November 2009

I love preparing for the holidays! I also love finishing a long stint on steroids, so NOV was great! We were very lucky to have all my siblings and their families get together for thanksgiving, starting about a week early and finishing early in December. We spent a LOT of time watching cougar football!When my family all gets together and we get to watch the BYU-UTAH game together, it is especially fabulous! My sisters in law, mom, and I made our christmas cards and we went to the first BYU basketball game of the season. Clearly I didn't carry my camera around often enough.

But I do have pictures of our post turkey dinner activity: Turkey bowling!

I know this pic is grainy, but kent's throuth the legs bowl was hysterical! Even my mom got in on the action!

John and Madalyn put together a turkey hunt the next day for the kids. It was such a neat thing! The kids dressed up like pilgrims and went hunting turkey (a pinata at the end), but on the way, were attacked by indians (the grown up male children of the family). It was so awesome I think it needs to become a tradition! I also wish I had pictures!

October 09

This month was very busy! Kent spent a lot of the month in CO again, while the boys and I had a great time enjoying the nice weather and the fun holidays!

WE went up into the canyon one saturday to enjoy the fall colors.

WE also really enjoyed the first snow:

The pumpkin patch was a hit for all. Ollie loved the mini wheelbarrows (anyone know where we could buy one of those?) and all the boys climbed on the tractors and ran through the corn maze. We love the pumpkin patch!

Carving pumpkins was a ball for all. Tyse and Emitt liked cleaning out the pumpkins, and Ollie preferred putting the guts back in!We tried out kids and witch night at gardner village! The kids had a ball

We also hosted a neighborhood halloween carnival, like the old ones we used to have at church when I was little! It ended up being so much fun having the kids do a fishing booth, a cupcake walk, decorate cookies, experience the mad scientist lab, eat doughnuts off a string, and bowl with pumpkins!

And that night, the boys dressed up and headed out on a BEAUTIFUL night! We had a dementor, a lion, and an everchanging Emitt. He started the day as Buzz Lightyear and ended the night as a dalmation.October was great!

September 09

September was full with sick mom once again. We didn't do much, but there were a few highlights:

Emitt turned 3. I will dedicate a separate post to the big day.

WE went camping with Kent's siblings to Palisade state park. We didn't take nearly enough pics, but ONE highlight of the trip was the paddle boat race. Despite how intimidating this team looks, they sadly didn't pull out the big win.

We spent more time in the water with the opening of the splash pad in our neighborhood. This picture left tyse wondering why he attempted this...

Kent and I went on a morning date to try to find some furniture for our house. By this point in my illness I was on a HEAVY amount of steroids and it turned me into "Fat Monica", as Kent named me.(Those of you that know my love for "Friends" understand) Basically I blew up like a balloon and made me crave to overhaul our entire house in one weekend. My best friend during this long 3 month period was my label maker!

Anyway, we went to look at some old secondhand stores in the sugarhouse area of salt lake. Kent has never been known to do things in a direct manner, and he made us meander through countless residential streets between stores. One street in particular was having a neighborhood cleanup and each house had piles of things they were getting rid of. They had tons of barnwood for free, as well as old screens, windows, and shutters. So we rang some bells and begged their old trash off of them and loaded up the Durango as seen below:

We haven't finished all our projects yet, but we are on our way!

We hosted a neighborhood smores party!

My dad came to visit for a few days and we went to the farm at thanksgiving point:

THis was the end of September!

August 2009

August Roundup:

I actually managed a couple august posts about the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication and having my sister in town. Here is what else was going on:

Tyse had a huge month! He lost a tooth on monday and started school on Tuesday! He loves school and really excels in his class. He can't wait to get on to first grade!

We were also able to spend quite a bit of time just hanging with friends with me not feeling quite so great. We were lucky enough to see the Johnsons when they came to visit from Virginia and get together on Katie's birthday for a fun evening!

Here's the adults:

And here are the kids:seriously, what did we do?

In august, Kent spent most of the month in CO dealing with issues on his building there, so we don't have a ton more to share. Pretty much every day we did this:

July 2009

July in a nutshell...






We got to go with our friends, the Chambers, to their cabin in Idaho for a few days and had a great time in Yellowstone and playing on their lake.


We went to the cowpolk festival at thanksgiving point. They boys had a great time practicing their sharp shooting, taking care of the animals, branding themselves, making kercheifs, and of course, being thrown in jail!

Tyse started baseball. He thinks coach pitch is pretty boring, but you can't do anything else for a 5 year old, or a 6 year old either. He will have to endure it another year. He does now cheer for the Phillies. I am not sure if he thinks because that's the team he was on it will be a predictor of future ambition or if he is just a bandwagon jumper.

And of course, we celebrated the 4th of july, my favorite holiday. We went to the provo parade and spent the day with my mom and brother's family. We ended the night with fireworks at pleasant grove- they put on quite the show!

Lastly, we finally found out why I had been feeling so lousy for the previous couple months. I have Ulcerative colitis and it continues to cause us grief, but we will get it figured out... eventually!

June 2009

Here's the June highlight reel...

WE did celebrate fathers day to the best dad around. He got a fire pit for the still unfinished backyard, but we were able to have some fun smores roasting events and other fires through the summer!

We spent quite a bit of time at the Lake Park at our neighborhood lake this summer. The boys loved the sand and water- and the spidermonkey park that is there as well!

If you look at the pic larger, you can see the wheat they picked to chew on- like a "real" cowboy!

My good friend has a brother that has horses. He happened to have 3 colts born about the same time so she took us over to see the horses. I couldn't pick just one pic of this outing!

The strikers had their last game. NOt to worry, soccer started again in August, but Tyse was so excited to get his first sports medal!

The neighborhood held the annual ladybug release party at our community gardens. This pic was especially hard for me to pick because we have so many great ones with boys covered in ladybugs and playing with dad!

We went to the Chalk Art Festival at the gateway with the other Madsen's and the Valentines. The chalk was AMAZING, but the boys and cousins LOVED playing in the fountains at the end!

Our friends are part of the England family and they work for the family trucking business. So one day Dad England brought home a rig to let the neighborhood boys crawl all over! The boys were in HEAVEN!

We attended the Air show at Hill Air Force Base. The boys (including kent again) LOVED it and had the best time crawling under and around and through a ton of different planes. Even Ollie LOVED watching the demonstrations.

June was fabulous... now on to july!

Calling for Addresses

Dear anyone who actually still reads about us,
In my organizational overhaul of our house, I have apparently lost our address book! I would love to have you send yours to me so that I can send out christmas cards! The sooner the better... I know you are all dying to know what we have been up to this year, especially since I am completely blog deficient! HEE HEE!
thanks,
Beka