christmas in oregon

Okay, I'm finally getting around to this post. I think I've put it off long enough! :o) Keep in mind that I don't have all of my pictures yet. So all of my pictures from Grandma Berta's are on another camera. So this will just be a few pictures to highlight our trip up to Oregon.

Making Cookies at Mom and Dad's

Shailey's First Lost Tooth (it's hard to see it in her hand but it's there.)

Graham Cracker Houses (where more candy is eaten than decorated with!)

(Notice all the empty Tootsie Roll wrappers, yet there doesn't seem to be any on her house. Hmm...)

Meeting Santa

Christmas Morning

Dad's and Theresa's House

And lastly, a funny video of Eli playing the guitar. Man he's good! :o) I will post the other pictures when I get them.

christmas decorations!

I finally finished setting up my Christmas decorations. It's not much, but for our little house it's just enough. :o) I decorated the front porch, too, but I don't have a picture of it yet. I usually do blue and silver ornaments on the tree but decided to do something a little more festive this year. Hope all your decorations are coming along nicely!

shailey's dance performance

Shailey had her dance performance last week and I'm just now posting about. Unfortuneately the video that I thought was recording was, in fact, not recording. So I don't have the cute video of her that I thought I did. Her dance group was supposed to be licorice so we did the best job we could to make it look like that. The best part of the performance was when her group split up into two groups and went to opposite ends of the stage. They then proceeded to run and leap towards each other. Shailey was fine until she realized a whole bunch of little girls were running straight for her! She totally put on the brakes and put out her arms in defense! It was so funny! We love you Shailey! You did a great job! :o)

happy halloween!

Another Halloween has come and gone. I have to say that I'm glad. I love Halloween but it gets crazy sometimes. :o) The kids had tons of fun trick-or-treating and running around in their costumes. And I'm happy that all the costumes were all done in time. :o) I actually did finish working on most of the costumes in September but only finished up with Eli's yesterday! I took a break to work on other things. So here are the costumes!

SHAILEY'S COSTUME

Shailey wanted to be a witch this year. I told her a witch would be fine as long as it was a cute witch. I'd say she's pretty cute. So I can't take full credit for this costume. I started out with a very basic costume for about $10.00 from Target (shown below the picture of Shailey) and added more tulle, a faux corsette in the front, cap sleeves, and a sash (I was so lucky to find all the material used laying around the house!). The total cost for her costume was about $15.00! I love bargains! Isn't she a cute witch?

ELI'S COSTUME

Eli wanted to be Peter Pan but we weren't too keen on him wearing tights. So after running A LOT of other ideas across him he finally dropped the Peter Pan idea and went with a classic aviator costume (we're pretty sure this had to do with his insane love for Soarin' Over California at Califronia Adventure.) His costume was easy in some ways and annoying in others. Easy in the sense that he's just wearing pants and shoes we already had and a jacket we found at Target. The hard part was making his cap and goggles. I won't bore you with the details but I'll just say that I hate sewing with costume pleather and never plan to again. It was so frustrating making that cap and goggles! I'm glad it turned out okay! His costume cost a bit more since we bought the jacket at Target for $25.00. But what you can't see in the picture is that the furry collar can be removed to reveal a regular leather collar--which will be a great jacket for an Indiana Jones costume next year (which we've already convinced him to be!). The scarf just has wire run through the edges so it looks likes the wind is blowing. :o) I think he gives Howard Hughes a run for his money!

ISAAC'S COSTUME

Isaac's costume definitely took the longest. His obsession with the movie "Cars" made it clear that he needed to be Lightning McQueen this year. His costume I made entirely from scratch. All of the decals on the costume were found by searching images on the internet and editing. Then I just used iron on paper to get it on the fabric. If I could have done anything differently I would have stiffened up the sides a bit more so they wouldn't bend in so much. Oh, well. He loves it and that's all that matters! His costume cost about $15.00 also. (I know, the second picture was taken while he was wearing pajamas but it was the only one I had of the back of his costume.)

I really enjoy making (or adding on to existing) costumes! It's so much fun and so rewarding to see how excited the kids are to wear them.

Shailey had a Halloween party at school today, also. The boys and I went down there to take a few pictures. It was fun to see her in her class. Here's a picture of her with her teacher, Mrs. Crenshaw.

And here's her whole class dressed up! :o)

And finally, Danny and I dressed up for a Halloween party that we went to last week. He dressed up as Waldo and I was Wenda (I didn't know Waldo had a girlfriend but apparently he does!) Here are a couple of pictures of us.

We were surprised at how difficult it was to find red and white striped shirts. It's a good thing duct tape comes in red. :o) Happy Halloween!

shailey's first day of school

Well, the day finally arrived. Shailey's first day of school has offically come and gone. She started school on August 27th and she has loved every minute of it! She has already made new friends and loves her teacher, Mrs. Crenshaw. We are excited to see what this new year brings. It has definitely been an adjustment for me getting myself and three kids up, fed, dressed and out the door before 8:00am. For those of you who know me well know that I am not a morning person. I love to sleep! Anyway, we're excited for Shailey! Way to go little Miss Kindergartner!

my family's visit

I thought it was finally time to update. Things have been so busy over the past month that I just haven't had any time to update the blog. My family came to visit us in August before Kara's mission. We went to Disneyland, the beach, shopping, and my parents helped out with some much needed repairs and home improvement projects. (Thanks Mom and Dad!!!)

I didn't take many pictures unfortuneately. As usual, whenever we have company over, I neglect my camera because I'm having so much fun visiting that I don't think to take many pictures. Anyway, here are a few from their visit.

