A busy week

This week Abby won second place in Literature in the Reflections contest. She got a super cool trophy and Grandpa and Grandma Anderson were able to come and see her get the award. She wrote a poem for her entry.
Together We Can
We can keep our city clean
Don't be a bully, Don't be mean
Be nice to other people.
Some people go to church with a steeple
Clean the earth, make it green, make it clean
You can recycle on your bicycle
By Abby
We were very proud of our Abby!


Thursday the Fifth Grade kids had their annual Christmas Parade. They all decorate wagons, or just dress up and walk around the halls of the school and throw candy to the rest of the kids. Katy and her friend Kyle built a super cool sleigh that has Santa's bag of toys, and a winter wonderland village. They also had lots of tootsie rolls to hand out. Thomas got to help and he was super excited about that.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Well we have been very busy for the last three weeks. We went to Grandma Anderson's for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time together. We had a real formal dinner for our family. Which means that we used real china and glassware for the table and made the kids sit up and eat for an hour. It was wonderful. The next week Grandma Paula came and stayed with the kids while Collin and I went to Las Vagas for the week. Collin has classes in Auto Cad while I slept in and shopped. Then we were off to Layton for the weekend so that we could go to the Jazz game on Monday night and watch our beautiful Katy dance for the half-time show. She did so good, I was super proud of her. This weekend we were in Richfield for the company Christmas Party and now we are finally home. Hopefully for the next two weeks at least. The house looks great. Tree is up, lights are on. And most of my shopping is done. I am looking forward to baking a lot this week and getting plates out to the neighbors. I hope that you all are doing well and I will get more pictures up soon! Happy Christmas!

Busy Busy Busy

Well I thought that this would be a good week to potty train Thomas. Not so much it turns out. But we are doing it anyway, I think that we are doing better. Today he has only gone through four pairs of shorts and he told me three times he had to go before he went. That is progress to me and I'll take it.
So to follow up on Halloween it was super fun. We went to A Hogwarts Halloween in Ogden again and it was just as fun as last year. Even with the rain. So below we have pictures from Halloween and then one of Madelyn because she won an award for being honest in school.

October

Ok so I suck at keeping my blog updated. But I have a good excuse, I have no computer right now so I have to use the computer at Collin's office or at grandma's house when I am visiting. We are having a great fall, the kids are all liking school and Thomas and I are having fun at home. I have decided to try a new recipe every week so we have fun baking and tasting new things. I so love this time of year and I am looking forward to putting up Christmas lights and getting ready for Thanksgiving. I love the feel of the air when the snow starts to dust the tops of the mountains. Oh an we actually had a blizzard in Price this week. It blew in, blew like crazy, put a little snow on the ground and blew out in an hour. The snow was gone by the end of the day but Thomas thought it was cool. Hopefully I will be able to put up some Halloween pictures before I go home this weekend. The kids have had several Halloween parties already. They have put on their costumes about 6 times in the last week alone. It's crazy, I am out of hair color for Katy's Punk rocker costume. Thomas is Steve from "Blues Clues" he has a blue puppy to carry around and he is wearing a green stripped shirt. It was the easiest one to make. I hope that you are all doing well and hopefully I'll be able to post again soon.

First Day of school and Labor Day weekend

School is back in swing now. The first week is over and the kindergarten kids started this week so it is just em and Thomas home now. It is quiet, I think that he is watching Dora in my room because I keep hearing him yell "back pack!" or "map!". We went to "Back to School Night" and met all the teachers. I signed up to work in the classroom for Abby and Madelyn. All three girls are in dance twice a week now so Monday-Thursday I am either taking someone to dance or picking them up. It looks like it is going to be a busy year.



We had a great weekend in St. George. It was hot but the pools felt great and the park we went to Sunday night was awesome. We even got to play minute to win it after Sunday lunch. It was great to see the little kids pulling the tissues out of the box as fast as they could. At first they were suspicious I don't think that they really believed that is what we wanted them to do. Watching people try to get and oreo from their foreheads to their mouths with just the muscles on their faces was the best. It was great fun. Thank you Grandma Rigby for another great reunion!

In Memory

My Grandma Howell passed away Sunday night. I will always remember the fun family reunions that we would have each summer. I loved our "Howell Campout" trips. we always had themes that we would center each camp around. Here is a picture of us on a Gilligan's Island theme year. Grandma and Grandpa were Mr. and Mrs. Howell....so fitting. I love, and miss them both.

Summer Fun

Ok, so it has been a long time since I posted anything. We have had a busy and fun summer. After Memorial Day we went up to Henefer to visit the graves and put flowers out. Then we decided that it would be fun to shoot some guns. Everyone got to take turns, here are pictures of Paige and Grandma Fawcett being awsome.




Thomas wanted a turn so Collin took him to learn how to shoot a 22. It was great fun.


Our dog Tess is such a wimp, she went and hid in the van because the noise was so scary.

Fourth of July weekend we made it up to Henefer again to see our favorite country artist Charlie Jenkins play. We saw him last year and the kids loved him. Thomas especially loved his yippy-ki-yi-yo song. Thomas and Katy got up and danced, and then Paige and Trevor took Thomas out to line dance. It was great fun.




We didn't get in our annual camping trip this year because Collin has been so busy at work but we did manage to get up the mountain for one day for collin's birthday.We fished in the morning and then went and rode horses in the afternoon.




Finally, the end of July is "International Days" here in Price. The girls got to be in the parade with their dance program. Grandma and Grandpa Fawcett, Nathan, Libby, and the boys, and Ashley and Aless came down to see the girls. It was a great day!

Katy makes the dance team!

Katy, Abby, and Madelyn are taking dance this summer. Katy wanted to try out for the competition team. She had tryouts this morning and she did good because when we went back her name was on the list. Abby and Madelyn decided to take class for a year and then try out next summer. But I think that this means I will be spending a lot of time driving kids to dance. Which is fine by me, I hope that it is something that they can stick with and enjoy.

Sweet Sweet Moves!

Thomas is my little dance partner. Sometimes he just has to bust out a move. His very favorite song right now is Now or Never from HSM3. He calls it "Sixteen" and asks for it at least 100 times a day. But when he dances to it, it makes me smile so I have to play the song for him over and over, and over and over.

Last day of School!

The girls had their last day of school today. I don't think that you can call 3 hours of partying school but ok. Abby did a cute program with the first grade classes. They sang some cute songs and then served us rolls and fruit. Grandma Fawcett was able to come and stay with us for a couple of days so we have had a great week.

building a new sand box

One of our spring projects in our new house was to build a sandbox in the backyard for the kids to play in.
First you dig out the hole

Then you dig the holes for the posts, Katy and Abby got in to show how deep they are.


Then Collin builds the sides


The big truck came and dumped 6 tons of sand on our driveway



One wheel-barrel at a time we hauled the sand to the back yard and poured it in.

One finished sandbox ready to play in.

Now I need to go and take some Advil and collapse on my bed.