Valley of Fire State Park

Our last day we spent at a Nevada State Park in Overton. We enjoyed the 1.5 mile hike with the younger kids. As you can see from the pictures, Ella had to be carried the whole time and Moses had to have help for part of the time too! The older kids stayed for an even longer time and hiked up and saw some prehistoric Indian petroglyphs and learned about the legend of Mouse's tank. They had a very fun day and the weather was perfect for hiking. Here is a collage of photos from our hike at Elephant Rock. You can click on the photo to see an enlarged version!

Here is the whole gang at the entrance to the park. At this point we thought we might be able to put Ella in a stroller. It is really hard to carry a 25 lb. baby for a while. But the trails were too bumpy so we took turns!

Las Vegas Baby!

Well, we didn't do the typical Las Vegas things because we've seen most of it before and we have children with us. So on this day we ventured over to the Children's Museum. This museum was really fun and the kids enjoyed it a lot. One of the bizarre things about it was that there was some sort of homeless shelter connected to it. There was a room where a bunch of homeless people were watching a movie, and then right outside the entrance was a smoking area. I guess I'm used to living in my Utah bubble. Don't get me wrong, we've seen a lot of homeless people around here, but they just aren't hanging out by the Children's museum. After the museum we had to hit In and Out to each lunch. We are a SCENE every time we go eat somewhere with our big clan. Nate's sister is prego and has 5 kids and we have our 5 kids. That's not including the 4 uncles and Grandma and Grandpa. People look at us like we are crazy. We probably are! The next stop was at the FAO Schwartz in the MGM Casino. It is a huge toy and candy store that my kids love to play in. Here is Miles playing on the big huge floor piano at the toy store. Isn't he handsome? I'll tell ya, he is going to break a lot of hearts. Well, actually he probably won't, he's too nice!

Here are Grace and Moses at the Museum. They spent a good amount of time in the theater area. Grace was a princess and Moses was trying to stuff himself into this Mickey Mouse costume. They made up several plays and are VERY dramatic!

Isaiah and his cousin Dennis got to roll around in some wheel chairs at the museum.

Moses and his cousin Joseph got to play basketball!

Here's Ella with her signature tongue that happens to always come out for pictures. She was a trooper all day with no nap!

Trip to Nevada

This year we went to visit with Nate's sister, Erika, and her family. We left the day after Christmas and were able to stay for about a week. We love spending time with the Whitmore family because they have children that match up with each of ours. They all seem to have the same personalities too! Our kids are always sad to leave because they love their cousins very much. On this particular day we went to a nearby park in Logandale. The kids played on the toys, had a fun time swinging, and ran around a skate park. The older boys played basketball and then later the whole clan played soccer. It was nice to be in sunny weather, although it wasn't THAT warm. I won't complain though because we left a blizzard in Utah! This is Grace and Eden. They both are "boy-trapped" as Grace would say. They both love spending time together singing, talking about High School Musical, and drawing. They always get along so well and appreciate the time they have playing with the girls.

Here is Grace and Moses playing on the ramp at the Skate park.

Here are Miles and Isaiah on the same ramp. They had such a fun time just running up and down the ramp. It is amazing how much time you can spend doing that!

Here is our sweet little Ella-Bella. She could have swung all day long. It was a little cold though.

Rockn' Christmas Day

Well, we finally did it. I think we were the last people on the planet to buy a game system. I have issues with children becoming addicted to them. But since there are the new musical games, we bit the bullet and the kids were VERY happy. Our family is learning to be rock stars with our new Rock Band game and great singers with the American Idol game. We also got a few the kids would appreciate like Disney Cars for Moses, Disney Sing It for Grace, Legos Star Wars for Miles, and Spiderman for Isaiah.

This is our family Rockn' out. Our band name is Pack Attack. Our main drummer is Goodness Gracie, our lead guitarist is Ice-aiah, and our drumfoot petal operator is Miles "Jo Smiley." Our lead singers are Nate-Dogg and The Claw. Our aspiring singers, Moses and Ella don't have names yet. We better get working on it! By the way, please don't mind the mounds of laundry in the picture. I spent all of Christmas Eve doing laundry for our Nevada trip.

Annual Christmas Tree Photos

I always take pictures in front of the Christmas tree each year. I guess it has become somewhat of a tradition. Here is a picture of the kids on Christmas Sunday. I love how the kids in the back row look like they love each other so much. Don't see that very often.

This is what our house is really like on Sundays, and usually how my kids are treating each other. Although they do look like they are having a good time here for the camera.

Every Christmas Eve the kids open up a gift from mom & dad. Usually the gift is a pair of PJ's, although some years we like to trick the kids and get them something else. Here are the kids on Christmas Eve all ready for bed!

A White Elephant Gift?

