* Kid Fun *

Kids in their Christmas shirts, bell necklaces and elf hat :)

Owen was screaming and got taken away before the picture was taken.

All the fun stuff the girls made at school this season.

Little late ;)

So I know that this is really late, but oh well. We spent halloween with the missionaries. We had a blast carving pumpkins, playing games and making fun halloweeny food.
These are my awesome nails (if I do say so myself) that even I couldn't believe were real. They looked so fake, and yes I did them myself!!
Our lovely family picture. Patrick was a HUGE personal trainer, Samantha and I were witches, Nellie was the tooth fairy and Owen was a dog.

~UTAH~

Patrick and I have been married for almost 8 years and we have never gone a real vacation. We've gone over night before but this time was 10 days in Utah. We got to stay with my brother and his family at their new house and see other family members. We ran into friends and people we knew that are on their missions. It was a busy and fun time. Here are just a few of the things that we did. Enjoy! :)
So for the first time in our married life we went out to dinner as a whole family! We've gone with other family members but never alone. My brother found the place on line and we are so glad! There was only one other family there, we went at 5pm, so we basically had the place to ourselves. It was a Chinese place and they didn't really speak English. They were the nicest people and the food was the best!! Too bad they don't have one in Oregon. Our hostess even held Owen for about 30 min so we could both eat. She walked him around and showed him the kitchen. It was great. Then we tipped her really well and she got mad at us, kind of. So she gave us a ton of fortune cookies. :)
2 Elders that we had in the Tigard ward are in Utah going to school so we met up with them for ice cream. They picked the place and I don't even remember the name of it, but the ice cream was HUGE!!!! We didn't know it was going to be that big or we wouldn't have all gotten one. It was good though and we had fun meeting up and talking with them.
We went to Antelope Island. Alright, I'm not going to lie. The drive across was NASTY!! The smell is enough to kill any living thing, and I think there was some dead stuff along the way. But once we got to the Island itself the smell was gone, it was weird. There were "biso" as Nellie called them...bison. We were right up to a few of them. Very cool. But the view was so beautiful! I tried to get some good picts but they didn't turn out as good as in person. Oh well.
Inside the North Visitors Center. It was an awesome experience in there. There weren't very many people there so we got royal treatment from the sister missionaries. :)

The Salt Lake Temple was beautiful. Patrick and I got to do a session while my brother and sister-in-law watched the kids...thanks! It was so fun to walk around Temple square and see everything. I was worried that the kids wouldn't like it but they actually had a great time. Glad we went.

We went to the Hill Air Force Base. The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever! Owen loved all the huge airplanes.
Nellie and Samantha both went rock climbing...and loved it!!
Overall we had a great trip. We did a lot of "firsts" and won't ever forget it. Thanks to Kyle and Maria for letting us crash at your house, you saved us tons!!

Pictures

This is all the things that have happened in the past month all in one! Except I forget that it goes backwards when you put the picts in, so this first one happened just a few days ago.
Samantha has been BEGGING me for a while to get her hair cut. She was even crying a few mornings because she wanted it so bad. I have a friend that cuts hair, she came over and chopped it all off. Samantha has never had her hair "cut" before. She always wants it long so we just trim it. It is pretty drastic but she loves it!!
This is just the girls ready for church. They saw me getting ready (putting on makeup) and they wanted some. So I put powder, and lip gloss on them. Then they just had to have a picture taken. I really like it :)
I can't get the video to work so you'll just have to believe that he is walking. He doesn't even crawl anymore. He tries to run and then falls on his face. My baby isn't a baby anymore :(

This is a little cake I made for his birthday party at my parents' house. He had to have something for them to watch him rip apart. The blue was everywhere. It was fun.


This is the cake I made for Owen's first birthday and Carson's 8th birthday/baptism. It took a LONG time, but luckily I have a friend who is awesome and helped me every step of the way. I learned so many new tricks and ideas from her. I would have never been able to do something that good on my own.
Well, that has me all caught up on picts now. Enjoy :)

8-9-10

OWEN IS WALKING!! I wish I had my camera with me today at my parents house but of course I didn't. He took a few steps for my dad yesterday but today was the day! It was so fun to watch his confidence grow throughout the day. This morning he wouldn't take more than 1 or 2 steps. But this evening we went to my parents and he was everywhere. For any of you that know my parents house, he walked from the couch in the living room to the play room. It was a good 30 steps. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings, but I will for sure be getting some picts and a video. So be waiting for another post tomorrow. No more baby for us :( But that also means that I don't have to carry him all over either :)

Stink'n computer!!

