Brad's Birthday (Oct.2)

Happy 30th Birthday Brad! I'm so thankful you married me and that you are such an amazing husband and father-thanks for being my best friend! We love you!

Scentsy Giveaway!

My awesome sister-in-law Maren is a Scentsy representative, and she just recently sent this out

"if anyone is interested in winning a FREE scentsy plug in and a scent to go in it, enter my contest at http://www.gotscentsy.blogspot.com The contest will end on the 30th, so add me to your blogs and tell your friends!!!"

Scentsy products are awesome, and I could tell you all about it, but check out the blog and maybe you could win!!

September

It's inevitable-every time September hits, I get very excited for Fall and everything that comes with it! Ever since I was a little girl, Fall was my favorite season (with Halloween as my favorite holiday-it is now a close 2nd after Christmas :) I just love everything about it. Last year, I had a hard time getting into the holidays, but this year, I am very excited! The kids are older and can understand/enjoy them a little better, and that makes me more ready for the seasons to change. Anyway, just thought I'd share a little, and even though in Tucson the weather doesn't exactly change like other places I've lived, this time of year still makes me happy :)
P.S. The picture above is of Elsie and Noah with a few of their cousins, running to pick out a pumpkin-every year we go with the Smith's to the pumpkin patch-another of my favorite (and hopefully the kids') traditions!

First Day of School

Now that things have somewhat settled down, I thought I'd post a few pictures from the first day of school. Brad is still teaching Middle School Social Studies (our school is K-8), Noah started 1st grade, and Elsie started half-day preschool (also at Red Rock). Noah was pretty nervous for the first day, but ended up doing great (we knew he would!). Elsie was very excited to go to school-she even gets to ride the bus! Plus, I think she enjoyed the attention she got since she cut 10 inches off her hair! And Adam enjoyed some alone time with mommy (though he does occasionally take a nap while both kids are gone, and when that happens, I do too!). I always miss the kids while they're gone, but I love seeing them gain confidence and learn new things. 2 weeks down, 41 more to go!

Getting ready to head out the door

Noah in front of his classroom

Noah at his first desk (in Kinder they worked at tables)

Elsie heading into afternoon preschool

Hanging up her backpack-not an exciting picture, but I thought the back of her hair looked great that day :)

This has nothing to do with the first day of school, but we thought Adam needed some recognition (we were out of swim diapers, so we used a pull-up-they hold a LOT more!)

Noah and Elsie

Here are the latest pictures of Noah and Elsie (Noah's 6 year and Elsie's 4 year). My sister in law Eloise (who's awesome, by the way) took these pictures the other day for us-no more JC Penny's-yeah!! She took the "real" ones, and my brother Cody took a bunch of candid shots (we don't have those yet). Her photography blog is on our list of family and friends to the right-check it out, she does some awesome stuff and she's just getting started! Thanks Cody and Eloise!

P.S. Adam saw Noah posing at one point and wanted to be just like brother, so he posed all on his own! We'll be doing his 2 year pics next month and hopefully he'll be as willing to let us take them!

Pics from the Trip

Here are pictures of our trip (not necessarily in Chronological Order-sorry!)

See Post below for a "little" overview of our trip

The Kids on the 4th of July

Brad, Uncle Craig, Aunt Savina, Great-Grandma, & Elsie (we're bummed we didn't get pics of Uncle Gary and Aunt Jan and their Fam's)

Great-Grandma and Elsie

Adam loving the swings

Noah showing Elsie how to dig

Noah coming off the slowest slide-though he loved all of them

The 2 new big slides at Lava (I went down the purple one-holy cow! It was so FAST!!)

The curly slides at Lava

Inside our motel bathroom-Brad was excited about the phone

At the 4th of July Parade

My neice Abby with Adam in our motel (she was such an awesome help!)

Inside the Conference Center during our tour

On top of the Conference Center

View of Salt Lake Temple

Adam loved this train (the Dinky Engine) and was very sad he couldn't get any closer

Noah playing Tarzan

Elsie on Great-Grandma's porch

Adam loving City Park

Brad (in the red shorts) getting ready to jump off the highest platform at Lava Hot Springs (He did it too!)

