New Moon Girl's Night

What an awesome time we had as we went to watch the much anticipated Twilight: New Moon movie. I love girls night!
The New Moon shirts were a must, check out Annaboo in her Team Edward shirt.

We ate dinner with all our friends from book club to celebrate our one year anniversary of the G.J. Girls Book Club.

The movie was excellent so I will probably be sneaking off to watch it again soon.

Big Brother's Are Awesome!

Shermie is such a big help with his sister. This is the first time he feed her and she seem to think it was pretty cool. She ate the whole bowl.
He picked up pretty quickly how to wipe her mouth with the spoon and get the spoon in her mouth without getting it everywhere.

What a proud brother, look at that smile.

All the boys love to help with Annalyn. It is so nice to have so many hands looking after such a sweet girl.

Cookies with Gramie

It's that time of year again. Baking with Gramie time! This year Sheali jo and Nicholas made my favorite cookies, Almond Crescents. They did it all, from grounding the almonds to dusting the cookies with powdered sugar. These cookies where so good they mysteriously kept disappearing from the plate.(seemingly every time Pop pop went through the kitchen, coincidence...I think not) The ones that made it home with him didn't last much longer. They were gone before he made it all the way through the door. Yummy!


Ingredients
1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar


Directions
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Combine flour, almonds and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or until easy to handle. Divide dough into fourths. Form crescent shapes, by rolling small balls of dough into a rope about 1/4 in. diameter and 2-in. in length. Place 2 in. apart on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 325 degrees F for 14-16 minutes or until set. Cool for 2 minutes. Dip and cover warm cookies in confectioners' sugar. Place on wire racks to cool.

Annalyn's First Almond Crescent

"Man, these ARE good!"

Halloween '09

Batman and Gang

Rt to Lt: Two-Face(Matt), Robin and Cat Women, Joker(Tuffer)

Riddler(Pop pop), Penguin(Grandpa) and Poison Ivy (Annalyn)

Batman(Nicholas), Mr. Freeze(Shermie)

We had a lot of fun this year with the costumes and I'm glad that I finished them all in time (thanks to Grandma). The ward party this year was over flowing. Matthew won the scariest costume. They had a fun time trick-or-treating which they did inside because it was raining out. (the rain later that night turned to snow)

On the day of Halloween we went to a costume contest that the furniture store was holding. we registered as a family and the kids as individuals. Mande and Tim were there and entered Ava with Annalyn. They won first (Ava) and second (Annalyn) second prize was 2-gift certificates to my favorite kids clothing store, pizza party at Chuck E Cheese,and some other stuff. First prize was a photo session (think we have that one covered so I'm glad for second,hahaha). Matthew got second in his group and Shermie got third in his. I think when it came to the family group the judges figured we had gotten enough prizes and I have to agree. All the kids looked Awesome!

That evening before we were inundated with all of the valley's trick-or-treaters, Mande,Tim and the kids came over for dinner. Sean,Kelli and the girls stopped by to deliver a treat, homemade spud nuts. Yum. It was a great evening.

Fall In

Fallen leaves are always a blast. This is the first batch of the year. Annalyn's first fall. She tried to eat a leaf.
I think we racked them at least a dozen times but it wasn't getting old. The were trying to out do each others jump into the leaves.

The boys made themselves human rakes to get them to the street.

Can you spy all four boys?

One Down

This lovely, out of focus speck is a dead fly on my ceiling (gross I know bare with me). How it got that way will surprise you. It was hit... ...By this plane throw by this kid! While I was walking around smacking flies, Matthew was flying his paper airplane. He said to me, "Watch mom." (I'm sure he did not plan his trick to be so cool) At just the right moment and just in the right spot it hit the ceiling killing the fly. If I didn't see it I wouldn't have believed it. His face says it all.
Now I'd like to see you try that.

Tuffer's Baptism

Christopher made the decision to be baptised. He loves to read the scriptures and he was so excited to become a member of the church. He was baptised and confirmed by his dad. We are so proud of his good choices and the example he sets for his brothers. We thank all of our family who came from out of town, especially Uncle Tim and Aunt Sharon who we don't get to see enough. It was great to see everyone. More pictures soon.

Black Canyon Sprint Triathlon '09

One month after I had Annalyn, my friends Becca and Jennifer asked if I wanted to do a triathlon with them. I said sure and started training. I trained for three months and did a few trial runs and was ready to go for it. This was the sleeping arrangement of the night before the race, I was in my own bed (I wish).
The day of the race I was pretty nervous but excited. Check out the cool goggles and cap I borrowed from Christopher. They gave us ankle bracelets that recorded our time. I got through the swim and started the bike portion. I had been worried about the weather being cold but when I came outside it felt good and the weather was perfect the whole day.

I got a surprise on the bike course in the form of the largest hill I have ever seen. When I came around the corner and saw it I about died. After that though the course was flat except for when I got to the down side of the hill which was twisty, steep and a little scary. The running course turned out to be up a hill for half and down the hill for the other half. But it was not just straight up. It switched back and forth all the way up then you came down the same way you went up. But I ran the whole thing. (not fast mind you but I did run, kind of like an old man)

And I finished!!! It was fun to see the kids at each of the transitions and end. They where such good cheerers. They were so good the whole time. Thank you to My husband for his support while training and at the race, to Mande for letting me use her Awesome cool bike, my mom and dad for coming and watching and Jen and Becca for inviting and encouraging me to do it. I plan on doing another race in May and this one again next year. Also next year Sherman and his brothers and sister and my sister are going to do it too. We may even have the three older boys do the kids race. I can't wait. If you want to join us do. It's a good race and well orginized. GOOD LUCK and START TRAINING.

Here are My Times-
1 Swim: 00:14:48.697
2 S2B Trans: 00:03:50.213
3 Bike: 01:04:15.310
4 B2R Trans: 00:01:44.28
5 Run: 00:48:34.120
Total Time: 02:13:12.578

Halloween Cookies

We got this Halloween cookie kit from Gramie. The boys bugged for about a week before we had time to do it.
As far as cookie kits go this one was great. The boys had a blast decorating and eating them.
The finished product, aren't they lovely... oh and scary says Nic.

Now if I can just get the seven Halloween costumes finished.

Lost Tooth

The tooth that has been hanging out of Matthew's mouth finally fell out and while we missed pictures of the first tooth he lost we figure taking pictures of the second will be close enough.

A Jack-o-lantern for Halloween and a nasty picture of the tooth thankfully blurred.

What a ham.