Halloween, Polar Express & Fun in the snow!

Halloween

Halloween was a little stressful this year. I decided I wanted to do a theme and I thought we had the perfect amount of people in our family to do a Wizard of Oz theme! Makenna REALLY wanted to be the witch but I couldn't find a Dorothy outfit for me that wasn't outrageously priced! So I decided she would be Dorothy and I would be the witch. Anthon was the Scarecrow, McKay the Tin Man & Mason the Lion.
Luckily, Makenna has a friend who has a Halloween birthday and they did a costume party. So...Makenna got to be a witch for that! She LOVED it!

We carved pumpkins for our FHE activity one night. The kids were a little more willing to get their hands dirty this time =).

Daddy and Makenna made a ghost!
McKay and I made a spider!

Mason didn't participate. He was sick and fell asleep in his high chair
Our pumpkins only lasted one night. The next morning, our spider's legs were shriveled =(
The Tin Man, Lion and Dorothy

The Polar Express

November 14th we took a drive up to Williams, AZ with most of my family to ride the Polar Express. You take an hour and a half long ride and they read the book to you and give you hot chocolate and cookies. At one point, you get to "the north pole" (you don't get out) and Santa gets on the train and hands out bells to everyone. Everyone goes in their pajamas, it's really cute!
We got there a little early but they had stuff to do. They have an area where you can take pictures with Santa. Here is ours. The only ones missing are Emily and her hubby Sam and their daughter Brooklee.

All of my kiddos look a little freaky in this pic, but it's the only shot we got with everyone looking at the camera!

They also had room where you can write a letter to Santa and give it to Mrs. Claus.

Mrs. Claus is reading Makenna and McKay's letters to Santa. McKay was too busy worrying about missing the train to pay any attention to Mrs. Claus =)

Getting ready to board the train.
Aubrey, Austin, Aunt Julie, McKay & Makenna

Waiting to get going!
McKay was happy after he got his hot chocolate and cookie
After Santa gave them their bells!
Mason LOVED his bell!
Snow Day

Every year, a group of businesses get together and bring snow down from up north. They set up little booths off to the side and sell food and hot chocolate and stuff and advertise their businesses. It's really fun!

We forgot their gloves so they didn't play in the snow very long =(

Thanksgiving

I didn't take any pictures of our Thanksgiving but we had a great time. We spent this Thanksgiving with Anthon's family. We had dinner at his Uncle Matt's house. We ate, we talked, we laughed and then we slept. Well, I slept. Anthon let me take a 4 hour nap since I was going to go stand in line at midnight for some Black Friday shopping. Yes, I know you can do it online! But I like being out there with all the crazies!! =) I got some good deals and got about 80% of my Christmas shopping done. I was pleased =)

Anyway, It's been crazy around here lately but I will try harder to keep up on my blogging and to keep up with everyone else's =).

Catching up!

Don't worry, I won't talk a lot! This will mostly be pictures.
As you know, McKay turned 3 in September! For his birthday Anthon took him to a Diamondbacks game. They bought hats before the game and McKay LOVED his!!

Mr. Cool =)

Digging into his birthday cupcake. Those Costco cupcakes are HUGE! But they are SO good!

Can't believe my boy is 3! Stupid me, I forgot to take pictures of his swim party =( So this is pretty much all I got. Happy birthday MacMan!!


Some good friends of ours in the ward, the Pies, invited us to go to Disneyland with them and Danielle's parents. We haven't ever taken the kids before and thought it would be fun so we went. It was AWESOME! The kids LOVED it! Anyway, we got a 3 day park hopper pass. We left on the 7th of October and got back on the 11th. We didn't take Mason with us =(. My wonderful parents watched him while we were gone. I cried 7 times the day we left him....
Thanks for watching him mom and dad!!!

Left to right

Madison, Larry, Danielle, Brady, Nathan, Makenna, Anthon & McKay.
Everyone was SO tired by the end of the day! Can you tell

Larry and Brady were nice enough to watch our kids for us several times while rode the bigger rides together. Thanks you guys!!!

