Nan turns 40!

It was Nan's 40th birthday on October 4th, so of course we had to have a party!! Because the weather is so beautiful in October we were just going to have it in our backyard. But it decided to rain all day!! It stopped in the late afternoon so we tried being optimistic and hung up the pictures of Nan we had blown up. But as soon as we did it started raining again. The umbrella over the picture was Tori's idea, and it worked great lol. We still had tons of fun though. We had about 55 people here. I love having our house full of good friends and lots of yummy food, so I was so excited that Scott and Nan let us have a party for her here! We had carne asada and everyone brought yummy mexican food to go with it.

Hopefully Nan had a fantastic 40th birthday!

Baseball Champions

Kade had a really great fall ball season. His team was undefeated until their last game of the season. They ended up in the championship game still though and won. Kade's favorite position is catcher, but they really needed him at 3rd. He made some great plays and was really proud of himself. He works so very hard at baseball. By the end of the season he had the most hits and the best batting average of anyone on the team. Good job son, I'm so proud of you!

Bees

Kade had to do a project at school and he came up with the idea to do it about bees. Our good friend happens to be a beekeeper so Kade called him to see if he could come interview him. Well, he got to do a lot more than just interview him. He got to wear the whole "bee keeper get up" and smoke the bees so they could take out the honey. He had so much fun and brought us home two jars of fresh honey.

p.s. he got an "A" on his project :)

Mermen

Our super good friends that lived in our neighborhood moved. Our kids are all best friends and have pretty much grown up at each other's houses. We are so sad that they moved, but thankfully they aren't that far away :)

Anyway, while the girls and I were moving some stuff over to the new house, the boys stayed home and played. This is what I saw when I drove into our neighborhood. They totally cracked me up when I was feeling so sad. They said they are mermen and that that's going to be their Halloween costume. Which is totally fine with me because a garbage bag and some duct tape is CHEAP!!

Veronica

A friend of Baylee's decided to go to girls camp with our ward this summer. After camp she wanted to take the missionary discussions and we were blessed to get to do them at our house with her. She was baptized on September 7th. We are so proud of her and have absolutely loved having her in our home and see her testimony grow!

Bill

My brother Jay called my a while back and said he had bought a horse for Baylee. I was a little shocked to say the least! He bought it actually to be a show horse and wanted Bay to be the one to work with him and show him. Of course she was totally on board with the idea! She spent one weekend over there working with him, but has been so busy she hasn't been back. I wish he didn't live so far away so she could be there more! But she loved it and really hopes it's going to work out!

This isn't "Bill" the show horse. This is Bah Rani another one of Jay's horses.

BFF's

Two of my best friends also happen to have daughters that are Baylee's BFF's. So we decided to take them to Cedar City and see Shakespeare for a quick girls trip. We saw Romeo and Juliet because that is a play they have to read in 9th grade. We had so much fun, I sure love these girls! ( And their moms!)

Lockers

Tori was SO excited to get a locker. She had all sorts of things to decorate it with. She thought it was so cool and insisted I take a picture of her with her first locker.

Bay, on the other hand didn't think it was so cool! I forced her to let me take her picture with her locker though :)

Ah Panguitch

Trav did another century bike ride in Panguitch. It was beautiful and I got to be his support. It was super hard and he wanted to quit a few times. But he finished it and I was so proud of him! He did it with Mark Howard and Jacoy and Ben Robinson.

Labor Day

We got to spend Labor Day at Lake Powell. The weather was perfect and the water was so warm!

We went with Ken, Cindy, and Nick. Mom and Dad, and Wade. Barry and Brittany came for a day with their cute baby too.

It was Cole's turn to learn how to ski this year. Everyone on the houseboat came out to watch the drama. He screamed and cried and absolutely refused to do it. But we tried lol

Not far from where we were camping was the perfect spot to cliff jump.

This is my super cool nephew Nick. He went much higher than any of the other kids dared go.

Mark threatened me if Jake got hurt while he was with us, he could never go again. So I was a little nervous about him cliff jumping :)

Bay is so much more brave than I am!

Kade really wanted to wakeboard this year. He tried and tried but couldn't make it up. Next year for sure he will be awesome!

Baylee is getting so good at wake boarding. It's kind of a sisterly competition between the girls. Tori started going in and out of the wake, so Bay tried really hard to do it too! Tori even tried jumping but couldn't quite get it.

Oh how Bay loves to ride the tube with her cousins. They aren't afraid to be wild on the tube just like Baylee. She is so fearless! At one point they flipped and Bay was doing a handstand. Nick grabbed her and pulled her back down, but she didn't fall off!

Tori, on the other hand, is not nearly as brave as Baylee. She likes it, but only to a point!

And the boys... well Cole rode the tube when we forced him to with Travis, me, and Cindy's dog. We went SO slow and he screamed the entire time! Definitely not a brave kid on the water. Kade isn't a big fan of going fast either thought.

We took Jake with us to Lake Powell. Him and Bay are BFF's and all the kids love having him around!

Student council elections x2

It has busy around here since school started! Lots and lots of baseball of course. Tori started cheerleading practices 3 days a week after school. Baylee has been preparing for 2 different orchestra auditions. And Cole has been trying to adjust to 1st grade!

This year when student council elections came up, both girls decided to run. So, of course, that was twice the posters lol. Bay ran for historian, Tori for 6th grade rep. Both girls won (thank goodness!) I was secretly really worried about whether or not Tori would win, only because there was 9 6th graders running and only 3 would win. But thankfully her and one of her best friends pulled it off. Bay ran uncontested which was very nice! Not nearly as stressful as in years past.

Now that the girls are on student council they go to school at 7:45 3 days a week. That means for Tori 9 hours at school 3 days a week. I am really proud of my girls and how hard they are working in middle school!