Early Christmas

Each year, Shaylee & Devin's biological family come out to celebrate the holidays with us. We had a delicious ham & funeral potato dinner, and the kids (of course) enjoyed getting early Christmas presents. We are glad they have the opportunity to keep in contact with their biological family.

Random October Madness

As you may have noticed, I haven't been much of a blogger lately. Instead, I've been spending time making memories with my kids--but how will we remember them if I don't capture them somehow, right? So here is a random collection of pictures of some of our events in October.

First, on our way to Salt Lake to show Emma the temple we stopped at an all-American buffet, Golden Corral. She really enjoyed it (of course the other kids did as well).



We also got to take a tour of the conference center, which we had never done before. Other than the cold, I think the roof was the highlight (see previous post with temple pics).



The girls had to try out their Halloween costumes as soon as I brought them home from the store. Shaylee was a tiger and Emma was a cat--too bad you can't see their tails!


Aspen and Connor and I have been enjoying storytime at the Lehi Library every Tuesday morning. Not only do they read great stories and encourage the kids to memorize poems and give fun homework activities, but they also play fun games like Aspen here with the giant parachute.

Connor is truly my book-a-holic--are you surprised?

Aspen and Connor enjoyed decorating jack-o-lantern cookies courtesy of our neighbor Rebecca.

They especially enjoyed eating them!


Hey good looking, what you got cooking? Connor in the witch's cauldron.

Shaylee is a master of self-portraits:

She even includes others in her professional work:

Aspen and Connor are always a big help with household chores. They especially love to rake leaves and then jump in them!



Fall fun at the park before the snow came.

1st Day of School

Is it so sad that it's October and I'm just getting to posting pictures from the first day of school? I'm catching up, slowly but surely. The weird thing this year is that I have 4 kids at 3 different schools (high school, junior high, preschool), and they all started on a different day! Hence, I have no picture of all the kids together ready for their first day of school. Oh well.

Devin started first. He was off to 7th-grade day at the junior high ("No problem, mom, I've got this figured out.") Theoretically, low maintenance. He was a pro and came home with a list of all the girls who had greeted/hugged him. Oh my!

That same day, Aspen did get to go to the preschool to meet her new teacher, Mrs. Bahr.

Connor definitely wanted to get in on the action.

Aspen with Mrs. Bahr

The next day Shaylee was off for her first day of high school. Unfortunately, Emma's TB test hadn't come back, so she couldn't register or start until the following day, so Shaylee struck out alone for the new high school.

What a babe, as always.

Emma getting ready to go to the District Office, again.

Both girls off to school on Friday (Shay's second day, Emma's first)

Aspen on her first "official" day of preschool with Connor, friend Alisha & her brother Luke (Alisha's mom had to make a last-minute trip to Wyoming, so Alisha joined us for the first day of school).

Aspen & Alisha

All ready in class

Random Pics

Since, as you can probably tell, I'm catching up a little bit, here are some random pics from July:


First, our hike up Benny's Creek in Payson Canyon on July 3 for our Friday Field Trip (we hiked with Alicia & Jonathan and had a great time!).




Dennis and Shaylee got to join Devin at Camp Maple Dell (also up Payson Canyon) for the family night at his scout camp:

Shaylee and her cousin Madison had some fun with Dennis' camera: