Grandparent visit - again! Woweee!!!

My dad and Gail were in Aurora this weekend with my Grandma so they decided to bring her on over with them this morning to watch the kids in their Primary Program. We were so happy they came. The kids did a really great job with all of the songs and their parts. They weren't even nervous this year! I just LOVE all of the songs they sang about our Savior. I always feel the spirit through their sweet voices.

Afterward we came to our house and ate and then my Grandma started playing a song on our little piano. It was really sweet. She said it was one of her and my Grandpa's favorites - "Under the Apple Tree" - I think that's the name. It was really enjoyable watching her play.
Dadio and his sweet mom. :)
Katelin couldn't get enough of her Great Grandma Ottley, she just talked and talked to her. It was really sweet.

My Grandma kept laughing at how weird her son is! Haha! We love it! Kaleb always has to get his wrestle time in.
Magic tricks with Grandpa Ottley,
AND Kaiya! Wala!!! A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!!
Grandma was there too, I didn't get her picture this time - too quick of a visit I guess - or she's just not as weird as my dad, us normal people never make it on these things. Hehehe.

Pumpkin Expressions

Happy Halloween!!!! Burke and Kaleb carved all of these yesterday! I was SO impressed. And I love how Burke cleverly thought of stringing the Christmas lights through each of them to light them all up. Love it!

School Halloween Parade

I think I get more excited each year about Halloween and the whole dress-up thing. Because they are more excited about it and have an idea of who they even want to be. Katelin has caught on quickly because of the older two - she really wanted to be a ladybug. Luckily my friend had a ladybug costume - whew! Kaiya is Little Bo Peep - or Mary Had a Little Lamb - whichever (some friends in our ward gave us all of their dress up clothes, most the mom had made! This was one of them - so cute) and she grabbed a cute little lamb she had- and Kaleb decided on a Wizard, so I made his robe and Burke made the hat. They also got a skinny branch off of one of our trees and carved it into a wand. He loved it.

Sooo, these pictures are backwards, but hey - here they are!
Kaiya and her sweet teacher, Mrs. Hunt - or Cruella Deville.

I had to get a close up of her sweet face. She was excited she got to wear a little blush and lip stick.


Katelin and Peter (a little boy I watch in the mornings) all ready to head over to the school and watch the parade.

Their school is so small, I felt like it was over in 2 minutes, it probably really was. They even turned around and past us again.

Oh, the fun that was had

Before Kaleb's soccer game last week we decided to play in the leaves. Kaiya played and played. She was having the time of her life.

I had to make a little collage of her fun: What goes up...

Katelin got a few up.
Kaleb even buried himself for about a minute and then he ran off to watch the other teams playing.

Kaiya, still playing! She was just loving this, so cute!
Kaleb's team. They got new shirts - they are now the Ravens. Their last games are today and tomorrow. Kaleb has been sick since Saturday night! He won't be able to go today, I'm pretty sure he's on the mend today - so hopefully he'll be able to play tomorrow. Fingers crossed!!

Me and Kate

Last week Katelin and I went to the "beach" here in Green River while the kids were in school. She begged to play in the sand. So we did. It was really so much fun. We will be doing that again for sure. The kids were jealous when they heard we went, so we need to take them along too.


This flipped when I added it in here and it won't let me rotate it back!!!! It is driving me crazy to look at it, but I had to add it. I made a big heart with Kate and mom written in the middle. She liked it, but wanted to destroy it soon after by walking all over it. Too much fun!



Ha! I thought these two were funny together.
I love hanging out with sweet little Katelin.

Rockers

Katelin has been on a band hero kick this week. We've played it together and when Peter came over yesterday they decided to play it together also. I just put them both on beginner and they played away.



They took turns picking songs, it was really fun watching them play. Too cute!

FHE

Last night Kaleb was in charge of the lesson. He always gets so excited, so it's fun when he's in charge. He had Kaiya help him out. They did it on littering and how we shouldn't do it! He told us about it while Kaiya walked around throwing cotton all over the floor. While she did this she held up a sign that said " do not litter", then they both picked it all up. We decided to put their lesson into action and take them out to Pirate Avenue, the street that leads up to the High School. I gave them each a little Wal-mart bag to put their trash in. We drove down the street, with the headlights on - it was getting dark - and when we'd see trash, Burke would stop and they would hop out and grab it. All of their bags were full by the end. It was like Trick - or - Treating for trash!!! It was great! They had such good attitudes about it and had a lot of fun cleaning up the road. I was so proud of them for doing service with a SMILE. Fun FHE for sure! So if you're looking for an easy idea, there ya go - we were thinking of going to clean up the park, but then there was the temptation of playing and it was late, so yah, it was the perfect place.

