Thanksgiving in St. George!

We went on a quick trip to St. George to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. They love serving there and we loved seeing so many of our family members. It is very beautiful down there, and plenty of awesome activities for little (and grown) boys. We got samples of the red, black, and white rock that can be found all around there.

Standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner!

We climbed to the top of Dixie rock, Joshua kept saying the entire vacation that all he wants to do is climb rocks!

The boys loved the glitter pit where they got to hammer out their own piece of gypsom from the rock.

Long hike to the petroglyphs

Debbie and Joshua having fun at the Wildlife Museum

We hiked the Lava Flow trail in Snow Canyon. There were a few lava tunnels that the boys climbed around the openings of.

Lookout in Snow Canyon

This is what happens when you get hit with an ice ball by your brother.

Sand Dunes in Snow Canyon

Brigham loves the feel of the sand!

Of course we had to get a picture of Brigham in front of the Brigham Young winter home.

On the way home, we stopped in Salt Lake to visit Temple Square. It was super cold so we did a quick run through everything!

Brigham's 1st Birthday

Brigham is 1! This year has gone fast! Brigham had a good birthday full of family. His first cake turned out small, and with all the family coming over, we decided to bake another cake. Once frosted, they ended up looking like Viking Donuts on steroids! They boys all thought that was cool. Brigham sure is a delight for us and for the most part a happy boy! He finally began walking last month but is funny to watch as he walks slow like an old man. He didn't eat much of his cake, I think he was too tired and ready to go to sleep.

Halloween

This year Nathaniel and I only had to help gut the pumpkins and carve Wesley's. The other boys carved their own pumpkins by themselves! I always think that it would be so much easier to paint the pumpkins and then have them to chopped up to bake with later, but I just can't do away with the tradition of carving.

We carved pumpkins for FHE the Monday before Halloween. After just a few days, the pumpkins started looking scary because little flies were swarming all around them and one even had a live slug climbing out of the mouth!! Gross! We got rid of them quick.

On Halloween day, our local grocery store did a kid's fun party where they could decorate a cookie, play bean bag toss for prizes, raffle drawing for cakes, and paint their own pumpkin! It was all free and the boys really enjoyed it all. They also got to take home a bag with a fruit roll-up, capri sun, apple, and coloring pages. After going to that, we got to go have a halloween lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's! It was a fun time with good food (pizza, squash soup, spider spaghetti) and games (fruit basket upset and murder). You would think we stopped the fun after that, but then we took the kids to Sonic for 50cent corn dogs before heading to the church for trunk-or-treat. 

This year we had a Mr. Incredible (with vampire teeth), a pirate, a monkey, a skeleton, a vampire, and then Joshua who decided not to dress up or go trick or treating because "1. candy rots your teeth. 2. I'm getting too old for that." He helped pass out candy and then hung out with his friends for half of the trunk or treat. Joshua did get really into decorating the trunk and made it look really cool.

Random home moments

After coming home from school on the day of the garden show, Logan wanted to make his own creation. He didn't care that it was too late to go in the show, he was happy just making it and showing it off to family.

Brigham has a long tongue and has it hanging out very often!

 We viewed the lunar eclipse but it was better to view it through binoculars or see it in our camera pictures.

Sol Duc

The kids had an extra day off of school in Sept., so we went camping at the Sol Duc Hot Springs. It wasn't cold, but it was rainy and wet most of the time. We still got out and went bike riding, hiking to a waterfall, and soaking in the hot pools. During the really rainy parts of the day we watched a movie on the ipad in the tent. We came home to high, high wind and all the cleaning up from a windstorm around the yard.

Joshua turns 11!

Joshua kept saying he didn't want to celebrate his birthday and didn't want it special, but the day of his birthday he liked the attention we gave him. He wanted plain brownies, no frosting, nothing else on or in it. We sure love this awesome, smart, cool kid!