Unsuccessful photo shoot.

All I wanted was four smiling children at the same time, is that too much to ask? Last minute Christmas card photos are not easy.

Potty-trained haircut boy & his bike-wreck brother

Above is a shot of the old Sam, very hairy, and wearing a diaper while napping in a baby walker (taken last week). Below is today's Sam including big-boy underwear and a nice short haircut (we tried that Cookie Cutters haircut place ... it was very fun for him as opposed to the temper tantrum haircut experience that we usually have).

And here's poor Nathan. He had a pretty horrible bike accident on Saturday. He hit his mouth so hard that his tooth was stuck in his lip and we couldn't get it off (I say "we", but I mean Brent. I was in the next room trying not to throw-up and pass out at the time ... it looked pretty bad all swollen up and bleeding). Instacare took care of that for us and now we just have to wait for all his battle wounds to heal. Nathan has had his fill of medical attention lately, eh? Good to see him

smiling.

How sweet!

What a sweet little baby boy! Okay, he's not so little, but he is sweet. Here's some shots from last Sunday when Brent was playing Primary songs on the guitar for the kiddos. We love the peaceful moments like this.

Sorting candy!

This year's Halloween line up ...

Harry, I mean Nathan, had a lovely Halloween, beginning with a fun costume parade at school. Jasmine, I mean Becca, enjoyed her party at Tecia's preschool. Aladdin, I mean Sam, was jealous of both of them but he and Mommy had a fine time constructing him a hat from some red fabric and a sour cream carton. Peapod, I mean Owen, was just plain cute all day.

Brent and I put on the only costumes we have ... sorry to not be more original.

Happy Fall!

Happy fall, everyone! This is my favorite time of year. I've been doing a lot of canning. Today we got some material to make Halloween costumes ... check back to the blog in a few weeks to see how they turn out. Yesterday we picked the pumpkins from our garden ... not a bad harvest, eh? One of the little orange balls in the center back is actually Owen, not a pumpkin (he's just wearing an orange shirt).

Choo choo!

3 cute kids riding the train at Cornbellys ...

Cornbellys

We visited Cornbellys last weekend ... the corn maze (and stuff) that Thanksgiving Point puts on each fall. Here are a few highlighs. First stop, the giant rocking chair.

What makes a little girl happier than dressing like a princess and sitting in a big pumpkin carriage with red velvet seats?

Cute farmers!

There's a little boy somewhere under all that chocolate pudding.

The ZOO!!!!

There is one very nice thing about spending time at Primary Children's Hospital. You get a free pass to go to the zoo whenever you want. We did this on my birthday a couple weeks back.

You can't see the elephant in the above picture, can you? Well, if not, here's three cute little monkies to look at.

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Happy 6th birthday, Nathan! Here's our Darth Vader cake (and our wierd Star Wars cake that looks like a blob from some strange planet ... Sam called it a "moon rock" cake.)

School Days

Here are a couple of cute kids on their first day of school. Nathan's was taken last Tuesday (he was a week late starting because of his stay in Primary Childrens Hospital). He's enjoying kindergarten, although he gets a little bored with learning the sounds of letters and counting to 10 (he prefers long addition and subtraction and reading Harry Potter books).

Becca started the week before Nathan at Tecia's preschool in our neighborhood. She loves Tecia, her friend Mia, coloring, and doing crafts and activities. She is learning the same things that Nathan's kindergarten class is learning. Hmm.

And just in case you didn't get his e-mail updates, here's Nathan in the hospital recovering from a pretty substantial problem. In the middle of the night on the 20th, he started throwing up lots and lots of blood. The ambulance brought him here for blood transfusions and to figure out the cause of the problem, and we stayed for 8 days. He has portal hypertension (a clot in his portal vein) that had resulted in "bleeding esophageal varices" (bleeding veins in his esophagus). They fixed what they could the first time they put a scope down, but we'll be back in tomorrow for another scope. We appreciate everyone's prayers. This has not been Nathan's favorite experience in life, although as you can see from the pictures, there's nothing wrong with his brain ... he played board games non-stop in the hospital after he came-to. Well, until he discovered their PlayStation.

Nathan & Becca fed us dinner on Thursday

Nathan and Becca with their Silver Lake Flats fish. Yum!

Camping Trip

This week we camped at Granite Flats campground up American Fork canyon. In the morning we fished at Silver Lake Flats. It was beautiful, and the kids were very successful. They caught their limit within an hour.


And the first thing we did when we got home was throw all four of 'em in the tub ....