Gingerbread house

Last night we finally took the time to put together the Gingerbread house that Grandma N gave to us. I put the frame of the house together and then after it dried for a little bit we let the kids have at it. I let them do it all this year and only checked up on them once or twice. They had a lot of fun and were pleased with the results.

Christmas Caroling

Tuesday, Dec. 15th-
Since our cub scout pack doesn't hold a pack meeting in December we decided to invite the Wolf den to join our Bear den for some Christmas caroling in the neighborhood. We also invited the families of the cub scouts. Luckily we had warmer weather than the week before and we made sure that the kids were all bundled up. This was the first time caroling for all the kids in my family and most of the kids that came with us. They all had a blast though and thought it was fun to run from house to house and sing Christmas songs to the people at home. Afterwards we went back to the church for doughnuts and hot chocolate. We didn't have a huge turnout from the scouts but we had a good size group and everyone enjoyed themselves!

Picture attempt...

I tried getting a picture of the kids after church on Sunday in their Christmas clothes, but Baby K did not want to cooperate. Here are the best of the bunch:And can I just say that I am really not looking forward to moving to the 1:00 meeting time for church next year. Baby K is going to be such a pill because that's right during nap time!

Principal's Pride

Last Thursday was Blondie's turn to receive the Principal's Pride award this year. She got it for her Creative Rudolph and Story.

Kitty's ballet class

Kitty has been taking a ballet/tap dance class on Wednesday mornings while the older kids are at school. She absolutely loves it and it is fun seeing another side of her. The teacher is really good with little kids and the dance studio is not too far from our house. They had their Christmas performance on Saturday, December 12th and the class before they wore their costumes and let the parents come in and watch their dress rehearsal. When I get a moment I will upload the video of the performance.

Sibling bonding...

Playing Nintendo DS...
Watching T.V. together the morning after our trip. I love Baby K's morning flyaway hair!

Yogurt

Baby K absolutely loves yogurt. The other day I dished her up some for lunch into a little bowl and then I looked over at her and she had reached across the table and grabbed the yogurt container and was helping herself to some more!

Sounds of the Season 2009

Right after we got back into town after our Thanksgiving trip, it was back to being busy, busy, busy! This year I played in the orchestra again for the Sounds of the Season concert and we did two performances this year. We had a four hour dress rehearsal on Wednesday and then on Thursday and Saturday we had our concerts. It is fun to be able to participate in this event each year and despite the work and time involved I am grateful for the experience. It is also fun having my parents sing in the choir.

This year I had quite a few numbers with some solo flute parts and I was also asked to head up the orchestra again - meaning that I got to be the messenger between the choir director and the orchestra members. Because of some scheduling conflicts and DH still being sick, only M&M and Blondie were able to come to the concert this year. I sat them right up front and it was fun hearing them talk about their favorite parts of the concert on the drive home.

Thanksgiving week

We decided about a week before Thanksgiving that we were going to make a trip up to Coeur d'Alene, ID to visit family for the holidays. My oldest brother and his family live there and DH's brother and family live just next door in Cheney, WA. DH's brother was going to be baptizing his oldest daughter the Saturday following Thanksgiving so we stayed with my brother and had Thanksgiving with them and then spent Saturday and part of Friday with DH's family.

My parents also decided to tag along with us so we caravanned up together and all stayed at my brother's. We left on Wednesday and the drive took us a little over 10 hours (which is making some great time!) and we ended up getting up there around 4 in the afternoon. The kids had a BLAST playing with all of their cousins for the few days we were together. My brother has 2 boys that are M&M and Luke's ages and my brother-in-law has 3 girls that are in-between our kids' ages (and then a baby boy). We were also able to see my younger brother and his wife and little boy - he's such a cutie!

We were glad that we were able to be there for the baptism and we spent some time with DH's parents also who were in town for the even too. The unfortunate part about our trip was that DH ended up getting sick the day after we got there (Thanksgiving) and stayed sick the the whole visit. Then on Saturday when we were leaving my brother-in-law's house I twisted my ankle coming down the stairs and was in a lot of pain for the next couple of days. It swelled up pretty nicely and I had to hobble around the rest of our trip. We drove to downtown Coeur d'Alene Sunday evening and looked at a few of the light displays along the lake but because of my condition and DH still being sick we didn't stay too long.

We drove back home Monday morning and made good time again. Kitty threw up twice in the car on the way home but was fine the next day and no one else got sick. When we finally pulled in our garage we discovered that our smoke alarms were going off inside the house. DH and I quickly ran in and searched all through the house and couldn't find anything wrong. It took us a while to turn them all off but we were finally able to bring the kids in the house and start unloading the car. We have no idea how long the alarms had been going off and what set them off - possibly just some dust that got into one of the alarms. It was nice to get home, but the kids had a hard time going back to school the next day. DH is still recovering from his cold/sinus infection and I am still limping slightly from my injury...

Thanks to everyone for feeding and housing our family! We know that it is not an easy task with a family of seven!! We were also grateful that we had good traveling conditions for both of our days of travel. I understand that the road can be quite treacherous in the wintertime.

