Christmas Trees 2011

Every year after Thanksgiving, we head down to Ephraim Canyon to cut down our Christmas tree. If you want to read more about how to do this click here. This year, the highlight of our trip was definitely sledding. Mark is big enough that he can climb the hill by himself and usually haul up the sled (sometimes we just tossed it up to him). Dax had to be carried up, but he grinned the whole ride down. They have been looking forward to snow for a long time, so this was a special treat for them. A nice treat for me was the fact that my brother-in-law brought his camp stove and cooked up hot chocolate. That was a fun new addition. Anyway. . .  we got two great trees and took many rides down the hill on the sleds.

Dax and Mark loved riding the four wheelers. Todd took them on lots of rides, and so did their dad!

Had to stick Dax on the sled so he would stop spilling hot chocolate all over the snow.

Mark chose to sit on the back of the truck.

Mark sledding. Is he having fun or terrified?

Dax sledding one-handed.

Randy finally feeling better (he was sick all of Thanksgiving).

Here is a short video of both boys sledding. It was done on my photo camera, not my video camera, so don't expect high quality.

Thankful Jar

We found a fun idea to increase gratitude in our house on my friend's blog (check it out here). So we have been doing all sorts of activities as a family--baking cookies (we're thankful for our kitchen), watching The Lion King together (we're thankful for our eyes), making cards for dad (we're thankful for our dad), and my favorite so far, raking our neighbors leaves (we're thankful for our neighbors). It was so much fun to watch the boys get excited about service. They couldn't wait for dad to come home and help us rake the leaves in our neighbor's yard. They did a great job!

Mark is a good raker.

Dax likes to play with the rake.

Look at those hard workers.

Cleaning up leaves with dad.

And who knows what we'll be thankful for tomorrow!

Fall Activities

We have been doing so many things lately that I feel like I can't keep up on the blog. So here is a compilation of all the fun things we have done through October (except Halloween--we already talked about that holiday).

Mark had a field trip to the fire station. Don't they make cute firefighters?

Dancing in the leaves.

Throwing leaves.

Mark took this picture of Randy and me at Cornbelly's.

Playing at Cornbelly's.

My sister had us and some friends over to make Halloween cookies and cupcakes. Here's Mark being silly!

Our monster cupcakes!

This is how Dax eats a cupcake. I have tried and tried to get
him to pick it up, but he just wants to eat it this way.

Mark frosting cookies.

Happy Halloween!

Hey, this is Randy. . . 

Well, we managed to have a happy Halloween after all. Dax refused to wear a costume for the weeks leading up to the day, despite the fact that we had the cutest little monkey costume that my sister, Laurie, made. We tried a bunch of different things to get him excited, but what finally worked was having his brother dress up and knock on each of the bedroom doors as Dad handed out candy. Seeing the principle in action changed Dax's mind in a hurry! He still wouldn't go for the monkey costume because he didn't want anything on his head. We finally got him in a Buzz Lightyear outfit, but he refused to put the hood up on that, too.

He did get into the spirit, though, and we Trunk-or-Treated with our ward, and then went out on Halloween night as well. It was a pretty good memory exercise for him. After the first house he'd say, "I got m&ms." After house two: "I got m&ms and a Kit Kat." Then, "I got m&ms, a Kit Kat and a sucker!" He could remember up to about 6 houses. Then he'd start dropping items out of his list. 

We hope you all had as happy a Halloween as we did! Here are the pictures:

Trick or Treating in the house.

Natalie worked really hard on this Luke Skywalker costume.
Funny how Mark really wanted to be Luke despite having seen about 5
minutes of Return of the Jedi-- clearly the weakest of the old movies!

Halloween night--off we go to Trick or Treat.

Fall

This is my favorite time of year. I love the warm days and cool nights. I love the colors of the trees. But I don't love Halloween. Don't worry, I put on a happy face for my kids and I will post about Halloween after it is over. But for now, I want to share with you some of our fun fall pictures. Every year we make sure to drive up Payson Canyon (Nebo Loop). If you want to see a few more and read about a new easy hike we found, check out our other blog Utah Valley Family Adventures. We have a picnic and then we collect leaves for the boys to use in art projects or just to enjoy. It was a beautiful day this year and we got some great pictures!

The mountain looked so beautiful with all the colors!

We followed this Monarch butterfly around for awhile.

Our picnic

Dax taking a 5 second break from throwing rocks into the stream.

I love this picture because they are both showing their cheese face,
 but neither one is looking anywhere near the camera!

I thought this tree looked so beautiful next to the blue sky!

Mark! He is so grown up.

What did you do at work today?

Hey, this is Randy . . .

Going to work every day can be a grind-- unless you have a job like mine. As part of our school fundraiser (we raised $20,000) I agreed to wrestle our principal. Of course, we agreed to wrestle Sumo-style. There was significant showboating before the match started. I was even placed under a curse by our secretarial staff, but I managed to come away with a victory, winning 2 out of 3 falls. (The fall I lost really hurt, though. Don't let anyone tell you these suits are too padded to let you feel anything!)

Showboating

The Curse

Suiting Up

Ready to Rumble!

This is actually what I look like in a thong.

Victory on the first fall

Adding insult to injury

That Hurt!

The Champ (My principal admitted he took a dive to get out of that suit!)

I took a cheap shot

All Glory, Laud, and Honor-- but especially Laud!

Victory is Mine!

Apples

A few months ago, I posted about raspberries at my mom's house. Well in September and October it is apple time. So my boys and I headed up to grandma's house to pick apples and make homemade applesauce--our favorite treat. There were a ton of apples just waiting for us to pick them. Unfortunately, it rained the entire drive up, through the night, and the next day. We tried to sneak out when it was just sprinkling, but it was so cold that our hands were icicles after about 3 minutes. We hurried the kids back inside and decided to work on applesauce from the apples that had already been picked. Mark loves to turn the crank on the food mill and Dax had fun pushing the apples down. We made 20 quarts of applesauce--it was fun and crazy! My mom deserves a medal for patience for letting us monopolize her kitchen for two days.

Tons of apples!

We were freezing, but having fun. That's Abby, my sister's daughter, out there with us!

Mark cranking the food mill.

Dax mashing the apples.

The next day was a little bit warmer, although still rainy, so we headed out to pick apples to take home. We filled up a huge basket that is now sitting in my basement keeping cool. The boys will eat 3-4 apples a day. They love the apples from my mom's tree. I have made an apple pie and plan on making many more. And we have already eaten two quarts of applesauce! Thank goodness for grandma's apple tree.

Abby and Dax had to have their own blue buckets--see below.

Dax's bucket.

Dax would run to throw his apple in the basket--yes, we have quite a few bruised ones!

Picking more apples. Mark took his job very seriously.

This is the bucket we filled with apples--Dax couldn't budge it and it is only 1/3 full.