The Atkinson Family

The rest of October...

2010-11-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

We took the family to see Mady in Thriller! Mady couldn't wear her costume outside so she just came out to say hi to everyone before she got ready. It was a great show and so fun to watch her in it! She did a fabulous job!

Out of everyone, Jeannene (Dusty's mom) was the most afraid of the zombies. She even hid behind her own grandkids!

I went to our neighborhood annual witch party. It's always a good time. This year I made a fun 'witches brew' cheese dip. It was yummy and looks SO cute!

We went to my parents annual Halloween dinner. This year the kids were greeted at the door by the grim reaper. They weren't quite sure if they wanted to walk past him to get into the house. Some of the younger cousins refused to even look at Grandpa if he was in his costume!

My mom is always creative with the food. We had green slugs (cheese tortellini) with an orange sauce, green garlic bread with black butter, and an orange drink with hand shaped ice cubes, and eyeballs on a fork. It was yummy but as you can see from Breckyn's expression, the presentation kind of grossed her out.

The kids (and grandpa) in their costumes. Mady was Yoshi and Ash was Princess Peach from Super Mario Brothers (Mady took her costume off, I never got a picture of her in it!) Breckyn was a pumpkin and Kaden was Jango Fett.

We all made a cute craft. You mod podge tissue paper onto a glass jar and then you glue a face on. My brother has some kind of fancy cutter that you put the image on a computer and then the cutter cuts it out. The kids could even draw their own picture and then have it cut out. Kaden and Hunter love Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon so they drew him to put on their jar.

Then they all got some new jammies. They loved it! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a really fun night!

Carving pumpkins is always a circus at our house because my kids can't stand the goop inside of the pumpkin. Ash had to wear gloves, Kaden had to leave the room because he kept dry heaving and Breckyn actually threw up! I had to run to the store and when I walked back into the house I hear Breckyn yell from the bathroom, "Dad, I threw up!" and she's crying and freaking out and instead of being a good, comforting mom, I ran and grabbed my camera and took a picture. It was just too funny.

So after Breckyn's 'incident' Mady decided to make a pumpkin in her honor...

The last day of school before Halloween I went to the school to see the kids in the parade and throw Breckyn's class party and help in Kaden's. I was so busy running around during Breckyn's party that I didn't take one picture! But a got a few of Kaden during his party. Here he is with his good friend TJ.

We went to the ward Halloween party that night and instead of doing a trunk or treat this year they had a carnival type set up with food and games and a spook alley. It was so much fun! I liked it sooo much better than a trunk or treat. The kids had a great time. The funniest game was eating a donut on a string. We all had to try it and I'm pretty sure that I won on my turn...

These girls are such goof balls.

I have no pictures of Saturday night when the kids went trick or treating. Lame! But it was a fun night, Mady and Ash were part of a group of about 20 kids that went trick or treating. That's a lot of kids showing up at your door all at once! Kaden, Breckyn and Graci went together of course and I got to stay home and hand out the treats. It was a slow year though, sometimes I wouldn't get a knock at my door for about 20 minutes. I got laundry done, my fridge cleaned out, I was very productive!
Since Halloween was on Sunday this year everyone did their trick or treating on Saturday, but we still wanted to do something fun on the actual Halloween night so we threw a big family party. We invited both sides of our families and our good friends the Lewis' to come over for dinner and games. It was so much fun! We instructed everyone to bring a Halloween themed dish to share and they were just so creative! We had a dessert that was almost too scary to eat because it looked just like kitty litter, bone shaped breadsticks, a candy corn themed veggie tray, and jello worms to name a few. We ate out in the garage that had been blacked out and decorated with things that would glow really well in the black light. I tried to make a glow in the dark punch...it didn't work so well. It only glowed if you held it right up to the black light. Oh well. Here's what the garage looked like...

After everyone had had their fill, we went inside and the kids played some carnival type games. When they were done, we sent them downstairs to dance to Halloween music in the dark. They had glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces and a strobe light and they loved it! I think the little girls would have danced all night if we let them. After that we had some Halloween cartoons for them to watch while the adults and bigger kids played games upstairs. We played BINGO and it's surprising what people will do to win a candy bar. We caught Skyler trying to throw beans down my mom's shirt...not really. Well, he really did throw a bean down her shirt but it was an accident. The hit of the night was playing "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow". You get a bunch of loud, obnoxious people trying to decide who the werewolves are that are killing the villagers and everybody is trying to convince everyone else that they are NOT a werewolf... well, it got pretty funny. The game worked a lot better once the kids stopped peeking though!

Happy Halloween!

Another busy week...

2010-10-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

Seriously! I think my October is as busy as my December! There are just too many fun things to do at Halloween! We took Mady and Ash to their FIRST EVER Haunted House. We went to Nightmare on 13th and made a new friend...

Here the kids are before we went in. They were pretty excited but getting a little nervous.

Then Ash started to see some of the characters out in line and she completely freaked out. This is pretty much how she was the entire time. Latched on to whatever adult was closest to her with her head buried in their chest. She didn't see much but she sure screamed a lot!

Whew, we made it out of their all in one piece.

On a less scary note, Jenn, Alisa, Brittany and I took our kids to Little Haunts up at This Is The Place National Park. They got to go trick or treating, make a craft, go to the petting zoo, ride a pony and a train. The little kids had a great time, I think the older ones were a little bored. Sorry girls.

In true Kaden form, instead of petting the sheep he is mauling it. Or maybe that's a goat? I don't know.

Yeehaw! The boys loved this. Breckyn and Graci on the other hand have been taking horseback riding lessons so a pony tied to a pole that just went in circles was "lame".

Before we went home we rode the train. We had to wait in line forever, didn't make it onto the first train because there wasn't any room and then almost didn't make it onto the next train because right as it pulled up all these people came out of nowhere and rudely scrambled in front of us to get on. Britt is still mad about it as you can see... Grrr.

Every year, Dusty's parents like to take a trip to the pumpkin patch with the family and buy all the grandkids a pumpkin. The kids love to search through the field for the perfect pumpkin.

Hmmm. How many kids can we fit into a wheelbarrow?

After a great deal of searching, everyone has found their favorite pumpkin.

Thanks Grandma!

And last but certainly not least, we had our annual candy poker night with some friends. We went out to dinner and then back to our house to play some games.

Well the Nehrings found out that first timers luck really only holds out during your first time. They were our big winners last year but this year they just couldn't cut a break. Debi even lost to the dummy hand when we were all sure she was going to win! Don was making some great decisions on his cards... really Don, I hope you guys come every year. We love taking your candy! :) Brittany was the big winner this year and she says, "It's about time!" (Really we just let her win so she'll still play with us. She was starting to become a sore loser...) Just kiddin Britt, you know I luv ya!

We're baaack!

2010-10-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have been a HUGE blogging slacker and have fallen way behind! We had a crazy busy summer that I will catch up on at some point but as for right now I just had to make some time to post about our weekend. We had a very special day yesterday because our sweet little Breckyn was baptized. I can't believe she is already 8! Time goes by way too fast. She was so excited for this day, she has been counting it down for the past two weeks.

Breckyn had a lot of support from her friends and family. We had a very nice program with her grandmas talking about what it means to be baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost, her grandpas said the prayers, her sisters played the piano and led the music and all her siblings and cousins sang "I am a Child of God". Kaden of course was a little character and pulled a fabulous 'Ta-da' pose at the end of the musical number. Very cute, gave us all a little chuckle. Here's Breckyn with her Best Friend Forever Graci. In just a couple of months it will be her turn.

Ashlyn has started playing lacrosse and later Saturday afternoon we went and watched her game. She got a chance to play D-wing... I really don't know what that means except that she ran up and down the field a lot. Here she is taking a shot at the goal. Look at that form.

Breckyn and Graci were cheering the team on from the sidelines. My favorite cheer they say is "Totally, fer sure, I just got a manicure. The sun, up there, is shining on my gorgeous hair. My make-up is smear'in I think I lost an earr'in. 19 - 24, I don't know the stupid score. Go, Go, Fight, Fight, Gee I hope I look alright! Gooo Team! Hoo-ray!" You really don't get the full effect unless you see it with the actions. It's hilarious.

Mady was also very busy this weekend. She is dancing in Odyssey Dance Theater's performance "Thiller". She is in the Chucky number and she had 3 performances this weekend in Park City. She will have 2 more at Kingsbury Hall later this month. She is having so much fun, she loves it! Here she is getting ready...

And here is the final product. She and her friend Madison were having too much fun playing photo shoot in their costumes.

This is a picture of all the girls in her cast.

Saturday night I went with some friends in the neighborhood to the Salt Lake City "Ghost Tours". One of our friends is a storyteller this year for the tour and we went to support her. Here she is telling us a spooky story.

Ahhh! We are so scared! Britt and I were a little nervous for the tour, we don't really like scary stories.

Some of the ladies walking through one of the parks downtown that is said to be haunted. I hid in the bushes and scared a couple of them as they walked past. :)

Boo! Here we are being spooky ghosts in the graveyard. I know, we look pretty scary.

We had a great time and learned some really interesting stuff even though it was a little creepy.

Happy Birthday to Mady!

2010-04-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

For Mady's birthday this year all she really wanted were some 'designer' jeans and a palm pixi (that's a cell phone). She didn't think she was getting the phone so she was really surprised and excited when she opened the box.

