Temple Square

I took Raeannen and Bailey to Temple Square last night to see my beautiful niece, Sarah, sing with her high school choir. They are really good! It was fun to give Sarah a quick hug before we headed out into the cold to enjoy the beauty around us. The little girls ran around holding hands and giggling, pointing out different colors and decorations. They also loved the huge tree in the JSMB. My camera battery was pretty much dead, so the pictures are a little fuzzy, but hey.... gotta have pictures, Right?

We went over to wish Grandma Doris a happy birthday and warm up with some hot cocoa and birthday cake. I have the best mother in the world. At least, she is perfect for me. She lifts me up when I am down and she delights in my good times. She is wise and thoughtful of our needs. She's cute and quirky, yet beautiful and admirable. She adores my husband and children and they adore her. She is our family angel and we are all so blessed to have her in our lives! Love ya Mom!!! Happy Birthday!

Tree hunting & Family nativity

We went up to Idaho to Cindy's this past weekend to have our McVey family Christmas party. Mike and Jenny drove up from happy valley and Mom and Brian from Centerville. Ben had to work and we really missed him. This is one of the times of year when I really wish my other 5 sister and brothers and their families lived closer. I miss them... a LOT! (I better start making some phone calls). We did the live nativity. Rae was Mary and Vincent was Joseph. We nixed the wisemen and so Jason, Wes and Spencer were all shepherds, with a darling sheep named Rachel. Emma and little Claire played the part of the angels. You can tell they were all so excited... (especially the boys...NOT). But it is nice that they do it for G'ma and the other adults. Great kids... not so great actors. :)
Christmas tree hunting was a different experience for me this year. I really missed trudging through the snow with my honey in search of our perfect tree. Cindy was a great partner... she found me a great little tree within an hour. I cut it down and dragged it back to the car (it wasn't too far off the road) and we enjoyed hot cocoa and watching Jedd play with the girls. The kids had a lot of fun with their best buddy cousins and we had a great visit. Now I just need to finish my math final tonight and we can get the tree up and decorated. It's about time!!!

Somethings missing...

Saturday morning... day after Halloween... going through mounds and mounds of candy. What to eat first??? Mmmm.... this popcorn ball looks yummy.

She takes a bite and wouldn't you know??? Rae's tooth decides to fall out. And I cry. My baby's passed the next milestone to not being so much my baby. How can something that is so hard for me be so WONDERFUL to her??? She has been wishing for loose teeth since she was barely 3 years old. And now she is running around like it was Christmas morning at Disneyland. I know that the prospect of the tooth fairy coming and being able to be part of the missing tooth club at school is all great... but what about Mom having to deal with my little precious darling princess angel growing up???? Okay, yes... I am over reacting a little. And she does look absolutely adorable. And she is so super-d-duper-dy elated. It'll all be okay... right?

A few more Halloweenish pictures

So, here we have pictures from Rae's Kindergarten Zombie party, we turned all the kids in her class into zombies. Way fun!!!

We also have her little friends all in costume at my house. I love these kids.

We also have some family fun night pumpkin carving.

And last but not least, Rae's trick-or-treat costume... The Corpes Bride. (I didn't get any great pictures. Shame on me!)

Redemption... I hope!

So, here ya all go!!! Don't my kiddos look AWESOME!?!?!? We went to the Halloween High-Jinx Symphony this past weekend with our good friends Anna & Sydney. It was a great time, as allways... however, we definitely got jipped in the costume contest, the kids didn't mind... they had so many people asking for pictures and giving them all kinds of compliments. Everywhere they went somebody pointed and said, "Hey look! The Blue Man Group!" They all felt pretty cool. After, Sidney took us out to Leatherby's for icecream. A perfect way to end our fun night out.

Pumpkin Walk

The kids and I spent a few hours at the Stansbury Park Millpond Gristmill. It was fun to see all of the fun pumpkin displays. They had a little maze set up and lots of little games like beanbag tosses.

I never have been able to pass up a photo op like this. Maybe next year Vince can be a scarecrow and Jason a flying pumpkin. Rae is wearing the Donkey Kong costume I made for Vincent when he was three. We were looking for a quick fix just to wear around the gristmill and DK is definitely easy on easy off.

The kids did a little coloring while we were waiting to watch a few friends dance. I really love it that they can have fun together... maybe not the time of their life, but still they can enjoy each other.

Before we went home, we decorated cookies. Vincent wanted me to take a picture of his for the blog and tell the story behind it. There was a guy hanging out in a cave full of stalagmites and stalactites. Well, I guess there was an earthquake or something because one of the stalactites fell on top of the man. You can see his leg poking out from the front of the stlactite (candy corn) and I think an arm is in the back. So sad... poor guy.

Yoshi 4-Ever?

