Shed Hunt

Last Weekend Misti & Todd's family & our family headed to the hills to find sheds. Now when I say sheds don't be confused with the useful storage buildings used to hide all your crap so your neighbors don't have to look at it. Oh no, I am talking about antler sheds that fall off the deer at this glorious time of year. More stuff to clutter up your garage so you have to move all the yard tools outside in the weather and make you wish you had a useful place to store them. . . like a SHED! Although I don't understand the concept behind "shed hunting", it was a beautiful weekend to get out and hike. The kids had a great time and the hike we took was nice and flat for the most part so there wasn't a whole lot of complaining about being tired. And we actually found quite a few sheds so the kids stayed fairly interested. It was a great warm day and RJ kept looking for SHADE not sheds. Every time he would say, "Hey, shade!" Payton would come running over, "you found a shed!"

Check out the View we found at the end of the trail!

Our first family photo for 2009!

Kory, who doesn't give a rats about my blog, wanted to make sure that I got a picture of all the sheds we found so I could post it on my blog for all you antler lovers out there!
(Good thing Khlo didn't want to ride in the back pack).

It's just not worth it

I broke my sewing machine out to sew a few patches on Tanner's cub scout shirt

While Khloee busied herself with all my supplies.

And while I was cleaning up 1,000 safety pins and untangling thread and bobbins, I remembered why it has been so long since I have sewed anything.

Happy Birthday Cheri

I would just like to tell this little "SHARP SHOOTER", Happy Birthday!

I remember when I was younger that I thought Cheri must be the best cheerleader Pine View High school had ever seen. She had the best form and the most spirit. I also loved her hair, it was long and soft. Although she didn't like me to touch it with my gruby hands, I don't know why.

I was unaware of her other athletic ability until I was older and have had the great opportunity to play with her. I am surprised that the WNBA has not found her and recruited her yet. She is a well kept secret!

And her trampoline skills are unmatched as you can see in this photo taken at the Dennett family talent show. Hard to believe it from this photo, but she nailed this front flip.

Just call her Mary Lou!

All Joking aside, she really is a good sport about all the teasing we (her sisters) giver her. I was so grateful to get to take a trip back to Nauvoo last year with her and Misti. We had such a fun time and made some great memories that I will cherish forever! I should be more grateful to have such a great example to follow, her being the sister just older than me. But sometimes she is a hard act to follow and I don't like the pressure she adds by being so good at everything! I am lucky I know, because she makes me a better person than I ever would have been without her.

Happy Birthday Cheri

Sing your heart out Sista

Create

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLlnq5yY7k

A day at the "cannery"

O.K. not really the cannery but close enough. My sister's and I got together and canned some of our goods we picked up from the cannery a few weeks ago. We had so much fun together for a few hours, canning and doing something productive for our families and our food storage! It was much easier than going to the cannery. (for me at least). I didn't have to find a babysitter for 4 hours and I didn't have to wear a hair net either! I borrowed our stake's canning machine and got some tips from my "neighbor canning guru", Tamara, and we had a great morning together.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the cannery and how easy it makes it for us to get our houses in order, I just loved being able to do it in my own home.

Kandice, AKA- "Queen canner" Misti, was runner up "Queen canner"

Sorry about the side way's picture.

I was the "Little Red Hen" and spent some time
grinding wheat to be made into bread.

The kids played video games, jumped on the tramp, played in the sandbox and ate the dropped apple slices that didn't make it in the cans.
You can't do that at the cannery either!

We were able to can 50 cans of goods that I am grateful to have in my food storage!! YEAH

A Baptism & a Birthday

What a fun and exciting day Saturday was for Tanner. He has been waiting for his baptism with much anticipation. He was the only person in our ward to be baptized this month so he got to have the day as well as the program all to himself. I never knew the kid was so opinionated. He knew who he wanted to give the talks, the prayers, be witnesses etc. . . He even had the menu for the luncheon all figured out. We did have to do a little tweaking of the menu just so we didn't have German Pancakes and chili (as well as a few other random things) in the same spread.

Tanner with his dad

Thanks to all those that were able to be there and share this special day with our family! We loved having you come. For those family members that couldn't make it, we know you can't make it to everything but we missed you and wished you lived close enough to be with us for all these great occasions. Just know we missed you!!

We also got to celebrate Khloee's 2nd birthday the same day. Unfortunately, we kind of tried to make it a special day for Tanner and Klo got overshadowed a bit. We only got a couple of pictures of her and her mom even opened her presents thinking that they were Tanner's and he had just put them back in the gift bags. Lucky for me she didn't know or care that it was her birthday and she just went on with the day surrounded by cousins and cupcakes!She is learning the art of "Shoving it all in"

from her cousin Payton!

Happy Birthday RJ

It is hard to believe that 4 years ago RJ came to be a part of this family. It just seems that he has always been here amongst all the chaos. This year has been a big year for him. He started sunbeams and it took us until August to get him to go to class all by himself. He also started school in August, at Head start in LaVerkin. It took him a good month to adjust and think that school was a good thing. But he has great teachers and they have been very patient with him trying to make this big step. In November he started one more pre-school at the Intermediate school right close to our house. He attends there 3 day's a week for a couple hours a day. This school has been great for his cognitive delay as well as his speech. He has grown up so much in the last few months.

His favorite things are still being in the outdoors with his dad. He has yet to get tired of riding around on the 4 wheeler with his dad. It doesn't matter if it is freezing out, if the 4 wheeler is turned on then he is on it.

He is great to play all alone with a few cars and his imagination. (If his brothers would leave him alone for more than a few minutes.) He loves his animals. Sassy and French Fry (the cats) are his favorite little cuddle toy's. We got him a bird for Christmas which he was so excited about. He named it Chewy! Unfortunately, Sassy thought Chewy, looked . . . CHEWY. So the bird is no more. I don't know how soon we will try another bird.

There truly is never a dull moment with RJ around. We are so lucky to have this sweet boy as a member of our family.

Happy Birthday RJ