Besides a lot of clothes and her phone she also got a bead watch, some jewelry, $$$, a scarf... pretty much the essentials for a teenager...wait, what?...Ahh! We now have an official teenager in the house! Thank goodness our Mady is such a sweetheart (for now anyway). Well, since it's Mady's birthday this post is going to be all about her.
Mady LOVES to dance. Absolutely loves it. When she's not actually at her dance classes 8+ hours a week she is at home making up dances with her friends in our basement. They always perform them for me and they are so fun to watch, they really have a talent for it.
She also really likes to go mountain biking and rock climbing with her dad. All her dancing has given her a great set of lungs and some pretty strong legs. She can keep up with Dusty all the way up the mountain. Last summer she went on a ride with her dad and his friend and some 14 year old boys and she put the older boys to shame. She beat them all up the mountain and she was the only kid who didn't have to rest.
Mady also loves to snow ski and in true Mady style she has taken to it really well. Dusty says she can 'shred'. That's some kind of skiier lingo I don't understand, all I know is that she can smoke me down the mountain.
Mady is a great baker and is always making cookies! I think I've gained 5 pounds since she learned to cook...
She also likes to draw, read (depending on the book), go shopping, hang out with her friends, wear jammie pants, listen to music, keep up on her gymnastic skills, facebook, argue (she should go on the debate team in high school) and design rooms and clothes. She and her sister really want to start a swimsuit line for girls, they have already designed dozens of swimsuits, now if we could just get some funding... maybe some day.
Some of her favorites are:
Food - Teriyaki Chicken Rice Bowl from Rumbis
Color - pink
Song - When I Look at You (Miley Cyrus), Baby (Justin Bieber), Telephone (Lady Gaga, Beyonce)
Treat - Cookies, Cinnamon Rolls
Movie - Step Up 2
T.V. show - Good Luck Charlie, Phineas and Ferb
Mady might be a little bit forgetful at times but she is so dependable and I can always trust her with the younger kids, she's always been a little mom. She makes good decisions and I know that wherever she is, she is making the right choice. She is a good example to others and stands up for what she knows is right. She is also such a HAPPY girl! She almost always has a smile on her face and she is so giggly. Almost anything can set her off and then she can't stop forever! Her laugh is contagious. She is also quite the talker, she could talk your ear off sometimes... especially if it's time for bed. I think she pretty much tells me everything and I'm so glad that she feels like she can talk to me, I wonder when that will change. Hopefully it never does! Mady is a wonderful daughter and sister and we are so lucky to have her in our family. We love you Mady!

Easter 2010

2010-04-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

"It's beginning to look a lot like... Christmas?" Oh wait, it's Easter. I got a little confused there for a second because we woke up to SNOW! Crazy! Well, regardless of the weather, the Easter Bunny was still able to visit our house during the night and hide our eggs and leave plenty of treats and toys for the kids in their baskets. When the kids woke up they immediately went hunting for the goods! The Easter Bunny was pretty creative this year, hiding the eggs in silly places and some of our baskets were pretty hard to find! Kaden's was under Breckyn's tea set table in her room, Breckyn's was taking a shower, Ashlyn's was hanging up in Kaden's closet under his Jedi cloak and Mady found hers packed away in the linen closet with all the towels!

It was General Conference this weekend so we had a lot of time to hang out at home, watch Conference and eat lots and lots of sugar! After Conference was over we all got ready to go to my Grandparents. Mady and Ash took about a million pictures of their new headbands, here are two...

Every year we have an Easter dinner at my grandparents and an Easter hunt in the yard for the kids. We weren't sure that we would be able to have the hunt outside because of the snow but it had all cleared out by dinner time.

At dinner baby J. was entertaining everyone. He really liked the chocolate pudding and would give the BIGGEST, cheesiest smile after every taste. It was funny stuff.

Took a quick picture of my grandparents and other family members chit chatting at the table after dinner. They are so cute, I'm so glad we all still get together to celebrate the holidays!

The kids wanted to take a picture of their baskets with all their loot!

It was a good day today! We got to be spiritually uplifted by conference, spend time with extended family and fill our bellies with good food and LOTS of treats. Yep, definitely a good day!

Decorating Eggs

2010-04-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

Tonight we took our kids to the "Reflections of Christ" exhibit over at the Daybreak church house. It was really neat to see the photographs and to watch the video of the process the photographers and models went through to make sure each picture projected the feeling they were trying to capture. They really put a lot of thought into it. I think one of everyone's favorites was the picture of the angels heralding the birth of Christ. I also really liked the picture of John the Baptist and Christ hugging and smiling in the water after Christ was baptized. It was the perfect thing to take the kids to for Easter. It's so hard to find activities that revolve around the true meaning of Easter and not just the Easter bunny. With that said, after the exhibit we all went over to the Lewis' and decorated easter eggs. The kids had a blast together and they were very creative!

We had tie dyed eggs (those didn't work out so well), and glitter eggs (Brit's FAVORITE, she couldn't get over them), and painted eggs and eggs that said "I love Mom" (my favorite), eggs covered in stickers, eggs with General Grievous drawn on them, and a few cracked eggs... whoops.

After everyone was finished coloring their eggs, we made bunny cupcakes. They turned out really cute and not only were they fun to make but they were fun to eat as well!

Now off to bed so the Easter Bunny can come!

Cruise!

2010-03-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Dusty and I went on a cruise to the Caribbean earlier this month and it was such a blast! We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas and that ship was awesome! We went with Mont and Britt and 7 other couples that we had never met... kind of crazy but they were a lot fun and we all became friends pretty fast. Here we are at the beginning of our trip, just boarding the ship... wow, time went by to fast!

Room 1375, our home away home for the next week.

On Day 2 of our trip we were at port at Coco Cay (an island in the Bahamas), and we had decided that it was going to be a good old fashioned beach day. Before we got off the ship, while we were waiting for some of our group in the hallway, Dusty and Mont thought they would pass the time by tossing their frisbee back and forth. They were trying to get it over a housekeeping cart (mind you, the ceilings aren't very high) and Mont hit a light. It didn't do anything but Dusty looked into the surveillance camera and said, "Mont Lewis, Rm. 1377" - just goofing off of course. Well, Mont said he didn't think they could clear the cart without hitting the ceiling again and Dusty says, "I got this. Let me show you how it's done." He throws the frisbee and clears the cart BUT also hits the sprinkler... and sets it off.

Our hallway turned into a bit of chaos for awhile, they couldn't get the sprinkler turned off, it started to get more and more forceful, their was a fire retardant chemical in the water so the cruise staff was yelling at us to leave... So, we left and went to the island. Later that day, as we were getting back onto the ship Dusty and Mont were 'flagged' and sent to the security office (remember that security tape). They were treated a bit like criminals, I guess the upper management thought we ran off and said we were 'tampering' with a safety system, blah, blah, blah. It really didn't matter what we said, that it was an accident, that we tried to tell someone that it was our fault and were told to leave TWICE, that about 10 workers walked passed us as we were throwing the frisbee and none of them said it might not be a good idea because there are very fragile sprinklers in the ceiling... did I mention that the frisbee broke the sprinkler? Anyway, the lady in charge was still mad and very rude and we got slapped with a $150 fine each but... it was kind of all worth it because it was hilarious!

Here we are off on our first excursion to Coco Cay Island (this was after we set off the sprinkler but before we knew we were in trouble...) You can see a bit of our ship in the background.

Uh-oh, there's that naughty frisbee...

After our frisbee 'drama' the guys played poker for a little bit while the ladies got ready for formal night. Mont had about $75 of chips left and after dinner and the show we went back to our rooms to change and Mont can't find his chips. He and Britt are looking EVERYWHERE and they are nowhere to be found. He calls our room attendant to see if he took... I mean saw them in his room (I"m pretty sure he woke poor Marvin up because it was like 11:00 at night) and of course, Marvin hadn't seen them. We went down to the casino and talked to the casino manager, he talked to the dealer to see if Mont left them at the table - the answer was no - they said they would check the tapes... It was at least a 45 minute ordeal. Mont is not happy, this has been an expensive day for him after all with the FINE and everything. Well, we get back to our room and not two seconds later someone is rapidly knocking on our door. I open it and see Mont with a grin holding his 3 lost chips. Apparently he hadn't checked one pocket... Shesh!

The ship had two formal nights. Here are the guys looking very dapper. I wish I had a picture of all the girls but I don't. I was really bad at taking pictures.

The guys entered a Dodgeball tournament and they smoked the other teams! Well, until the end anyway. During their first two games they were invincible, none of our guys were even hit by a ball but then that last game... I don't know what happened but we lost. I blame Bubba. He didn't play in the last game (we had to many guys so they had to rotate) so we didn't have his speedo clad body to distract the other players. We still took second and all the guys got silver medals.

Bubba's at it again. He and Troy sang "Summer Lov'in" (from Grease) at karaoke night. Guess who sang Sandy's part?

Troy was being very sneaky and signed up all us ladies for a song. So we got up and sang "Dancing Queen". I'm really not the karaoke type but it was fun when you're in a group. Of course Bubba joined us, since he was being a 'lady' that night. They even gave him back the pink tutu halfway through the song.

One of our stops was at St. Thomas. We had signed up to go snorkeling at Turtle Bay and we had to sail on a 'pirate' boat to get there. This is at the beginning of our trip, look how happy I am. I had no idea what was to come...

