How did this happen?!

How did my adorable little girl, who used to stand at the window and call to the kitties, "Leetle, leetle, leetle" and would sing, "Happy to You!", turn into this beautiful, 14 year old, teenager? Yup, Cheyenne had another birthday. 14! (I only had four candles.) That's like real teenager age now, no more a tween. She was a little bummed her birthday was on Sunday, but we had a fun day together (I think it was still fun for her, too.) The day started with a quick cinnamon roll for breakfast before church. Then the Primary did their sacrament program, so that was entertaining. A friend gave her a present at church (totally unexpected!) She got roped into singing with the choir - okay that part wasn't so much fun, and it wasn't even my fault. I got roped in, too. She about died having to wait for her dad to get home before she could open presents. But it was worth it, especially since her dad couldn't wait any longer and had to give the family a present for Cheyenne's birthday, too - Guitar Hero 5. We grilled hamburgers and had french fries while watching football. Then played guitar hero all afternoon. That night Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Thomas came over and Uncle Shaun and Aunt Alana and boys for a party (we have a small group now :( ) We had a sad looking cake, but Cheyenne liked it. Then more football and more guitar hero, over all it was a good day, I think. Oh, and she also had another little party on Friday night when Aunt Kathleen and family and Aunt AmberLee were here. Her favorite presents - the John Deer tractor calendar, wrapped in Hannah Montanah paper, complete with Jonas Brother's card (which unfolded into a poster), all from Uncle Thomas. Right, Cheyenne!? :) I love you, sweetie!!

Halloween

Sheesh! Apparently getting pictures posted the Monday after Halloween isn't fast enough for some people! (ahmm, Mom, Leslie, Kristen :) ) Then I couldn't get them to download yesterday, so here they are. No theme this year, some of the kids were set on their costumes and we weren't going to Bill's office this year, so they all did their own thing.
So Jon was a cowboy.
Maddie was a kitty cat.
Chloe was a princess.
Billy was a vampire, thanks to Aunt Leslie sending home vampire teeth with them all - he LOVED them!
Natalie was a witch.
And Cheyenne was a pirate - she only dressed up because I made her dress up for the carnival. It was actually kind of nice having halloween on a Saturday. The kids had parties and everything on Friday. I didn't know Bill's office was still doing their thing this year, so we didn't go. The YM/YW in our ward did a carnival Saturday morning so Billy was fine with not going to the school carnival. YEAH!! They really had a fun time at the ward carnival, though. The youth did a great job, it wasn't even too big of a hassle for us leaders, so I'm suggesting we do it again next year - especially if it'll get me out of a school carnival again. :) That was in the morning, so we came home, relaxed for the afternoon, then got dressed up again. The kids got a TON of candy from the carnival so we really didn't even have to do much trick or treating. The weather was really nice, too, so we didn't even freeze while we were out. All in all, it was a great Halloween!

Trying to catch up!

Well, it's been a busy, busy couple of months filled with sick kids, too. We've made it through another week with no one sick; that makes a total of two different weeks since Labor Day that no one has been sick. We've had it all, except the flu, knock on wood. I'm using that as my excuse for not keeping up with things on here. I was either snuggling with sick kids, not feeling too well myself, or trying to catch up around the house.
So what else did we do? Starting the week school started, Billy played flag football with two back-to-back games once a week. His team was the Jets (so I would frequently burst into song singing, BBB Billy and the Jets :) His coach was awesome and Billy really had a lot of fun playing. This was sooooo much better to watch than t-ball! Sorry, I couldn't get the title to go the right way. The smaller pictures are Billy running down the field with the ball and then Billy taking a hand off from his coach (coaches played QB).

We also had the fair and 4-H baking contest at which the girls cleaned house again! Cheyenne got "Judge's Choice" (or 1st, 1st place as they called it) for her Ginger Molasses cookies (thank you Aunt Shelley) and Natalie got 1st place for her Thunder Cake (which is a chocolate cake with tomatoes in it, you'd never know it). They also entered jelly and dried herbs (for food preservation), bracelets, rolls, and Natalie also had a babysitting kit. They got blue ribbons for everything and enjoyed being done for this year.