This is the only picture I got with both of them looking at the camera!!
Three goofy girls!
M&M and Luke were introduced to the game of Clue by their cousins and had a blast playing it.
M&M looks like she's ready to accuse here...

Getting into Trouble

I guess I should have checked sooner when I heard Baby K upstairs by herself squealing. She just came downstairs with her head and shirt soaking wet and carrying a spray bottle with water in it. Luke often uses it in the morning to wet his hair down and apparently Baby K got ahold of it and figured out how to spray it. She sat here on the floor for the longest time just squirting herself in the face - it was like she couldn't quite figure out how she kept getting wet but then would laugh about it.

Beautiful evening

Last Tuesday my new co-den leader and I took our cub scouts to the Great Salt Lake. Unfortunately with the changing back to Standard time we only got there just before the sun went down. It was a beautiful sunset though and I was able to get some awesome pictures of it. And then as we were leaving the full moon was just coming up over the mountains in the east. We have had beautiful weather again this week and despite the fact that the sun was setting, it was a fun little trip for our den.

The only editing I did to these pictures was cropping a few of them. The color exactly what the camera captured.

The moon coming up behind the Wasatch Mountains

My little helper!

The other day I was doing laundry when I left the room for a few minutes and came back to this:

Baby K was taking laundry out of the laundry basket and putting it into the washing machine! It was so cute to watch! (The only unfortunate part about it was that it was clean laundry that had already been folded!!) I just love this age when they are constantly observing what is going on and trying to copy what they see others do!

Yep, this looks dirty too!

Zion Canyon Day 2

October 23, 2009
We didn't get up terribly early the next day because it usually ends up hurting us in the end if we try pushing everyone too hard. We took advantage of the hotel's Continental Breakfast (they had bread for making toast and 2 cereals to choose from...) and then headed back to Zion Canyon. We took the shuttle up to the last stop in the park which drops you off at the start of a very easy walk along the Virgin River (it was so easy that I can't even really call it a hike). Before we got on the trail we walked the other direction to get a closer look at some mule deer that we could see from the bus. We also saw some wild turkeys in the park that day.

I didn't get any great pictures of the deer because they were quite busy eating and didn't even notice us - and Kitty had to rush to the restroom again...In this picture you can see a doe on the left and a fawn on the right.
After observing the deer and using the restrooms we headed off on the Riverside Walk trail which is about 2 miles roundtrip and a very easy, wheelchair accessible trail. This trail actually takes you to the start of the Narrows which is where you have to get in the river and hike in the river to get farther up the canyon. The Narrows is a dangerous place to be in a rainstorm.I love the little trees you can see growing out of the side of these steep cliffs!
The beginning of the Narrows.

After the Riverside Trail (and a quick rush to the restroom for Blondie), we got back on the shuttle and made a quick stop at the Court of the Patriarchs. It is a short climb up to an overlook spot where we took a few pictures and then headed back down to the shuttle again.
The Court of the Patriarchs
One of the short hikes where we let Baby K walk.
Our next stop was at the History Center to watch a 20 minute movie about the history of the park. During the movie Kitty and Baby K both fell asleep - but unfortunately they woke up once we got back on the shuttle bus. Next we headed back to the Visitor's Center and our car to eat some lunch - at about 2:00!!

After lunch we went got into the car to drive to the eastern side of the park - which is accessible through a 1.1 mile tunnel through the mountain. The tunnel was pretty cool and before you get to it there is a huge arch visible called The Great Arch - it's not freestanding though. We didn't get any good pictures of it because there was a huge shadow over it when we went past it. The tunnel had huge viewing windows cut out in a couple spots where you used to be able to stop your car and look out - not anymore though.The Great Arch
Just past the tunnel is the trailhead for the Canyon Overlook Trail. It actually takes you to a spot above the Great Arch - but you can't see the arch from it. The trail is 1 mile long and described as "Moderate with long drop-offs, mostly fenced." All I can say is that we were so glad to have Baby K on DH's back so that we could concentrate on helping Kitty and Blondie. There were MANY sections where there was no railing whatsoever and a steep drop off to the side of the trail. I think that several people we passed thought we were a little crazy for bringing such young kids on the trail but we survived.
Part of the trail. The kids thought that this was one of the scariest parts.
If you look closely in this picture you can see the bridge that is in the previous picture. Most of this hike felt like we were on the edge of a cliff!
A shady spot on the trail.

The end of the trail.
On the trail with the tunnel in the background.
After this hike we got back in the car and started heading back home. Along the way we stopped at Kolob Canyon which is a newer extension of Zion Canyon and has it's own entrance. We got there just before dark so we just drove in, took a few pictures and then left for home again.
Kolob Canyon at sunset.
We got back late that night and then Luke had an 8:00 game the next morning with M&M's game immediately following. All in all we had a lot of fun and I was impressed with how well the kids did on the hikes (aside from the frequent trips to the restroom!!). It was absolutely beautiful down there at the park and we had perfect hiking weather!!