Grizzly River Run.

We were able to get Makenna on the Grizzly River Run once but the second time they wouldn't let her on =( She was SO sad!

On Dumbo

Anthon and Nathan waiting to watch the 3D Bugs Life movie

McKay was asleep and didn't get to see Sully =(

On the Monorail headed to the Rain Forest Cafe

The Mr. Toad ride
Bumper cars
Danielle
Makenna, Madi & McKay

On the tram that took us into the park (yeah, these pictures are not in order =))

When we first got to Cali on Wednesday, we had a little bit of time before we met Anthon's cousins for dinner. So, we went to beach. The kids saw all of the oil rigs out in the ocean and they thought they were boats with pirates in them. It was funny because they kept saying that they were going to swim out there and get the pirates.
Makenna's favorite rides were Splash Mountain and Space Mountain. Yeah, Space Mountain!! The whole time I was riding it I kept thinking "Holy Cow, I can't believe Makenna rode this!!" She loved it though. The only one she didn't like was Tower of Terror....I don't blame her! I loved it but I totally hurt my throat from screaming so much!
McKay's favorite rides were Pirates of the Caribbean & the Buzz Lightyear ride.

On the drive home they kept asking if they could go on the rides again and were so bummed when we told them that we were going home. We are already saving up for our next trip to Disneyland. Hopefully it won't be long!

Thank you Pies family for the wonderful time!!! It was AWESOME!

Happy Birthday Macman!!

At 5:45 pm today McKay will be exactly 3 years old. He can be a handful sometimes but boy do we love him. He can ALWAYS make us laugh and he can be so stinkin' sweet too. He always tells me how pretty I am =) (He's too young to know any different ;o)). He is such a fun little boy and I am so thankful have him. I honestly can't imagine our lives without him!
Here are just a few pictures of his life so far.

2005

Not a very good picture but this was taken a few hours after he was born. He was the chunkiest newborn I have ever seen! I was seriously in shock when I first saw him. It took me a minute to realize he was mine! Haha! He was two weeks late (yeah, NOT FUN!) and weighed 9 lbs 8 oz!! He has been my biggest baby so far.
2006

I had to put this one in because of how much he looks like Mason in this picture! It's CRAZY!!2006

We have been really blessed with such smiley & happy babies.
2007 2008
Cute picture of his Chubby cheeks =)2009

Happy birthday McKay! You are such a sweet and fun little boy. Mommy and Daddy love you very much!!

Just another manic......Tuesday

So, I mentioned in my last post that Mason had his 6 month doctor's appointment. Well, all 3 of my kids have HUGE heads. It has always been that way. But with Mason, the doctor was a little concerned. Not that it was big but that it was growing faster than normal. She showed me the chart and in his last two visits his head has grown rather quickly.

Here is a picture of his cute little face and HUGE noggin :o)