I almost forgot a wonderful weekend away with my sisters! Leslie and I flew to Denver to visit Kristen and family since they recently moved out there. It was quite a weekend of firsts for me. My first ever trip driving to UT by myself; meeting a great on-line friend for the first time - even though it seemed like we'd known each other for years - and got a great haircut from her (Thanks Marissa!); practically flying for the first time (only other time was 20 years ago, and boy things have changed since then); first time west of the Rocky mountains; and the first time ever painting my toenails - the things I do for my sisters, lol, actually it was kind of fun. And what did we do all together, we went to lunch at a fun mexican place, watched my niece cheer at the first football game; went to a great movie, Julie and Julia, which was even better than I thought; spent a fun evening walking around and celebrating Leslie's birthday on Pearl Street in Boulder; and went shopping at Michaels, Aeropostale, and Costco - you know, those places you have to go to Denver to shop at (wink, wink), but we got to do it without kids, and that makes all the difference. What a great break from the regular routine!

We enjoyed our first snow storm during potato harvest, so all the kids went out and built a snowman and had a great time playing in the snow. (I forgot to take pictures.)

Finally, two weekends ago we made a quick trip to Utah for my nephew, Curtis's, farewell. The sickness we were battling then let up long enough for us to drive down Saturday morning and come back Sunday before it hit us again. We had a great time playing Guitar Hero/Rockband, hanging out with family, and seeing Curtis again before he headed out to Los Angeles. He is going to be an awesome missionary!! Leslie sent us home with THE CUTEST shirts! (The same shirt is a dress for babies 6 mo. and up.) So doing our best "JcPenny Poses", Chloe and Maddie had to model.
So now that we're all caught up, I promise I'll do better at staying that way. :)

1st day of school.

Well, after much anticipation, days and days of counting down, shopping done, and spending a whole lot of money for "free education", that day has finally come - The First Day of School!! Cheyenne, Natalie, and Billy were three very excited kids for school to be starting. They couldn't wait!
Billy was excited to be going to a brand new school and his biggest concern wasn't getting lost or figuring out the cafeteria, or staying all day now, no his concern was what is the playground like. So at registration we checked it out and he approved - unfortunately our wonderful school district didn't think too far ahead and the grass isn't ready to play on yet, so no playground as of yet. We were a little worried because we heard he had the meanest teacher in the 1st grade, but Billy's really liked her and didn't think she was mean at all. Yeah!!I think Natalie was so excited to go back because she doesn't have to weed the garden every morning. :) Plus, she gets a locker this year! She gets it today and is really hoping for a top locker - cross your fingers, everyone. Most importantly, she seemed to make up with one of her best friends and the triangle of friendship trouble is broken up by different teachers this year, so she's hoping for the best there, too.And finally, Cheyenne. I think she has been counting down the days since school let out in June. Miss Social Butterfly couldn't wait to get back to her gang! I must say, though, registration was weird. She's at the Jr. High this year, the same Jr. High that I went to. So we strolled around the school and I'd tell about how we'd hang out here and there, and this was the scary part of the school (the dreaded basement), etc. How did I get so old as to have a daughter going there, wasn't I just there a few years ago??!!! Now that she's been there a couple of days, things are going okay. She has good friends in almost every class, and not any classes with the annoying friends - Yeah! However, she's already dreading band, and "DIES" every day because the school is so hot. She even has a dance after school today (not a noon dance). Although she really wanted to hang out with her friends, she thought a dance sounded really stupid, and I told her I'm sure most of her guy friends wouldn't be going to a dance. She agreed. So now they're thinking of going to the first football game tonight - which is at Viking stadium, whoo, whoo! (Again, because our wonderful district just resoded the football field a couple of weeks ago and it's not ready to play on yet, but they're making a really big deal of getting to play at the college.)So we're on day three now and things are going well. The only real complaints are about the bus and they're still trying to figure that one out. Cheyenne changes buses 4 times, takes over an hour to get home, gets home at the same time as last year and leaves 45 min. earlier - she's not loving any of that, plus has to pack her sax with her on these very crowded buses. I'm still trying to figure out when they're actually leaving a getting home. So in celebration of good times on the bus (wink, wink) I made them a bus cake for the first day - which of course Billy was so excited to "Kill the Bus" when we cut it up. :)

The best camping trip ever!

