Thinking of going "Private"

So I have debated about this for awhile now, and I know I put together one of the least exciting, or special blogs out there (especially compared to all of you guys), but I am thinking that I am going to change this to a private blog. The reason for the change is that I know that I love being a blog stalker, and thankfully I am harmless :), but I want to make sure that no one I don't know is checking out what is going on in our lives, and not that I include important details, but I don't want to worry if I am. So I will probably change this pretty soon, so let me know if you want me to add you to the "okay" list :).

Visiting my Fam

So these pictures are in no particular order, (I tried, but then I got confused :) ), but me and the boys went down to El Dorado Hills to visit my family for a little over a week, and we had so much fun! I still love WA, but seeing my family made me miss them more! Now I just need to figure out how I can make more than half of my family leave CA to move to WA. So above is one of the nights we all got together for dinner. Thanks, Mom, for some delicious food!

Here is the other half of the table. Not the most flattering of anyone, but who cares :).

Unfortunately I picked a bad weather week to visit. I left pretty nice weather in WA to come down to wind and rain. On Saturday the rain let up and my dad and the boys went outside to pick up sticks that were all over the place from the storm. Hanging out with "Cuppy" and putting sticks in buckets is the ultimate treat.

Here is lovely ol' Samson. Don't you love his gigantic mole on his chin? He is so ugly that he is almost cute, and definitely has a great personality to back it all up. Chase never really warmed up to him, but Kai loved "Fuff" (for "ruff ruff" like a dog says).

Here is Austin, my goofiest brother in law. I love his pose with his son Levi smashed in his legs...totally Austin!

This is adorable Makaela, who is Megan and Austin's oldest. She is soooo cute with her little voice and the funniest, most girly mannerisms. Makaela is one of the main reasons I would like to have a little girl someday.

And here is Levi in a more flattering picture. We celebrated his first birthday all together and he loved destroying his cake.

This is my newest little neice, Kyleigh. She is my brother, Adam's daughter, and she is soooo cute I couldn't get enough of her. I was glad that I was able to go down there and finally meet her!

This is Cortnie and her little gal Kyleigh. I loved getting to know Cortnie better and am so thankful that she is my sister now!

And this is my little brother Adam with Kyleigh. I love how Megan had to come and jazz up the picture :)

Chase loved playing with Uncle Adam. We didn't get to see Adam too much since he had to work a lot, but when he came over it was all fun and games. Chase and Makaela especially loved when Adam would take them for "airplane rides" around the house.

I just had to post this picture of Kai with his pouty face. I think he was mad that a cousin of his had swiped his toy.

I loved getting to hang out with my mom a lot this visit, since she no longer is having to work. I probably chatted her ears off, but I loved hanging out again.

So Megan definitely got more of the good looks in our fam, but I thought this picture was really good of her, and I LOVE how her husband snuck up behind us, without us knowing. I wouldn't have noticed his tiny face back there if he hadn't pointed it out to us afterwards.

Anyway, we sure missed Nathan while we were away, and are very grateful to be back home and back with him. I miss my family a ton, but look forward to seeing them again when we go to see Devin off on his mission at the end of the Summer. I love you guys!

Couch = Trampoline

We love our couch. Not only did we get it for free several years ago, but it matches our decor; and since it was free I let our kids get away with almost everything on it. Chase especially likes the couch and does all kinds of acrobatics on it, and jumping off of it. Unfortunately I didn't catch one of his great stunts while filming tonight, but you get the picture. I also apologize that half of the things I am saying don't come out right, and Kai keeps saying "help me" throughout it. (He does that to copy his brother, who will always put himself in a position where he looks like he is falling or trapped and will say "help me"...so now Kai says "help me, help me" too). Hope you enjoy their little entertainment. I especially like Chase's legs flying across the screen at the very end. :)

The Hunt for our Christmas Tree

So I probably shouldn't title this entry as a "hunt" because our tree ended up being an easy find. We had in mind to go up in a more mountainous area to cut down our tree, but had promised our boys that we would look at trees after their afternoon nap on Friday, and decided to go around the corner to a u-cut place that was in someone's very large backyard. However, this little u-cut place off of 36th Ave in Edgewood was very impressive, with a large choice of perfect looking, affordable trees, it just took us some time to find the most absolute perfect one in both of our eyes (I like taller and skinnier trees, Nathan likes shorter and bushier with not a hole to be seen).
Of course, me being goofy since I rarely like to take a serious picture (I am not the most photogenic so I might as well look like I am not trying to look good, haha). At least it looks like we are in a forest, huh?

