much more fun for the kids.

Saturday we had our "Manna Halloween Party" with all the cousins that live in Washington. This is Noah, Darien and Emily.

Jacob and Alexander had fun playing with all the puzzles and blocks.

I made these mice that were super cute! They were really good too!

There was so much to do at the party. The kids all made a candy dish out of little flower pots.

I love this look on Noah's face!

Yummy little mice!

We had witches fingers, eye ball cookies (Joshua was kind enough to show them off), maggots with witches eyes, puppies wrapped in a blanket, pumpkin brains, monster face pizzas, and scabs to eat. Doesn't that just sound yummy?!

The kids also carved pumpkins.

All the fun was just to much for little Jacob and he finally fell asleep for an hour or two.

Here are all the kids with their costumes.

Daniel showing off his mummy candy dish. It was a fun day for everyone. We took the kids home and got them to bed. Kendall and I went out on a date to the corn maze. It was a fun weekend. By the time Monday came around the kids were kinda tired of the holiday and were not all that excited about going out trick or treating. I think that if the neighbor kids hadn't come over begging them to come with them they would not have gone out at all. Daniel and Jacob didn't go trick or treating at all, I don't think they cared.