Nate came up to me a couple weeks before Christmas and told me that he wanted to tell me what he got me for Christmas. I hate a spoiled surprise, and being a mom you don't really get to open that many presents on Christmas. He said that he HAD to tell me because he wanted to use part of the gift for a work party white elephant gift. First of all, he should not be giving away part of MY gift, and more importantly, any gift he buys me should not be appropriate for a white elephant gift! Well, he spoiled my surprise and told me that he got me a Snuggie! I am always cold while watching TV and reading and we have cracked up at the infomercial together. I told him that he needed a Snuggie too and then we could be on the couch together with our Snuggies!I have tried to convince Nate over the last month that we need to take a picture with us in our Snuggies on the couch together. It would be fun for the blog and for our memories. He refuses! The nerve! He buys me a present and then won't take a picture of it. I improvised and came up with this. I originally pictured Nate with a cheesy smile holding the TV remote.

This is actually exactly how I pictured myself in the picture. I just wanted to get Nate and I on the couch together, but I'm not that good at Photoshop. Our next experiment is to play Rock Band with them. I'll let you know how it goes!

Geography Bee

We are the proud parents of the SAA 4th place Geo-Bee winner! The top 3 winners were all 6th graders. Not bad for a 4th grade aspiring historian. He has asked for material to study for next year's bee. He did win a world atlas along with a certificate. The question that got him in the running was about Hurricane Ike. Apparently you have to know current events for the Geo-Bee. Don't you love how we pretend we are experts on the subject. It cracks me up every time Nate says "Geo-Bee." It somehow sounds like we're in some club or something. Anyway, we sure do enjoy watching our smartie pants in action!

Happy Birthday Miles!

Miles' birthday always sneaks up on us. I tried really hard to plan a special day for him this year. I always give my kids a choice for their birthday's: they can either get a big present from mom and dad, or they can have a birthday party with friends. Our more social children always choose a birthday party. It makes sense: they get a lot of presents! Miles invited 12 kids to his party, 8 of which were girls. After making invitation phone calls to friends at school, I have learned that Miles has a girlfriend and that they hold hands at recess and on field trips. We now refer to Miles as "The Ladies Man." He gets really mad and embarrassed. He just "likes girls as friends," he says. Nate was in charge of the games. He is so good at keeping the kids attention. He came up with the idea of having the kids make their own BINGO cards, drawing characters from Shrek. I didn't think this was a good idea, but left the planning to Nate. It ended up being really fun. The kids' pictures were really creative and they ended up having a lot of fun. Nate is VERY talented with those kids, and Sara is very grateful for that!

We ate hot dogs, chips, carrots, and root beer floats. All of Miles' favorite things.

Here is Miles with his birthday cake. Can you believe that he is already 6 years old!

Some of Miles' favorite presents were these Lego sets. He loves to build things. He spent the evening after his party building this helicopter, truck, and trailer. Some other presents he received was a soccer ball, a over-the-door basketball hoop, a soccer sit-and-bounce ball, a dragon, a Nerf gun, a storm trooper costume, moon sand, and other candy and novelties. He had a great birthday and is enjoying getting BIGGER!

Here WE Come, Santa Claus!

Moses has been telling me all season that he does NOT like Santa Claus. I think that this stems from his excessive fear of strangers. At the mall one day we saw Santa and I asked Moses if he would like to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. He reluctantly got up on Santa's lap. Moses looks so uncomfortable. He told Santa that he wanted surprises. He wasn't very specific. Notice how comfortable Ella is with Santa while she is on my lap.

That didn't last long. She freaked out when Santa was actually holding here. Moses still looks very nervous.

Eventually, they began warming up to the jolly old man. Now Moses thinks that Christmas is Santa's birthday. We have been telling him about the nativity story daily, but he still, when asked, will tell you that Santa's birthday is what we celebrate this season. Maybe he thinks that when it is your own birthday, your supposed to give away lots of presents!

Children's Museum

We have been trying to get together once a month with Grandma Pack and cousins Landon and Lucy. We are so blessed to have a grandma that has family passes to every children's destination in the state of Utah. It allows us to do many fun things for free, while getting to spend time with people we love! This month we met at the children's museum in Salt Lake. Moses and Landon's favorite spot is the construction site. Here they are loading their blocks down a slide.

Of course, Ella and Lucy love the pretend food. They actually think that it is real food, until they try to eat it. They love to crawl around and have fun together. They are trying to learn how to share. One of their favorite things to do is take turns taking things out of each other's hands.

Here's Ella and Moses taking a boat ride. I had to be quick taking this picture because this other child really wanted to be in it!