Ah, what fun we had this past week/weekend! Bill took a week off and went 4-wheeling a couple of times, the girls finished up their 4-H stuff, we went school shopping and then camping.

Thursday, we went up to Windy Ridge by Hell’s Hole and found a perfect spot! Bill’s parents were nice enough to lend us their trailer and that made camping a whole lot more fun. We had a nice little creek for the kids to play in and they LOVED it! They made mud traps, piled mud on rocks, and just splashed around. Thursday was nice and warm and Bill and I just relaxed with books in hand and rotated around to stay in the shade as the sun moved all afternoon. We taught them lifelong skills of how to roast the perfect hot dog and make delicious smores – skills all kids need! After we’d only been there a couple of hours Billy announced that “this was the best camping trip EVER!” Bill and I giggled as this is the first camping trip he’s been on. However, at 3:30 a.m. when Billy fell out of the bunkbed we were afraid the “best camping trip” might be ruined. Luckily he wasn’t very hurt and the “best camping trip” continued.

Friday was a little cooler and there was a breeze all day, so we didn’t play in the creek. The kids found the next best thing to water was dirt. And boy, did they have fun! They also found a “secret lair” and fought bad guys a lot. Billy even made a bow and arrow and hunted 7 buffalo and 5 chickens. ;) Cheyenne led Chloe and Maddie in a rock’n version of “Forest Rockband” complete with tree drums, stick guitars, and Maddie playing the flute. Bill took the kids on a couple of hikes to find wood and then all of them went huckleberrying. I was told that Maddie was the best berry picking partner; Jon was the best berry eater; and Billy and Chloe entertained them with a musical made up of one song, which they sang over and over again. By the time we came home we were all tired of the one line song.

Saturday was a little cooler still with it only getting up to around 60*. We still had a blast, though, playing and reading and playing some more. We also had cows around the whole time. On Friday they came and rounded them up, but they forgot some that showed up later. The funny thing was every time Bill would start reading Fablehaven (our family book right now) to us, the cows would show up to listen, too. Around 4 that afternoon, Bill decided we should have some pizza for dinner so he and Cheyenne ran down to Heise and brought back pizza and pop for us for dinner – that was great camping food! We got chased inside a little early that night as it started to sprinkle a little, so we played some rousing games of Uno Attack. That night got pretty cold, but it was so nice to turn on the heater about 6 a.m. We got up, ate cereal in the little boxes (Cheyenne and Natalie said we couldn’t go camping without them, Grandpa), finished loading up and headed home. It was a fantastic, relaxing, wonderful weekend, and I think we all decided we need to do it again, maybe a couple times next summer!

Our Trip to the Zoo

The kids were so excited, especially the little ones who couldn't remember our last trip. They kept asking if we'd see elephants? No. Giraffs? No. Hippo? No. Monkeys? I could finally answer yes! That was good enough and Natalie was really hoping to see the alligator that wasn't out last time. It's not the biggest zoo, or the best, but it's still fun. So off we went and met Bill there, too. It was a whole lot more expensive this time with the three old enough that we had to pay for them and Cheyenne now qualifies as adult prices. Ouch! We saw monkeys, flamingos, the camel with the saggy humps, but many animals were a no show. And the alligator we been waiting to see was about 2 1/2 feet long and hiding under a log, but we could see his foot. The kids really liked the penguins and the lion was big and majestic. My favorite was the huge turtle. But the best thing about the zoo was the park afterwards. We had a picinic and then let the kids all play on the awesome playground outside the zoo. The had more fun there than anything else. I think next summer we'll save the money on the zoo and just go to the playground. :)This was "how big are you compared to the lion".All my monkeys!