Anyway, she told me that she wanted to have him get a head ultrasound just to make sure there wasn't too much fluid in his head. So I scheduled an appointment for the next day over at Banner Desert. The guy on the phone told me to go to the Outpatient area and that's where he would get his ultrasound. So, the next day, left my house at 10:00 am so I could get there in time for his 10:30 appointment. I drove around the hospital once and saw absolutely no signs with outpatient on them. So, I drove around the hospital again, just in case, and still...nothing. So I stopped and asked someone who works there and the guy told me to park in the parking garage and that the outpatient area was on the second floor "You will see a bunch of signs pointing the way" he said. Pshaw, right! I parked in the garage, not knowing what floor I was on because, you know, they don't exactly go by each floor. So, I get all my kids out of the car and see a stair case in the corner of the level just under me. So I walk down there thinking there would be an elevator...Nope. So, I walked back up a level and then some and realized I was already on the second floor. So, I go inside and guess what....there were no signs that said outpatient anywhere. So, I am walking around trying to find someone to ask and finally someone stops to help. He tells me to go back the way I came from and go into suite 219 or something like that. I get there, and the lady tells me I'm in the wrong place. She tells me to back through the hall (where I had just come from) and go to the ultrasound area. So, I finally found it but I was a half hour late to the appointment. Luckily, they still took me in.
So, when I got out, Anthon called and asked if I wanted to go to lunch with him since I was half way to his work place anyway. So, we met at Carl's Jr. and had lunch. Right as we were about to leave, McKay, who running back and forth on the long bench seat after I told him to stop, tripped on his shoes and went face first into the window sill. We thought, at first, that maybe it wasn't that bad but then he started screaming and we saw that he had blood EVERYWHERE! He was bleeding out of both his nostrils and his mouth. Everyone was watching as we tried to get him to calm down and clean things up. It took us a while to get the bleeding to slow down but he kept screaming every time we tried to touch him. He wouldn't let us touch his nose and I was worried that maybe he broke it. After I put him in his car seat, I checked his mouth and saw that he had torn his upper labial frenulum. It's that little piece of skin that connects the upper lip to the gums. He still wasn't letting me touch his nose and he kept saying that it hurt so I called his doctor and scheduled an appointment. I had an hour and a half to kill before the appointment so I went and returned something at a store and then went to the library pick up a movie I had on hold.
While I was in the library, I was trying to get my stroller around a lady that was in the middle of the aisle and the front wheel of the stroller caught on one of the book shelves and Mason went face first into the tray in front of him. So, he starts screaming and crying and everyone is watching, and within 10 seconds I have a security guard there asking me if my son is the one making all that noise. He almost kicked me out of the library but fortunately Mason stopped crying a few seconds later. So, I went to check out my movie and some books and realized I didn't have my library card with me. I had left it in the car. So I had to leave all my stuff with one of the librarians while I took the kids back out to the car to get the card.
By this time I was on the verge of tears. I just wanted to go home and go to sleep and start a new day. Anyway, we took McKay to his appointment and everything was fine. He completely tore through his frenulum and cut part of his gums too but he didn't have a broken nose. It was just really swollen. So, I took the kids to the store to get McKay a treat for being such a good boy at his appointment and then went home.
When I got home I saw a note in my door saying that the bug guy had come but I missed him. He was supposed to spray inside the house :o(. So I called and rescheduled.
Anthon got home and while we were trying to think of what to make for dinner, Makenna and McKay were playing on the couch and McKay fell off and landed on his mouth and it started bleeding again!! It stopped quickly though. We gave the kids a bath and put them to bed. I had never been so glad for the day to be over!
Here are some pictures of my poor little boy. These were taken a day and a half after it happened so the swelling had actually gone down a bit by the time I took these.

He can NEVER keep his eyes open for pictures!! Haha

Side view of his poor little mouth

He/we have accidentally reopened the wound in his mouth a few times since the accident :o(. I'm sure it kills every time it happens too. He has been so good about it though.

Since I am talking about McKay, I thought I would add that he has finally reached the age where we trust him enough to let him play pbskids.org on the computer. Makenna was a little younger when she started but she has always been a little more careful with certain things than McKay has been.

He LOVES it!

PS - It took until Friday to get the results, but Mason is fine. Everything came out normal.

Who says 3's a crowd?

I have enjoyed having 3 children so far. It has been a little hard but not because of Mason. He has been the most amazing baby. He is so happy and smiley. McKay is going through his terrible 2s and has been since around the time I got pregnant. He turns 3 next month so that means it will stop, right? :o) He is still a really good little boy, he just gets a little whiney some times :o).
Really, the only thing that has been really different is loading 3 kids up in the car. Makenna buckles/unbuckles herself now so that makes it easier but it takes forever to get them all outside and into the car. I avoided going places where I have to run in just to get one thing or drop something off. I usually do that once Anthon gets home. Other than that. It has been fun being a mommy of 3. Makenna is already ready for the next one. She keeps asking when Mason is going to grow up so that we could have another baby. She wants a sister.