"MOISMS"

Moses spent hours in this box today pretending it was a train. He even ate his lunch and a snack in it!Moses has a very fun and quirky personality. He often leaves me speechless or in stitches with comments that he makes. I like to call them "Mo-isms". I will probably be posting these quite frequently! Here are some from the recent past:

• I bought him Lightning McQueen pull-ups when attempting to get him interested in going by himself. I told him that Lightning McQueen would be so sad if he peed or pooped on him. A while later when he did his business in his pull-up, I said, "Why did you poop on Lightning McQueen, and he responded, "Lightning McQueen pooped on me!"
• I was trying to get Moses in his car seat in the car and he wouldn't go in. He looked at me and said, "Mom, you have 2 choices. I can sit in the front and help you drive, or sit in the back by myself. Which one?"
• His latest quote is to mom or dad when they are telling him what to do. He says "Your not the boss of the house!"
  

GRACE SINGING

Grace has been entertaining us this month with several Christmas performances with her singing group. They have performed at the Festival of the Trees in Ogden, at an old folks home, and at a friends and family night. She also was able to sing a solo in our Primary program in October. While she was singing during the Primary program one of my friend's 18-month-old looked at Grace and pointed and smiled, which set Grace off on a giggling spree through her song. We told her next time not to make any eye contact with babies!

STACHE FOR CASH

I just had to include these sick photos in our post. Nate did a fundraiser with some co-workers where he grew a mustache all through the month of November. The pictures of the "staches" will be posted on a web site where people can vote on the sickest one. I believe the criteria were something like it had to look like a molester or a porn star. The winner gets all of the money to donate to their favorite charity. I better start doing research on charities! I think he has a great chance of winning!

OK, obviously the photographer (a co-worker) was going for a very sick shot! His eyes are closed in one and it looks like he has a lazy-eye in the other. They are having a poll at his work to see who won for the sickest stache, and can you guess who is in the lead by a large margin? You guessed it! By the way, on December 1st the first thing that Nate did when he got home from work was shave it off. Now we are back to kissing!

MOSES' PLAYGROUP

Moses has a three-year-old playgroup that he is part of. His friends Hayley Ropelato, Carson Mills, and Nikia Koday are all in his playgroup. He rotates to different houses every week and learns about fun things. Here is Moses making a "Turkey" snack at our house for our Thanksgiving Theme.

Here are all of his friends around the table working on their snacks!

SERVICE PROJECT

At this time of the year we like to promote service. Recently someone told me that the food banks were low on food and so, with the help of a couple of families in our neighborhood, we collected food and delivered it to the Family Connection Center food bank in Layton. This is the all of the food that we collected! It weighed 455 lbs.

Here we are loading it in the back of the Gardiner's truck.

A picture of the whole group at the food bank. Isaiah had a change of heart through the whole process. The first night we delivered fliers he complained the whole time and said that there aren't that many people that don't have food! Oh boy, we were hoping to have happy service workers. After he saw the fruits of his labors and actually saw people at the food bank that needed food, he understood better and felt good that he could help.

NATE'S BIRTHDAY

I couldn't resist posting these pictures of Nate on his birthday. It's so great I how get to choose what pictures we post! Do you like his Krispy Kreme creation cake the kids and I made him?

HALLOWEEN

We always plan on using our old costumes in the box, but the kids have such fun and creative ideas, it's hard to recycle our old costumes. Anyone up for an exchange? Isaiah wanted to be a moldy mummy (don't know where he gets his ideas?). We tore up sheets and dyed them ancient brown. Since he is color blind and can't tell the difference between green and brown, it worked for him.

Grace originally wanted to be an artist. It was just too tempting when we were at Wal Mart one day and she pulled out this costume and asked to buy it for $12.99. Hmmm. It didn't take long for me to decide to spend $13 rather than have to locate materials and make an artist costume.

Miles desperately wanted to wear the mask to his Power Ranger costume. He settled for dad painting his face just like the mask.

Moses' latest craze is Toy Story. Here he is as Buzz Lightyear.

Poor Ella was sick on Halloween. We tried to put on her butterfly costume, but she wouldn't have it.

GRANDPARENTS DAY

Every year at school they have a Grandparents/Grandadult day. This year Grandma & Grandma Clawson came to the school to spend time with Grace & Isaiah. They ate lunch together, toured their classrooms, and went to the book fair. Thanks grandma and grandpa for all of the great books!

BLACK ISLAND FARMS

We went on a field trip for Moses' playgroup to a fun pumpkin patch. Ella and Miles hitched along too! Here is the animal barrel tractor-train ride! I could barley fit in that thing!

Here are the three amigos (Miles, Jackson & Tyler) at the top of a slide made with hay bails. It was pretty big!

Here they are coming down. It didn't even take any coaxing.

At the pumpkin patch with Ella. Cute little pumpkin to go with a cute little girl!

Here's Jackson, Miles, and Tyler with their pumpkins.

Moses and Carson, looking tired from a long morning at the patch.