Halloween 2011

Disneyland Trip with the Hansen's

We had a great time in Disneyland with most of the Hansen Family. I am lucky to have married into such an amazing family. They are the best!

Girls Weekend in St. George

We spent spring break weekend with just the girls. We had a lot of fun shopping, going to the dinosaur museum, eating, walking the temple grounds and best of all relaxing by the pool.

THE GROTTO

For Labor Day we took a quick hike with Mark's family to the Grotto.  It was great escape for the morning. 

WDW Character Parade

This is the pictures with their favorite characters from our Dineyworld Trip.  We had an amazing time.  I need to sit down and write down some of our favorite memories when I find a second.  Both of them loved seeing the characters and having them sign their autograph books.  Luke loved seeing Buzz, Lightning, Mater and Stitch but his favorite was Jasmine.   I thought I was going to have to pull him away from her.  Sydney loved Daisy, Timon and Cinderella of course.   

Christmas 2008

                                                                  Christmas Morning

(The kids let us sleep until 8:00.  We had Grandpa, Grandma and 

                          Amanda up for  breakfast.)

                                                                Lights on Temple Square 

         with my family

                                                                Our version of the nativity

                                       Charlene and Marylynn's families came from out of town.

It is so much fun when Mark's family all get together.                                       

  
Wow!  It has been a crazy month.  Time has been flying by so fast.  We have barely had a second to slow down this holiday season.  We had a lot of fun spending time with family and friends.  We kept Christmas a little simpler this year, and it was great.  The kids were so good.  Sydney loved her Leapster and Luke has greatly enjoyed his train set.  Of course they were spoiled by wonderful grandparents.  They really got into GIVING this year which was so fun to see.

Shelby

This weekend was a sad one for our little family.  Our dog Shelby has had cancer in her leg for a couple of months and had been doing pretty well up until the last week.  It appears the cancer had spread to her brain and she was unable to walk and was in a lot of pain.  Mark and I decided it was time to have her put to sleep on Saturday.  Even though we knew it was coming, it was a lot sooner and harder than I had anticipated.  Shelby has been a part of our family since April 1999, over 9 1/2 years.  Neither Mark or I have ever had a pet that long.  She has been such a light in our life.  I think she had the biggest heart of any animal I've ever known.  She loves everyone!  Sometimes a little too much.  She has even loved our dozens of cats and bunnies that have come and gone through her time with us.  Sydney and Luke will miss her greatly since she is the one they always want to go see when they are mad at us.  Mark buried her under a tree on the river on the lot we hope to build our home one day.  We will miss her greatly and we are so thankful she has been a part of our lives.

Security Home Mortgage

Yesterday was our annual company photo. I have been with this company for over eight years and worked with some of these people for over a decade. They have become like my second family and have to put up with all of my annoying habits: (ie... my sarcasm, competitiveness and the disaster I like to keep my desk in.) I appreciate all their patience and all the fun times.

HALLOWEEN

The last couple of years Mark and I have started hosting a party on Halloween night.  It has been a lot of fun.  We have dinner and the kids all go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  It's been much easier than trying to get our kids to see everyone.  Of course Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays since it's also my birthday.  I still like to think everyone's out partying just for me.   We did have one small incident this year when Sherri and I volunteered to take the herd of younger children around the neighborhood alone.  We lost one.  But thanks to my dear friend Sharla and the luck that his babysitter lives nearby we recovered him without too much harm.  After that we implemented the buddy system.  I need to remember that for next year.  Thanks to both of our families for coming to play with us.

We were so excited this year when we came up with the idea of dressing the kids up as a BYU football player and cheerleader.  One because we already had Syd's outfit and a jersey for Luke. We also loved the idea because Luke loves to wear helmets so we figured after last years nightmare of wearing his Nemo costume for about 31/2 seconds this would be a big improvement.  So we spent two weeks searching for a BYU helmet and finally found one which we way overpaid for.  And then of course he wore it every second until 12:01a.m. Halloween morning and refused to wear it until the next day and hasn't taken it off since.  Hence the reason for the picture of Mark trying to force it on his head.  I swear, sometimes, I think he may just be the biggest tease on the entire planet. 

A few of the cousins:  Tooth Fairy (Emily), BYU Cheerleader (Sydney), Dorothy (Jenna), Minnie and Mickey (Ava and Jordan), BYU Football Player (Luke)

Sydney as Sharpay

Our family, OK Sydney, has been anxiously awaiting the release of High School Musical 3. We went opening weekend with Sherri and her girls. Sydney loved it and to be honest I thought it was pretty cute. Sydney has always loved Sharpay and has wanted to dress up as her for Halloween for a couple of years now so when we saw this costume it was a must.

LOGAN'S FAREWELL

Whitney, Parker, Logan, Jenna, David & Jada

Cousins: Ava, Allison, Luke, Logan, Jordan, Whit,

Sydney & Jenna

So, I'm so on the ball, that I'm just posting Logan's farewell pictures and he just flew out to Houston today.  The MTC has already come and gone.  He did a great job speaking at his farewell and seemed very anxious to go.  I just can't say it enough, we are so proud of these nephews setting such a good example for our kids.  

