Two and Terrible

My cuddly baby is turning into a little boy. At least he still likes to cuddle. We love him so much!

Kauai

Kauai with the Milnes, Salmons, Rex's and Talbots. Beach, surfing, hot tubbing, scum, eating, dolphins, whales, golf...

Let's make a weekend of it

Dad took good care of Jeffrey while we were gone!

The girls had a 4 day weekend over Martin Luther King day so we took a girls only trip to  Fallon. We got to spend some time in the desert and I got to celebrate my birthday with dinner at the Moultons. It was a really fun girls weekend! And I celebrated my birthday again with breakfast on our way out of town.

A Wild 9th Birthday

It is happening slowly enough that I can't see it day to day but when I take a step back it is ever so clear....Mackenzie is growing up. She just turned 9. She is lovely and sweet. She is also spicy and full of attitude, and I love the mix that she is!

She wanted to have animals come for her birthday party and we found a lady who runs "Wild Wonders" with a variety of rescue animals. It turned out to be so fun. The kids loved it and so did the adults.

 

 

Party kids:

Chloe McKinley, Marie Franzen, Kate, Kylie, Lottie, Brooklyn, Mackenzie, Nela Stelik, Auden and Dalloway Smith

The birthday twins. Carol rented out a theater for Dave's 40th birthday and we watched Back to the Future.

Can Brooklyn Really Be SEVEN?

Happy birthday to my little ray of sunshine. What would I do without her in this family? I just don't know. She brings so much to our family table from her bubbly personality to helping with Jeffrey and just loving to laugh.

Hawaiian Thanksgiving

Mike and Carol took the girls to the aquarium one day while Robert and Liz went to the BYU basketball game.

We stayed at the Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui for Thanksgiving.  Getting there was no easy task with an active almost 2 year old boy! But once we got there it was paradise. The girls had fun playing at the beach but were not big fans of how the sand sticks to you like glue.

Carol and the Mowers were our traveling companions. Carol was able to get tickets for the BYU basketball tournament played in Lahaina. That was really fun for Robert, even though BYU lost some heart breakers in overtime.

Robert also took the big girls zip lining for another highlight.

October Festivities

The kids all got hit with something and it was not fun! Brooklyn ended up missing a week of school which is very unusual for us to miss more than a day with sickness. Always makes you grateful for our good health.

Enjoying our new outdoor fireplace with smores.  And we had a donut on a string contest (that was a different night, don't worry).

Char was Elsa at school and went trick-r-treating as Anna. It was too hard to decide.

Minimal success at kite flying

Ali Ties the Knot

Congrats to Ali and Will Marshall!  The sealing in the Salt Lake temple was wonderful and the dinner reception at the Capitol was so beautiful.
The other night we went to dinner at Carol's and she said that the Marshalls were coming. So Char started opening cupboards and saying "I want marshmallows!"

Visitors!

Donny's family came for a Utah visit. My kids love to see their cousins! We got to go to the football game in our box and Annie's sister Ceri and her husband Dave joined us too. That worked out great because we left the 2 little kids at Ceri's house.  There was a little bit of snow that weekend and Brooklyn is my snow girl who just has to go out and play in it. There wasn't much but she managed to make this snowman with the rock face.