October so far

 We've had a fun month so far... I love the start of the holidays. 

Abigail and Carly signed up to dance at Fremont's half time show.  Abigail loved it.  They practiced for a week before the game.  Carly didn't love it so much... she almost didn't perform, but my sweet neighbor bribed her with some candy.  Why didn't I think of that?!

I've been taking some photography classes, and one of our assignments were to photograph people wearing white.  Carly was a very willing subject, but she kept posing in odd places. 

She wanted to pretend she was about to fall asleep on this bench.

Abigail is always a very willing subject

She's growing up too fast, and looking so old!

Last week we carved/painted pumpkins, ate candy and popcorn, and watched ichabod crane.

Luke was the only one not afraid of the pumpkin guts, so he carved his. 

snuggled up for the movie

Here I am taking photography classes and I take a blurry picture!

The kids had a Halloween carnival at the school last night.  The girls decided at the last minute that they wanted to be witches instead of what they had planned.  Their costumes were too small, because I made them when Ab was 2 1/2, but they were determined.  Hailey's fairy costume was also too small, but by the time we got everyone dressed, we were in danger of being terribly late.  We just went with it last night, but for actual Halloween I told them they had to be something else.  We will see what they all decide.  Luke was a zombie, and he said he loved it so much that he will be that on Halloween also. 

Carly's the birthday girl!

 Our sweet little Carly is 4 years old!  

Favorites:

color- 'purple and pink and blue, oh wait, and red, and yellow, and orange, and brown.'

food- "strawberries and watermelons and quesadillas."

thing to do- "play babies and play with Hayes-a" (Hailey's got lots of strange nick names)

place to go-" write down everywhere... it's m-o-g-a-i... that's how you spell everywhere"

scripture story-" everything, Ummm. maybe this one the most (holding up the D&C reader)"

friend- "Meagan" our neighbor

drink- "water, milk, juice, and punch"

Carly is growing up quick, but she still likes to be babied a little bit.  I call her my kitty cat, because anytime I sit, she just curls up on my lap.  She gets really sad if we don't have our special snuggle time while Luke and Abigail are at school, and Hailey is sleeping.  

She's such a sweet heart, and she's always thinking about her siblings.  If she has a snack, she'll get more out for the other kids if they aren't around and she'll save them for when they get home.  

Carly is a bag lady.  She has a hoarding issue, I know I've mentioned it before... but I think we're making progress on it.  She used to keep all of her things in the unfinished basement  in a  pile.  At first it was cute, and then the pile grew, and it got to be a big problem.  If she ever heard someone going down the stairs she would follow them to make sure they didn't touch her stuff.  Then things started to dissappear.  Like watches, cell phones, bills, my makeup, and lots of little important things.  So we got it all cleaned out,    VERY TRAUMATIC...  I told her she could have one bag full of her special things.  That's been going pretty well, I still have to go through her bag every few days because she'll sneak sandwich baggies full of her left over lunch into them.  She usually has a couple of bags full of things and then keeps them in a little shopping cart.  She also goes on strolls through the neighborhood with all of her things.

On a side note-  we had to quit calling it hoarding because Abigail forgot to put the letter -d- in the word.  One night she yelled to me, "Mom, Carly's hoaring again!"  So we just call it her stuff now.

 Carly woke up feeling good on her birthday, but quickly went down hill.  After she tossed her cookies, she said she was glad she had another birthday in a couple of days.  We had to have her party 2 days late because of the Grandma's schedules. 