Mason is growing up so stinkin' fast it's crazy!! He is 7 months old! He is rolling all over the place, sitting up, talking (baby talk) and laughing and trying his hardest to crawl. He has been my slowest so far but I am OK with that. I like having a baby, so I am in no hurry for him to grow up. He is eating tons and LOVING baby food!


This is kind of a goofy picture of him but I wanted to get one of him eating. I think it's his favorite time of day :o). He eats 3 jars a day and still has his regular bottles!
I took him to his doctors appointment a couple weeks ago and here are his measurements at 6 1/2 (almost 7) months.

Weight: 17.15 lbs. 45%
Length: 26 inches 30% (she SAID 27 inches but wrote 26 so I don't know which one is correct)
Head: 18.25 inches 95%

Here are just some cute pictures of my little man.

Watching The Bachelorette at my mom's house.

Riding on the Arctic Cat in the back with the big kids. Well, he didn't actually ride back there. He sat there until we took off and then rode up front with my mom.

He is such a happy little boy and I am so glad to have him. He is so much fun. I honestly hate putting him down for bed because I miss him so much when he isn't around.

Special day

I haven't been very good about my blogging lately so there will be a few posts. So, here goes.
July 15th was a fun filled day for me. LONG...but fun.
I woke up that Tuesday and quickly got myself and the kids ready to make it to the Summer Movie Fun movie at 9:45 am. After the movie I hit the drive thru for lunch and drove over to my in-laws house to drop the kids off for the day. I left my in-laws house and headed straight for Snowflake. One of my best friends from high school, Jennifer, got baptized a year ago and was getting her endowments that day. I drove the 3 hours up, got dressed in the Sub and went into the temple.
It was such a great experience! I'm so glad I was able to be there with her. We have been friends since we both moved to AZ in the middle of 6th grade so it was really exciting to hear that she wanted be baptized. I love seeing how much having the gospel in her life has changed her. I'm very proud of her and I want her to know how much I love her!
Here are just a couple of pictures of us. They aren't the greatest but I couldn't find all my other pictures of us.

This is me and Jennifer at regionals for choir either our Junior or Senior year. I don't remember. I think it was our Senior year.
We liked to buy disposable cameras and go take random pictures and this is one of them. We were in Show Low, in front of one of the car dealerships.

I'm very proud of Jennifer. It hasn't been the easiest thing for her but she knows how much she is being blessed and how much she WILL be blessed for the choice she has made. I love you Jennifer!!!

So, right after the session, I left to come back home. I got back just in time to kiss Anthon hello and change into my Team Gryffindor shirt :o). I picked up my friend, Marla, and met my sister Amy and her husband at the movie theater to watch the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!!

It was a great movie and I had so much fun!! Even though Marla almost ripped my arm off when she got scared on one part of the movie :o) Haha!!
When I dropped Marla off at her house, we realized that her husband had accidentally locked her out of her house! She finally got in after about 45 minutes of trying. I finally got to bed at around 3:45 am and had to wake up with the kids at around 7:30. I was tired but I had fun!!

Recipe Blog

OK. I know it's been a while since I said I was doing a recipe blog. My camera has been acting up on me and I haven't been able to take pictures of the meals I have been making. My camera is now working again so I will be able to do more posts. Anyway, if you want to check out the blog, here is the address

southwestsizzle.blogspot.com

There aren't many recipes up yet but it's a start :o)

