Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was wonderful. Matt, my brother, and brother-in-laws put together a flag football game. They had alot of fun, and we had fun laughing and cheering them on. Later my sisters and I put together a pretty fancy feast, if I may say so myself. It was fun to have family around again for Thanksgiving. I am very blessed and humbled by all that I have been given.

Halloween 2009

We went to our friends Paige and Kincade's annual Halloween party. It was fun and Asher hung out by the candy jars the whole night, except when he decided to test his pain tollerance by holding onto the lights until he pulled away yelling "OUCH". What a boy. Julia was the only big kid so she enjoyed playing the mom and dad games with us. She felt so grown up.





On Halloween night my sisters came out to our house with their families to go Trick or Treating. The kids went up the street and back before they decided they were done. It wasn't even cold. We were shocked. Matt said that they just didn't realize the amount of candy that is there for the taking. We will have to work on their endurance for next year. I guess it is good for my patience and figure that we don't have that much candy in the house. We spent the rest of the night handing out candy and watching movies. It has been a fun Halloween this year with trunk or treating, parties, and trick or treating. P.S. Isn't Sarah so cute! I helped her make the hat and then a friend of hers made the skirt.

Julia and Matt's Tooth

Julia lost her first tooth. This tooth was so loose that it was sticking up above the other teeth. I kept telling her that is wasn't going to hurt and that she would giggle after we pulled it out. She was so upset as you can see. She said, "I wish I was Asher right now because he isn't loosing his teeth." And then when I was trying to get her to let me pull it out she said as she was sobbing, "I'm scared, I'm just a little girl." This went on for over an hour. Matt finally found her sitting on the stool in the kitchen asleep with her head on the counter. When she finally let us pull it out she giggled and said, "That didn't hurt. Mom I should of listened to you, you don't lie to me." So sweet! I was so excited and sad for her at the same time.
Well Matt didn't want to be out done, so the very next week he decided he wanted to loose a tooth too. It is actually the crown that he just got in August. He bit down on a fork and crack his real tooth underneath a few weeks ago. When we were eating pizza the whole crown just fell off. It was very tramatic, but I had to laugh a little because it was halloween weekend and I couldn't find the ugly teeth for him at the store, so I told him, "At least you don't have to buy your Billy Bob teeth now." A dentist down the road was able to put his tooth back together the next morning. It looks good now. I was a little bummed cause that night him and Julia were going to be Pirates at a Halloween party and it would of looked so cool to see them both in their pirate costumes with missing teeth. Oh well I guess his self esteem is more important.

Gardner Village Witch festival

The Neilsons came up to Utah and we were so excited to spend a day with them. Julie and I took the kids to Gardner Village Witch festival. It was so much fun. Their favorite part was a witch in an outhouse titled "Witchy Poo." They got a kick out of that.

New House

Here are pictures of our new house. The first night we got here we had another slumber party on the floor. the kids had so much fun running around the house and yard. The hill on the side of the house was a favorite for a while. This is the view from our back balcony. It is soooo beautiful. It has to be the prettiest view in Utah. We can see the point of the mountain, Alpine, Mount Timpanogoes, all of Utah County, and Utah lake.





Here are some pictures of the family room and my favorite room in the house, my art/photo studio.

Last Day in Arizona

Our last day we were in Arizona our good friends the Fryers threw us a farewell pool party. It was a perfect way to end this chapter of life in Arizona, hanging out at the pool with wonderful friends. We planned to hang out at the pool until that afternoon and then head up to Las Vegas that night. I was inside starting to pack up our stuff to head out. Someone ran in and told me Asher got hurt. Asher was watching all the big kids jump off the diving board backwards. Asher, having no concept of cause and effect, decided that he should try it. Matt was across the pool watching him. He saw Asher get up on the board backwards and yelled for him to stop and tried to get to him. Everything is slow motion when you’re swimming in the pool and trying to prevent the inevitable. Asher jumped off the board and did not clear it. It scraped his belly, chin, nose, and busted open his bottom lip. I couldn't believe it, we were in the process of MOVING that day and now we had to go the doctor. I was a little emotional. Of all the kids, Asher would be the one to get hurt. We took him to the urgent care, which closed ten minutes before we got there. We then took him to the ER where one of our friends was working. The doctor was trying to decide between gluing his lip or giving him one stitch. They decided to glue it because we were going to be so crazy with traveling and moving the next few days. We should of gone with the stitch because a three year old stuck in a car for two days will pick the glue off his face. Now he will have a cool scar and story to go with it. Too bad the party had to come to such an abrupt end. It was a fitting way to end our life in Arizona, swimming, friends, and Asher hurt in the ER.










After we got home from the hospital we loaded up our car and said goodbye to the house. I didn't even have time to clean up after our Empty house party the night before. Thank you for good friends who came over later to clean it up for us. It was 3:30 in the morning when we finally got to our hotel in Las Vegas. It was an emotional, draining, and exhausting day.

Empty House Party

Our last night in Arizona we had an "Empty House Party" Julia asked me to have one more party to invite all her frieds over to say goodbye. How could I say no. So the house was completly empty and we invited all of our friends over to have one last party. I didn't know kids could have so much fun in an empty house. It was a ton of fun and I was so busy that I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to. Thanks to all of our friends in Arizona. We have been so blessed as a family to have found such wonderful friends. I am so sad to say goodbye to some of the best friends and memories that we have ever had. Arizona was a time in our life that we learned a lot of lessons, made wonderful friends, had a lot of adventures, received and gave a lot of service, grew, and of course it was where Asher joined our family.