The Annual Christmas Letter Picture

Well I had determined awhile ago that I was going to send out Christmas cards early this year. Since we have moved every year for about 4 years and I thought that I would send the cards out early so that people would have our address. Well, as my story always goes it is only 10 days before Christmas and I am still getting around to getting that done. I have taken the pictures of the kids and I also orderd the Christmas card, now if Dennis could just write the letter, we would be good to go. Except that I still have to address and mail everything. It is too bad that I am such a procratinator, maybe next year we will send out Thanksgiving cards or just not move and that would help also. Anyhow, if our cards do not make it to you all before Christmas, know that we think of you all often and hope that you have a very Merry Christmas and that the Savior's birth rings with joy in your hearts.

Let the Christmas parties begin

Dennis's sisters and their families decided to come to WY for a little trip. So we decided to meet up with them in Baggs for a little family Christmas party. Dennis's brother from Laramie was suppose to come also, but did not make it because of the weather. So there was going to be 5 of the 6 siblings there, so we thought it was a great opportunity. Getting all the family together is hard work. in the end there were 4 of the 6 siblings, with their families there so it turned out good. We had a little Christmas exchange and played games. Great Christmas fun.

It's beginning to look alot like Chirstmas

Tonight we put up are Christmas tree. The kids had alot of fun digging out there own ornaments from previous years. They got them all out and put them in order. It was cute to see how much they appreciated it. This was really Sawyer's first time to really understand what was happening and he loves the Christmas tree. He just kept pointing to it and saying "Christmas tree"! The kids loved putting the ornaments on the tree and I must say that they are getting really good at it, because I looked at it when they were done and I did not feel like I needed to rearrange once they were asleep. Maybe I am getting better at them decorating the tree also

Generations

I remeber very little of my great grandparents, but the few things that I remember are good. I remember tea parties with my great grandma Berrier, some sort of farming with my great grandpa Gross, the kitchen table and stove at my great grandma Gross's house, and stories from my great grandma Bird. I hope that my children will remember the great times that they are able to have with their great grandparents. i hope just hearing their names will bring back grand memories. I hope that when they think of Thanksgiving, they will remember their great grandpa Updike playing the harmonica for them to dance to and their great grandma Updike's delicious food.

Thanksgiving

I was reading a blog post from Thanksgiving of one of my friends and she wrote about the tradition of the five kernals of corn. You tell five things that you are thankful for. I am not sure if this is her family tradition or a traditional tradition, if you know what I mean, but I think that I am going to start this tradition myself. Feel free to steal the idea with me. Hopefully next year I will remember and I can have my kids and hubby participate also.
Any how here goes
1-The one thing that I am most thankful for is my Savior. When I was thinking about what I was most grateful for I realized that without Him and the Gospel, I would not have anything else to be grateful for. I am truly blessed that I know who my Savior is and that He loves me.
2- Dennis=I truly believe that I have the most wonderful husband in the whole world. (sorry everyone) I truly mean it. It takes an incredibel person to be my husband and Dennis does an outstanding job. I am so grateful that he is mine and that i get to be with him forever.
3-My kids!!! Ryan, Julia and Sawyer. Some days it might feel as though I was crazy to have kids, but as I always say everything is equal in opposites. For all the hard times that my kids give me there is always something that is so great that weighs it out. And to be completely honest there is way more great then hard. My kids bring me the most joy.
4- The holiday season. there is nothing greater then a time of year when I believe that everyone thinks about others. Admist the wants and sometimes greediness, I really think that everyone, at least once, thinks about someone else. What a great time of year.
5-temporal blessing- my home, Dennis's job, all those things that some people do not have. Sometimes, well maybe more then sometimes, I have more then I need, but I am truly grateful that I do not have to go hungry, cold or lonely.

I had a great Thanksgiving, with my extended family. It was a great kickoff for the whole holiday season.

Reading

I love to read to my kids, but I even love it more when I catch them reading, (or looking) at books. I am a lover of books, in fact i cannot even get a book if there is something that I have to get done, because once i pick up a book everything gets ignored. If there is one thing that i can say that I have taught my kids, it is to love books. There is nothing that makes them more happy then to read books and the best part, they are always the best behaved when they have a book.

Ryan Basketball

Ryan did the mini wolf basketball camp again this year and I must say he is becoming quite the little b-ball player. He is so cute. he really loves it and the best part is he is always so willing to put alot of work into it. Every night that he came home he wanted to go shoot hoops to get better. Nothing better then a hard worker. He really liked to play in the games and was even able to score in each game that he played, the best part- the smile he tried to hide so "cooly" after he made a shot and was trying hard not to let us all know how awesome it was.

