Fall tradition LEAVES

It's our fall tradition to gather up as many leaves as we 

can and play in them while mom bribes us with candy to 

let her take pictures. We have the prettiest leaves in our yard 

but they were falling very slowly. So we gathered them up

 and started bagging them and one sunny day we dumped 

them out and had a great old time! 

(I know, who likes to rake their leaves twice? I guess I do)

I have so many of him throwing them up like this, 

I just wish I could see his face.

This is what happens when Grandpa gets involved. 

He takes our play to a whole new level.

Surprisingly our crazy one didn't fare to well with bring 

thrown into a pile of leaves. I left those pictures out...

My gorgeous girl. 

WE LOVE FALL!

halloween and such

Punkin pickin'

We met Kevin's sister and her family at a small pumpkin patch in South Jordan.

The kids had a great time running around in the dirt and corn fields,

most of them weren't even interested in the pumpkins. 

This guy found his right off. Not hard to please him.

Little Miss had to sit on every pumpkin before deciding it wasn't the one.

Too heavy

Looks like that was the trick, If I can sit on it it's too big. 

Can't resist this cutie with her red boots. 

And she would have played in this truck ALL DAY

He wasn't cooperating for picts so he didn't get as many. Not that he would care.

OH! Got one.... wish I could remember what I had to bribe 

him with to get this picture. 

Hope you liked all the vintage editing.... 

I couldn't help myself.

 On to Halloween

And a frightening one it was....

Here we have our ghetto fabulous feral cat................................................

......................................................................................

And the Beautiful Belle. Don't even get me started with the drama of 

this dress. I may never sew again. And I can't tell you how grateful 

I am that she wore it and she liked it! She has been haunting me for 

weeks that she wants to be Optimus Prime, Batman, Tinker Bell, 

and once she learned what her DAD chose to be..... she wanted to be a cat too.

And this one.... knew what he wanted to be the whole time but his costume

bothered him with all the pieces and he hardly wore it. 

Next year we'll just do teeth.

Again with the pictures.... hates them :)

Kitty won 3rd place in the costume contest at his work.

I was pretty proud!

We had a long day. Started out HALF WAY to Zack's school. Had to walk the rest

of the way because I didn't realize how many people would be there. Saw the parade.

Didn't see Zack due to a beautiful parent helper who might have been a very good

 friend of mine that stood in his way. 

Next we went to trick or treat at the care center next to our neighborhood.

The residents loved seeing the kids and we got a HAUL of candy. 

Lucky for me I gave it all away again within the hour to someone 

that didn't buy candy yet. SCORE!

Later we visited Kevin at his work and got another 2 buckets full there. 

Then we hurried up to Kevin's sisters house for a yummy dinner and 

left her with another bucket of our candy. SCORE AGAIN!

Kevin and his sister, the awesome Mary Poppins.

There's a little pose...

All the cute cousins

Zack wanted to trick or treat in our neighborhood so we raced home. 

Only it wasn't a race, everyone else in Utah was trying to get home too. 

It took us about an hour. I think we finally got out into the neighborhood 

at 7:00. The kids were excited. It wasn't too cold. Kevin was all 

gussied up and we hit the hood. Ruby was in heaven. She was so

funny to watch. Running all the way, she ran down the sidewalk

singing about the candy she got and ran to the next house. She would 

report at each house what she got, usually followed by a "yeah that

was nice of her/him huh mommy". Zack had a good time but for some 

reason he didn't seem like he was having as good a time as Ruby. 

On the way home he rode in the stroller and she RAN all the way home. 

Kevin could hardly keep up with her. It makes me giggle thinking about

how funny and excited she was about the whole thing. 

There's a smile!

She was especially drawn to suckers, every house that had a choice

she would pick a sucker. Probably because she didn't know which ones

were chocolate. (both my kids are chocolate freaks, runs pretty hard on

both sides of the family)

Happy Halloween! 

It was a fun one....

Now to get rid of the candy.

Kid Facts

It's been a busy Summer and my kids are growing up. 

Time to update the old blog so I can remember these things. 

I'll start with Zackery.

Zack started Kindergarten recently. I'm pretty sure he has no idea

how it's going to rock his ever important playing schedule. This is what I hear at least twice a day
 "ahhh, but I didn't get to play..." Seriously? You're 5, that's what you do, ALL DAY.
He has adjusted well, although homework is sometimes a bummer.

He is doing very well in school. Reading like crazy and doing well in math.
I'm trying to decide what to do with him next year, I've pretty much
made up my mind though that i'll send him to another school. I just don't
know where yet. His school isn't bad I just feel like he can do better and  I
have been very impressed with the way some of the Charter schools are doing things.

Recently we separated my kids bedrooms. When my little brother got married in August
 we inherited his bedroom. When we started moving Ruby's bed and things

into her new room we moved the crib out and that left a great big area of nothing in Zack's room. 

I came back into the room and he had pulled all the toys from under his bed and filled 

that space all up.