The water was REALLY wavy, and the boat had to go so slow, it took almost an hour to get to Turtle Bay. I almost made it but not quite... yep, I threw up... in an orange bucket. We were all in a hurry to get off the boat and into the water because then we would feel better right? Nope. We all got sick in the water too. After seeing some turtles and fish I got out because I was feeling totally sick again, Dusty about lost it and poor Brittany and Kristi threw up while they were in the ocean... imagine how that works with the waves pushing everything back at you... I think I'm grateful for my bucket!

After our miserable snorkeling experience, we decided that at St. Maarten the next day all we wanted to do was lay down-on solid ground-at the beach, and just relax. Here we are taking a ferry to their downtown beach, which we weren't thrilled with, so we hailed a taxi to take us to "St. Maarten's Best Kept Secret" Sunset Beach - If you've read my previous post about the airplanes you know how well that turned out for us...

Is that a picture of me behind the airplane?

Awww, just having a great time at the beach. Little did I know I was in for the exfoliation of my life! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my Sun, Sand and Airplanes post... it's a long story)

We loved Johnny Rocket's! I think we ate there everyday. Just looking at this picture is making me crave a chocolate malt.

Our last two days on the ship were 'at sea' and the weather wasn't great. It was chilly and windy. So, we didn't do any of the fun stuff like the Flow Rider, or the Rock Wall, or miniature golf, or laying out by the pool (we tried, but you don't get much of a tan when you're in a hoodie and pants...) but there were other things to do. The guys had a great time playing poker. Brandon taught them how to play craps and Mont was the luckiest roller ever. He rolled the dice for like an hour straight and won everybody a lot of money. Who-hoo! We won back our 'fine' money and then some!

Mont had lost a bet with us before the trip, (we play card games and instead of money we have a bet, and the loser has to own up) and he had to parade down the Promenade in a speedo that Dusty and I picked out. It was seriously one of the funniest things I have ever seen -just because there were so many people around and he got so much attention. It's a long story too, I posted it in detail earlier in the month. Let's just say he was quite a hit. (He had actually lost two bets. He also had to sing Happy Birthday in his best crooner voice during dinner. It was good, unfortunately we didn't get any pics or video of it)

We introduced the Saratoga Springs gang (those are the couples we were with) to our way of playing cards. Sweet little Krisi lost and had to stand up in the middle of dinner on the last night and yell, "I LOVE BEING ON A CRUISE AND I DON'T WANT TO GO HOME!" It was so funny, she is very much not the kind of person who would do something like this. I think her husband was more embarrassed than she was though. Look at him with a napkin over his face... way to be supportive J.D.!

We all had a great time together. Here's a couple of pics of the girls. As you can see, we can't even be serious long enough to take a picture...

We went dancing almost every night. It was soooo much fun and a great way to work off all those calories we had eaten during the day... did I mention that we loved Johnny Rockets?

When you're on a cruise that is a bit cold and windy you spend a lot of time in the hot tub.

One of our favorite things to do after all the festivities of the night was to go down to the promenade and eat cookies and chocolate milk... and sometimes pizza... at like, 2:00 in the morning. Good thing we had gone dancing.

After our cruise was over{sniffle}, we had some time to kill before our flights so we hung out at Downtown Disney. We were all so tired that we went to the movie just so we could sit in a somewhat comfy seat, in the dark, and take a nap. I'm sure it looked pretty weird for 18 people to all be asleep during the show. I hope nobody snored. We also walked around a bit and Kaden is obsessed with the Wii Indiana Jones Lego game so we had to take a picture by Indiana Jones himself.

We went in the Harley Davidson store and Britt and I were trying to look like cool biker chics but we ended up just looking like Beevis and Butthead instead... Uh huh huh huh. Fire! Fire!

While it's nice to 'get away' and we had a FABULOUS time on the cruise, it's also really nice to come home too. It's pretty easy to leave 'paradise' when you have your 4 favorite people in the world waiting at home for you, and you really can't wait to see them. Thanks to all our various family members who took great care of our kids while we are gone, it's easier to relax and have a good time knowing your kids are in good hands. And thanks to our kids for making us some special 'Welcome Home' pictures! We love you!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

2010-03-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was little, the leprechauns have been visiting my house on St. Patrick's Day eve and magically turning all the sugar in our sugar bowl into candy. It's nice to know that even though I'm all grown up they have continued on with the tradition for my kids as well. Breckyn and Kaden were so excited, they have been asking me for over a week if it's the night the 'lepercans' are coming, so last night when the time was finally here they made sure that our sugar bowl was filled to the brim (they can make more candy that way).

Kaden said they were using their "magic" to turn the sugar into candy. Also, I promise my kids do actually have a drawer full of cute PJ's but for some reason Kade likes to wear ONLY bottoms and Breckyn has an addiction to her Dad's T-shirts...

Those sneaky little Leprechauns not only left us a nice stash of candy but they turned our milk green! (Which the kids thought was hilarious)

My crazy little munchkins... plus 1 cousin. The little ones ran around all afternoon trying to find the Leprechuans.

I came across this cute little Irish saying:
“May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks. May your heart be as light as a song. May each day bring you bright, happy hours. That stay with you all the year long.”
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sun, Sand and...AIrplanes? Oh my!

2010-03-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

The day we stopped at St. Maarten we really just wanted some good, relaxing beach time, so Mont did a little google search and located "St. Maarten's best kept secret" Sunset Beach. That's pretty much all we had to go on but we thought, hey let's try it. We located a taxi driver who-after some discussion-figured out where we wanted to go, and we started off on our journey. After a looong, 45 minute drive through I think every town in St. Maarten we drive up to the beach greeted by this sign:

And then a big ole airplane flew right over us and landed. The beach is literally directly behind the airport landing strip. Dusty and Mont had huge grins and could hardly contain their excitement while Britt and I were like, "I don't think so(Z snap)" and asked our driver if there was another beach close by. Of course not! The next beach is another 45 minutes away. So, to the boys delight we stayed at Airport... oh, I mean, Sunset Beach. We set up our stuff in the only uncrowded part of the beach and started to soak up the sun. A very nice lady then came over and told us that we were directly in the line of fire when the planes take off (which would explain why no one else was set up there) and that we and all of our stuff would get blown down the beach into the water So we picked up and moved over to the side. A little while later we were all hanging out in the water when we heard a jet plane moving onto the runway getting ready to take off. We looked at the guys and told them to hurry and go move our stuff over some more just in case it might still be in the way. For some reason we were just concerned about what was on the beach, Britt and I weren't thinking of what happens in the water when the plane takes off... So, anyway, we are just hanging out in the water, waiting for the plane to take off, when a great big wave comes into the shore and just takes Brittany down. It rolled her around a bit and when she finally popped up we were so caught up in the hilarity of the moment that we completely forgot about the plane. Apparently Dusty and Mont were yelling at us to get out of the water but we couldn't hear them over our laughing and the plane's engine. So, while Britt and I are in the middle of giggling about the wave we are completely slammed, and I mean SLAMMED, with sand. I have to admit that I felt a little bit panicked. You couldn't see and you really couldn't move and it HURT! Britt just kept grabbing onto me which was making me more nervous because I was like, "Is she okay? Is she drowning?"(she really just didn't want us to get separated). We tried to swim out of the way but that was impossible. Britt definitely was thinking more than I was because she kept going under water so that the sand wasn't hitting her while I kept my head above the water the whole time... I had some really cute sunglasses that I didn't want to lose... When it was finally over and Britt surfaced she got a kick out of my sandblasted face. There was like an inch of sand covering all my hair and the side of my face. I really wish we would have taken a picture. Anyway, here is the video the guys took of the plane taking off and you get a little glimpse of Britt and I in the water getting pummeled by the sand. And just as a side note, I lost my glasses. Boo.

My favorite bet loss ever!

2010-03-11T16:12:00.000-08:00

Our cruise was very eventful and we have plenty of stories to share so I think I'm going to have to post it in installments. This first video has got to be my favorite bet loss ever. We were playing cards with Britt and Mont a couple of weeks ago and since we don't play with money we always have a bet attached to the game. The loser has to own up on the bet. This bet was that the loser had to wear a swimsuit of our (the other players) choice while playing miniature golf on our upcoming cruise. Well, Mont was the lucky loser so he had a few weeks to dread the event while Dusty and I had a great time shopping for the lamest speedo we could find. On our cruise the weather was not cooperating, it was cold and windy on our days at sea, so instead of playing golf, Mont got to strut his stuff down the promenade of the ship. The promenade is like the "mall" part of the ship, so everyone is pretty much in normal clothes, no swimsuits, which made Mont stand out even more. It was hilarious! SOOO much better than golf would have been! He was quite the spectacle. Everyone was staring and laughing and I think one group asked him if he'd had too much to drink already. You'll see him pass some older ladies getting a make-over and Brittany heard one of them say, "I think he looks cute in his little swimsuit." I think this may have backfired though because Mont seemed to get pretty comfortable in that speedo. I sure hope he doesn't show up in it the next time we take them to Bear Lake!

Sorry! If you didn't get to see the video it's too late now. But here's a picture.

SIt...

2010-02-22T21:42:00.000-08:00

We babysat my brother's kids over the weekend and my niece is terrified of our dog. If Mia even looks in her direction she freaks, so I was a little worried what the weekend had in store for us. Well, as you can see by this video, it just took a little time for my niece to warm up to Mia.

