Halloween 2016- a Wild Bunch

This year Cade and the girls agreed to do a family theme. Each girl picked their favorite animal and Cade and I found awesome adult flamingos that we could be together. Even Penny dressed up like a Lion! It was fun to move away from Disney princesses for one year. I'm sure we will revisit them again soon :). We dressed up for the Annual Fishbowl trick or treating (in which Lucy threw up all over her costume as soon as we pulled up to the building- we took the girls trick or treating anyway). Then our ward had a trunk or treat/chili cook-off and so we dressed up for that. And lastly, Halloween day! It was a great year and of course I ate more Halloween candy than anyone else in the family. So we donated a lot of our candy after Halloween was over. Don't worry, the girls still ate more than they needed to!

We won best couple at the ward Trunk or Treat :)...

Since I wasn't feeling well on Halloween, Lu Lu and I passed out candy while Cade took the girls around the neighborhood. Usually it's the other way around.

Close Family Pics 2016- Lucy Added!

Andra Hansen Meyer did our family pictures again and we always love what she does. We have gotten family pictures done every time we add another to our growing family...which happens to be every two years so far :). Little Lu Lu got to join this time!

Miss E's First Musical :)

Emma's elementary school decided to allow a traveling theater to put on a musical this year. Over 100 kids auditioned and about 60 were able to participate. Emma was in the 5-8 age range which did not have as much practice time and did not have a very big part but Emma was still so excited to be in it. Mostly because she got to stay at school an extra two hours every day for a week and socialize! She was a lobster in Alice and Wonderland. I went to the first performance and then Daddy, Grandma and Reese and Nora went to the second one. She had a great time and loved being with friends and performing on stage! (They practiced for an entire week and performances were on Sat November 12th).

Reese Gymnastics!

Our little Reesie-Roo started taking gymnastics at All American Gymnastics in Lindon, Utah. She loves going! This next semester we are going to try and get her in dance so we'll see if we continue with both dance and gymnastics. She is a flexible little thing and has a lot of fun going.

(She's the one in the light blue leotard)...

Football Season Begins

Cade and I got BYU season tickets this year and had our first football game date this season. Unfortunately it wasn't a great game :( but we still had a lot of fun!

The week before we invited the entire family over for the BYU/Utah game. We decorated and had finger foods for dinner. Surprisingly the kids all did amazingly well! I was shocked at how well they got along for 4 whole hours. We had a great time with everyone!

William's Got Baptized!

We had the great opportunity to go to William's Baptism. It was neat seeing the first grandchild get baptized. William played a song and we were very impressed with him! We are very proud of William's choice to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Family Camping- AMAZING and Miserable

We just couldn't go a summer without camping so we took the whole family Labor Day weekend and found one last walk-up site up AF canyon. Unfortunately, we found out later that it was the worst site you could get- right next to the parking lot where car lights were shining on our tents until late into the night and everyone was so loud. The older three girls did really well. Lucy....well...not so much. I felt like she was back to being 10 days old and I had to feed her every hour or two to keep her from screaming all night long. We also had to wake up and pack up and leave because we headed to William's baptism the next morning.

But overall it was well worth the memories we created with our girls! We loved "Sliding Rock" and the "caves" and other rock formations we explored. We loved playing games with the girls and building a fire and making smores. We just LOVE being away from the worldly things like media and phone service and daily life and being in God's beautiful creations. God is good!!

Other days we just go up American Fork canyon and hang out. We love to explore our surroundings and find places to climb and play in.

We also LOVE hiking and were sad not to have done it more in the summer/fall, but we went with Bryan and Jennie to Donut Falls. The kids howled like wolves almost the entire time. It was awesome. But Cade and I were very impressed that even on a very steep part (where we lost our way), the girls never once complained. They were happy to be on that trip the whole time. It really gave us hope for family outings in the future!