Is it possible?

    When I first met Greg I never would have imagined he'd ever be such an old man:-)  Believe it or not, my hottie husband is officially 40 years old!  It really doesn't seem possible.  That seemed so old not too long ago but now that he's there and I'm not too far behind him it's occured to me that 40 is really just a number and Greg does not seem 40 to me.  And the saddest thing is it kind of is a big number to reach, yet we did little to nothing to celebrate this momentous birthday.  There were no balloons, parties or cake.  We did have apple pie and I think Greg got what he wanted but hopefully despite our lack of celebrating he felt as special as we all think he is.  Here's a few photos of his big/sad day.

With the generousity of Greg and my parents and Greg saving his allowance for several months he was able to go and buy himself a GoPro camera that he's had his eye on.  Thanks Elaine, Jim, Ralph and Judy!!

Isaac has been counting down the days until he could finally buy this sucker for his dad.

Here's the majority of the family ready to dive into Greg's birthday apple pie from Costco!!

    And not to let that be our only fun for the week Greg and I also made a quick date night just this evening to the new sporting goods store Scheels in Sandy.  It goes without saying, this is a huge store considering it has a full size ferris wheel in the middle of it and innumberable amounts of sporting merchandise.  If I had a few pennies I could have bought myself  a few fun things but pennies really means hundreds if not thousands of dollars.  Not the cheapest merchandise in the world.  Here are a few photos from this little excursion.

 Can't let a good shooting game go without being played.

 And pretending to drive a monster jeep is every 40 year olds dream, right!?

And then being attacked by a monster grizzly could also be a dream/nightmare come true as well.

    I don't want to let this post finish without also mentioning our weekend visit from my sister Ann and her family.  Having 8 more people in our home can be a bit chaotic and overwhelming but well worth the time we got to spend with family.  Unfortunately I wasn't my usual self with the camera and I honestly only have this one photo to document the visit, pathetic I know.

    Of course I photographed one of the cuter of the Larson clan so that's something.  This is Kari who was a little cutie even if she really wasn't too sure about her Aunt Shirley.  Anyway, it was fun having them here for a quick weekend visit and if we get a vote, we vote they move to Heber or somewhere near by so we can see them a little more often but maybe after their weekend with us that just added one more con to their list;-) 
    Now bring on Thanksgiving, REALLY!!??  I don't think I'm quite ready for the holiday season but here it comes!

Smile!

   This week I found nearly 40 photos on my phone that I didn't take.  I erased the majority of them because they were of a hotwheels car but in that batch this CUTIE was captured.

While I was going through these photos I was sitting at the Orthodontist office with Isaac who was getting his braces tightened.  This is his hand position for the procedure.

Nervous?! Maybe just a little.  I couldn't stop laughing at how tense he was making himself.  Thankfully he doesn't cry or act out in any other obvious way.
And to top the week off.....

This is how McClane gets around the house occasionally.  He wheeled the bike in from outside when it got too dark to be in the backyard and to keep him happy Greg kept the bike in his bedroom that night and how do you think he came out of his room the next morning, that's right, on his bike.  There's nothing like having the two year old greet you in the kitchen on his Strider at 6:30 a.m.!  Dang, he's CUTE!

Birthday and Halloween

Isaac is officially 10 and had a pretty fun birthday.  Here's how it began.

Isaac had his brother Carter and his two good friends and neighors, Bobbi Porter and Andy Dimond join him at Trafalga Fun Center.

Isaac climbed the rock wall several times.

They all enjoyed some Dippin' Dots before heading home.

 So this was Saturday's celebration. They also played laser tag and several arcade games while at the fun center and had a pretty fun couple of hours.
  Isaac's official birthday was Sunday and this is how that went.

 10 birthday balloons and SpongeBob even sang happy birthday when you tapped the balloon! (Obnoxious.)

 First birthday gift, a tiny rifle cap gun.  He loved it but was really hoping for a  BB gun.

 Birthday cards and cash from both grandparents, always a hit!

 Now on to the traditional blanket wrapped gifts.

 Oh yes, he did get a BB gun, what a relief.  (Sorry for the blurry photo.)

And oh yeah, a new bigger bike.

So that was the first part of our week now on to Halloween fun.

 Our cute "monster" McClane.

 Brock is a white Power Ranger.

 Isaac a creepy Zombie.

 Carter a cute Superman.

 Kayli is Benny from "The Sandlot".

And Mark was a scary dude who had a mask on but not for this photo.

Here they are altogether.  Not the best photo but you get the idea.
They all made out pretty well candy wise and have had the most fun eating a large sum of candy every day for the last several days.  Lets hope their teeth don't rot completely.
And for the finale here's what our boys find fun to do in their spare time...

Throwing dog poop at the fence!  Yeah, that was awesome especially when Greg realized they'd also thrown it over the fence onto the neighbors car and shed.  Just what Greg had hoped to do that night!  Boys are so GROSS sometimes!

She Never....

