Christmas Program

The kids had their school Christmas Program last night - each grade did a couple of songs so I'm going to try to download the videos. I tried last night and it was taking forever so I finally just went to bed (sorry Mike). I'll start with Dawson - even though it is not a Christmas song - they did an AWESOME job!! So hopefully the sound comes through so you can also "jam" out with Dawson. He is on the right side of the screen in a striped shirt. Every now and then we get Noah (one of Dawsons friends) in the video - he is on the left side with a red shirt on.

Halloween 2008

Our friends invited us over for an 80's Halloween party. We had tons of fun - and yes that is a BIG white bow in my hair (thanks to Hayley)!! For Halloween night Hayley decided to give out popcorn - so Mike and Ryan took the kids trick or treating and we stayed back to pop. The weather was soooo perfect - I had on a sweatshirt and was plenty warm. This was the first year that I can remember not having to bundle up my kids with WINTER clothes!!

Our neighbor bought a 1969 (or is it a 1967) GTO - the boys were on cloud nine when he told them he'd take them for a ride and of course Madi thought it ws pretty cool too.

Crazy hair day has become a tradition at school - the kids LOVE it!

APPLESAUCE

Making applesauce with Grandma Freeman!! The kids had tons of fun helping wash and squishing the apples. We ended up with alomst a hundred quarts, 20+ pints and
14 apple pie filling!! It is so nice to be able to see a whole shelf of yummy applesauce in my storage room ready to eat.

Let it Snow!!!

This was the first day of snow and the kids were so excited! There wasn't enough snow in our yard for Madi's snowman so she headed for the park. I was cold and being lazy so I sent Carston out with the camera. Lucky for me the camera also has a video feature on it so Carston took a picture and video!

Here is a video of the kids playing on the jumps by the school.

Dawson was having one of those days - so he went to "hide" under the trailer. I thought that the picture turned out pretty cute so I thought I'd share.

Camping - Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend we went to Birch Creek with Mike's parents, my parents and Quinn and his kids. It was a nice weekend - pretty much perfect weather - maybe a little cool for playing in the creek. A couple of the kids got in and played a little bit, I think Dawson had the right idea - to sit in a chair in the creek to fish. We all had tons of FUN!! I'm hoping to get at least one (if not two) more camping trip in before it snows:)

First Day of School with Friends

The kids' friends showed up for school while Carston was taking pictures - so they jumped in.

First Day of School

Aug. 21st was the first day of school - I was rushing trying to get ready for work so Carston took pictures for me. Its crazy to think that all my kids are in school now.

Garner Reunion

The Garner Reunion was Aug. 18th to 20th. We had tons of YUMMY food, fun activities and visiting. Some of the activities included: painting pillow cases, going canoeing, hula-hoop contest (Tanner would have won if I wouldn't have handed him a drink of water), bubble blowing - Syd told me the trick was to chew several pieces of gum and chew it until you can blow a bubble or it isn't sugary any more, water fight with spray bottles - it was fun seeing even the littlest of kids playing. It was fun hearing my aunts and uncles sharing memories. All the kids played and got along so well what a great reunion!!

Holy Cow where has the time gone!!! I had really good intentions of getting my pictures posted - then I found I had so many that I thought I'd do a slide show - then I couldn't figure that one out so here I go trying to put a few pictures (where's Natalie when I need her to walk me through things like this). We took Quinn and his kids up to Blacktail to play in the water.

Grandma Freeman made p.j.'s for the BIG sleepover.

The kids were all excited to be able to have a sleepover at Grandmas.

She had each of the kids "make " their own pizza for dinner,

then it was time for a movie and popcorn.

The kids all had GREAT time!!

Kathy was heading back to CO on Saturday, so we took the

kids to the sand dunes on Friday afternoon. The kids had fun sliding,

digging for cooler sand and just talking!

Madi and Maggie trying to slide down the hill.

McKenzie, Caley, Ryan and Allison hanging out.
Jacob(far left), Madi(pink), Allison(light blue),

Tanner(head in the hole), Dawson(red) and Ryan(top)

Camping at the Lava Land

While Kathy was visiting we went to the Lava land to do a little camping.

The guys decided to take the kids on a "snip" hunt - even

though it was in the middle of the afternoon. Some of the

kids were a little nervous about going.

Madi enjoying Dad's hamock in the shade!
We took a break from camping to go visit David, Stephanie and little Ella.

Ella was blessed on July 27th and we were all excited to

be there for her big day. What a cute little family - Ella is still wearing

her cute blessing dress. On our way back to Lava we stopped at Doug and Joyces' - we heard that

some of their kids that weren't going to make it to the

reunion were visiting. It was fun re-aquainting. What a crazy group.

Parking the trailer

Check out this PARKING job!!! Carston even told me that I did a GREAT job:). We had some warranty work done on the trailer and I had the privilege of picking it up. Well, Mike is out of town so I thought I'd try to park the trailer on my own before I sent for the neighbor. After just a few minutes I had it right where I wanted. I was soooooo excited that I conquered yet another fear with the trailer - the first just pulling it and the second parking it (even if it was just on the street - I still had to back it up and Carston did a GREAT job guiding).

Relay for Life

After a long night of walking

Mike's parents and brother

This is what happens when Madi and Dawson spent the night at Lynette's. Yes, that is "hot pink" eyeshadow and fingernail polish!! They had blast!

July 11 - 12 we were able to participate in the Relay for Life. Mike has 3 members of his family that are survivors (his mom and brother were diagnosed within 2 weeks of each other and his dad was diagnosed about a year later - all of this in the last 3 years). So we were pretty excited to be a part of a great event. My turn to walk was from 1 - 2 a.m. and Carston, Tanner and Mike were all ready to walk with me. We had done about 2 laps and I told the boys that it was time that they could go and get warm and watch a movie while we finished. Tanner asked if he could walk just 2 more laps - come to find out he wanted to walk 8 miles before he went to bed. By the time Relay for Life ended Tanner walked a total of 9 1/2 miles. Carston was close behind with 7 miles. Madi and Dawson spent the night at Lynette's - they were so EXCITED!!

Fourth of July

Even though it is July it was COLD this morning!

Check out the Tetons!!!

Doing a little archery shooting while in Driggs.

We spent the Fourth camping with friends. Friday, the fourth, was an early morning as we headed to Driggs to watch the hot air balloons take off, then off to the Victor parade. While we were waiting I saw my uncle Wayne and some of my cousins - I forgot that Tom lives up there. It was nice to visit and catch up a little. The dates on the pictures are off by one day - I didn't realize the date was wrong until it was to late.

Falling into Peer Pressure

Thanks to the friendly encouragement of FRIENDS I've decided to take to plunge and join the blogging world!!! So keep checking back as I try to figure out how this all works. So here is the trial run, complete with a picture from 2 years ago:)