MY family photos

I posted these on FB but not on here yet. These are our family pictures we took back in Utah. My sister Heidi and I took pictures of each others families while we there over Thanksgiving and this is what we got. I like em a lot. It sure helps to have some photoshop skills to slim yourself down if you happen to take pictures on a "puffy" day:)

Thanksgiving in Utah

For Thanksgiving this year we made the trek back to Utah since we haven't been there in a year and a half. Let me just say that the extra two hours we gained moving from Reno su-ucks!  Fortunately our kids are troopers and still did great. A few minor delays (like the dog pee-ing on me at the kennel, two new front tires, a fill-up and lunch on the road before we even left town) didn't help our situation.  But we made it unscathed (at 2:30 am) and had a fabulous time.

 Connor was such a good sport letting all the younger boys tackle him. Huddy was his special helper. I think Connor's giving him the play here.

 The other team: Nate, Bryson, Caleb

 Hudson has mad tackle skills....because he's my little spider monkey.

 "Oh my gosh Mom, did you see the dog? I love her!"  (Its funnier if you do the gomer voice)

 "Hey this trampoline is pretty cool"

 We might need to move to Utah so Bryson can run and tackle with all his boy cousins every day, all day. He doesn't have any boy cousins here he can do that with. He had the best time ever. I rarely saw him. All the boys got along fabulously.

 I think Hudson was trying to make him fly. Stetson actually had a blast.

 See? He's hysterical! He probably peed himself he was having so much fun. 

This is my happy thought!

 "This is the Best. Day. EVER!!!"

 Death.....   they all left him there..... with no one to bounce him.....

 Oh look the girls made Tanner their base again.... BIG surprise!

 Heidi made some delicious dips. I don't remember what they were because we ate them too fast.

I just know that I barely had any dinner because I was too full.

 Wha? We didn't say prayer yet?

The girls also ate here but I rarely saw any of them either.

And I can't believe I didn't get anymore pictures, especially of the things the kids were most excited about going to Utah for---Puppies and hot tubs!  Heidi's dog just had another litter of 10 adorable golden labs. They were just opening their eyes when we got there. The kids were in heaven!!! Especially Huddy. He would grab one, go hold it for a few minutes until is was sufficiently freaked out, trade it for another one, freak that one out, trade again, etc.  He was loving it. Then at Rick and Debi's they got to go hot-tubbing a million times a day and they took full advantage of that. I should have taken a picture of what our room looked like with towels all over the floor, but I didn't. 

Brynn's news report of the week read:

Last week I went to Utah and visted my three aunts and uncles. My aunt Hiddy has puppys and evryday I go to her hose I get to hold a puppy. They are so cut and I love to hold them and my uther aunt has a hot tub and I go in it evryday I am there.

They were also super looking forward to Rick's donut run, which he didn't disappoint with, "the Dip", visiting our friends the Smiths, and seeing all their cousins. One night we left the kiddos home and my three siblings and I and our spouses went to sushi together. Lotta fun! Really loud (us, I mean), lots of laughing, good food. We don't get to do that enough. We've got two more trips out there planned for the next little while and hopefully the weather will allow it. 

Girls Overnighter

Way back in .... maybe like a month (or two) ago .... some girlfriends and I went up to 

my SIL's cabin way up in the mountains for a girl's getaway. 

FAB-U-LOUS!!!

I highly recommend gettin yourself some silly girls, a bunch of good food, and a quaint little (teeny)

75 year old hand-made cabin and leaving your families behind for the night. It was so fun.

The smaller the cabin the better...that way you have no choice but to snuggle in blankets and talk all night because all the surrounding area is covered in a foot of snow. (Poor Leah lost her flip-flops in the snow on the way to the cabin but couldn't tell because her feet were already frozen:) Good times!

Like I said, it was fabulous. We had yummy Tomato Bisque soup and salad and lots of treats, stayed up till 4 am or some nonsense like that, covered just about every topic known to man, and laughed our fannies off. It was a very much needed break. Can't wait till next time.

 Looking off the cabin deck across Echo Canyon

Yep, there's Leah's flips somewhere down there

Me, Leah, Ali, Joy, Sueanne

Happy Halloween

My kids fell in love with The Three Amigos last year shortly after Stetson was born and I knew this year would be perfect for them to dress up as them.  I found the two hats at the costume store but I had to make the rest. We shopped at thrift stores quite a bit to find jackets and stuff for the bigger boys. I hand painted all their designs (except for Hudson's--his is a bandana cut into little pieces and ironed on). Hudson wore his costume for days and it felt nice to finally have them appreciate one of my big projects:)

 Bryson tends to have a total COW if he has to wait for half a second for his younger siblings to be ready. He was super excited to go can't you tell?

 Dusty Bottoms, Lucky Day and Little Neddy + Princess Tamina from the Prince of Persia (which no one seems to have seen--which is probably why her costume was on clearance ; /

BTW, if baby has his shoes on he. is. leaving! That's the signal for "get out the house". If you put his shoes on him and don't leave immediately he turns into a big hot mess, even if he has a sucker.

 Sweet little Sketty walked the WHOLE neighborhood (which took forever!) and waved at almost everyone we passed. And every once in a while he'd look down at his hand and remember he was holding a sucker, pop it in for lick, and be on his way.  He's so dang cute.

 the whole cul-de-sac was lit with paper bag lanterns and we had to stop at EVERY SINGLE ONE and check it.

 I love Halloween! And I love that my kids will walk for days without complaining!

 Sketty wasn't really interested in the trick-or-treating, he mostly just enjoyed being able to walk all over. He would go to someone's door though if he heard a dog.

Grandma hasn't had trick-or-treaters in about 25 years so she manned the door while Tanner and I took the kids around but she made them promise she could pick out her favorites when they got back:)

Ralph's family shoot

Did a photo shoot with our friends the Ralphs a little while ago. Addi is 2 and not super excited about doing anything thats not her idea. Poor Lea was exhausted at the end of the shoot and Addi was soaked in sweat from all the crying. Fortunately we ended up with quite a few decent shots. I actually had a lot of fun editing these pictures because it went so fast. By far my best shoot as far as getting good in-camera images.

The kids all climbed up this little staircase and Addi was all smiles until I shot about 2 pictures. Fortunately I was fast.

What 2-yr-old doesn't love to climb on everything?

I love this wall. And this shot!

Too cute!

This was way towards the end .... can you tell?

Tanner says it looks like Jesse is choking Lea in this one. Its a little different, I'll admit.

Kiley is a great little model

.... and she loves her dad!

So does Addison.

I'm redoing a few things on this one but I do like the shot.

Kiley and Addison

I just thought this is a "real" family portrait.

How flippin cute is Ryan?  He's Huddy's little bud. The two of them will be hearth-throbs when they're teenagers.

The last shot