September end to October 2013

 School begins! Adessa is excited for 3rd grade to begin. There was no way for us to know at the time of this picture what a great adventure she would have. Her dual immersian, Spanish teacher, Sra. Dabb was one of Adessa's heroes this year.  

 Jexten is ready for school, he learned and grew so much in first grade this year. There is no stopping this boy!

 A fun treasure hunt while Grandma and Grandpa visited.

 another birthday celebration for Adessa :) as much as i want her to stop growing i am so excited for the person she is!

 Adessa was invited to be Cindy Lou Who for a ward Christmas play. here is one of the details that went into the many preparations for this play. to say she had fun is a gross understatement. My little actress :)

 a cheerleader skirt i made for one of adessa's haloween costumes. She wore this during the day, and was a cat that night :) Adessa's her name and "Dress 'em ups" her game!!

 Carving pumpkins!!

 I got to dress up at school too. I helped with class parties, and i got into the fun of the holiday too :)

 Jexten is my little hero! "Star wars, clone wars, super trooper"

Adessa's 9yr old b-day video at OneTrueMedia.com

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Birthday Blog Part II

Kurt's birthday comes next, a mere 2 weeks following the day known as "Epic".   We had to wait until the weekend to celebrate Kurt's birthday, but the kids and I celebrated at home anyway by renting a movie and eating pizza while he was at work.  Sorry there are no really cool pictures for this very eventful celebration.... I forgot the camera, but this DID happen! 
We loaded up the trailer and started on our way to Rexburg, and then to our camp site at Henry's Fork Outlet. We got as far as Pocatello to stop for bathroom breaks and noticed that the truck was spraying gear oil all over the place. Now what??? Well we decided that we are just as close to Rexburg as we are to turn back, so we might as well keep going on a wing and a prayer :). We made it. Kurt was frazzled. He made a few phone calls, while we ate dinner at mom and dad's and finished loading up their trailer.  Kurt ultimately decided to just buy a bunch of gear oil and keep an eye on the leak and add oil as needed.    
     We arrived at our campsite after midnight, and zonked out.  The next day mom and dad showed us all the best 4-wheeler trails and we took a day trip to Johnny Sack's Cabin... I highly recommend seeing that.  It was more wonderful than I can describe. Jexten is set on meeting that man in the Spirit World and heartily shaking his hand. I would not be surprised if Jexten names his first son Johnny Sack :).  We stayed there for quite some time.  It was a nice sunny hot mountain kind of day so we thought a river float was in order.. BOY WERE WE RIGHT!  We took a 2-ish hour long river float and saw: some HUGE fish in deep cold water, a cow moose standing in the middle of the river, lots of wonderful birds, and a bull moose laying in some lush reeds.  We were so close to so much wildlife, I mean up close and personal!  We took Sunday off to go to the Island Park Ward sacrament meeting, eat like kings (that was an every meal occurrence) and rest. Kurt came down with a pretty bad cold by this time. So we pulled out on Sunday afternoon, and slept at mom and dad's that night. The hospitality of those people is limitless!  Monday we rode horses, and decided to go to the Tautphous Park Zoo in Idaho Falls.  We all thought it best to add Curt and Limmie's family to the party for the Zoo.  It was a perfect cloudy overcast drizzley day so we got to see ALL the animals.  I think that was my first time actually seeing the male lion in the wide open, majestic is all I can say.  It was a wonderful weekend to celebrate a wonderful husband and father!

 These pictures were actually taken on Jexten's birthday, but they are so fun!

 We have water fights with dad just because we can!

The Birthday Blog

Our family's end of summer "thing" is Birthday Celebrations!  Everyone , except me, has a birthday between the end of August to the end of September..... So I have held off with the birthday pictures long enough that now I can do one, great, big, gigantic, enormous, BANG of BIRTHDAYS!!! YAY!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYBODY!!!:)

  So we'll start off with Jexten, August 15th, he had been counting down for months and thought the day would never get here.  But the day DID finally come, and on that day he said that for his birthday he wanted "all the good little boys to stand on the patio and try to catch the candy that he would smash out of a pinata."  Nice mental picture,huh? The real thing was even better. Jexten called it "Epic". It really was: 
 

 some of the loot from a really fun treasure hunt

 they attacked the presents, and then the cake. Hailey "only wants half of the cake" :)

 Splash pad in Rexburg followed by some deep "boy talk"

 Carnival for you birthday?? LUCKY!!

 feelin' pretty big for his boots!

 camping UFO's

 after a non stop action packed weekend "mom, I'm tired."

Summer of Still Small

finding buried treasure

riding horses is fun to do!

"slippery slides" are for everyone

our personal parade

Someday they will grow up and that will bring it's joys, but today is today and this summer they are still small!

Party ON!

 Mother's day tree falling

 Adessa Loves Animals!

 Luring a cat from hiding at Grandma's

 Little Willey

 Always Grandpa's day

 These boys are techies....with guns ;)

 The joy of Balloons!

 that little girl better watch her chocolate better, Adessa is thinking about it....

 i guess Jexten needs a haircut!

 Matthew loves presents!!

 WHO WANTS CAKE!!?

 The after party!

 friends forever!

 AYSO soccer All-Star league game

 SHE WON!

 a hike with matthew RACE TO THE TREASURE!

my "ugly purse thingy" *snicker* haha!  that reminds me i need more upholstry thread... better go get some!