Ruby is 4

What makes you happy:  presents
Favorite food: yogurt and quesadillas
Favorite thing to do:  play toys
What are you really good at: opening presents

Favorite Movie: Frozen

Favorite TV Show: Bubble Guppies

Favorite color:  every kind of color
Favorite song:  Let it Go

Best friend: Kloey Boyd and Lizzy Wagner

What do you and your mom do together: go shoppin

What do you and your dad do together: help him do stuff

Favorite sport: you know those things that go in the snow (skiis)

Favorite place to go:  Grandma's House

Favorite animal: puppies and kitties

Favorite Book: Dog Tails

What do you want me to be when you grow up: a fish man or a pizza man

Aaron is 9

Sunday was Aaron's birthday.  We got Krispy Kreme's the night before and he opened his presents in the morning.  Then we had white sauce and noodles and his funfetti birthday cake and ice cream after church. This Friday he'll take a friend and his brothers and sister to laser tag

What makes you happy:  going to the Buffet
Favorite food: white sauce
Favorite thing to do:  soccer
What are you really good at: soccer

Favorite Movie: Charlotte's Web and Mom's Night Out

Favorite color:  blue
Favorite song:  Centuries by Fall Out Boy

Best friend: Cannon Dean and Tyson Pettingill

What do you and your mom do together: Eat

What do you and your dad do together: play

Favorite sport: soccer, football and Basketball

Favorite place to go:  Aliante Buffet

Favorite animal: Funny animals like blub-fish and goblin shark

Favorite Book: World records 2012

What do you want me to be when you grow up: A GIS or  NBA player

Camping

The kids had a half day on Thursday and no school Friday so we decided it would be the perfect time to go camping.  It was still pretty hot so we couldn't go to our usual Valley of Fire camp spot (plus that place isn't so magical for us since Seth fell off the mountain).  So we went to Mt. Charleston.  That was the first time we camped there overnight.  We had a great time.  We enjoyed the fire quite a bit since it was colder there.  We made tinfoil dinners and s'mores in a cone, as well as the usual roasted marshmallows and starburst.

It was windy but we didn't really notice how windy until we went to bed.  In our family prayer Danny asked that the wind would stop.  I knew that prayer probably wouldn't be answered the way we wanted it.  So I suggested in everyone's personal prayers that we ask that people will sleep soundly. That prayer was definitely answered because it felt like we were sleeping in a walmart bag with a fan on it! The wind was insane.  Bob and I were up most of the night.  But the kids all slept perfectly! Aaron and Seth woke up once but went right back to sleep.  Ruby, who hasn't slept through the night in 2 weeks since her surgery, begged to go to bed and fell asleep first and was the last to wake up.

The next morning we made another fire and made some hot chocolate in Danny's empty soda can because we forgot the pot. The kids shot airsoft guns and we went on a little hike.

Ruby lost her tonsils

Ruby had her tonsils and adenoids removed on September 12. Bob and I dropped the other kids at school and then drove to the Summerlin hospital.  She was a little nervous but did ok.  Her surgery only took about 25 minutes. Both the Doctor and Anesthesiologist commented on how enormous her tonsils were. She woke up and was happy.  She said her throat hurt one time, but other than that was happy and ate all day and even had chicken nuggets for dinner.  She did so well they let her come home that night.  During the night her pain medication wore off and she woke up crying.  But during the day she was fine and playing.  Nights were the worst for her.  And she's lost about 3 lbs over the 2 weeks while she healed.  She talks funny, both her voice and her pronunciations.  Hopefully they'll both get back to normal.

Her breathing is so much better. Her chest doesn't go concave when she breathes. It just moves up and down, like a normal person's. At her follow up appointment the doctor gave us a report on the surgery and commented again on how huge those tonsils were and even gave us the measurements so we could really know. They were both about 3 cm x 2 cm x 1 cm.  He said that was about 4 times bigger than normal.

 

First day of School

Danny is in 7th grade, Rachel in 6th, Aaron in 3rd and Seth is in Kindergarten. Somehow I didn't get a picture of Seth by himself.

Castaic

For Labor Day weekend, we went to visit Ryan and Venessa.  Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma Donna, Kristal and Dustin came too. We went to Magic Mountain on Friday. Everyone had a great time. Then Saturday we went to the beach. The everyone had a great time boogie boarding and playing in the sand.  Danny fished with Ryan. We stayed until Monday morning.

Rachel is 11

Rachel had the best possible present for her birthday: The Deans came to visit.  We had so much fun playing with them. We had a pool party with the Deans and the Gunnells to celebrate.

What makes you happy:  doing activities with friends and family

Favorite food: pizza
Favorite thing to do:  spend time with friends and family
Favorite TV show: none
What are you really good at: arts

Favorite Movie: The Hunger Games

Favorite color: cyan blue
Favorite song:  I am a Child of God

Best friend: Savannah Dean, Mckayla Gunnel, Jaclyn Salmon, Eva Spaugh

What do you and your mom do together: Excercize

What do you and your dad do together: Get stuff to eat together and talk

Favorite sport: Volleyball

Favorite place to go:  Out of the country

Favorite animal: Anything that's cute

Favorite Book: all of 'em

What do you want me to be when you grow up: a mom

 They poked holes in the plastic to smell the cake on their way home from Costco.

Family Pictures

Our family pictures worked out so well.  We were nervous because it was raining as we got ready and drove to the spot.  But it was our last night there, so we just really hoped it would work out.  It stopped raining about 5-10 minutes after we got to the spot and the sun came out and the light was beautiful.  Amanda did a great job getting us into poses and looking at the camera.  Ruby was not super excited about smiling at the camera and liked to make crazy faces. But we got a great pictures to choose from with the 700+ she took! It worked out great because in our final family picture Aaron and Seth weren't looking at the camera so I photoshopped them over from another picture and I took out the towel we were sitting on because the ground was so wet.

Lake Tahoe

 We had another fabulous vacation to Lake Tahoe this year.  The Smiths are always such wonderful hosts. We were a little worried because there was rain forecast all week, but it turned out great and only rained a couple times.  Amanda had a great matrix set up for us.  We went on a hike, to the bmx track, had a fun day of jet skis and kayaks at Sand Harbour, had a carnival, had a picnic and played at Donnor beach, and Amanda borrowed bikes for the adults and Danny and Rachel babysat while the adults went mountain biking. The Clarks went home on Sunday and we stayed 2 more days.  We went to the bmx track again and went to Sand Harbour again with just our family and rented a stand up paddle board and did lots more crawdad fishing and Amanda took our family pictures at a great spot she knows.

 Ruby and Aaron made a boundary all around the area we claimed on the beach.

 Danny's method of catching crawdads was to get them on the shovel and fling them to the sand.  I caught one mid-flight in this shot of cute kids on a rock.

 Such a fun group!

 The kids brought back their crawdads and Amanda cooked them up for the kids. Danny and Rachel loved it!

 Amanda set up a super fun carnival where the kids earned dollars for playing fun games.