When my grandpa was still alive and in the hospital Kevin and I were able to visit him one night. This particular night he was very confused about what was going on and he was very sleepy. He would wake up every ten minutes and ask us questions the best he could and immediately fall back asleep. At one point he woke up and was mumbling something and I couldn’t understand what he was saying so I began telling him about a picture that Zack had painted for him. He immediately perked up, which told me he understood who and what I was talking about. He asked me where Zack was and that he needed to see him. I told him I would bring Zack to see him as soon as he got better. That seemed to satisfy him and he fell back asleep.
Zack and my grandpa had a special bond. I think Zack has the same amount of stubborn German blood as Grandpa did. Perhaps that's why they got along so well, and fought so much :)
One night Zack and I were talking about Grandpa and how we missed him. He told me that it was okay and we would see him again so we didn't need to be sad. As a 5 year old he doesn't understand how long
that might take! But on the other hand, he is exactly right. I am so grateful for his understanding and that he
pointed that out to me.

Aren't they lovely?

MISS RUBY

Oh girl, she is one of a kind.

For about 2 months she has tried to convince me she is a boy.
 I tell her "good girl" and she tells me she isn't a good girl, and that she is a boy. She tells me that she wants me to do her hair like a boy. When I refer to her as her babies mom she tells me she is their Dad. She wants a batman dress. (that I can live with) I put a dress on her that one of our nieces wore in my wedding and she told me she didn't need to be so pretty. (I've only waited 6 years for my daughter to wear that dress!) And perfect timing for this boy thing. She just moved into her perfectly GIRL bedroom, which she likes, i'm just afraid she will try to redecorate on me.

Ruby loves to sing. You can tell she is completely happy, fed and rested when she is singing.
I signed her up for a music class that we started last week. She likes it so far. I hope she will get more
comfortable with it. She is quite shy lately.

Anytime Daddy is around Ruby is at his side. She asks for him all day long.

Ruby has mastered riding her bike that she got for her birthday. I didn't think she would be able to ride it
until next spring but she was determined and she does really well.

Ruby talks about Grandpa Strebel all the time. She tells us she can see him in the clouds
and I think the other day she had a dream about him after her nap. Kevin went in to wake
her up and she started talking about him. She giggles when we say his name. I think she
remembers how funny he was.

It took Ruby a while to claim her room. It wasn't until we painted it purple that she finally
understood that it was really her room. The day we moved in all her toys and things she
would run between rooms carrying boxes and all kinds of things that weren't even hers.
She was so excited! She was just a hummin away carrying Zack's shoe bucket into her room.
I wish I would have got it on video, she was so funny. She absolutely loves having her own
little girl heaven. She loves to sit in there and play by herself and have all her toys in one place.

Zack and Ruby are still the best of friends. Zack is a good big brother and Ruby is very
good at keeping him in line. I remember going home from an event and we were lecturing
Zack about his behavior and Ruby was copying our every word. She kept saying "yeah Zacky
you need to be an example. Zacky you make mommy sad. Zacky you shouldn't run around"
Kevin and I were dying laughing. Zack has his own bossy attitude as well. Sometimes
I really worry about what i've created. How can I teach them to use their bossiness in a
positive way?

I think she actually looks really cute in Zack's glasses. I suppose it wont be long before 

I'm buying her spiderweb glass as well. Good thing they come in pink!

September

September goings on

Not in any particular order

 My grandpa was a hard core BYU fan. 

Last year when the UTES and BYU played each other my grandpa was in the 

hospital. Kevin and Zack went up with my uncle and watched the game with him.

The great grandkids decorated his room with BYU and UTES paraphernalia.

I think they had a great time. In fact I forgot about one thing. The tv in his room wasn't 

working so they had a new one brought in so he could watch the game.  

So this year I wanted to do something special in honor of him even though I married

UTES blood. I took Grandma and my kids and half of my nephews and we wandered 

the valley looking for a BYU flag. None to be found so I made one. :)

Afterword we took it to the cemetery so that Grandpa could represent.  

My cute nephew Alex, the only one that would be in the picture.

Later that night we took Grandma out to our FAV Joe Morley's for dinner. 

We had a great time and stuffed ourselves as we usually do.

We even got free pie because we were sporting our UTES and pretend BYU gear. 

Ruby was in white and blue.

Cute kiddos in their churchy duds. 

I'm so glad Ruby's red coat still fits! 

Zack is wearing his new spider web glasses. He loves them and so do I.

They cost me 30 bucks and so far have lasted a month!

Oh dear, this was a fun night. Cousins sleep over with Grandpa in the tent. 

You can imagine how high the energy was. To say these peeps were

excited was an understatement. It was so fun to see how excited they were. 

This evening we also had some friends over to play games, Matt and Danie were there as well as Aaron. We had a great time and probably rivaled the noise that the kids were making. 

LOVE MY FAMILY

We have a tradition to visit the "Healing Field" in Sandy near September 11th every year.
My kids love to see all the flags. I don't know that we have had a conversation with 

Zack yet about what it is all for yet but we will. Maybe next year. 

Grandma got to come along with us.

This also marked one month since Grandma's death 

so I wanted to get her out of the house. 

She is a good sport to attend all our crazy activities.

The sly one, not fond of pictures these days.

And last but not least 

This little monkey has mastered her bike. It's a really heavy bike too!

She prefers Zack's little plastic one because it's easier to ride, but when she has cargo 

she chooses her bike because it has a basket. We are all going to dread these 

winter months. My kids live to ride bikes. That may be why we have so many. 

A few weeks ago after a horrible incident involving a play place I may or may not

have treated everyone to scooters. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. 

I'm over it now aren't I?