4th of July weekend

Anthon's making it a tradition to take a week off work between our birthdays. This was his second or third year, I can't remember. Anyway, Anthon's birthday was on the 29th of June and mine was on the 5th of July. I forgot to take pictures but we had a joint birthday party with some friends on the 27th. We went and watched Transformers 2 and then got together and played games and had cake. It was very fun! Thanks Danielle and Nathan for letting us use your house! (Ours is too small to have that many people over :o( )
Anyway, So Anthon had the 27th through the 6th off of work (today is his first day back). It was so nice.We went to Culver's on Anthon's birthday with some friends for FHE. I LOVE that place! It was fun and I bumped into my cousin, Cynthia, there. Tuesday, we went to the Summer Movie Fun. Wednesday we pretty much did nothing and just relaxed. Thursday we packed for our camping trip and Friday....well, that's when the fun began!
We left our house at 8:00 am to head up to Show Low to go camping at Fool's Hollow. We got there at around 10:15 (thanks to McKay who had to stop 3 times to go pee pee) and Fool's Hollow was full. I won't go into the whole story but we ended up going to EVERY camp site in Show Low, Blue Ridge, Pinetop/Lakeside and we even went up to Big Lake (up by Sunrise) and they were ALL full. We didn't know what else to do so Amy suggested we go to Vernon. Vernon is about 15-20 minutes outside of Show Low. Once we got there, we had to wait for 2 HOURS for the rest of the family to come up because we didn't know how to get to the camp site Amy was talking about. They finally got there and we made our way up to a camp site that I guess is used for the scouts or something. It was another 10 minutes on a very bumpy dirt road before we got to our camp site. And guess what time it was when we finally got there....6:30 PM!! We were in the car for more than 10 hours! looking for a place to camp! The kids did pretty good though. Mason didn't make a peep almost the entire time!!! He only started crying the last 10 minutes in the car and that was because he was hungry. He was so stinkin' good!!
Anyway, we were all pretty frustrated once we got there but after everything was set up and dinner was made, we relaxed and had an enjoyable evening.
We woke up pretty darn early on Saturday morning and spent almost the entire day playing around. We found a rope swing hanging from one of the trees and it kept the kids entertained for a while.

McKay kept saying (in a deep and goofy voice) "This. is. SOOO fun!" He loved the swing.

Makenna really enjoyed it too. She kept wanting to go back.

Anthon brought horse shoes, my dad brought cribbage and I brought a book so everyone was all set. It was very relaxing.
We had dinner at about 4:30 and then got ready to go into Show Low for the Fireworks at the High School. Of course, we HAD to take pictures of all the kids before we left!

Left to Right
Austin(sarah's), Brooklee(emily's), Hailey(sarah's), McKay, Makenna, Mason & Aubrey(sarah's)
All of my parents grandkids. Well, with one on the way.

I made matching bows for all the girls

We got to the high school a couple hours before the fireworks started so we walked around and looked at the booths they had set up and we had the kids play around on the bouncy castle thingys.
This was Mason's first fireworks show! He watched them for a little while and then went to sleep.

Waiting for the fireworks to start. We all look SO tired!
Playing with the light up toys my parents bought for them.

Watching the fireworks. SO cute!

I didn't take any pictures on Sunday :o(. It was a good day. We hung out and played games and ate. I ended up going in to Show Low to visit my BF from high school, Jennifer. She actually lives in Lindon which is about 10-15 minutes out of Show Low in the opposite direction. She gave me a haircut for my birthday. Thank you Jennifer!!!
Monday morning we packed up and left. It was a very fun weekend. I felt like we were roughing it but Anthon laughed at that. I am used to staying at Fool's Hollow where it is all paved and has toilets and showers and stuff so...I WAS roughing it. Even though we stayed in this...

My parents bought a new RV last week. It was SO nice!! It has a queen bed on one end and two sets of bunk beds on the other end. The table turns into a bed and the couch has a queen size hideabed. It holds 400lbs of water so we were still able to use the toilet and wash our hands and stuff. Anthon emailed his dad and said he was embarrassed of me because I asked them to turn on the generator so I could plug in my straight iron to straighten my hair.
OK, so maybe we weren't TOTALLY roughing it, but compared to Fool's Hollow......I personally think we were :o).