Santa Picture

Here are the boys at the ward Christmas Party with Santa.

Marley Farm Thanksgiving

We were invited to have Thanksgiving Dinner (Wednesday night before T-Day) at Marley Farm this year. One of the sisters that I visit teach works at the farm and she was the one that invited us to come to the farm and enjoy the delicious food, petting zoo, pony rides, jump house and entertainment.. It was held on Wednesday evening and all of the people who work at Marley Farm come and bring guests. Marley Farm is a working farm with a petting zoo and some interesting animals -miniature bulls, camels, donkeys, llamas, deer and some others I'm forgetting I'm sure, among the regulars (goats, ducks, sheep). The kids were able to feed some of the animals in in the petting area. The younger two were also able to have a ride on the ponies there. Ty didn't want to, I think it might have had something to do with the fact that he did the horsemanship merit badge at scout camp over the summer and well a pony ride with someone else holding the reins didn't appeal to him... guess he's growing up...
Ryan enjoying his ride on the pony.

After the ride Kyle eyes started to itch, so we think he might have an allergy to horses like James does. :|

Ty feeding a deer.

The camel is trying to eat right out of the cup in Kyle's hands.

Ryan had to warm up to feeding the animals... he's a city boy... what can we say...

Tarwater Fall Festival

Today we got to carve pumpkins with the boys, then they displayed them as part of the schools fall festival (a fair to raise money for the school).

Here's Ryan with his jack-o-lantern

And here's Kyle with his jack-o-lantern

Halloween

The boys at Halloween. Can you guess who they are?

What's for dinner?

So on the way home from church we got the age old question from the kids... "What's for dinner?" we told them "Chicken pot pie" to which Ryan replies "I HATE PIE! I NEVER EAT PIE!" so I ask what do you want for dinner and Kyle says "Mac-n-Cheese". And altough that is a delicacy it's not one I particularly like -maybe it's an acquired taste I don't know. Anyway we say "nope" and we get the "ahh... why not?" Which we let hang in the air as it's just too tiring to go into that level of detail every time we have the "Mac-n-Cheese" as the main /only course for dinner discussion with Kyle and Ryan. So we get home and Ryan asks again "What's for dinner?" I decide to think outside the pastry crust and reply, "A chicken stew with vegetables and a cream based sauce served in individual mini pots with a fine flaky pastry topping" IE:

So we sit down and Ryan says... "hum that looks a like like pie" I said "yeah it kind of does." He then starts to eat and says, "I like this chicken stew with the flaky pastry topping".

So I guess it's all in the presentation...

Kindergarden

Ryan and Mrs. Jones.



Ryan has finished his first year in school.

Day Camp

Kyle was able to go to day camp this year. He loved it. Camp was held at Camp Pueblo. The boys went to day camp for 3 days from 2pm to 10pm. There were 4 boys from our pack that went. I was albe to go to camp with Kyle on Friday evening. The weather was a little warm that day, the high was 105. But it does cool down once the sun sets... just a little...

Things we see out our back door...

A falcon, or small hawk or other bird of prey doing what they do with a pidgin...


A hot air balloon...

Last Day of School

Kyle and Ryan deceided that they wanted Yearbook. So I called the school to see if they had any left. And it turns out that you needed to bring in cash to buy them. So luckly, Tylor had some cash onhand from his birthday that we were able to use to buy the yearbooks with. So this made our morning a little bit busier than normal. So I got to the school with the younger two boys and bought their yearbooks. As I was putting Ryan's yearbook in his backpack, I noticed that I had not cleaned out his backpack from yesterday or even looked at his backpack. I did feel bad that I had not checked his backpack. Then about 11:15 that morning I remembered that I had not made a lunch for him. But he had already had lunch time at school and I had run his lunch account down to 0 the week before... needless to say but it was not a stellar moment for me... So I called the school and found out that apparently this type of thing happens every now and again around the end of the school year, so they'd given him lunch like normal... phew, I didn't want to ruin his day too...

Kyle's Baptism

Kyle's Baptism was today. We really appreciate that both sets of grandparents could come down for this, and loved having them here for the few days they were... we'll have to come up with more excuses to have them come visit us.

So our stake does child of record baptisms once a month for the whole stake, everyone meets in the chapel for the opening song, prayer and a talk on baptism, then they dismiss each ward in turn to go to the relief society room where the font is for the baptism, after that you may or may not move to another room for the confirmation (depending on if you're in the last ward to go to the font or not). The primary presidency did a fireside for all the kids in Kyle's class back in January, titled "it's great to be eight" they talked to them about baptism, showed them the font, talked to the boys about cub scouts and the girls about activity days. Then they gave each of the kids a white "baptism" monogrammed with their name towel.

So we showed up to the stake center this morning, and yes we forgot to take a family photo... or one with Kyle and his grandparents... we really needed a check list.


Kyle and James got changed.


And then we went and sat down, as there were only 3 other kids getting baptized it didn't take long (even though we were the last ward to go) before we were in the Relief Society room. James and I are so very proud of Kyle and his decision to be baptized. We love him and his brothers so much.

Riding my bike to school uphill both ways

So the other morning Ryan got about half a block from the house and told Carmen that he couldn't make his bike go, that it was stuck. She rode back to him and found that for whatever reason the front wheel was totally seized up. I took the wheel apart and discovered that all the grease had gone out of the bearings and that the cage that holds the individual balls of the bearing in had shifted and was binding between the race (the part of the bearing that the balls ride one) and the bearing ball. So as the cages are only there to facilitate manufacturing, I took it out and FILLED the wheel with grease. Put it all back together and it spun fast and free... now Ryan is no longer falling behind on the ride to and from school, in fact he passes Carmen and Kyle now... I guess that's what happens when you ride uphill EVERYWHERE you go for weeks, months maybe...

Tylor's last soccer season on NYS... maybe

Ty decided after watching his brothers play soccer for two of the three winter seasons (it's the best time of year to play outdoor sports here) that he wanted to play one more season. So we signed him up on coach Steve's team -the team he'd been on last year and we really like coach Steve. Ty's ball handling and awareness of the game have really improved. We found out after the season started, thinking it was Ty's last as NYS only goes up to 12 years old (you can turn 13 during the season but you cannot be 13 before the season starts and still play for NYS). Anyway we found out that NYS is thinking about doing a 13 to 15 year old league. So this might not be Ty's last season... maybe...

Ryan's sharp new suit

que the zz-top "every girl's crazy bout a sharp dressed man..."

Ryan's Birthday

It's Ryan's birthday! So for starters it's difficult to believe all our kids are in school... there's no way they're that old already... but then they go and have the audacity of having birthdays every year and trying to get older all the time! What's with that?



Ryan had a soccer birthday party, we played soccer related games, ok well birthday games with soccer balls and soccer names... so yeah soccer related birthday games. Had a soccer cake... gave out soccer prizes... you sensing a theme here? We think he had fun, but what kid doesn't have fun at their own birthday party?

Soccer Season

It's soccer season again. Both Kyle and Ryan are playing for coach Kimmy (on different age group teams this time though). Kyle is in the age group that plays on a regulation sized field... sure looks huge with those kids on it. Ryan loves to play goalie, striker, midfielder... actually I think he just loves to play soccer regardless of the position. We really like having them play for coach Kimmy, she has the kids play all kinds of different positions so that they get a feel for the whole game, she also expects even 5 and 6 year olds to play their position and amazingly after just a few games they start doing it.

MP3 players

Kyle and Ryan got (cheep) MP3 players for Christmas... now they can dance to the music only they're hearing...