Return from Ohio

I first just want to tell everyone thank you for all of your advice. It helped me not only know what to plan for, but also to know that other people had gone through it and survived so I would probably be okay! Ha-ha! The girls didn't like their ears popping on the airplane and Kyler cried a lot when he got tired, but besides that the plane rides weren't too bad. I would strongly advise people flying with kids to fly in the evening, though. Our flight back left at about 7:00 p.m. and it seemed much easier traveling at night, when it was dark on the plane. I was so excited to get home and post a whole slide show of our trip! But then I realized we had left our memory card for our camera in Ohio. We borrowed another memory card from my sister that we made it home with, but it only has the last quarter of our trip, so you'll have to wait and see all the pictures, but I posted a couple of the highlights of the final leg of the trip: This is Nate, Nikosha, and Katelyn in the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York. The Sacred Grove is the place Joseph Smith went to pray about which church he should join when Heavenly Father and Jesus appeared to him. We had the opportunity to visit some great church history sites, but the Sacred Grove was definitely the most peaceful (even with all our kids there). If anyone wants to know more about our church, there is a great informative web-site you can visit: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints This is Nikosha in front of Niagra Falls on the Canada side. I've only been out of the country one other time and that was to Tijuana, Mexico for a couple of hours. It was so fun to go to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls. We stayed in a hotel that had an indoor water park. That was fun for all ages!! It was really cold outside so we only did a beautiful drive-by of the falls all lit up at night and then a quick 15-minute stop where we jumped out and took pictures. (We would have had to park and pay $20 and then walk about a mile with all the kids, so we opted for the quick view.) This is Nate, me, and Kyler's little head sticking out of my jacket. We're standing on the road in between Joseph Smith's two houses and behind us you can see the Palmyra temple. I don't know if you can see the temple when there are leaves on the trees or not, but we were glad we got to see it because we were there on Sunday, so the temple gates were closed. This is quite the crew at Burger King! This is my family, Jenny (my sister), Blake (her husband), and their 3 kids, and Trent Buttars (Nate's good friend growing up, who is also going to dental school), Amanda (his wife), and their 2 boys. I think with this crazy crew we ran everyone else out of Burger King, so we got the place to ourselves. We had so much fun getting to see the Jones' and Buttars'! This is a little bit smaller crew at the Hill Cumorah visitor's center in front of the Christ statue. (The Hill Cumorah is where Joseph Smith got the gold plates that he translated into the Book of Mormon.) We were gone for 9 days and had such an awesome time, but we were also very glad to get back home! As soon as Jenny sends me my memory card, I'll get some more pictures posted of our trip. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Ohio, Here We Come!!

So, we're taking our first flying vacation EVER as a family!! Nate and I are taking all four kids and we're flying to Ohio to go see my sister, Jenny, and her family. We're super-excited, but pretty nervous about the unknown. So if anyone has any advice on vacationing with kids, flying with kids, the sites to see in Ohio, or anything else, let me know. Should I pack three different backpacks, one for each flight, or pack a different backpack for each of the kids? Should I even pack backpacks or use rolling suitcases? Should I pack a diaper bag or is that a pain? Should I pack a ton of snacks...or not? Take a stroller or a baby carrier... or both? So many decisions to make. Nate thinks I'm crazy to try to plan all this kind of stuff, but I just want to be prepared so it's not stressful. So, let us know any advice you have!!

Busy Halloween Week

Halloween week is always crazy busy for us. Katelyn's birthday is two days before Halloween and Nikosha has a Halloween piano recital. Both of those things on top of all the Halloween parties and stuff going on make it a very busy, but fun, week. The girls wore their costumes so many times with parties, dance, school, etc. that today Katelyn said, "Mom, why do we have to wear costumes every day." By the time the actual trick-or-treating comes they are already worn out and don't really care all that much about how much candy they can get. (Believe me, I am DEFINITELY not complaining. I love not having a ton of candy in the house for mine and my kids' sakes.) I want to send out a little thanks to whoever came up with Trunk-or-Treating. Nate and I LOVE it! We're done in about 30 minutes time and it's wonderful! We're really not the Halloween Grinches, it's just that we're pretty worn out too when it comes time to trick-or-treat.

Nikosha's piano recital this year ended up being on the same day as Katelyn's birthday. So we went to her recital first, where she did a wonderful job memorizing and playing her song called "Trick-or-Treat." Then after the recital we all went to Arctic Circle. Katelyn didn't care what she did for her birthday. All she cared about was that she had her best bud, Ashlyn, there with her, so Ashlyn came with us to the recital and Arctic Circle. Those two, as you can tell in the pictures, are inseperable. They just love being together and they are so cute together too!