Picture project

My sis-in-law, Erin, sent us some pictures of little Quentin the other day. I've been wanting to have somewhere we could display pictures of family, since we're far away it would be fun to see them more often, even if it is just in pictures! SO, I've had this "family and friends forever" wall hanging since we got married. I decided to add some strips of ribbon to it and hang pictures of family and friends with clothes pins. I just love walking down the hallway and seeing all of their smiling faces and so do the kids. It's a hit!
Kaleb and Kaiya came running to me after we got the pictures up there and informed me that Katelin wasn't in any of the pictures! So, we fixed that right away and added this little picture of her with her cousin Reagan at Christmas playing with toys. That's the one she is pointing to here. Glad she's happy. :) Sometimes she likes to get a stool or a chair to get up close to all of the pictures. I'm so glad they are all enjoying it.
It's nice because we can just change pictures out every once in a while as we get new ones. Love it!

1 Hour Day

So yesterday, I wanted to spice up our day a bit. So while the kids were watching their morning cartoons, I put my thinking cap on and it worked! I came up with the 1 hour day. I made a list of everything that we could do together that day and we would all do each thing for 1 hour. I have to say, it was a hit! We really should do it every Saturday if we can because it kept the day running smoothly and we got a lot accomplished. After they had some cartoon time and got dressed, we started - about 10:00 am.

First we did cleaning hour - they worked pretty much the whole time and whatever I asked of them, it was great. I have to get that done first or else I can't function to do anything else.

Then we had lunch - not for an hour - just as long as it took.

We had creative hour - I sewed Kaleb's Wizard costume and Burke taught the kids some art stuff. It was pretty intense, they got a lot of it, but mostly just loved watching Burke draw. They were amazed at what came out of that pencil of his. Really cute.

Kaleb suggested we throw in a playtime hour - so heck - we did! They were concerned when something they wanted to do wasn't on "the list". So I told them - get a pen and write it on there. That solved that - BRILLIANT!

We had work out hour - went to the High School and played with the volleyballs - Katelin's favorite thing to do.

Cooking hour - we made potato soup, rolls and cinnamon rolls. YUMMO!

Reading hour - wow, that was so great. Just sitting and reading/ looking at magazines. That was really nice.

Burke and Kaleb threw in some Wii time too, which was great for them.

We really need to do that again. It made the day so fun and when it's written down the kids jump on the idea for some reason. They just like that stuff.

Homework time

The other day the kids were doing their homework. I just wanted to capture the moment.

Katelin wanted to do homework too. So she colored at the table while they worked. Hopefully she'll always like homework like Kaiya.
Kaiya really loves to do work. They have a packet each week they need to do - one page a day. She always does it all in one day, because it's just never enough. And when Kaleb has more than her, she asks what else she can do - no fair that he has more!
I love how disgusted Kaleb looks. He is saying how it's no fair that Kaiya's homework is SO easy! He forgets that he used to be in 1st grade too and it was just the same then.
They are growing up so fast. It's really fun to see them learning new things. Kaleb is doing awesome at his times tables and is doing great at learning cursive also. They learn a bunch of new things in the third grade! I can't believe it.

Pretty Pumpkins

The pumpkin patch owners here let any one pick pumpkins for free! I needed some for a Stake dance we're hosting next week and then some are just for carving fun. These pictures are out of order, but have fun looking at them anyway. :)


I loved watching the kids draw their designs on their pumpkins. They were all so into it.







AND we found this YUMMY pumpkin seed recipe. Give it a try Mmmmmm. Click HERE.

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa Ottley

We had visitors!!! We had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa. We don't get many visitors out here unless it's Melon Days, of course, so it was fun to have them come and stay with us for the weekend.

The kids have to wrestle with my dad as much as possible until he leaves. I think he's winning.
Saturday morning we had breakfast and then headed out to the Geyser. They hadn't seen it yet. Of course it didn't go off, but it was a beautiful day so it was still really fun. I love going here, it is so amazing to me what the geyser does to these rocks. It's so cool looking.

My dad likes to take pictures non-stop like me.
There was a man there with his dog. It was super nice and afraid of Katelin and Sally. Katelin just chased that dog all over. It was so funny to watch.
There was also sliding,
mud writing,
and rock picking.

Sally was a mess.
My dad wanted to jump like the kids and almost died. Haha, he's not as young as he used to be, but he tries!
After lunch the volleyball games began. Burke was there from 1:00 - 9:00. It was a LONG day for him. We went to a couple of the games. We came and went as we pleased.
They play really loud music while the volleyball players are warming up at the beginning. Katelin is saying "IT'S TOO LOUD!!!"
On Sunday they came to church with us. I had been asked to speak in Sacrament meeting on the First Article of Faith. So it was fun to have them there. And I really enjoyed studying for this talk. I almost had my kids talked into coming up and reciting the 1st A of F for me at the start of my talk, but they decided not to. That's OK, they get their turn to say parts in the primary program at the end of the month.

THEN, we pretended it was their birthday's since we missed theirs and had a cake. We didn't have regular candles for the cake, so we used all of the numbers we had. They didn't seem to mind! They just liked blowing out those candles.
Especially my dad. He kept going.
Happy belated Birthday!!!
Thanks for coming, we loved having you!!!!!!!!!!!

I added some other pictures of the geyser we visited on my Picture This blog, if you're interested.