The boys thought it would be fun to put on a bunch of temporary tattoos. Jesse thought this tattoo that said "Ka-pow!" would look cool as a mustache...until we realized he looked just like a well known infamous evil dictator...he quickly washed it off after that! :o)

McKay went all out with the tats also. Ignore the mess in the background!

Here are a few photos from Disneyland rides. The quality isn't great since they are a picture of a picture. You can't tell from this first one but Danny flipped his eyelids inside out. Gross Danny!

Here's McKay, Ammon, me and Danny in the front row on the Tower of Terror. I always tell myself that I won't do this ride anymore but somehow I always get talked into doing it again.

I really wish I had taken more pictures. Mom said she would at least send me the photos she took. We miss you guys already! It was great having you come and stay in our "cozy" home. We're all looking forward to our visit to Oregon this Christmas. :o)

the olympics

I don't know how many of you were fortunate enough to watch the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics...if not you missed out on a spectacular show! I was completely blown away by the performance. And just when I thought it couldn't get any more amazing they would do something even more incredible. Danny and I have determined that there will never be an Opening Ceremony like that again. Completely incredible.

trip to oregon

We just got back from Oregon on Sunday where we spent the last week and we had so much fun! Here are a few highlights from the trip.

***Note: This post is pretty long since there are a lot of pictures. Also, the pictures were lined up perfectly in the preview and magically they were all screwed up once I posted it. That's blogger for you! Oh, well!

SATURDAY

When we arrived the kids wanted to play in the sprinkler. We didn't have Eli's swim trunks handy, but that's what underwear is for, right? Lucky for Shailey mom had a swimming suit lying around for her! :o)

We basically spent the day relaxing and recovering from the 14 hour drive up!

SUNDAY

On Sunday we went to church with the Lukes and the Bomans. Then we got together for dinner to celebrate Danny's birthday! Happy Birthday Danny! :o) (Sorry, I didn't have any pictures from Danny's birthday...Sorry, Danny!)

MONDAY

On Monday we drove up to Portland to visit Danny's sisters. We went to OMSI first. Unfortunately we didn't have our camera at OMSI. I was so bummed! Natalie, Nick, and Erica met up with us there. The kids had a blast! I try not to think about all the cute pictures I could have taken of them. They enjoyed the Inventor's Ball Room in the Innovation Station but their absolute favorite place was the Science Playground. There were so many interactive activities there that we could have stayed for hours. I never liked science as kid but if I could have gone to OMSI everyday instead of my science classes it probably would have been my favorite subject!

After OMSI we left for Natalie's house. Amanda and her two girls, Katie and Aimee, came over along with Lisa and Claire. And then Danny's parents came up with Halli (who was visiting from Sacramento). We tried to get a group shot of the kids. It was pretty funny trying to get all of the kids to look at the camera and smile! With the exception of poor little Aimee (obviously distressed!) this one turned out pretty good.

Here are a few more from our visit to Natalie's house that I thought were pretty cute.

(Shailey cracks me up in this picture! It looks like she has Austin Powers teeth or something.)

TUESDAY

On Tuesday we went to Skinners Butte Park to play. I met up with one of my good friends, Brenda, and her two kids who were visiting from out of town, also. Another friend of mine, Amy, wasn't able to make it. But when you're a popular and talented hair dresser who comes from out of town to visit family, obviously you're going to be in high demand! :o) I'm sure everyone in your family looks fabulous now, Amy! Sorry you couldn't make it.

Here are a few pics from the park and the tractor rides Grandpa gave the kids before the park.

Shailey was trying to catch the water on her tongue in this picture.



























Isaac just woke up from his nap in this picture, which explains the scowl.

Kara's hair cracks me up in this picture!































After the park we headed over to mom and dad's for family pictures and a BBQ. My mom had a few ideas for pictures that turned out pretty cute. Besides the standard family photo, we also did a family pyramid (the process for that was pretty funny) and a Brady Bunch grouping. Here are a few of the pictures.

(Back row from left to right: Ammon, Kara, me, Corinne, Chris. Front row from left to right: McKay, Mom, Hyrum, Dad, Jesse.)

The whole family!

And now the pyramid photos. I know there are a lot but it's really fun to see how difficult this actually was to put together! We were pretty much cracking up the entire time. :o)

SUCCESS!

And then we all came tumbling down...but I'll spare you those photos. There were some very embarrasing yet completely accidental chest grabs happening as we fell. I won't name names. :o)

And now the Brady Bunch photo or should I say "The Luke Bunch". I had to put in all together on a page to give you the full effect.

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday the girls went shopping. It was me, my mom, Grandma Berta, my sisters Corinne and Kara, and Shailey. We found some cute things and had fun eating lunch outside in the courtyard of the Oakway Mall.

(There are four generations of girls in this picture!)

Shailey got tired of shopping after awhile. On our way home she said, "Maybe I will like shopping more when I'm 6...or 7....or maybe 9." :o) Silly girl!

THURSDAY

We went to see WALL-E on Thursday. The kids liked it...except Isaac who fell asleep halfway through. It wasn't my favorite Pixar movie but it was still good. And the Pixar short before the movie was great, probably one of my favorites. :o)

FRIDAY

On the 4th we went to Grandma Berta's and Grandpa Mel's for a BBQ and fun and games. We played croquet, archery (which I found out I'm not very good at), a treasure hunt, swimming, hay rides, basketball, a parade, and table tennis.

That evening we went to Brownsville to watch fireworks. It was a great 4th of July!

SATURDAY

We were all sad when Saturday rolled around because it meant our trip to Oregon had come to an end. We had so much fun visiting with everyone and look forward to our next trip to Oregon this Christmas! And we look forward to having my family come down to visit us next month!