Alright, so I really want to post about Owen's party and the cake(s) I made but our computer hasn't worked for a couple months and we have had a couple of different people look at it. They have come to the conclusion that we either need a new computer, mother drive or something else. So we got the something else yesteday and it seems to be working ok for now. I can actually get on for longer than 3 min without it shutting off. The only problem is that we now have to get all of our info off the old whatever it is and put it on this new one. So I still can't put any picts as of yet. I don't want anyone to worry, they are coming soon! :)

The lip and another tooth!

Owen is becoming quit the little man :) He has got some faces that are just so funny! The one he is most famous for is THE LIP!! We can't help but laugh every time he does it. If you say the word handsome to him...the lip comes out. If he is sad...the lip comes out. If he's getting ready to smile...yep you guessed it, the lip comes out. I can't wait to see how his lip plays out in his life. He is 11 months tomorrow and it seems like time is flying by! The last picture of him on here is a funny story. We had made some cupcakes and I left them on the table~mistake #1. I was checking my email and he came up to me so I picked him up~mistake #2. I was obviously not paying attention to him~mistake #3~because the next thing I felt was frosting all over my arm. He had gotten a cupcake and was enjoying it to the fullest! I took it away from him so I could clean it up and of course the lip came out. Nellie took a picture for us. I just think he was practicing for his birthday! :)



Nellie lost her 2nd tooth a little while back. Both teeth so far have not been technically ready to come out. However, she won't eat or do hardly anything because they hurt so bad, so we (meaning my sister) pull them out. She is just now getting the permanent tooth in from the first one she lost a few months ago. Anyway, she is feeling much better with the loose teeth out and is eating now!

SSSOOO Funny!! At least to me :)

I was just looking at how old my kids are on the little ticker thing to the left and noticed that Owen in his picture looks just like his ticker guy! Well, that's all for now...I just thought it was funny. I think I'm a little tired ;)

Projects

So this is my big project. I have learned that I really love to paint. It takes my mind off of everything and it is relaxing. Nellie and I found these houses at Michaels and had to get them. We did her's first and then started on mine. Patrick built it for me and then I painted it. It took at total of 3 days. One of the days we spent 6 hours just putting it together. It was crazy hard!! He had to keep taking apart pieces so that I could paint them and then putting it back together again. We love our house and had fun working on it together. I might paint the inside some day, but for now it is natural. Enjoy :)



Nellie has been watching me and helping me paint so she wanted to do one of her own. Patrick put it together for her and she painted it all by herself. She was very proud of her work and won't let anyone touch it. I think she did a great job! :)

The girls have piggy banks so I painted this block for Owen. Now when he gets older he'll have a block bank.
I found these at $ Tree and had to get them. Each one is one of my kids. Nellie is the flower, Samantha is the turtle and Owen is the boat.

Samantha

Today is Samantha's 5th birthday. I can't believe how fast the past 5 years has gone. She has grown so much. I'll admit that she was not planned at all! She was actually a birth control baby. I can't imagine our family without her though. She is a peacemaker, friend and helper. She always reminds us to say our prayers no matter where we are. She is very creative and loves to put that to action. She is obsessed with dressing up and singing. Most days it's hard to get her into regular clothes just to go out of the house. She will be going into kindergarten this next year and is very excited. It's actually nice having her and Nellie so close. They always have someone to play with. Samantha even gets sad when Nellie has school and she doesn't. She loves to learn and is almost at the same level as Nellie. I can't wait to see what she does with her life as she gets older. Happy Birthday Samantha!! :)

9 Months

Owen is now 9 months old. He had his check-up today and is weighing in at 24 1/2 lbs and 30 inches long. He remains in the 95% and is doing great! He has been crawling for about a month now and has learned, this past week, how to stand and cruse the furniture. He loves to find his way into the bathroom and the girls room to find all the small things to put in his mouth. He will eat anything you put in front of him. He sleeps from 7pm to 6:30am has a bottle then goes back to sleep until 8am.
He is such a joy to have in our home. The next few months will be very fun. He'll probably learn to walk, talk and maybe get some teeth!! Fun things to come. Enjoy our little man :)

What I like to do...

Last week my aunt got the girls this mirror for their room so they could see themselves when they dress up. When she brought it over, I didn't want to be rude, but it was ugly! So I took it upon myself to "fix" it. I got out all my craft paint and went to it. I didn't realize how hard it was really going to be. It took only 2 days and now it's done. I think it turned out pretty good. The girls love it too! I guess that's all that really matters, right? :)