Mia was fascinated with baby J, who was equally as fascinated with her. She wanted to be everywhere he was, and she was always keeping her eye on him. When my brother came to pick his kids up, she would strategically place herself between my brother and baby J., like she had to protect him from his dad or something. When Landon picked up J. she locked her eyes on him and followed him everywhere he went... I think she made Landon a little bit nervous. Well, that's not hard since he's the only one left in his family that's still scared of her. :)

I love Mommy the most!

2010-02-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Dusty and Kaden were talking the other day and Kaden told him that he loves me more than Dusty. He said, "Dad I love you 500 and I love mom 600" Yes! And then a couple seconds later he said, "But I love Mia (our dog) a million." Ah dang.

Bear Lake Chocolate Festival

2010-02-14T20:07:00.000-08:00

The Florence clan all went up to Bear Lake over Valentine's weekend for their Chocolate Festival. We had never been before but we LOVE chocolate so it sounded like a great way to spend the weekend. Well, when you hear 'Chocolate Festival' you would probably think that it would be a festival all about chocolate, right? Wrong. There was a table or two of chocolate stuff and then the rest was just your run of the mill boutique fair; purses, jewelry, various crafts, etc... We were a little disappointed but that didn't keep us from getting our fill of chocolate!

We had read in the paper that... um, crap... I can't remember the name of the city in Idaho...Paris, maybe?... anyway, a city in Idaho at the other end of the lake was hosting an ice sculpture contest so we thought it would be neat to go check it out. It was about a 45 minute drive and when we got there we all started laughing (in our cars, where no one could hear us) because I guess we were expecting something different than this...

Now that's not to say that whoever did these didn't work hard and do a good job, but it certainly wasn't worth a 45 minute drive.
After the ice sculpture, my brother Landon really wanted to check out a frozen waterfall to see if it would be good for ice climbing. We thought that would be a cool sight, so we all drove up the mountain... to look at a pretty small waterfall. We actually drove past it and then a couple miles down the road stopped and said, "Wait, was that it?"

So, after spending the weekend driving around looking at stuff that really wasn't much to look at (don't get me wrong, we still had a great time) we got to celebrate Valentine's Day. The kids all wrote little notes to Grandma and Grandpa and then we decorated their door when they left to church so they would be surprised when they got home. (We all went to church btw, they just left before us)

It's a tradition at our house to have a special breakfast on Valentine's morning. We decorate the table with rose petals and candles and flowers and then we eat heart shaped waffles with strawberries, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and sprinkles. So, we brought the tradition up to the lake and had our special breakfast with everyone! Well, it was actually lunch because we ate it after church. Happy Valentine's Day!

Park CIty Ski Trip

2010-02-10T19:22:00.000-08:00

A few months ago we gave the kids a choice for our family vacation. They could pick between Disneyland or a ski vacation and to my surprise they picked skiing. So, we joined up with our good family friends the Lewis' and rented an awesome house in Midway and spent a few days skiing at Park City. We had a blast! The kids are learning to ski so fast, Mady even went down a black diamond run... it scared the crap out of her but she did great! The little kids are fearless, they just cruise down the mountain and I think everyone's skills have bypassed Brittany's and mine. We've decided that we are too old to learn how to ski, we watched some footage of us and laughed our heads off because we look like two grandmas going down the slopes.

We didn't just ski the whole time. There was plenty to do at the house. We had a pool tournament, played various card games, and we played air hockey. One day we took the family tubing at Soldier Hollow. That was soooo much fun. It's great to go flying down the hill and then not have to walk back up it, they have a rope tow that just pulls you back up the hill on your tube.

We also went to look at the 'ice castle' in midway. It was pretty cool... literally.

During our down time at the house the kids got a little crazy sometimes...

They loved hanging out in the hot tub. Especially when it was snowing.

The theater room in the house was awesome! We watched plenty of movies in here and all the guys were excited to watch the Super Bowl on the 'big' screen (when we finally got it to work anyway). Everyone was cheering for the Colts so I decided to make things interesting by cheering for the Saints. Turns out that was a good choice!

The kids just couldn't get enough of the snow, so even when we weren't skiing you could find them outside playing in it.

We can't be at Park City without eating at Baja Cantina and after all that playing there's noth'in like a delicious meal that I didn't have to cook or clean up!

Valentine Creature Cookies!

2010-01-31T15:11:00.000-08:00

We love cookies! And since my kids also love to create things I thought this would be a fun activity for them to do. We made tons of heart shaped sugar cookies (all different sizes) and then the kids had a great time making all sorts of animals and bugs with them. The only bad thing about this was that no one was allowed to eat the creations... boo. Good thing we had extra cookies! (Not to mention all the cookie dough we ate beforehand... that really is our favorite part!)

These are Kaden's fish that he made. I think he's trying to show me his fish face...

Breckyn made an adorable bunny rabbit and fish

Mady made the cute little ladybug and Ash went to town making all the others. She made even more after I took the picture. I LOVE that little mouse, the front teeth crack me up!

Happy Birthday Grandma Nanny!

2010-01-24T20:18:00.000-08:00

It was my mom's birthday over the weekend and she was out of town so the kids wanted to make her a BIG birthday sign to put on her garage to welcome her home. We just got a call from her tonight and she loved it! (of course)

Class of '93!

2010-01-24T19:57:00.000-08:00

Wow it has been a long time! I went out to dinner with some friends from High School the other night and it was so much fun! I haven't seen these ladies for 10+ years... how ridiculous is that? It was great to see them and catch up with everyone and just hang out and talk and laugh and have a good time! It's crazy that even after all this time everyone is still pretty much the same... except for maybe a few more wrinkles which a pushy salesman pointed out to me in a very non-discreet way at the mall right before I went to dinner. That's all I needed was for some punk to tell me that my eye cream isn't working. Anyway, aging aside, I am so glad for these friends who stay friends even when you haven't talked to each other for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Luv ya ladies!

P.S. Please keep in mind that this picture was taken at about 11:00 at night so we are all looking a bit tired by then, remember the whole aging comment, we can't stay up as late as we used too!

Daddy Daughter Date at Deer Valley

2010-01-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

Whoo, that's a lot of D words. Too bad I'm not playing Scattergories. Anyway, Ashlyn got to have her dad all to herself yesterday when the two of them spent the day skiing. Lucky girl! They had a lot of fun until Ash crashed pretty hard and hit her head, giving her a massive headache. Thank goodness she was wearing a helmet! Here is a little commentary from Ash at the start of their day. They were supposed to shoot some more footage of them actually skiing but I guess they were having too much fun to think about it!

1st Ski Day!

2010-01-09T21:20:00.001-08:00

Here are some pictures from our first ski day of the season! We went up to Park City Ski Resort on New Year's Eve with our good friends the Lewis family. We had a great time! It took some of the kids a little bit to get their 'ski' legs back but by the end of the day everyone was doing a fabulous job!

Kaden was out of control during the line. He kept goofing around and tipping over. Eventually, he just stayed on the ground and Dusty would scoot him forward on his skis.

Dusty had the little kids line up behind him and they would just follow him down the hill. It looked so cute, like little ducks following their daddy. Although, I guess I should mention that I was at the end of that line ...

Christmas Afternoon

2009-12-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Day we go over to my parents for lunch and to exchange presents. We just wanted to have a nice, relaxing Christmas so we didn't even get ready... well, we brushed our teeth, but we went to my mom's still in our jammies.

Christmas Morning

2009-12-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

Here's what the house looked like before the kids got up. So peaceful...

A few days before Christmas Kaden had a great idea. He got out a piece of paper and asked me how to spell 'youngest'. Then he asked me how to spell 'oldest'. Then he took the paper and hung it on the tree and said, "Ok, mom. Here are the rules for opening presents on Christmas Day!" Doesn't that just work out nicely for the youngest?

I actually surprised Dusty with a Blu Ray player this year. Usually he guesses what I'm getting him so it was nice that I was able to keep it a secret.

As you can see, Mia was quite fond of Ashlyn's snuggie also. She'd lay on it every chance she got.

Great Christmas morning! It's always so fun to see the excitement on the kids faces and just sit back and watch the magic. I love it. Some of the kids favorite things they got this year:
Mady - Juicy bag, Ed Hardy shoes, clothes, clothes, clothes
Ash - telescope, Ed Hardy shoes, Twilight (Jacob) key chain, make-up
Breckyn - Barbie house, Barbie jet, stuff for her American girl doll
Kaden - Indiana Jones Legos, Dragon Fortress, Bakugan
Dusty - Blu Ray, apron that the kids decorated for him (since he is the cook!)
Me - Ugg boots, perfume, books!

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T19:42:00.000-08:00

We celebrate Christmas with Dusty's family on Christmas Eve. We normally go to Dusty's parents house to eat dinner and exchange presents but this year their new place isn't finished so we got to host the party at OUR house! Yeah. Actually it was really fun and not a very big deal, I was worried about hosting a party at my house on Christmas Eve but I had nothing to worry about. We all had a great time and there wasn't even a very big mess to clean up!
So, we always start off with the nativity scene. Dusty's mom made all the costumes and the kids walk in as their parts are read in the story. Kaden was such a lucky duck, he got to be Joseph again!