This year for Halloween we had a cheerleader, a ballerina, a butterfly, and a superman! I think it is so much fun dressing the kids up for Halloween. I'm not a person who just likes to go buy a costume at the store. I like to mix and match the costumes we have and kind of invent things and then buy some extra accessories and stuff. That's about as creative as I get.

And then we had Nate

The girls are always scared of him when he wears this mask, but Kyler loved it!

Trip to Utah

We had a great trip to Utah this last weekend. We left Thursday after Nikosha got home from school. Roman (Nate's brother) and his wife Roberta are always nice enough to let all 6 of us crash at their house for a couple of nights. It was so great to see them! Their kids are growing up so fast! Friday Roman, Roberta, and Nate all took the kids to a Halloween party while I went to Salt Lake and went shopping and had dinner with some friends. (Even though I had Kyler with me it was still fun to have a girls' night out.) Then on Saturday, my brother, Eric, took Kenzi to a Halloween party and the rest of us went shopping at a furniture store and the mall. Let me tell ya...after about 2 hours of that, we were all ready for a nap! That afternoon I went grocery shopping with my "poor college-student" brother. It was a lot of fun!

Roman and Alyssa (his 18 month old daughter)

Roman found some sort of leaf bug and everyone was totally amazed by it.

This is the best out of about 20 pictures of all the kids. We finally just put Caleb's bike in the picture to get him to stay, but then he about rode it right off the porch.

This is most of the kids before the Halloween party. As you can (or can't) see Caleb didn't want his picture taken here either, but he was a very cute spiderman.

This is my brother, Eric, and Kenzi. He's going to make such an awesome daddy someday because he is so good with his nieces and nephews.

Vinyl Party

Cheryl and I are trying to get some vinyl parties booked for our business for November and the first part of December. If anyone is interested in hosting one let me know and I will get you a list of the dates we are available. (We only have two spots left before Christmas) Now is the perfect time to host a party, just before the holidays, so you can get some ideas for Christmas gifts and earn some free vinyl!! If you host a party you will receive a hostess gift (a vinyl quote up to $5 in value) and 10% of the total sales from your party in product. Even if you don't want to host a party, check out our website. We are adding new pre-designed quotes and ideas every day.

Nate's 30th birthday party

I threw Nate a suprise birthday party for his 30th birthday. We had it at the Teton Spectrum Raceway and it was a ton of fun!! It was sooo perfect for all ages that I think everyone had a blast. There were go-carts for the adults, go-carts for the kids, a couple of the huge blowup/bounce toys, and a bunch of arcade games.

This was the crew that was the welcoming surprise committee. (Thanks you guys for all of your help setting up and everything!)

Nate was surprised! He had no clue. And as you can tell I was pretty excited too!

You can't see it from this angle, but there are actually two cakes and he blew out all 30 candles on the first try. (So full of hot air.) They were ice-cream cakes from Reed's Dairy and very, very good, but don't try to feed 50 people with just two cakes. (Sorry everyone only got little pieces.)

Nate's brother, Austin, helping cut the cake.

Nikosha racing go-carts.

Logan and Katelyn racing

Aubrey, Paige, and Hailee

This is me driving the go-cart. Apparently I won the "worst driving award" because there was actually a go-cart pile up that the guy in charge said was my fault since I didn't hit my brakes. No, seriously, my sister's go-cart ended up on top of my go-cart. Luckily everyone was okay. I guess nobody's going to want to ride with me from now on. (I didn't know I was supposed to use the brake. Ha-ha! But I learned my lesson.)

Nate with his baby boy. (Jenny, notice the shoes. Very appropriate for the occassion!)

Kenzi's 3rd Birthday and Aunt again

My Kenzi Dawn turned 3 years old last Wednesday. We had a family birthday party for her the Sunday before and she had a few friends over on her birthday to have cupcakes and paint their faces. That's all she wanted for her birthday, so I think she had a great time. My mother-in-law is an artist so she was going to paint faces, but she ended up having to work, so me and Kenzi's friend's mommies winged it and they turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I'm being too lazy right now, though, because I haven't downloaded the pictures of her friend party and the face paint so maybe I'll put those one later.

My sister, Jenny, and her husband, Blake, had a baby last Monday. We were all super excited, but super disappointed that they are all the way in Ohio, so we couldn't be there with them, so hopefully a trip to visit them will be planned very soon. They named their baby Alissa, so they now have a 3 year old girl, Remi, a 1 year old boy, Broden (he'll be two in October), and a one week old baby. All of this while Blake is attending dental school. They're pretty amazing!! I love how Jenny's protecting the baby's head from the "weapon" Broden has in his hand. Is this what I have to look forward to when Kyler grows up?