Halloween

Nothing is funner then getting dressed up and getting free candy. Sawyer wanted to be batman, but we had a hard time finding a batman costume that was his size. So we talked him into being a skeleton. He loved it and when ever he saw someone he would growl at them, thinking that he was scaring them. Totally in character. Julia informed me early in the month that she wanted to be a girl vampire. I wondered why not a princess and then we settled on a witch. What has happened to my little girl? She was a cute witch though, not a scary one and then when someone accidentally took her black dress at school, she became a pumpkin princess. I was very happy, maybe she is not as grown up as I thought. Ryan was the sole designer of his mountain man costume. He saved up money and went to the mountain man rendezvous and purchased his own leather and then had me sew his costume. He hot glued the extras on there himself. He was very proud of his costume. I was very proud of him also.

Carving pumpkins

We had a lot of fun this year carving pumpkins. We let the kids design their own pumpkins and we did the cutting. It went alot faster than it has in the past because Dennis was a carver and not a designer. Also we waited until the night before halloween to carve and jsut cut the top off and did not gut the pumpkins. I would really recommend this, no mess and a lot faster. and you do not have to worry about them rotting because you are going to throw them away the next day. The kids love halloween and this was a great night before activity.

Pumpkin patch

We went to a pumpkin patch in Ut with my mom, mandy and Gabby. THere was a lot of fun to have. When we got to go pick the pumpkins again personalities emerged. Sawyer pick the first pumpkins that he came to that he could hold and was easily persuaded to change to a pumpkin that I liked better. Julia had to find the most pretty pumpkin, and since pumpkins are not very pretty settled with a green one that looked like a witch. Ryan had to be hurried because he was taking so much time. The trailer was waiting for him to go back. he wanted the biggest pumpkin that he could find. I had made a rule that he could get whatever pumpkin he wanted as long as he carried it out. SO he was having a hard time because the ones he wanted he could not carry. he finally picked one and only was able to carry in a part of the way back to the trailer. I ended up carrying it most of the way, what can I say at least i tried.

Fall fun

We spent one Saturday in october at my mom's house with my sister Mandy and her family. We spent the morning out in the yard playing in the leaves. Just enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Fall is my most favorite season. I love the brisk weather and the clothes that oyu wera in the fall and the lovely colors and everything that it means. To me fall means family. WE had a lot of fun with cousin Gabby and all the leaves and candy.

Brothers

i always thought that having kids close together that are of the same sex, but i think that the relationship between Ryan and Sawyer is so precious. Ryan is 5 1/2 years older than Sawyer. Ryan is always eager to read to Sawyer, who is very receptive of this. The play really well together and the older they get the closer that they get.

teachers

Well since it is almost the third month of school I guess I missed the whole first day of school blog, but here are a picture with each of the kids and their teachers. Julia is in Mrs. Gamble's class. She is a very good teacher accademically, and very strict. I have learned that julia is very sensitive. I am not sure if it is the long kindergarten days or her strict teacher, or a combination, but Julia has been in tears more than oncce. She likes her teacher and I am so impressed with what she is learning already. Ryan's teacher is Mrs. Beery, Ryan seems to like her and is doing well this year. His high light is that his class voted him to student council. He likes it, I am not sure what they do besides have before school meetings twice a month, but he is proud to be in it, so I am happy

differences

Well it has been awhile since I have blogged. I got a new laptop and have not switched everything over from our desktop yet. That is a least my excuse right now. No pictures on this computer so why blog. But I do have a funny story about the differences between all of our children. Even though we know and always knew that children are different we still are suprised how different they can be. We were on a drive the other day and we were talking to the kids about school, doing well in school and how if they did well they would get to go to college and become anything that they want to be. Well Julia likes school for very different reasons than Ryan does. Julia is all over the social stuff and Ryan loves to learn. So we asked Julia what she likes about school, she said her teacher, we askrd what about your teacher do you like. She said, "she has nice shoes, I like how she does her hair and she has pretty earrings!" We laugh and before we can even stop laughing Ryan interupts us to say, "Hey how many different subjects will I be able to study in college?", all the while Sawyer is in the background yelling, "BART, BART, BART" informing us he has let a toot out or just wants attention, as he will claim for anyone at anytime. All three of our children come from the same parents and I am pretty sure that we raise them the same for the most part, they are just their own little persons.