After the nativity, we all went downstairs to open presents. Kaden was a bit beyond excited to be getting Lego Batman for the Wii. Have I mentioned he is addicted to video games?

B-A-R-B-I-E, Barbie girl!

Ah, the snuggie. Can I just tell you how badly Ashlyn and her cousin Kalli wanted snuggies? I swear that's all Ash could talk about. And my sister in law and I had the girls convinced that they weren't getting snuggies so they were VERY excited when they got them. They obviously had to put them on right away.

Hmmm, that's a nice look for you Tim...

Every year Dusty's parents give the kids new PJ's. The kids love having new jammies to wear on Christmas Eve and they also like that their PJ's match their cousins! Now off to bed so Santa can come!

Christmas party at Grandma Petersons

2009-12-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

My Grandma and Grandpa Peterson always host a "Christmas Eve" party the Monday before Christmas. We go out to dinner and then we all meet at my grandparents house for a program and present exchange.

Here are some pics of the kids singing Christmas songs. Kaden and his cousin were so funny. Kaden was singing as loud and clear as he could and his cousin was next to him signing in his low mumbly voice. It was quite a contrast. And miss C. just jumped around in her tutu flashing everyone her adorable smile!

Bella wouldn't sing unless Alisa was up there with her. It's kind of scary to sing in front of a lot of people when you're used to just singing in front of your mom and dad.

It can't be a Christmas program without the nativity scene. Breckyn got to be Mary and Kaden was so excited to be Joseph.

Candlelight Christmas at This Is The Place

2009-12-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

We went to the 'Candlelight Christmas' at This Is The Place monument with all my family. We weren't sure what to expect since none of us had been there before and all we knew was that we would be celebrating Christmas 'the old-fashioned' way. Well, we've decided that the old-fashioned way is pretty fun! All the houses are decorated for Christmas and if there is a candle in the window then you can go into the house. There are one or two 'actors' in period costumes in the houses and they tell stories and some are making popcorn or cakes that you can sample. In the bigger buildings they have crafts that the kids can make and puppet shows and even dancing - which I think we all agreed was our favorite part! They have a train ride, a manger scene, a little elf village and Father Christmas (whom we didn't get to see because we took too long doing the other stuff). I think we will definitely go back next year!

Here we are dancing the Virginia Reel. It really was so much fun! Even my brothers who hate to dance had a great time twirling their kids around.

Going on a little train ride

Kaden's Preschool Program

2009-12-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of Kaden's preschool program. My sister in law Jenn, got a lot better ones so I'll have to steal some from her sometime. But anyway, this gives you a basic idea. The kids sang some cute Christmas songs, Kaden was cracking us up the whole time because he gets very animated during these things.

They each got to say a line of "The Night Before Christmas" and Kaden had been practicing his for weeks. Kaden's line was, "fiwled awl da stockings den turned wif a jwrk" (I"m trying, unsuccessfully, to imitate his lisp/drawl)

Kaden with his teachers, Miss Cheryl and Miss Juwana

Shoes for Elves

2009-12-16T22:31:00.000-08:00

Whew! I'm finally caught up. As you scroll down, you'll see that I blogged 6 events in one day. I was almost two weeks behind, but no more! Wow, last week was really busy. Anyway, last night the kids put their shoes out for the elves. What they do is pick a night in the middle of December to leave a shoe on the windowsill and if they've been good then the elves will come and fill their shoes with candy. They love it! So let's see if they've been good... oh, yep, I see some candy. Looks like it's gonna be a good Christmas.

Forgotten Carols

2009-12-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Dusty and I took Mady and Ashlyn to The Forgotten Carols on Monday night. Dust and I haven't been for a few years so we thought it was time to go again and we figured the girls would enjoy it. It's really a neat show, we all enjoyed ourselves throughly.

If you have been to the Forgotten Carols you will know that at the end of the show, Michael McLean has everyone link arms and sing. Well, I really don't like this part, I don't want to link arms with the stranger sitting next to me so Dusty and I told the girls that we got to sit in the middle and they got to sit on the ends. Here is what they looked like...
"DaAAad. Noooo. We don't want to sit on the end. Noo, please, you sit on the end... wah, wah, wah, whine, whine, whine."

"You are the parent so you should sit on the end. I'm not sitting there. Dad, seriously, move. More wah, wah, wah and whine, whine, whine" (You can just see the attitude in Mady's face)

They were so funny! I'm sure the people around us were wondering what was going on. Two tweens throwing a fit while their parents laughed at them... and took pictures. Hilarious!

Somehow, I ended up sitting on one end and Mady had to sit on the other but we lucked out. The people next to me left before the dreaded linking and Mady's neighbor didn't try to link arms with her. It could be due to the fact that she was practically leaning across Ashlyn's lap making herself out of reach...

Ash lost her tooth while eating treats. One minute it was in her mouth, and the next it was stuck in a starburst square.

Piano recital

2009-12-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

Mady and Breckyn had their piano recital last week and they both did a wonderful job! Mady played "Where are you Christmas" and Breckyn played "Good King Wenceslas" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain". The recital was at a church but I really wish their teacher would hold it at a music store or something. The church's piano needs a tune up. :)

The girls also had their dance recital last week (busy week) but it was downtown, in a venue way too small for all the people who were there to watch and it was so chaotic that I didn't get any pictures! Ahhh! It was very frustrating and I wish I had a pic but they danced beautifully and I'm especially proud of Breckyn because she was really nervous to perform. Good job girls!

Neighborhood Christmas Party

2009-12-16T21:25:00.000-08:00

For the past, oh I don't know, 5 years now our neighborhood has stopped giving neighbor gifts and instead we have a little get together (outside) with bon fires, and hot cocoa, treats and yes, Santa Claus. We use the money we would have spent on gifts and put it towards a charity of some kind. This year we donated books and toys for a new autistic school in the area.

Our Santa was having a wardrobe malfunction. His beard kept slipping off. Some of the moms had to keep fixing it and it got pretty comical.

Look at that, Breckyn and Graci together again. Weird.

After Santa left, Kaden thought he would take over.

Just some pics of the neighbors.

Ward Christmas Party

2009-12-16T20:40:00.001-08:00

Just trying to get a picture of Mady with some of her friends at the party... I don't think that husband of mine is ever going to grow up... and that's okay.

Breckyn and Graci, Best Friends Forever! (yes, I made that tutu thank you very much!)

This is Kaden's good friend Dustin. He wanted to make sure he didn't forget anything to tell Santa so he brought a list! I love it! I think he had like 15 items on that list. Hilarious!

Seriously, these two are joined at the hip. They have to do everything together! You should have heard their list. Just imagine this in your best valley girl voice... Um, I want a cell phone, and a TV, and a car, and one of your reindeer... yeah, we want Rudolph!

Oh I'm so sad! My girls are getting to old to sit on Santa's lap

By far my most favorite thing that happened at the party... Hows the smell in there Branson?

Atkinson Christmas Family Party

2009-12-16T20:03:00.000-08:00

Every year, ALL of Dusty's family get together and have an Atkinson Family Home Evening. We always have a nice little program and then we eat and eat and eat. It's really fun to see everyone, some of these people we only see once or twice a year! This year part of the program was to do a sub for santa with a twist. All the kids lined up and gave Santa a gift and then he will deliver them to those in need this Christmas. It was a nice change to have the kids give Santa something instead of always telling him what they WANT.

Just to give you an idea of how big Dusty's extended family is, here is a picture of us eating in the gym. (We have to hold this party at the church). I don't even think half of the family is in this picture...

So, this was funny. Dusty's brothers always tease him that he is the 'golden' child of the family. They say he is their parents favorite, he always wins everything, blah blah blah. Well, Dusty's aunts were holding a drawing for all the centerpieces on the tables and his brothers immediately start piping up about how Dusty is going to win and sure enough, the first name drawn is Dusty's. :) It pays to be golden...

Gingerbread Houses

2009-12-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

Dusty has a tradition in his family of decorating gingerbread houses at Christmas time. I have no idea how far this tradition goes back but we have been doing it ever since I can remember. We all get into it, parents and kids alike, sometimes going with a red and green theme, sometimes thinking up something special (Dusty's brother Shane made his house an In-N-Out burger joint this year...) it's always lots of mess and lots of fun! The kids go first and they each get to decorate a train car that usually sits under Grandma's tree but since their 'house' isn't finished yet, the kids each get to take home their trains this year.

If you know Dusty at all, you'll know that he is right in the middle of helping the kids with their trains. He walks around with a tube filled with icing and goes to whichever kid needs him at the moment. He helps the little ones with general icing so they can put their candy on their train and he helps the older ones with decorative fixtures like teaching them how to make icicles.

Here is where you will find Dusty's mom. She is in the kitchen mixing up batch after batch of icing. As you can imagine, we go through a lot.

Some of the kids got a little out of control and decided that the icing looked better on their faces than on the trains... is that Rudolph?

Here is our train. Mady decorated the engine, Breckyn and Kaden had the two middle cars, and Ashlyn got to decorate the cabaoose!

Here is the house Dusty and I made. We decided in honor of Mia, our new dog, that we would make a dog house. And since she loves to eat socks, there is even a sock in one of the piles of poop in the yard... we had to make it realistic of course.

Live Nativity

2009-12-04T07:48:00.001-08:00

There is a stake in Draper that puts on a live nativity for a few days every December and it is such a neat experience. The set they have created is amazing and to have all the characters played by live people makes it so much more ... real. It takes the story of the birth of Jesus and puts you right in the middle of it. The lines do get to be pretty long but it is worth it.

Here we are at the start of our journey. Mady's being a bit of a ham in this picture and squeezing out Alisa and Bella!

The whole nativity takes place outside and while you are standing in line they have various goats and sheep that the kids can pet. My kids LOVED this part.

As you walk through the line they have different scenes depicted. This is the first one of a prophet receiving revelation about the upcoming birth of Jesus. Later down the line they had the three wise men and also the shepards with their animals.

Yes, they even have camels! Who has camels in Utah? My kids were completely transfixed by these animals. They couldn't get enough of them, we had to drag them away from the pen.

As you get to the end,they have set up an entire city of Bethlehem. Before you can go in you have to pass the 'tax' man, who is counting out coins and secretly pocketing a few every so often. Inside Bethlehem is unreal. Actually, it is too real . You pass all sorts of shops, bakeries, animals, even a leper - which was really sad by the way. It really is incredible.

As you pass the inn and round the corner you come upon the manger. They have beautiful music playing and a light shining on the manager scene. The whole mood just changes, you can feel the spirit and everyone is reverently staring at the baby Jesus, who is sleeping in the manger, with Mary and Joseph staring adoring at him and then... I take a picture and make the baby cry. Oops.

Even though my kids got cold and hungry waiting line, this was a wonderful experience for them. They felt that warm fuzzy feeling of the spirit of God as they watched the baby in the manger and I can't help but think that the story of Jesus' birth is a little bit more than just a story to them now. That night they all asked if we could go again next year and I think that's a great idea!

O Christmas Tree...

2009-12-01T09:34:00.001-08:00

Our house has actually been decorated for Christmas for the last two weeks but I thought I should wait until to December to post it. So, here we are two weeks ago decorating the tree. We have a fun tradition in our family that everyone receives a new ornament to put on the tree each year. The kids really get excited to see what ornament they are going to get and they have a great time going through all their old ones and putting them on the tree. It's especially fun when I can find an ornament for them that reflects something about them that year. We all love this tradition, for the memories that it creates and for the opportunity to share it with others. Almost everyone who comes to our house after the tree has been put up asks to see the new ornaments for the year and the kids love to show them off!

Mady decided that we needed some cookies to go with our decorating. She's quite the little baker, I'm gonna gain 10 pounds before Christmas over!

Opening the new ornaments...

Here are the new ones for the year. Kaden's is a little reindeer with up cape on flyng a toy plane. Perfect for him this year since he loves to dress up as superman, batman, any jedi, storm troopers, indiana jones... the list goes on. Breckyn's is the little mouse playing the piano since she is learning to play the piano this year. Ashlyn's is a reindeer on a cell phone... now if only it had been texting instead of talking then it would show what Ash does 80% of her day. Mady's is a snowman baking ... need I say more?

Here is the tree before mom and dad got to it to even it out. The picture is pretty blurry but it's the only one I got of all of them in front of the tree.

Britt's Birthday Weekend!

2009-11-30T08:18:00.000-08:00

Today is my good friend Brittany's birthday! Her cute little husband (actually that sounds funny to call Mont little, he's 6'5") planned a surprise weekend for her at The Chateau at Deer Valley and we got to come along. First we went to a yummy dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and then went up to Deer Valley to stay at The Chateau (which is sweet by the way). Britt opened her present from us, her favorite present ever I believe. She's been wanting a Sheewee ever since she heard of them... (if you dont know what a Sheewee is you'll have to ask me later, I'm not putting it on the blog) And then we stayed up late playing games and I lost but we hadn't placed any bets so I didn't have to do anything stupid like the running man, or sing the National Anthem in an English accent, etc. Britt and Mont were mad because I usually never lose so the one time I do there are no consequences. Ha, ha. Even when I lose, I win! But anyway, Happy Birthday Britt! As Mady would say, I luv ya like a sista!

This is what happens when your husband packs for you. "Hun, I packed your striped socks to go with your striped PJ's"

What! We have to leave The Chateau?

Black Friday

2009-11-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

Yes, I got up at 3:00 to go shopping (Dusty was supposed to go with me but I couldn't get him to stay awake long enough to get out of bed) and yes, I stood in line to get into the store, and yes, I got what I wanted and no, I didn't see any fights or trampling. But there was some drama during my shopping trip. After my first store it was totally hard for me to pull out of my parking spot, the wheel wouldn't turn very easily. And then when I would drive the steering wheel was kinda shaky and kept pulling in one direction. Well, like the natural blonde that I am I completely ignored it and drove to two more stores. When I got home, I told Dusty, "There's something wrong with your power steering. The car was really hard to drive." And he looked at me and said, "Uh, does it have a flat tire?" Oh crap. "Um, I don't know" So, we went out to the garage and yes indeed, it has a completely flat tire! I'm really mad I didn't take a picture of it. But anyway, I drove around on a totally flat tire and ruined it (hopefully the wheel is okay, we'll find out today). So, I might have saved some money on my Christmas shopping but that tire is going to be expensive! You know, if Dusty would have just gotten out of bed, we wouldn't of had this little problem. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T14:10:00.000-08:00

Whew, our tummies are full! This year we were with Dusty's side of the family and Ryan and Raelin were crazy... um, I mean gracious enough to let us all meet at their house for dinner. They moved the couches and set up tables all over the place! After a lot of delicious food the men watched football, the women poured through the Black Friday ads and the kids basically ran amuck! It was a good time!

Even after all the pie we've had for the last 2 weeks, we still managed to eat some more!

Some kids just can't eat pie in a civilized manner...

Now, how am I going to fit all these people in my house on Christmas Eve?

Tweens and Twilight

2009-11-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

My girls begged me to take them and some friends to New Moon this weekend. They don't normally get to see PG13 movies and Dusty couldn't believe I was letting them see this without screening it first. Well, I had read the book and knew there really wasn't anything in it, but his comments must have gotten to me because the night before the movie I dreamed that I had taken the girls and the movie was full of inappropriate content! I'm glad to say my dream was not a vision of things to come, I'm really not sure why the movie is rated PG13. Anyway, the girls loved it and they LOVE Jacob. It's pretty disturbing actually to hear your little girls go on and on and on about how HOT Jacob is. Ashlyn wishes that he was only 11 right now and that he could be her boyfriend when she got older. Nice. When we took the group photo after the show they all wanted to stand by Jacob. Poor Edward, he's not feel'in the love.

Must...keep...playing

2009-11-22T19:24:00.000-08:00

Kaden is ADDICTED to Star Wars Lego on the WII. He fell asleep playing it the other night.

Pie night fiasco

2009-11-20T10:59:00.000-08:00

We have been assigned the pies for Thanksgiving so Dusty has been baking pies every night for the past week trying to get the best pecan, chocolate and apple pie recipes. Not to mention, he is also trying different crust recipes. Well, my mom called the other day and decided that since it is our off year for Thanksgiving (that means we all go to the in-laws) she would have a pie night, and we all would bring a different pie and just eat too our hearts content. We wanted to try something different than what we have been eating for the last 7 days and when we were watching the Food Network Channel, Tyler Florence was making a Pumpkin Banana Meringue Pie that Dusty thought looked delicious. He decided to make that for pie night. Well, this is a very made from scratch pie, it took hours! We had to buy sugar pumpkins and cook them and then scrape out the insides, and roast the bananas, and buy a food processor to mix it all together, then bake it forever and whip up the meringue (I like that I'm making it sound like I helped. All I did was run back and forth to the store). The recipe made tons, we had three pies. We thought, "Great! We can eat one tonight, take one to my parents tomorrow, and give one to the neighbors". When the pie was finally done, we were all so excited to taste it! This is a Food Network gourmet pie for heaven sakes. After one bite we immediately scraped the meringue off and topped the pie with bottled whip cream. Meringue is GROSS! After a few more forced bites we all decided that this time consuming gourmet pie was no good. Our three pies went directly into the garbage. So, that was a waste of time! It was now 9:00 and we still needed a pie for the party the next day. I had to run to the store again, for the millionth time and Dusty whipped up our favorite chocolate pie from our taste testing week. It was delicious but I think that by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, we are going to be pretty sick of pie.

Dinosaur Museum

2009-11-16T22:09:00.000-08:00

Today I got to go with Kaden and all his preschool friends to the Dinosaur Museum. He and his cousin Hunter were so excited, they love dinosaurs. I think their favorite one is a 'fastspider' T-Rex which I believe is one they made up...

The kids all gave me their best dino roar before going inside.

Mom's Night Out!

2009-11-14T09:11:00.001-08:00

Last night some of my friends and I went to a 'Twilight' Mom's Night Out Party! It was a party put together to kick off the opening of New Moon next week and they had massages, manicures, hair and make-up makeovers, eye brow waxing, lash tinting, SHOPPING, cheesecake, chocolates, a catered dinner, goodie bags and lots more. It was SOOO much fun!

This tile cracked us up.

Here we are after some make-over magic. Can I get someone to do my hair and make-up everyday? Please!

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

2009-11-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

Whew, it's the end of our "we didn't do anything while we were off track so let's cram it all into one week" week! Today, Britt and I took the kids to The Living Planet Aquarium (we're lucky we got there without anyone throwing up in the car, gotta love motion sickness). They have some really great exhibits, the kids ran from one thing to the next and really enjoyed themselves!

