Happy Easter

Since we failed so miserably in getting out a Christmas letter this year, we've decided to just do an Easter letter instead.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas letter

We are finally getting around to sending out our annual Christmas letter.  It is posted below as well.  It is so much fun reviewing all our pictures and putting the letter together!

Merry Christmas!

This is Kirtland! 2012

We have been blessed to once again be part of our stake's musical production, This is Kirtland!, now in its ninth year.  What has been great is that the whole family is doing it together (well, Millie isn't exactly in the cast, but she is excited to go to the church and watch movies).  Nate is playing Joseph Smith, Camille is playing Jerusha Smith (wife of Hyrum Smith), Luke is playing Orrice Capp Murdock, Izzy is playing Helen Kimball, Simeon is playing John Rigdon, and Sophie is playing Lovina Smith.

It is such fun to be a part of the show and we are again making some wonderful friends.

 

The coolest boys of 1834.

Izzy getting her hair pulled.  Her favorite part because she gets to scream really loud!!

Simeon as the youngest member of the Sidney Rigdon family

Sophie being cute

can you find everyone?

Sophie and Camille

Luke ... dancing

Nate as Joseph Smith

hooray!

Merry Christmas

december road trip part 2

We had a great night in Lincoln at the Country Inn & Suites, which had a heated pool that was actually warm!  That alone is worthy of five stars in our book.

Day 2 of the trek went well, despite some moments of rebellion spurred by boredom.  We had a good rest stop in Sidney, NE, where we stopped at the Walmart and ran around the store doing a scavenger hunt.  Unfortunately Camille and Nate had finished our book on day 1, so just had to listen to the kids' movies.  Harry Potter 1 and 2 (again).  Afterward, Simeon was especially upset that we were going to watch Tangled, so he freaked out for about half an hour. 

Eventually we made it to Salt Lake, just in time for a great party with the Thompsons and Hammers.  Hooray!

another road trip

Once again we have piled everyone into the Sienna for a trip out to Salt Lake.  We left early Thursday morning and made it to Lincoln, Nebraska to complete day 1 of our journey!  Hooray for some great weather!

Merry Christmas!

nesquick bandit

important safety tip: don't leave a three-year-old alone with the ingredients of something as yummy as chocolate milk. Thanks to Sophie's creativity, we ended up with a quart and a half of chocolate milk in our milk container, plus plenty of extra nesquick all over the kitchen (and all over Sophie).

Also notice the set of Sharpie markers that she's sitting on. Yeah, our kitchen is a mess waiting to happen!

End-of-year school talent show

Luke and Izzy participated in their school's talent show, each deciding to play a piece on the piano. They both did great! Izzy played Beauty and the Beast, and Luke played Jon Schmidt's Waterfall.

resolution

Ok, fine, I will update our family blog!

After repeated frustration on Camille's part that I have been keeping the kids' soccer team's blog up to date but have not been putting as much effort into our family's blog, I've finally given in and will start updating this blog as well. There's going to be a lot of back-filling to do in order to get caught up, but that's how things go sometimes.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the updates as they start getting posted.

Thanksgiving 2008

We flew to Salt Lake to spend Thanksgiving with the Thompsons. It is always an adventure getting all of the cousins together, and this trip certainly had its share. It was so nice to see our kids getting along so well with their cousins, and they would disappear for hours at a time. Luke with Nathan, Hank and Will to play DS or shoot air-soft guns. Isabella with Emme, Caitlin, and Thomas to create plays and color. Simeon with Andrew and Carter to ride on the bikes or play cars. Sophie would just follow around whatever group of kids she could keep up with.

We had amazing weather and had a huge soccer game Thanksgiving afternoon which ended up postponing dinner. When we finally went inside there were 45 people in all for dinner. Turkeys beware.

After dinner there was the customary football and crashing. Simeon is picking up on this tradition quite well.

We had a great time seeing all of our family in Salt Lake.

watch where you walk

During our Thanksgiving trip in Salt Lake, Nate unfortunately injured his foot. We've all heard stories of kids leaving toys out and them getting stepped on by unsuspecting adults. This is one of those.

One night shortly after our arrival, Izzy (as she often does) fell asleep somewhere other than her bed and needed to be transferred. Everyone else was asleep as Nate carefully and quietly carried Izzy to her bed. On the way he stepped on a toy. Now, having grown up with five younger siblings and now with four kids, this was not a new experience. In all experiences stepping on toys in the dark, it is generally acknowledged that Legos are the worst. Nate now begs to differ.