Moutain Man Rendezvous

Labor Day weekend we went to Fort Bridger to the rendezvous. Ryan insisted that we go there and we thought it was a good idea so we went. Ryan wants to be a mountain man for Halloween and so wanted to get some leather for me to make him some pants and a vest. We shall see how that project goes. While we were ever so patiently waiting for Ryan to look at a booth, (they had money from our yard sale and Ryan was being very picky about what he spent his money on) Julia and Sawyer were watching a lady play this music thing and the lady let Julia play it. Julia thought that was very cool. And as always Sawyer was along for the ride.

MESSY PARTY

Our good friends the Eatchel's hosted a messy party. It was a great last days of summer activity before they all had to go back to school. It was a lot of fun. Some of the activities were apple bobbing, eating a powdered donut off of a rope, pie throwing, body painting, and digging a worm out of pudding with no hands. Ryan was all over this activity gettng as dirty as possible. Julia had fun also, but did not like to get as dirty, and Sawyer jsut thought everyone was crazy. What fun!!!

My Sweet Boy

I had been really tired and sick for a few days and I guess that I was very good at letting the kids know. On the tail end of my crappiness I had a really bad day and being the sweet boy that Ryan is, he noticed it right away and was the sweetest boy ever. From the moment the day started he was all over helping me. He swept the kitchen flor, picked up the entire house and was just so helpfull all day. During the middle of the day I was on the computer and he came in and said that he would take care of the kids, (like he was all grown up) and that I should just go lay down and watch some TV or something. I thought he was cute so I went into my bedroom and this is what I found waiting for me. I will tell you what, this kind act of service and affection completely wipes out any rotten thing he has ever done.

Potty training

When we went to get Ry and Lu's school clothes, Sawyer was feeling a little left out. We really do not need to buy him clothes because we have all of Ryan's hand-me-downs. I decided that we could get him some new underwear and I could tackle potty training when the kids went to school. Sawyer had a big thing for trains right now so he only wanted train underwear. We came home and he wanted to wear them right away. He stayed dry for two days when mommy was home, but he is back in diapers, because I am not ready. I know that I might miss his window of excitement, so I plan on getting that done soon.

summer's end

all good things must or at least seem to always come to an end. Now that summer is over it seems like it just started last week, but it is over. We had a lot of fun and did alot of things this summer includding finally moving into the house we had built. (photo of house coming soon.) This is a picture of my darling kids taking a break at our town splash park. We have a great time when we go here, a park and a splash park. Too fun.

Sawyer the Master Mimic

Sawyer is into copying everything that everyone does. When Ryan cries and we tell him to stop he tells us that he is trying, so now when Sawyer starts to cry and we tell him to stop he says in his little 2 year old voice, tyin, tyin. It is too cute. One day we were in the video store looking for movies and we turned around the corner to check on Sawyer and saw him with his hand on his head resting on the shelf, we thought that was cute, but then when we noticed the movie that he was looking at, it was even cuter. He was mimiccing the boy on the movie. What a ham!!!

Soccer Ryan

Ryan loved soccer again this year. he loves to learn and is constanly trying to learn the best way to do things that will make him better. He loves the theory, "practice makes perfect". It was really fun to watch him try and manipulate the game with his head. Sometimes I think he is a little ahead of himself. He scored many goals this year and loves to win. The thing that I was most proud of this year was his sportmanship. He was very aware of his actions and tried real hard to include everyone and work as a team. He also was very compassinate toward the others that got hurt. One time he kicked the ball real hard toward the goal and it bounced off the goalie's face and into the goal. Ryan's normal reaction when he makes a goal is to jump up and down and display the score, this time he went immedialty to the goalie and made sure he was okay. It was awesome.

LuLu Soccer

Julia had a blast with soccer this year and we were really proud of her. We also learned that she has some speed on her legs. Her first game she score two goals and that set the premise for all her next games. She loves playing and would ask her coach to let her play front all the time so that she could score. We were so impressed with her determination to try so hard to make goals. We also loved watching her beat all the other kids to the other side of the field, just pumping her arms like crazy. Her last game was against a little boy that is in her primary class, he was real good, but Julia was determined to beat him. She stayed right with him and did not let him score,(he was looking a little frustrated) her face was the most red that we had every seen after that game. I was proud she stuck with him and worked hard.

Rayn's favorite activity

All summer long everyday Ryan asks if we can go hunting for crawdads. WE were not able to at the beginning of the summer because there was so must run off from the mountains and the water was just to deep and fast. So finally the last month of the summer we were able to get down to the green river and hunt for crawdads. Ryan will spend hours searching for the crawdads and he is always on the look out for the big ones. He is convinced that we are going to let him cook one sometime and eat it. But I am pretty sure that it will never happen. We shall see though. He like to invite friends to go hunting with him, but Ryan usually does all the hunting and his friends usually watch wondering what is so fun about this event, but Ryan loves it.