Okay, no one bothered to tell me this video never worked, and I finally just figured it out myself today. So here's a great little clip of t-ball. Billy is in the green hat on first base to begin with. :)

Fantastic duet!

A couple of weeks ago our high council speakers were fantastic! I know, something you don't hear about high council weeks often. :) Anyway, they spoke on marriage and one in particular, Bro. Williams, I think his name is, is a marriage councilor, too. He gave such good advice, and as part of his talk he talked about this You Tube clip. He gave the analogy of us each being instruments and how we need to learn to "jam" together to create beautiful, rich, fulfilling music/marriages. Plus the two songs that are played are Love Story and Viva La Vida, which he laughed about, are kind of like marriage - full of love and romance at the beginning and then it's just living life. However, if you can live life together like these two play music together, then it's going to be a pretty good life.

The 4th of July Weekend

Okay, so I'm only a few weeks late, but I thought I'd share our awesome weekend anyway. On Thursday night, my sister Leslie and her 3 boys came up from UT to stay with us for the weekend. Unfortunately Luke wasn't able to come with her this time, but Bill said Luke's the admission in the door for them to come next time. ;) We had such a fun weekend together. Bill had Friday off (since the 4^th was Saturday), so he got to share in all the fun, too. We took 4-wheeler rides down to the river to throw rocks and sticks in the water. We all went to the carousel and played at the park for a bit. We tons of fun playing and chatting and it was a little hard to get the boys to settle down each night as they all slept on the floor in Billy and Jon’s room. We met my brother Shaun and Alana at the parade, on Saturday, but it was a little sad to see our numbers so low there. No Mom and Dad, no Hathaways (as they'd just moved to CO that same week), and the big kids were in the parade or working. The parade was a little boring, as usual, very hot, and we didn't get any chocolate milk! But Cheyenne and Natalie had a fun time passing out flyers and bottles of water for Bill’s brother Tom. After the parade we went home and the kids immediately headed out to the pool. So a couple hours later we grilled hamburgers and just played all afternoon. Then of course fireworks that night, and finally we put 6 tired kids into bed and ended our day, too. It wasn't anything spectacular, but we all had such a great time! You really need to come again, soon, Les! Billy told me just yesterday, that the worst part of having Camden come was when he had to go home. :( Ahh, it's fun to have cousins to play with!

T-ball Time

This is what we've been doing every Tues. and Thurs. at 9 a.m. for the past month. This is no rules, everyone bats and runs around all the bases, no outs, nothing t-ball. Some games were very entertaining, some were very boring, some were even cold thanks to our nice cool June. I think the highlight of the games, at least for the little kids, was going to the playground at the park afterwards. But overall it was fun and I think Billy learned a lot. I learned something very important, too, that the triplets can play next summer. That should be interesting. The video was his last game and for some crazy reason he wore sandles so he couldn't run as well; and I think he spent more time playing in the dirt than doing anything else this time. You could tell it had been a long season for most of the team. :) That's Hyrum Flamm's little boy with the red hair.

Girls Camp

Well, girls camp was a bit of an adventure this year. We were up at West Piney campground (I never got to go on the slide, but Cheyenne did.) When I walked into camp Wednesday afternoon, just about the first words I hear are, "You're daughter is lost." Cheyenne's group left at 10 a.m. on what was supposed to be a nice little 5 mile hike. 7 1/2 hours later and an extra 4 miles, they stumbled back into camp. Who ever was in charge had found this motorbike trail on a map and it was supposed to loop back into our camp. It didn't. Finally they got turned around and came back down the mountain and were rescued later. She hiked through/over snow, hacked her way through the forest, and survived! Secretly, I'm VERY glad I didn't go up earlier, like I did last year, because I'm sure I would have gone on that hike, too. The day had been very pleasant and slightly cool, just right for hiking. However, another part of their group broke off and just after they got back to camp, the skies broke and it poured for the next couple of hours. Our leaders tent didn't fair to well, and my end of the tent had damp sleeping bags that night. We found another tarp to cover the really leaking end and then it started raining again just as we went to bed. We laughed as the leaders at the other end slept with garbage bags over them and we heard the plink, plinking of water dripping on them all night. The next day it rained/poured off and on all day, but we had the lodge to do all our activities in all day. About 3 in the afternoon, the sun peaked out and we opened all the tents, pulled out all the wet blankets and sleeping bags and tried to dry out for a minute. Then it clouded up and rained again as we ate dinner. It cleared up in time for testimony meeting outside and stayed clear all night. It was amazing how many stars there are up there! Us leaders, and a couple other girls screamed (some thought for sure a bear was coming for them), giggled, and laughed until after 2 a.m. and finally went to bed when it was freezing cold. Literally, freezing! One of the leaders scraped ice off her window the next morning. After a cold night, it was so nice to see sunshine the next morning, just in time to dry out the tents and tarps and pack up to come home. All in all, we had a great time with some great memories we'll never forget.