Can you say, "Blackmail"? Hee Hee!!! While the boys were looking for costumes, we thought it would be funny to see if the old Yoshi costumes Grandma Doris and I made for them YEARS ago could fit. I wouldn't exactly say that they "fit"... but they did get them on. And oh boy, I could not stop laughing. I wish so badly that I could find some pictures from when they were little, (I think they were 3 and 7 when they wore these the first time). Jason and Vincent were sooooo cute. Anyway, those of you who remember them in these costumes years ago will get a kick out of this. For those of you who never saw the originals, I think you'll probably get a laugh as well. :)

A costume for Vince

This year, my kids are going to be the Blue Man Group for Halloween. We are not quite sure if the bald caps can be used more than once, so until the symphony on Saturday, they have to make due with costumes out of our "costume box". These are the ones that Vince came up with for the Halloween Carnival.

He ended up going as "Rocky" in the first photo... however, I really thought he looked just darling in pink. What a ham!

Happy Late Birthday Shelisse!

After spending a wonderful day in Fillmore with the Harper's, Ben drove the kids down to Cedar City to see Shelisse and her family. Shelisse turned 13 in September and so we thought it would be fun to have a little birthday with her. They all went to this amazing park near the Blad's home. I wish I had some pictures of them playing tag and running around, but alas, Jason was in charge of the camera and he was playing tag and running around.
After the park, they went to Pizza Hut for lunch and Jason did take a few pictures... yahoo!!! This handsome young man is Shelisse's brother Christian. He is super friendly and Vincent really likes him.

This big guy is Shelisse's youngest brother, Gabe. I hear he's a real cool kid too. After Pizza Hut, they went back to the Blad's house for some Birthday cake... (I know... could be a candidate for Cakewrecks)... and some good old video games.

Rae fell in love with Shelisse. They painted fingernails and Shelisse put make-up on her. Since they've been back home, Rae can't stop talking about her sister. She's drawn multiple pictures for Shelisse and points out her picture to everyone and anyone who comes by.

Thanks Shyanne, Shelisse, Christian and Gabe for spending an unforgettable day with my family!

UEA down South

Okay, so it's really not that far south... the kids and Ben went down to visit Grandma and Grandpa Harper Thursday. They really love spending time with these two amazing people. (If you can't tell). Ben says that Rae is just a little Grandma's girl. She followed her around everywhere.

Grandpa Gene took the kids to pick out pumpkins. It's a tradition that we look forward to every year. Vincent found a 31 pounder to bring home. Thanks Grandpa!

The Pumpkin Patch

Rae was invited to go pumpkin hunting with her good friends Bailey and Lily. She had such a fun time running around the pumpkin patch (it was HUGE) with her little friends. They would run over to one pumpkin and check it out from every angle, sometimes discuss it and then move on to the next. You could hear them giggling clear across the patch.

Rae picked out one that what somewhat tear-shaped. She liked that it was different than all the others.


We had so much fun, maybe we'll start going every year, just for one.

Photo Tag

I have never been really good at tag, but I just thought this looked like fun. You are supposed to go to your picture file and go to the 4th file and open it. Look for the 4th picture and then post it and tell a little bit about that particular picture. So, here it is and here it goes.

This was taken 5 years ago when we were heading home from Cedar City after Shelisse's baptism. We were half way back when Vincent "really had to go". So, Ben pulled over to the side of the road and was gracious enough to show Vincent what to do. I was lucky enough to get the perfect picture in the rear-view mirror. Gotta love it! (How do ya like Vincent's blue hair?) Now I tag you!

Homecoming 2008

Jason took his good friend Taylor to the Grantsville homecoming dance this year. They started over at a friends house playing games like 3-legged tag with around 5 other couples. They dined on pb&j and chips and soda and then took the girls home to get ready. Of course this was Conference weekend for the LDS church and so while the girls were getting ready, the boys all went to priesthood session. They picked the girls up later that evening. I was lucky to get a few pictures as they were dashing off to meet their friends. Jason said that they both had a really great time.

The Circus is in Town!!!

We finally got the kids to the B&B Circus a few nights ago. We had so much fun!!! Rae was pointing and laughing and just all around happy. Vincent and Jason were pretty entertained by all the performances and Ben and I were just more than pleased to see how smiley our kids were. We loved it! Highly recommended family entertainment!
We didn't have much time on the floor with the clowns and other entertainers... it didn't really matter because the show was so much fun.
You can tell just by the look on their faces what a great time they were having!
All smiles after the show!

My own little bunch of clowns... gotta love 'em!

Yellowstone

We did our yearly camping trip over labor day with our cousins... this year we were lucky enough to not only have the Ercanbracks, but also Grandma and Grandpa Seamons and Aunite Trish and Mollie came along. We went up to Yellowstone again and had a wonderful time.