Fun at Fair

Dennis and I both remember having so much fun at the fair when we are little, so of course we want our kids to have the same memories. Dennis took the day off and we spent one full day at the fair. The kids had fun participating in the kid activites and seeing the animals, especially the petting zoo, where they got to feed the animals. Even Sawyer was brave enought to let the animals eat out of his hands. Ryan always loves looking at all the things that there is to buy, one more thing to add to his 8 shelves of special things. Yes 8 and he is only 7, that is more then one a year. Julia has fun riding the rides. They all loved the pony rides, Sawyer looked like he thought this was the most cool thing he had ever done. WE all had a lot of fun.

Massey campout

We returned to Spirit Lake a second time this year, but this time we wer with my family. Again we were grateful to be staying in the cabins. The skeeters were way better this time, but there was alot of rain. We had a great time with family playing games and chit-chatting all night. It is so much fun to camp with family. Julia had a great time with her cousin Gabby, and we all loved Gabby's little(big) tongue. I did not take as amny pictures as I would have liked, so if you have pictures form this event pass them on.

Camping trip # 2

We really had fun camping in July this year. This time we went with Dennis's room mate and really good friend from college, Mark peterson and his family. We had the best time, although we did learn that a 2 mile hike with children is a bit much. We both ended up carrying a child the last half mile out. The waterfall at the top was worth it though. We had so much fun hanging out with the Peterson's, we are so grateful to have them as friends.

Happy Birthday Sawyer

Sawyer celebrated his 2nd birthday July 13th. He loved that people kept giving him things and that everyone was so nice to him, giving him a ton of attention. Dennis's family had just got done having a campout together, so a lot of them were here to celebrate. Sawyer got a new bike, we had to get rid of the pink and purple one, use to be Julia's, that he was riding around. Dennis did not think that it was right. He loved his bike and cake with cars on it.

You Are Jasmine!

Independent and adventurous. You don't want much; just to break out of the guilded cage society has put you in and experience life to the fullest. Following orders isn't really one of your strong points, and you would rather live a life of poverty than being forced into something that you hate.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Cousins

We were able to go to Olivia Rose's blessing. (She belongs to Dennis's sister Rose) you would have thought that we took a picture of the one being honored, but we or I did not. I did get a picture of all my kids with their cousins that are their same ages. They all have so much fun together. I hope that they are always such good friends.

4th of July

For the 4th of July we invited some friends over for a little get together. Since our backyard is still dirt, we were not sure if everything would turn out, but it did. The guys played a little b-ball while the women gabbed and the kids played. WE had dinner and snowcones and it was a great day, to top everything off there was a beautiful rainbow.

The second weekend in July we went camping with Dennis's family. They rented cabins at Spirit Lake. We stayed there 3 nights. We went boating on Flaming gorge two of the days. The kids loved the hot dog. Sawyer spent the whole time he was on it telling the driver to go faster by sticking his finger in the air. Ryan had the most fun being a dare-devil on the hotdog, trying every trick anyone dared him to do. Julia was a little scared to try it, even though she had done it before, but she loved it when she tried it. We had a lot of fun with the fam, even if the skeeters were way terrible. WE look forward to next year.

LAGOON

LAGOON IS SO MUCH FUN, BUT IT IS EVEN MORE FUN WITH KIDS. ALL OF THE KIDS HAD SO MUCH FUN AND NONE OF THEM ARE AFRAID OF ANYTHING. WE HAD TO BE A LITTLE TRICKY TO GET THEM ALL ON THE RIDES THAT THEY WERE ALL ABOUT 1 INCH TO SHORT FOR. SAWYER LOVED THE TIDAL WAVE, AND EVEN PUT HIS ARMS UP WHEN HIS SIDE WENT UP. IT WAS SO CUTE. WE ALSO RAN INTO NATE AND MANDY MASSEY(SIBLINGS OF MINE) WHILE WE WERE THERE AND SPENT A LITTLE TIME WITH THEM. WE SURE WISHED WE LIVED CLOSER TO LAGOON, WE WOULD GO A LOT.

Flaming Gorge Days

We had a lot of fun this year at flaming gorge days. We participated in the events and had a lot of fun. I ran the 5k in the morning, which was a good but hard experience, since I did not train at all. I have been wanting to get into running more and had some friends that were doing it so they talk me into it. They signed me up , so I had to do it. Even though I threw up at the end, I am motivated to run the 10k in August, this time I wll train and it should be better. Dennis was in the 3 on 3 b-ball tournament. he hdd a lot of fun and looks forward to doing better next year. The kids loved the fair and all the activities. Sawyer's favorite was the water park.