Instead of meeting up with a stray Lego, Nate stepped on a die-cast metal bulldozer, complete with pointy smokestacks, that proceeded to rip through his foot leaving a big cut. Somehow Izzy was successfully transferred without stirring and none of the other kids was woken up.

Seriously, toy companies need to recognize that every toy will be stepped on in the dark at some point and should do some testing and have a warning label or a rating scale for what kind of damage they can do.

Halooween 2008

Halloween week began with a visit to City Hall on the 28th. The City Hosts a trick-or-treating event during the day for little ones 5 and under. We were able to meet all the people who help run the city and even got candy from the mayor. It was a great event.

Halloween night was perfect. The weather was in the 60s and we sure enjoyed walking around our neighborhood. We couldn't get an individual picture of our cutest little bunny. She just kept running away. Nate and I walked around together for about 30 minutes but our bunny ran out of steam so we headed back home to give out candy. We had tons of trick-or-treaters and even ran out of candy.

Simeon enjoyed being batman and wore his costume on and off all week. Izzy was Miley Cyrus and Luke was his namesake Luke Skywalker. My favorite costume find was with Luke's top. After looking at Halloween stores and others and just not finding the right look, I was able to find a Karate top at the thiftstore for $3! It was perfect.

carving pumpkins

Carving pumpkins this year was great! I was a bit last minute in getting the pumpkins. I was hoping to have a time that we could all go and get pumpkins but our schedule just wasn't letting that happen. So Tuesday before halloween, the only night open for carving we raced to the store before dad got home from work. The first store we went to didn't have any left, I was panicking. Luckily we went the next store we went to had a few huge pumpkins left. I decided to only get two because there just wasn't any way we were going to be able to carve six in one evening. So a 10 minute trip turn into 45 minutes but we got our pumkins and had a fun night carving. Everyone help get the guts out of the middle and then we lost Luke to the Cavaliers game. So Izzy became the designer for both pumnkins and Dad was the carver. So they became the rock star pumkin and the first grader with a few lost teeth

izzy turns 7!

I can't believe it, Izzy is now 7 years old. We celebrated with a movie and pizza party. We turned our basement into a movie theatre, with tickets, popcorn, & candy. The kids watched a movie and then had pizza for dinner after. It was the easiest party ever!
Izzy loves having rice crispy cakes. This is the 4th year running of the crispy cake. We've done castles, mutli layer, however this year she just wanted candy pumkins on it. They are fun and easy and everyone eats the whole thing!

Fall

Fall has been a fun and busy season. Nate, Luke, and Izzy started school again. My coaching for my diving season began. We were busy with soccer, Nate coaching Luke's team. Sophie and Simeon and I started our visits to the zoo, Natural History museum and our Storytime at the Library. We have enjoyed some great fall weather, the best time of the year here in Cleveland.

Simeon, my crazy three year old said something funny that I just had to share. First I need to give a little background. One evening during dinner when Nate wasn't home I was being silly and teaching the kids the cheer , You got Spirit ? yeah yeah you got spirit? yeah yeah, you got a what a what a what a what a what, what what what what what what what You got Spirit! From my pep club days. So fast forward to last sunday during the primary program. Simeon was sitting with his dad while I am on the stand with the primary kids. He hears one of the children say spirit and he starts sayings, "a what, a what, a what, a what, what, what, what, what, what what, You got spirit!" Well, at least I know he was listening to some part of the program.

Downata Hot Springs

One of our favorite days was spent at Downata Hot Springs in Downey, Idaho just 2 hours north of Salt Lake. We arrived at 9 o'clock since my Dad, brother and sister had to be there for a board meeting. So Nate and I volunteered to watch all their kids. We had 10 kids ranging in age from 1 to 11 that we were responsible for. We got to enjoy the big pool all to ourselves for an hour before it opened to the public at 10am. The kids enjoyed the waterslides, spray ground and the huge pool, all of which was filled with warm water.

Simeon who is scared of the deeper water was so happy at the spray ground. The spray groung was right near the end of the big water slide. So while some of the little kids were playing at the spray ground I would just count everyone going up and coming down. All the kids could not get enough of the place. At the end little Laruen and Molly were going down the big waterslide all by themselves with their brothers making sure they were okay. It was so cute seeing everyone look out for one another. I was quite pround of all my neices and nephews and my children as well for getting along so well and helping each other. We all had a fabulous time and didn't leave until 4pm with everyone pretty well exausted.