Ok, I guess I am being serious in this picture, and it turned out ok. Too bad Kai has his "bobbie" in (as he calls it), and Chase is doing his "cheese" smile :).

Look at my man sporting a saw...so masculine :)!

And after, to make the experience even more perfect for the boys, they each got a candy cane...something Chase has been wanting for weeks! (You would think that I would have bought him one since they are so cheap and he has wanted one for awhile, but I am a bad mom, so that's why he had to wait until now to be given one for free ;) ).

Chase wanted to save his candy cane until we got home, (he loves to plan and is often too practical, haha), but Kai on the other hand wants things IMMEDIATELY, and will let you know by screaming if you don't get him what he wants NOW. So he was happy to eat his candy cane right away.

And since the Christmas tree place was seriously only 3 minutes away, it sure didn't take us long to get it back home and put up. What fun...I am so happy it is the Christmas season!

Last, but not least, below is a video of Nathan holding our tree for it to have the loose needles (and bugs, hopefully) shaken off of the tree. Unfortunately I didn't start recording this earlier since seconds before I started filming Nathan lost his grip and the tree fell on top of him while it was being shaken. It was hard for him to get control of it again, but he did :). I just thought it was funny since both of our boys didn't like seeing their new tree get shaken to death.

Random Video Blog

I decided to video the boys playing today, and then got to looking at what was saved on our camera. I found this video of when me and the boys went down to visit my family in March of this year, and my sisters and I were trying to keep our older kids entertained. I guess all of the little guys, each of us have our youngest boys not represented, must have been napping. Anyway, seeing Megan dancing around with them, and then Kelli videotaping it made me miss my sisters even more. I wish we could all be hanging out at Mom and Dad's again tonight :). Oh well, someday :)This isn't that exciting of a video at all, but I realized that I hadn't posted a video of the boys for a way long time, and if Nathan's mom is looking at our blog every once in awhile still, well I thought she might enjoy seeing what they look and act like now. The weather outside was nice this morning, but started getting ugly this afternoon, so we used a box I got today in the mail as a bridge for the boys to drive their cars on. It is funny that the junkiest, lamest toys end up being the most fun.

Anyway, at least I posted something, cause lately I haven't been the best :)

Dirt and a Bumble Bee

Ok, so none of these pictures turned out great...oh well, but here are what the boys ended up being for this year's Halloween. Last night was our ward's Trunk or Treat, and Chase chose to be dirt this year (even after I gave him so many clever, fun, boy costume ideas), and Kai had to be a bee since he is too young to tell me what he wanted to be. I had a difficult time thinking of how we could make Chase look like dirt, and not a poop, and you see the result. We put a little plant on his head to look like it was growing from the dirt, put cocoa on his face to look dirty, and made a sign that says "Can you DIG it? I wanted to be DIRT" and had a garden shovel that can go in and out of the back of it.

Kai doesn't look that cute here, but he sure was cute as he walked around later that night and his little chubby face was hidden back in his big bee head.

So tonight, Halloween night, we will be joining Nathan's sister's family and having pizza and then going Trick or Treating around their neighborhood. Hopefully the weather (and our boys) will cooperate! :)

FHE: Pumpkin Carving

This last Monday, as a tradition of ours, we carved pumpkins since Halloween was later in the week. The boys loved getting to stay up late, and the privilege of getting to sit on the table, a rare occasion, and watch Dad carve out the "yucky stuff" and see Mom carve out the faces. They loved smacking the "yucky stuff" and helping separate the seeds from it.

Don't you love Kai's "smile" haha.

And here are the finished products. Happy Halloween!