 Luckily she could pull it together enough to celebrate a little bit that night.  She said she only wanted two things for her birthday, a cherry purse, and a shopping with the little baby car in the front of the cart.  Nevermind that we already have a million purses and stroller/shopping carts. 

 still not feeling good, but determined to have a good birthday

 She decided to eat a cupcake... we were regretting that later that evening

 2 days later, so HAPPY!  She put on this special dance outfit for the party

 cute little Abs

 making a wish (she wants a real baby, a real live baby for herself)

 She requested a cherry cake

 Daddy's girl

 Also Uncle Blake's girl. He can't be around her without her climbing onto of his shoulders

 Hayes-a chillin on our new patio built by Ben

 Kael was not happy with me, I just wanted a picture of the cute little guy

 Besties... Jake (next door neighbor) told his Mom that him and Hailey are besites

 handsome Beau

Carly got lots of fun gifts from her Grandparents!  She was excited about all the new things to wear.  For some reason none of the pictures turned out of our guests, but it was sweet of them all to come and make Carly's 2nd party special!

school 2012

We will start with Luke since he started school a week earlier than Abigail.  Luke is in second grade this year, and he started back at Pioneer.  He has been so excited for school to start!  He practically ran out the door wanting to get to the bus stop to see all of his friends on the first day.  Luke's teacher recently got put in our new ward boundaries, so he was really excited to see her at church and school.

 his opinions of the first day of school:

1.  'we get 3 recesses!!!  It was great... I played with....' 

2. ' Lunch is really noisy, and my friends eat really fast so I have to hurry and go play, so that's why I couldn't finish my lunch'  (I think that first day he only consumed his string cheese and juice box)

3.  'My teacher is really nice'

4.  'There's a girl that looks like Hermoine in my class, I think she's really nice'  (We always knew Luke was a huge HP fan, this just confirms it... oh, and his first swear word was bloody hell)

so over all, a big success!

 On the day before Abigail's first day, she was telling Carly and Hailey during lunch that she wouldn't be there to play anymore.  Carly said, "we better hug"  Then they all thought they were so cute, so I was asked to take a picture.  They are pretty cute

 This girl was begging to go to school.  Afternoon kindergarten is killer... all morning she's asking when she can go to school.

 Abigail was really excited to ride the bus and see Luke at school.

 The day before school started I asked which outfit she was going to wear on her first day.  

She said, "ummm... a new school dress"

"Abigail, you didn't pick out a new school dress when we went shopping"

"please can we go shopping again?  I have to wear a special school dress!"

Abigail doesn't ask for much, she's easy going and super sweet, so of course we went shopping and she picked out a special school dress.

since it's afternoon K, Ben came home on his lunch break to see Ab get on the school bus.  She's got the best Dad!

Her opinions on the first day of school:

1.  "we can't sit on the purple part of the carpet, it's where the teacher walks.  So I followed the rules and listened"

2. " There was a bully there, he knocked over my crayons" (I tried to explain how silly boys act around pretty girls)

3.  " I got some candy, and it was really good"

4.  " I saw my cousin Jenna at school, and she was wearing a pretty dress too"  

On the 2nd day she reported that the bully kid turned into a nice boy.

On the Friday before Labor day, she came home sad because she couldn't go to school for 3 whole days!

So they both love school, and have been super happy thus far, yea!

Kent Jenkins family reunion 2012

 We had our Kent Jenkins family reunion a few weeks ago.  My Aunt Sue was in charge this year, and her family did a great job!  It was in Eden and we had lots of fun activities (Olympic games) and good food (my cousin, Nita made Navajo fry bread... mmmmm... so good).  We stayed the night at a big cabin, well, the adults stayed at the cabin... and we camped outside.  I'm so far behind on blogging and pictures, so I won't even write anymore.  Just leave it to your imagination as to what was going on in each picture :)

Montana trip 2012

 We were able to have two great family vacations in Montana this July.  Luckily for us, they were the same week, so we only had to go up once.  We spent Sunday-Thursday morning with the Dawsons at Lake Hebgen.  Ben's Aunt Brenda and Uncle Doug have two cabins right on the lake.  Thursday-Saturday were spent just outside of Phillipsburg, next to a little ghost town called Granite.  That's where Luke and Lisa picked to have our 2nd annual Jay Jenkins reunion.  

