Hiking

Saturday was our free day with Masaki.  We took him hiking at Battle Creek Falls.  I LOVED it.  It was a good hike for little legs and out of shape mommies.  The leaves were still plenty and pretty.  Then we drove the Alpine loop and visited Sundance and Bridal Veil Falls.  The kids weren't too happy that the water at Bridal Veil was tooooooo cold.

 

Her Lorax tree

Our family photo... I know you can't see Seth, but he's there.  And so far, I have felt that our students are family.  I even taught this one how to do laundry... he'd never done his own laundry before.

Wizard of Oz

 

My dad is in a different seminary position this year.  He is the only Seminary teacher at a High school Charter school.  Which means that he knows almost every student in the whole school.  His school did a musical this last weekend called "The Wizard of Oz".  Honestly, it was awesome!  The music was great, the costumes were phenomenal, the backdrops were great... the wicked witch and the cowardly lion were particularly amazing.  Thanks for inviting us Grandpa! 

Masaki

We had our most recent Japanese foreign exchange student come in the 22nd.  He was a little shy, but connected with the kids really well... I'm sure it's because he has two younger sisters, one of which is about Ada's age.  We introduced him to fencing, which he LOVED and jumping on the trampoline, which he also LOVED.  He introduced us to a Japanese toy that you to throw and catch a ball.  He also introduced our kids to real sushi and using chopsticks.  Ada was hilarious. 

Ada has grown into the smallest sizes that the fencing academy has... She looks like a real fencer and actually did really well for her first time with a real foil.

Wilcox Family Halloween party

 

 

Saturday was our Wilcox Family Halloween party.  I think the kids loved the donut game... and they all needed to wash their hair afterwards. 

Handsome Sam

Cousins

Evelyn, Seth, Josh

 

Each of our babies have cousins their cousins their age... They've been really lucky so far.  Ada has 7 cousins her age and several close to her age.  Sam has 5 cousins his age. Evelyn has 4 her age and several within a year or so... And Seth has 2 his age and several within a year or so.  I wanted to get a picture of Seth with Susan because they were born about a month apart... but on their blessing day, she had a big blow out and we never got the picture, and last time we got together she was not happy to get a picture taken.  It was pretty funny, so I'm going to post it anyways.  I love cousins.

Ada's birthday party

Ada wanted a Frozen themed birthday party.  It was simple and fun... Jer had Scout camp, so I cleaned the house and decorated... hoping that he'd make it for the actual party.  He got there part way through.  I was glad he made it.  The kids played "Freeze" tag and "Do you want to build a snowman".

My "girlie" 7 year old princess... not afraid of worms.

School Fall Break

The advantage of having a Dad be a teacher, he gets Fall break at the same time as the kids.  Hankdy huh.  My parents had McKay's twins down for a sleepover and we took the kids to the new aquarium.  Other than Sam getting kind of lost several times and really lost once, it was fun.  Ada fell in love with a shark named Lola.  And Sam beamed that he got to pet the shark's fin.  Evelyn was nervous about petting the sting rays, but Grandpa helped her and she thought that was great.

Sam and Evelyn decided that they weren't having fun about half way through.  Sam got lost and I had to go look for him... that made him upset and he wouldn't cheer up for a very long time... And I left the kids with my parents, but I didn't stop to explain to Evelyn what I was doing... so she was upset and made me carry her for a while.

The only thing that made Sam feel better was letting him take pictures with my phone and camera for a while.

They loved the rope bridge in the Latin America area.

Two hands

It's amazing.  I was planning on spending most of the morning taking it easy, catching up on blogs and just hanging out with the kids... baby has been crying since 9am if he's not in my arms.  It's amazing how that changes the desire to blog with one hand instead of two... So we've been taking it easy and cuddling instead of blogging.  Well, now he's in bed screaming so that my arms and back can have a rest... Two hands are an amazing thing.