Brad and the kids after playing in the foam sprayed by the Fire Dept. every 4th of July
(they loved it for about 2 minutes, then were done!)

Elsie with her towel turban (done by herself) at Lava Hot Springs

I wish we had better pics of Noah going down the slides-he went down all 4 (even the biggest ones!) more than once!

It hailed "Sonic ice" sized hail the night before the parade! Luckily it was pretty nice the next day!

Noah caught some Harry Potter glasses from the library float and thought they were awesome-we thought so too!

The kids riding the mini Ferris Wheel at the Carnival (which was free, by the way-all of the activities were! Woo hoo for small town celebrations!)

This old tow truck was made up to look like Mater-we had to get a picture! The kids thought it was so cool!

There were so many good pics, we wish we could've posted all of them!

Idaho/Utah trip

Hi all! We are back from our trip and have a few pics to share! Actually, we have about 500 pics, but thought we'd just share a few :) We started out the trip pretty eventful, after leaving ON TIME, we ended up in North Phoenix for 8 hours while awaiting a new radiator-yeah! Luckily, our friends the Maddox's and Tryk's rescued us and we were able to hang out at the Tryk's house for most of that time-a great impromptu visit, and we were very greatful for them! After getting our new radiator, we were on our way!
Until we hit a HUGE traffic jam on our way to Flagstaff-what should've taken about an hour and a half ended up taking 3-argh! The kids were awesome (especially my neice Abby, who was a lot of fun for the kids to have around). We ended up staying in Kanab, at the Shiloh Inn-we were a little nervous, but it ended up being very nice, and we all got a great break (I mean, our room had a telephone in the bathroom, can you get any nicer than that?). On Sunday, we went to Gunnison, Ut, which is about 20 min. away from Manti, where my brother Jeremy and his family live-cute little town, and we had a nice visit-wished we could've stayed longer as we don't get to see them very often!
On Monday, we left for Soda Springs, but wanted to stop in Salt Lake City to walk around Temple Square, as the kids have never been there. Just after passing Provo, we are chugging along on the freeway and our tire explodes! We thought something fell out from under the hood, like our engine, so we pulled over (to the right, because there was no where else to go)-so Brad can get out and take a look. At this point, we are barely off the shoulder, and the kids are freaking out. Brad gets back in the car and proceeds to call USAA (bless them) to get roadside assistance and possibly police there with cones, so I lean into the back of the car and tell the kids we need to say a special prayer to protect us-they are all for that. Not 5 minutes after the prayer, a man stops his truck behind us and sets up cones-turns out he works for a auto company, and told Brad that it was just the shell of the tire that had exploded and he can drive behind us to the tire place (which, again we were blessed, as when Brad asked if there was a Discount Tire anywhere, since we still had a warranty, the man said-yeah at the next exit)-so he led us to Discount Tire, where they told us it would only be a 45 minute wait, and lo and behold, there's an Arctic Circle across the street, with a playground! Let's just say that whenever something did go wrong, we were so incredibly blessed, that it was hard not to just laugh at the situation (though, after awhile, I started feeling not so great, and we were all tired). But, eventually we had a nice visit in SLC, then made our way to Soda Springs.
We had a great visit with Great Grandma Larsen, and were welcomed by everyone the whole week. We got to see Uncle Gary and Aunt Jan (and their whole clan), and we got to go to Lava Hot Springs (awesome), have an amazing 4th of July with a fun parade, carnival, and even the day before the kids got to play in the foam sprayed by the Fire Dept.! We also got to see Uncle Craig and Aunt Savina (and cousin Brett on the way home, getting some awesome Kurus), went to church with Grandma to the nursing home to see Harry, and just played and played the whole week. Needless to say, we were exhausted by Monday and decided to head home, just in case something else happened on our return trip-turns out, Heavenly Father thought we'd had enough "fun" on the way up, and our trip home was about 5 hours shorter (drive time/time spent in the car) then on the way up (even with staying at my brother's house again Mon. night-thanks Jer and Janner!!).
We are so grateful to Great Grandma for letting us stay with her for so long, and for everyone else who helped us out on this trip-we will forever be thankful, and are so glad we were able to have a fun vacation!