Thriller

I conned Sherri into going with me to Thriller.  It was a lot of fun.  We went and ate at Heaps and watched the show at the Covey Arts Center.  Of course I loved it, It's Halloween, my favorite.

MOAB

The Kids: Luke, Braden, Sydney, Carson, and 

Brandon (just missing Whitney)
Thanks to my mom and dad for letting us

borrow their 4-wheelers

Delicate Arch in background
After a wet hike to the windows.  Brandon, Matt, Mark, 

Luke, Sydney, Braden and Carson

We planned a quick weekend get-away with the Manookins to Moab.  We had so much fun and they were so great to show us around.  We were totally clueless.  I haven't been to Moab since I was 17 and Mark can't ever remember going.  Sydney was so excited to go with Carson and even more excited when he brought his friend Braden, a new crush for the week.  She goes through them about as fast as toilet paper.  We stayed in some pretty swanky KOA cabins.  They didn't have much, but the kids were extremely excited to stay in a log cabin with bunk beds.  Even though the weekend was pretty wet, we managed to get in a couple of short 4-wheeler rides to Gemini Bridges and Metal Masher and a few hikes to the arches.  I can't believe how much bigger Moab is than I remembered and there really is a LOT to do there.   We look forward to going again.

Mark's Job

Mark had to take my camera out on one of his jobs the other day since he left his at work.  Now I have 500 pictures of dirt, but I thought I would post a pic of what he works with.   Since I never have really understood what he does.  This is a track mounted screen plant he started up in Hanksville.  His job it to go out and show the people who rent their equipment how to run and maintain it.  He has really loved his job change.  He gets to meet a lot of people and loves it.  

SFHS Jr Drill

Sydney's cousin Allison is on the Spanish Fork Drill Team this year, so she got to teach Sydney, Emily and Josie for a couple of weeks to perform at a JV game. 

Camping in Payson Canyon

Nicole, Mason, Sydney, Aiden, Kalei, Ellie,

  Luke, Erika, Ryan and Sage                                           

My beautiful baby boy

We closed out the summer with a camping trip with my family or at least those who could make it.  (Clint's family, our family, Grandma, Grandpa, Dayna's kids and Sherri's kids)  The kids had a lot of fun building hut's, roasting marshmallows and walking around the lake.  We had great food and I learned a ton of different ways to make a tinfoil dinner.  Who knew??

Sydney or Sidnei

Sydney may look just like her dad, but she has her mothers attitude.  (This is not a good thing.)  From the day she entered this world she has had a mind of her own.  Sometimes it's a blessing.  She has been very independent.  We joke she could easily survive on her own if we just sent her some money.  Sometimes her stubbornness is a curse.  Picking clothes to wear, how to do her hair, where we are going, pretty much anything is a battle.  

But sometimes it just makes me laugh.  The other day she came home and told me that Sydney can be spelled different ways.  I asked her what other way it could be spelled.  She said with i's or ee's.  I said yes, but dad and I decided to spell your name Sydney and we love it spelled that way.  Well she said I like it with i's.   That was the end of the conversation.  

The other day she came home from school and I was looking at all of her work from school.  She had six pages she had spelled her name Sidnei.  I asked her why she was spelling it that way and she informed me that is how she will be spelling her name from now on.  (Pretty sure that no one has ever spelled Sydney that way.)

Now the one blessing to having a child with your exact personality is you know exactly how to manipulate them.  For me, it's guilt.  It works like a charm on her as well.  I told her it hurt my feelings that she didn't like the way I spelled her name, got a really sad look on my face and she's completely committed to keeping her name Sydney.... At least this week. 

Motacyca, voom, voom

Luke hopes one day to be a great motorcycle racer like his cousin Logan.  Everytime he sees one he goes on for an hour repeating.... Motacyca, voom, voom.  It's pretty funny!

Mark's brother, David, just built a motocross track in Mona set for it's grand opening in October.  This is Mark's latest claim to fame.  He's very proud.  It looks awesome and we are very excited for them.  Take a look at the website mountainwestmxpark.com

Mantis

This is our latest family pet.  We found this guy hanging out on our porch one day and the kids fell in love with him.  He ended up hanging out there for over a week.  Every day Luke would wake up asking for "Mantis".  He would go check on him almost every hour.  He has now finally left our house and has been greatly missed.  I'm not sure why my kids found him so entertaining I don't think he moved more than an inch for a week.  Apparently our house is so entertaining that we are upstaged by a crippled insect.

The Office

So Mark and I have been distracted the last couple of weeks after we borrowed Amanda's complete DVD collection of The Office.  We watch a few episodes every night after we put the kids to bed.  They are hilarious.  A few nights we have stayed up way too late laughing so hard we wake up the kids.  We just finished the last episode last night and now I have that same sad feeling I had when the Olympics ended and I finished the Twilight series.  I guess it's good these things aren't endless like I wish, or I would be the most unproductive person on the planet.