   Our teenage daughter is really a good girl.  She spends the majority of her time at home so we rarely have to worry about where she is or what she's doing, BUT often she does little and some BIG things that really push the parental buttons.  This is one of those little things...
     Just recently she complained that her water bottle was not in the exact spot of the fridge that it should be.  I quickly pointed out that if she put it away herself this problem would be solved.  She than informed me that she ALWAYS puts it away and NEVER leaves it out, someone just moves it once it's in the fridge.  I say, "HA!"  So this is the photo I took just shortly after this conversation and this isn't the first time (and I'm positive it won't be the last) since this conversation that this has happened.

Yes, this is her water bottle left out after dinner.  Curious!  (And I just might have texted this photo to her and demanded she come home from her friends house to put it away.)

    Now I'm not really complaining because Kayli is a helper and we couldn't live without her, but I just wanted to document that she is occasionally a LIAR!  Love you Keke!!

Fire!

    It's always nice to have a fire in the back yard which we did twice over the long weekend we had.

  I thought I'd share about McClane and how cute he was being yesterday.  I already posted about it a little on Facebook yesterday but those who might not see facebook I'll share again how cute McClane can be.  He is actually quite a good little helper even though he can also be a big stinker and mess maker too.  He regularly helps me do laundry, pick up toys and throws garbage away whenever asked.  Well yesterday he decided to help scoop poop from the backyard and got the shovel and rake out that Greg uses for that chore and when he couldn't quite manage to make those two tools work together he went ahead and just picked the poop up bare handed and threw it in the shovel which was pretty darn hilarious.  Then just minutes after this, and after I thoroughly washed his hands, he was in the back of Greg's work truck, climbed up on the roof and was jumping on it like a trampoline.  Naughty but I still couldn't help but laugh.  Then while Greg was blowing all the leaves in the yard McClane insisted on taking over and was blowing the leaves himself.

He's just too cute!
 

   So that's all I've got to share for today.  It looks like some yucky weather is heading our way so I need to enjoy this fine Saturday as much as I can.

Update and Hiking

    So it's been awhile since I updated the kid's pictures in my kitchen where I have them displayed so nicely.  So I asked my kind brother-in-law, Blaine, to come with his fancy camera and take a few shots of the kids for me and he did a great and quick job of it and I think they turned out quite nicely.  I've never had pictures taken one day and then have them printed and up in their frames the very next day and total spent, $10 bucks!  Blaine really was the bomb, he even came on his one year wedding anniversary which was especially kind of him.

Brock is 4 and a 1/2 and too cute!

Handsome Carter is 7.

Isaac is nearly 10 and the sweetest boy ever.

Kayli is 15 and a one photo wonder

Mark is 12 and quite the handsome young man

And McClane is about the cutest sad 2 year old I've ever seen.

As you can see McClane was far from cooperative for the photos but he's still cute!



 So that's the update and now here are a few of the many, many photos Greg took of his recent hiking adventures.  Mark and Isaac joined him on his latest one.

Aren't the colors just spectacular!

Rosie's turning out to be a great hiking companion.

Mark and Isaac are also great hiking buddies.

It's all about the journey, not a race to the top.

Nothing like a good freeze dried dinner along the trail.

Three cute hikers.

Isaac had a blast.

   So that's our photo update and hiking adventures.  Before you know it we'll be celebrating Isaac's birthday and Halloween.  We won't discuss how NOT excited I am for the coming winter weather!

It's official!



     It's official, this little guy is now 2 and is about the cutest 2 year old I've met in a long time!  We had his birthday cake, and the like, last week, but this is him on his actual birthday.  He also had his two year checkup a couple weeks ago and weighed in at 29 lbs. and is about 35 inches tall.  The doctor's visit was a bit abnormal for me.  All my kids generally enjoy visiting the doctor and rarely cry aside from getting their shots but McClane is definitely not like his siblings.  He cried the second I put him on the scale so I had to be weighed (JOY) and then hold him and the nurse than figured out the difference.  He then continued to scream when I put him up on the table to be measured and checked out, I was holding him down nearly the whole time.  But as soon as the doctor or nurse left the room he'd be totally fine.  Then the dreaded shots came and after all four were administered he was given a sucker and immediately stopped crying and was totally fine.  I don't think the shots even bothered him but having the doctor and nurse touching him was just too much.  He checked out healthy and fine and the doctor warned that he was just going to get better at climbing, running and getting into mischief and I told the doctor I didn't think that was possible because he's already quite a professional climber and general trouble maker but I won't let my guard down yet!
     The rest of our week has been normal and well.  Greg took Mark and Isaac hiking yesterday after school and they had a great time and then Greg treated me to movie and dinner.  We saw "Taken 2" and if you haven't seen the first one I'd recommend seeing it before seeing the second but they're both great, intense movies.  Liam Nesson is AWESOME!  And dinner was at Buffalo Wild Wings in Lehi near Costco and it was loud and a definite sports bar and the food wasn't bad but a little spendy over all but it was just nice to get out for a few hours and have a nice date with my husband.