It's pretty cool to see jellyfish close and not be in danger of getting stung! We asked Kaden if you could put a jellyfish on your peanut butter sandwich and he said, "No, but Spongebob can."

This octopus was awesome! I was so interesting to watch it wiggle up and down the windows. I feel so bad though, because Britt and I were taking a bunch of pictures of the kids next to it. Unbeknowst to us, there is a sign on the other side of the exhibit that says to turn off your flash because it will damage the octopus' eyes. CRAP! Sorry little octopus!

THIS was almost everyone's favorite part. The kids got to put their hands in the water and pet the stingrays. They loved it! Well, everyone except Kaden. He had no desire to touch a stingray.

"Hey, kids. Come and touch this button..." Zap! This display was next to the electric eel exhibit and of course we had the kids touch it before we did. It gives you a little shock as if you touched an electric eel. They were all pretty mellow about it, they just giggled, that was it. In fact, the best reaction came from a mom who jumped and gave a little scream when she touched it.

Standing in front of the HUGE snake, that you can't really see.

And they ride off into the sunset... see ya!

We're gonna sc-or-ore tonight

2009-11-11T21:02:00.001-08:00

We're gonna sc-or-ore tonight! We're gonna rock, we're gonna roll, we're gonna bop, we're gonna bowl, we're gonna score, score, score, tonight! Sorry, can't talk about bowling without Grease songs running through my head.

So, this is my kids last week of 'off-track' and we've hardly done anything! I feel like such a slacker, so I've been trying to pack in some activities this week to make up for my neglectfulness. On Monday, my friend Brittany and I took the kids to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (didn't love it, at least the MOMS didn't love it) and today we took them bowling! It was a fairly new experience for my kids and they had a really great time, so we'll have to do it again.

The kids enjoyed some tasty nachos that their wonderful mothers, who are so nice, went and got for them.

They showed their gratitude by taking our turns while we were gone and getting a big fat 0 for Britt and only knocking down 1 pin for me. Britt was not very happy, I tried to get a picture of her mad face...

Even though Breckyn had bumpers during her turn, she still managed to get her ball in the gutter. Now that's a special talent, not everyone can do that! After the ball hopped the bumper it managed to get stuck and Ash volunteered to go get it.

Oh, wait, who has the highest score? Why I believe it's me! (Although it's still a pretty pitiful score...) And if you'll notice, the Atkinson girls took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Yeah, we rock! Sorry guys! Better luck next time!

Funnies

2009-11-05T12:07:00.000-08:00

As I've said before, I was not good at recording ANYTHING that has happened in my family's life for the past 14 years and I was feeling a little bit sad that I never wrote down any of the cute things my kids have said when they were little (and which have now been pretty much forgotten) and I was thinking that since they are getting older now, I may have completely missed my opportunity... but NO! Breckyn and Kaden each provided me with a sweet child faux pas just the other day!

We were driving home in the car and talking about what kind of dogs some of our friends own and when we got to Scout (who is a Chocolate LAB), Kaden piped up and said, "I know what Scoutie is! She's a Chocolate Factory!"

Breckyn has outgrown her old bike and is now using Mady's first moutain bike. Dusty overheard her telling her friends, very matter of factly, that she was riding a new bike and that her dad was taking her old bike to the I.D.

Biking, again?

2009-11-03T19:11:00.001-08:00

Yes, I went biking again! And it was my idea! Dusty is in heaven!

This Is It

2009-11-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

We went to see the Michael Jackson "This Is It" movie with some of my extended family tonight. It was alright. Well, it was pretty good, and a bit nostalgic to hear the MJ songs we listened too growing up, and watching the choreography was awesome, and seeing what goes on behind the scenes of putting together a concert was interesting, and sometimes it was hard to not start dancing in my seat, and watching Michael Jackson was... I don't know what that was... he's a genius and really weird all at the same time... but it did get a little long (kind of like this sentence). Mady and Ash were falling asleep during the end and I was heading that way. All in all, a good night. (Everyone thought I was crazy for wanting to take a picture at the movie theatre. They think I'm getting a little bit anal with this blogging stuff)

Riley, Jenn, Me, Mady, Ash, Mom, Dad, Sydnie (Dusty was taking the picture)

We did a little switcheroo so Sydnie could be standing by Riley - you know how newlyweds are

Happy Halloween!!

2009-10-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

So, we left carving our pumpkins to the last minute, well to the last hour I guess. We were basically intertwining carving pumpkins with putting on costumes, but my camera was going dead so you don't really get to see the chaos... The best part about pumpkin carving was Kaden. He was getting the dry heaves because of the smell and the gooey insides. He kept getting paler and paler and saying, "Mom, I feel like I'm going to throw up" He tried to battle through it but we turned his pumpkin over to dad pretty quickly. He actually had to leave the room for most of it, he made a quick appearance to tell Dusty what kind of face he wanted on his pumpkin and that was it!

Kaden's "scary face" pumpkin and Mady's Kitty

Breckyn's Kitty pumpkin and Ashlyn's cyclops

We're finally ready to go trick-or-treating! It was a nice night but I made the little ones wear sweaters under their costumes and ski socks and gloves, apparently that was overkill, they totally complained of being too hot. Oops. Well, I sent the kids off with dad, and then spent the next 2.and.a.half.hours. making cheese potato soup. It took forever!!!! (especially since I had to answer the door every two mintues for trick or treaters). My extended family showed up around 8 and the soup still wasn't done... I should just have Dusty make it next time. Anyway, here are the kids before they left to gather treats!

A Zombie Prom Queen and a Zombie Ballet Dancer. Sweet and scary at the same time!

Trick or Treat!!!!

Dark Fader, the Vampire twins and Princess Blella!

Breckyn's Birthday? Party

2009-10-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, Breckyn's birthday isn't even in October! I'm over a month late! Oh well, at least we finally had her party, that's all that matters! She wanted a Halloween party so... I didn't have a choice, I had to wait until October...

We were so lucky to have a zombie prom queen grace us with her presence and help out during the party. Thanks Ash!

We painted pumpkins...

We played a few games, I only got a picture of this one. The girls had to hold an "eyeball" on a spoon and race to the end and back without dropping it. I think they liked it, they all wanted to do it more than once. Some of those kids had great balance and didn't drop their eyeballs at all!

Instead of cake, I decided it would be more fun for the girls to decorate cookies. They were so funny. They packed on all sorts of treats on the cookies but then before they ate them, they started picking stuff off. "I don't really like these..."

At the end of the party, we just put on some Halloween music and let the kids go crazy! Some of the girls why shy at dancing at first but by the end, they all got into it!

I had to put this picture in. Kaden looks like he's flying the broomstick, uh backwards. And he did have his costume on but I think after wearing it all day he got a little sick of it and peeled it off. So now he's sporting mismatched jammies.

Kaden's Preschool Party

2009-10-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Kaden's preschool had their Halloween program on Thursday. It was so cute! They got to parade around in their costumes, put on a cute program for the parents and then go trick-or-treating. Kaden has been practicing his songs for the last month now. I think I could have sang along to all of them... I didn't though.

Before they started their program Kaden was cracking us up. He kept pointing us out and saying things like, "Daddy!", "Hey, there's Grandma! Hi Grandma!", "Mommy! Hi mommy!" He pretty much didn't stop until they started singing. They sang a bunch of cute Halloween songs. Kaden sang the first couple of songs with his mask on! It was so funny. You could tell he was being very animated but we couldn't see any of it! We finally got him to take his mask off.

This was Kaden't favorite song:
"A little baby ghostie went out on Halloween"
"Along came a witch that the ghost had never seen"
"Mommy ghost came flying, she heard her baby cry"
"And the witch that scared her baby, went flying up so high"

Witches Night Out!

2009-10-28T08:41:00.001-07:00

For the past few years now, my neighbor Jodi has hosted a Witches Night Out Party and it's always tons of fun! Wearing a witch hat is mandatory and as you can see some of the ladies get into full costume! (I had to keep Cody in this picture, he looks like he's levitating!)

Our resident storyteller Julie told us a creepy story and unfortunately I didn't have my camera on Jodi when she screamed and about dropped her plate of food.

We always play a few "thrilling" games and this year was no exception. Don't let Glinda the Good Witch fool you. She was actually a serial killing werewolf who pulled the wool over all our eyes. Now that's a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Everyone brings a treat to share and I brought Oreo Balls. They were a hit! (and so easy to make)

Thanks again Jodi for the fantastic party!

running!!!

2009-10-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

hey this is ashlyn i have been doing this 5k training at school and i am off track so me and my mom are going to run on Mondays,Wednesdays,and Fridays so we just ran 20 minutes!!!!!! i am so excited cause it is so fun running with my mom.

Spoooooky dinner party

2009-10-26T08:15:00.001-07:00

For the last couple of years my parents have hosted a Halloween dinner party for our family. This year they went all out. First, when we show up the house is decorated all spooky with tombstones and spiders and webs all with a black light shining on them... the black light doesn't really show up well in the pictures. (Also, these pictures are crappy, our camera was on the nighttime setting so all the pictures in the house look a little weird)

Then we were greeted at the door by a crazy, hunchbacked mad scientist... my kids were totally giggling, they thought grandpa looked awesome! Breckyn says "Grandpa looks freaky!"