It was one of the best weeks ever.  I loved spending every minute with Ben and my kids, and extended family.  We camped out in the tent the whole week, the only hard part was having enough clean clothes for the whole week.

We put over 1000 miles on this trip... it was so much fun!

My pictures are all kinda scattered and random.  I didn't take half as many as I wanted to.  We were just having too good of a time to stop for pictures.

 

 Monday we hung out at the beach, going in the boats, riding bikes, visiting, and eating

 Aunt Brenda got an old tub out to use for the kids baths.  Much easier than in the showers

 The kids loved hanging out with 2nd cousins since they rarely see them

 

She wasn't about the get naked out in the open.

 Tuesday we went to Yellowstone park.  The kids were troopers!  I can't believe how long they walked.  Carly got a little tired, so at one point, Larry took her back to sit on some benches and she fell asleep.  Carly snores SO bad and loud, the tourists were laughing and taking pictures.

Courtney and her boys

6 out of the ten grandkids

Wednesday morning I figured we'd eat breakfast out on the beach.  My kids are early risers and they woke everyone up that slept in the cabin on the first two days.

Abigail didn't get out of the water the whole time we were here.  She just sat out there, happy as a clam. 

Hailey was so tired, she snuggled up to Grandma and fell asleep

Wednesday night, we cook tinfoil dinners and roasted marshmallows.  When I told Luke what we were having he said, " I don't like eating tinfoil"

Thursday morning, packing up our stuff to head out to the other reunion

the signature Hailey pose

The kids played lots of games

Carly wanted another one of her smiling like Hailey

all of the Larry Dawson family that came this year.

crazy picture

We had such a great time, I married into the best family! 

The hardest part of the trip was packing the car back up to go to Phillipsburg.  We had so much stuff, and then we had to fit more in.  We had it all packed up, thinking we were doing great on space when we realized we hadn't packed the two coolers yet.

Abigail had her legs on one of the coolers for 5 hrs.

Saying good bye to the Dawsons. Apparently, Sharla said something funny.

My Mom also pointed out to me later that day, that I always wear this shirt when I'm camping.  It's true, I have very few t shirts, so yes, this is one of my camping shirts. 

Oh, wait, one last potty break.  I love it when the kids are in the car, then they decide they need to go.

Thursday evening, we made it to our campsite with the Jenkins.  Grandma brought stuff to entertain the kids... these are their new awesome visors

The beautiful view and my handsome Luke

We were camped out by an old Mining town.  We went on a hike to look the different mine shafts

On Friday, we went and visited the Granite Ghost town.  It was eerily cool.  It seemed weird that people lived there once because it was so quiet now.

awww, Uncle Brent's just one of the kids.  (standing in the door way of the bank)

Abigail found a heart shaped rock

a huge mill built on the side of the mountain.  I didn't get a good picture of the mill, because I was concentrating on Brent with the minnie mouse back pack.

another building

we went through a world famous candy store in Phillipsburg.  It's one of probably 4 businesses in the town... seriously, this town was one street.  It was  crazy small and cool.

The kids each got a bag to get whatever candy they wanted.  The girls took full advantage and filled up their bags.  Luke came out with a couple pieces, so I sent him around again, telling him not to come back till it was filled up. 

I don't remember what made the guys decide to chop down a tree, but they did.  Matt, Jed, and Ben took turns chopping it down.

Celebrating over their victory (Ben don't ask me to take down this picture, I won't)

I don't know the forest rules about chopping down trees and such, so don't tell anyone. 

The kids got unbelieveably dirty.  Abigail was covered in 20 layers of dust.

So we heated up water and bathed them in a cooler

How come pictures never do it justice?  The sunset was amazing

Eating some french toast Saturday morning

Abigail is by far the hardest to keep clean, she ran out of clothes the fastest, and had to borrow Luke's

The whole group.  

We are only missing Blake, he had to work :(

What a great reunion!  Luke and Lisa did a great job!

Loved this week, it was so fun to be with our families!