We're done!

Our remodeling/deck addition project is done! We added a 4' bay door onto our dining area, which has made all the difference in the world. We can easily get around our table now; who knew when we built our house 7 years ago we'd have such a big table in it. lol When we were looking at plans to build our house, I always wanted a railing on the front porch and Bill wanted a box with windows - he got the box and I was promised the railing would come. Well, I finally have my railing and the house looks much less boxy - it's all good!! We're loving the deck and wonder why we didn't add it on sooner. I have been pushed so far out of my comfort zone while this little project was going on that I'm really glad it's done. Making small talk with different workers as they're wandering through my house, calling lots of people, just having things out of place and not the regular routine was hard. Although, at least having Trent as our contractor was great. We knew him before so it wasn't hard to talk to him and the kids had a great time waving to him all the time and telling him to jump off the roof, and more. He was even named "Kronk" for a while by Maddie until she could finally remember Trents name. Then his other worker was named "Kronk" instead of "the orange guy" because they couldn't say his name. We're having a great time on it already and look forward to many, many bbq's and good times out there.

Before

After
BeforeAfter

Kia! (The yell you make doing karate moves)

Another update, Natalie tested last night and is now an orange belt! Luckily we didn't have mutual last night and I got to pick up Natalie from class where they informed me she was testing. So I got to watch her spar and everything. She was awesome! She first sparred with a younger girl and she really took it easy on her. Then she went up against her former friend who is now really not a friend and she kicked her butt! It was awesome. You could tell she was letting out some pent up aggression towards her. :) The poor girl could hardly hit Natalie because Natalie was so good at blocking her. Then Natalie went against an adult. She did pretty good, although I could tell she was getting a little frustrated. The guy kept hitting her head and she said he was blocking all her moves, but she had a smile through it all. Next up is her green belt!

Here's another picture of the progress that is slowly coming along on our house. We're down to hopefully a few more days and everything will be finished.

My Little Boy is 6!

How did this sweet little baby get to be my big, rough and tough, 6 year old boy? I can still remember very vividly the night Billy was born, watching the Jazz get beat in the playoffs. Bill eating Taco Bell in front of me, me having a cold so at least I couldn't smell it. The doctor being a dork and the nurse being absolutely wonderful. Even having a nap before they told me it was time to push - ahhh, an epidural was fantastic!

Now fast forward six years later and Billy's still just as sweet. Now don't get me wrong, this child has tried my patience more than all five others put together. But he's still my little buddy and I miss having him go to school now. His younger brother and sisters adore him. He loves to annoy his older sisters. He loves to help/hang out with his dad. He's a tease. He's a great reader now and his favorite things are transformers and legos - he has built all of his new lego models all by himself, no small feat. Now we'll see if he can master his new bike just as fast.Because of his love for legos, we had a lego birthday party for him. We played pin the door on the lego house, drop the legos into a jar, and each boy built their own lego cars and we raced them outside. The party actually went pretty smoothly thanks to Cheyenne and Natalie's help.
Now if only Billy would just stop growing. I love the age he's at now, right between a little kid and a big boy. I love that he still wants to sleep with his blanket each night (we have it folded up and hidden in his pillow so his dad won't see it) and a little sad to see him so excited to leave me and run off to the bus each day. I love you, Billy!