Various family members being scared

The black and orange cuisine was spooktacular! We had Caesar salad with orange colored dressing, black cherry jello with orange whipped cream, orange bread with green garlic butter, and black noodles with orange colored chicken alfredo sauce. It was yummy, eventhough it didn't look very appetizing!

Claire was not about to eat any of it.

The kids spent a lot of time dancing to Halloween music, they had so much fun. They LOVE to dance apparently.

My mom had a cute Halloween craft for the kids to make

At the end of the night, my mom gave all the kids some new Jammies. And of course they had to put them on right away!

It was really fun! Thanks mom and dad for the great party!

So, I was just on my brother's blog and he had this picture posted and I totally had to steal it. This is what a good picture looks like when someone who knows what they are doing takes a picture with a really nice camera. The black light effect looks nice and creepy behind my mad scientist dad.

Dusty's dream come true...

2009-10-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Dusty has been trying for years to get me to go mountain biking with him and on Saturday I finally did. He was so EXCITED! He took me to Corner Canyon because it has wider trails and it's not too rocky, plus beautiful scenery. I had a lot of fun even though we got rained on coming back down, it just made me feel more "exteme"! I must admit my hands were a little shaky because of my death grip on my handle bars all the way down the mountain.

Poker again? I think we're addicted

2009-10-25T15:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, we're not really addicted. Our candy poker tradition actually started with Dusty's family when we were just newlyweds! We hosted the first candy poker night the first year we were married in our tiny apartment. All siblings who were married were invited (there were just 3 couples) and we even dressed up back then! We've played every Halloween since, for the last 14 years! Last Friday night, we hosted the party once again!

Can't read my, can't read my, no you can't read my poker face...

So, everyone busted up laughing because Tim lost his hand to the dummy hand which means he had to match the candy pot in the middle... all 60 pieces! Better luck next time Tim!

Again, we did not leave with more candy than we brought. I don't think we even broke even! Lame. For the first time ever, Ryan was the big winner!

Ashlyn's Reflections Contest picture

2009-10-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Ashlyn wanted to enter the photography category for her school's Reflections contest this year. My sister in law Jenn was so nice to give her some pointers and let her use her camera! Ash took pictures of my adorable niece and a bunch of flowers and then put some of them together on this collage. It turned out great, good job Ash!

Breckyn's class party

2009-10-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

I got to help at Breckyn's class party on Friday. I was so excited that her teacher let them dress up, usually they don't get too. Kaden got to come with me, and he was feeling very force-ish in his "Dark" Vader costume. Breckyn and her best friend Graci looked fabulous as twin vampires, Graci is even missing so many front teeth that she has built in fangs! The kids had a great time doing crafts, playing games and eating treats!

Thriller!

2009-10-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

Dusty and I took Mady and Ash to Odyssey Dance Theatre's production Thriller last night. It was Awesome! We've seen it a few times now and we love it! If you haven't seen this, I highly recommend it - yes, dads, you will like it too. They have tons of humor, fantastic dancing and it's spooky - sometimes down right scary! They had a new act (at least he hasn't been in any show we've seen before) Bubbles the Clown, and he was hilarious! Mady actually wanted to try out for the Chucky Act but we totally spaced it on the day of tryouts so ... maybe next year. One of her friends did try out and made it and she was performing last night so that was fun to see her. You did a great job Kiera! You made a very scary Chucky! Also, two of Mady's dance teachers are on the Odyssey Dance team as well as one of our friends and they are FABULOUS, fabulous dancers! It just makes it all the more fun to watch when you know some of the people up there! Well here are few pictures but they aren't great. Mady and Ash both brought their cameras and they were both dead so we had to use Dusty's iphone.

These zombies are all over the theatre before the start of the production. Ash was pretty scared of them. Once they found that out, they wouldn't leave her alone.:) They would climb over the chairs and basically right on top of you. It was pretty funny.

This little zombie stole some of my red vines. Hmm, better that than what zombies normally like to eat, right?

Pa-Pa-Pa-Poker Night

2009-10-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

Every Halloween we like to get out the cards and play some poker, candy poker that is. This year we all went to Fuji for dinner, it's a YUMMY tepanyaki style Japanese restaurant, and then we went back to our house to play some cards and win everyone's candy... well, actually Dusty and I didn't win very much this year, it was not our night. Here's a picture of everybody at the restaurant.

Front row: Don, Tani, Debi, Luke, Debbie
Back row: Bryce, Heather, Dusty, Angie, Brittany, Mont, Scott

Mont was the only one talented enough to use chop sticks. The rest of us are pure westerners. Oh wait, Dust just informed me that Scott was also using chop sticks. You go Scott.

Happy Birthday to Scott! It was Scott's B-day so he got to do all the cool stuff like light the grill on fire!

Our exclusive photo of Don trying sushi for the first time... he didn't like it. I don't think he'll be trying it again.

Our chef was popping little pieces of shrimp into everyone's mouth (not mine of course, yuck), and Debi is really talented. She closed her eyes and still caught hers!

Playing "candy" poker at our house. It's not even really poker, just other card games that are more fun to play.

The Nehrings were the big winners this year. They took their winnings home to celebrate... right Mont?

Picking Pumpkins!

2009-10-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Every year Dusty's parents take the whole family out to the pumpkin patch and let all the kids pick out pumpkins. It's a fun time to spend with the extended family and the kids really enjoy searching for the perfect pumpkin with their cousins!

The sun was in our eyes...

Hey! Look what I found!

Ugh, this is heavy! Ash and Cassidy just carried this all across the field ... crazy girls.

Here we are, minus Mady. She was at dance, as usual.

Mady couldn't come with us so Grandma and Grandpa took her and her cousin Kalli a different day. They are so nice!

Ragnar Las Vegas!

2009-10-18T08:43:00.001-07:00

We ran the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay on October 9th and 10th. It was so much fun! Your team runs a total of 171 miles and It took us 25 hours (and 24 minutes, I think) to complete the relay. We took 51st overall and 5th in the sub-masters division - which just means we are all old (over 30). In the Ragnar you have a 12 person team, 2 vans with 6 people each. We ran with our friends Mont and Brittany Lewis and Steve and Aly Ellis in our van (Van 1). We didn"t really know any people in the other van but we liked 'em because they ran fast! Our team name was "The Dirty Underwear Gang" (we had no say in the name, it was already established). Even though the weather was HOT, we got NO sleep and we had to run... we had a great time!

Unfortunately, this race couldn't be enjoyed as much as normal because a tragedy happened to one of the participants. During the night, one of the runners (he wasn't running at the time but supporting another runner) was struck and killed by a drunk driver. It was horrible, our hearts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

Everyone decorates their cars during the race. Since we were the Dirty Underwear Gang we first thought of sayings like "We've Got the Runs..." but then we decided that since we're in Vegas we may as well take it to that level. Everyone in Vegas loved our van, people passing laughed, gave us the thumbs up, etc. Then when we got back to St. George all we got were dirty looks and shaken heads so, needless to say, we washed the windows pretty quick!

Dusty was runner #1 which means he got to be in the big race start off. And because of our team name he is sporting some pretty sweet running attire.

Us, goofing off while other people are running...

Here goes Steve taking off. We don't call him Speedy for nothing. Actually, we call him Speedy for a couple of reasons...

Aly loves her Diet Coke. That's the only thing that got her through her first run.

Me, gettiing ready for my night run. I couldn't figure out why my head lamp wasn't working until Dusty stopped laughing and told me it was on backwards. Duh! (Come on, it was 1:00 in the morning)

Some of us running at night. The night runs were our favorites, they were so much fun! Britt shouldn't take N.O. Explode though, she was WAY too hyper for the middle of the night!

So, here I am getting a "kill" (which means I'm passing someone). It didn't happen very often so Dusty had to make sure to get a picture of it.

Mont and this guy were coming in at the same time and at the very end this guy totally cut Mont off so he could get across the finish line first. It was all in good natured fun but he almost knocked Mont over and I think he did knock off his GPS watch.

We are DONE! Yeah!!!!!

Mia

2009-10-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

So the kids said I needed to put a picture of our dog, Mia, on the blog, so here she is. She's a Cane Corso, which is an Italian Mastiff, and she is going to get pretty big! Here is a picture of her when we got her in June!

And now, here is a picture of her camping, sitting in her favorite chair she took over from Grandpa. (She's not even half as big as she is going to get)

2009-10-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

Hmm. The picture is pretty small. Let's try it again a little bigger...

We are lucky to have two photographers in our family, and my sister-in-law Alisa took this picture for us last minute. It turned out really well, she always takes good pictures! You can check out her blog at alisaflorence.blogspot.com

First Timers!

2009-10-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

So, I've been introduced to the blogging world by a friend of mine who uses her blog as a family scrapbook. She is really good at recording all the happenings going on in their family and at the end of the year she gets a book printed out and they have a nice record of their year together. Since I never scrapbook or keep a journal or even put pictures in an album (I know, I'm a terrible mom) when I saw her blog I thought, why not? So, here is my first attempt at our family blog, I know it's pretty basic right now but hopefully with some help I'll learn how to give it a little more pizzaz. And even more important, hopefully I'll stick with this and it won't go the way of my half finished scrapbook I started 11 years ago... Anyway, here is the fam. Mady, Dusty, Kaden, me (Angie), Ashlyn and Breckyn. I don't even know how this is going to look after I put the picture in and hit publish post so here we go...