Samantha is 7

This birthday really puts us in check. Where has the time gone? We have been married for 8 years and it really feels like just 4. Clearly we have proof of our relationship's age, our beautiful Samantha has turned 7. I am so grateful we have her in our family. She brings so much energy and fun and adventure to all of our lives. She teaches her brother and sister how to catch toads, climb trees, splash in the muddy water... All wonderful things that KayDee and Derrick need encouragement to do. She plays dress-up with KayDee and Derrick gets to be the prince or super hero. Samantha is an excellent reader and loves school and her friends.

I am so happy she is my Samantha!

Camo Spray Paint

"Mom's Ugly Truck" looks really cool now. This is my truck and I am so happy about it. We have never spray painted anything before and it turned out better than I ever thought!

So why is this my truck? Well I wanted a truck that could hold the family but be the same length as a regular truck (easier for parking, etc). Kevin obviously has his own preference on the age and body style of the truck and after 5 years of going over the possibilities with him, I talked him into it! He put this extended cab on a regular frame and had to cut off the flat bed to make it all work and it is FANTASTIC!

January Sun

This is why we love where we live! We have absolutely gorgeous days to play outside without the chill. We know there will be more snow later so we will soak up the sun until the weather changes its mind.

2 SNOW DAYS!

...So it totally snowed and we sooo love it! Samantha's bus was canceled and two days later the school district had no school from all the snow. Our friends got 3 inches but we got well over a foot! I took the picture of the table to show how much snow had been falling but that was before it was finished. Unlike our previous snow days here, the snow is still here... days later and wonderful!

When the bus was canceled, they invited all the kids from town to go to the Town Hall to watch "The Polar Express". They popped popcorn and had hot chocolate. It was super fun and an excellent idea from the other mom's in town.

Since we never have this I made the most of the snow. I drove around the rodeo grounds with the kids and did doughnuts, we made a snowman, and of course we found a piece of cardboard to go sledding.

Sledding was a blast! The cardboard was perfect size and we found a short steep hill for my little ones. They took turns going down by themselves and also with each other and me. KayDee just giggled and giggled as she turned in circles on the sled by herself down the hill. I was the heaviest, so of course I had to make the track and then the trick was to keep the kids from walking all over it. It was so fun watch them being happy together and being excited to pick each other to go on the sled together. It was really sweet.

While making the snowman, Derrick came up with the bucket for the hat and the sticks for arms. Samantha was amazing at finding rocks for the buttons, eyes, and mouth in the deep snow. They requested a carrot for his nose and of course I had to since this might be the only snowman they make this year! KayDee finally decided that it was fun to play in the snow when we figured out how to dress her so the snow hardly touched her.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Gingerbread Houses

So once again we used our "sorted candy" and made some gingerbread houses with leftover frosting from Derrick's cake and graham crackers. It was pretty easy and the kids loved it.

We decided to take a picture of them and then eat them now so they would taste good still, instead of when they are stale at Christmas. There were too many smiles to object!

Men in Suits

I gotta love my boys dressed up in suits. They look so handsome. Derrick's primary teacher told us he goes on and on about how much he likes the suit Rachel gave him. We had to take some pictures of him and his dad together in their suits. That Sunday he noticed the speakers who were wearing suits and one happened to be a young man going on a mission that week! Pretty cool.

(I couldn't tell the pictures were a little blury when I took them so they will just have to do.)

Dog Pile

Derrick is 5!

My kids are getting so old! Derrick just turned five and he will be going to kindergarten in the fall. I made a helicopter pinata for his birthday and we had some friends come over on Saturday for a party. They decorated paper sacks, took turns being Simon for Simon says, played red light green light and Duck Duck Goose. I raked up a huge pile of leaves so they could jump and play in them, which they did very well.

Kevin loved the pinata since he has to be such a tease. He found a pully to put it on in the tree and yanked that helicopter all over the place. Crazy enough, the kids were still able to hit it.


KayDee looked like she would fall over each time she swung the stick and she mostly just hit it when she was bringing the stick back. The kids knocked it out of the tree before it cracked open enough for candy to fall out so Kevin had them get their sacks ready and ripped it open. Candy flew everywhere and the kids were really quick to clean it up.



Justin and Rachel hung out for most of the party and Rachel said she went a little crazy with his present and she did! She got him a very handsome suit. He got a helicopter from us, clothes from grandparents, toys from friends and birthday cake!

We did have our family party at our house with Kevin's parents on Monday which was his actual birthday. It was fun to have them join us for the party.

The Bottom of the Reservoir

Since the reservoir has been drained we had to take opportunity to walk on the bottom of it. There are still two large puddles and a small stream and the ground is still completely saturated. This limited our area to walk around.

I asked Rachel to take some pictures of us for our family picture this year. It was really bright and the mud was sucking us under. Rachel wore flip flops and discarded them quickly, then her feet dove into the mud as she followed us around. We definitely had our laughs, although KayDee was very concerned about Rachel's feet and shin disappearing.

This was an adventure we couldn't pass up. Fortunately we came off the reservoir pretty clean, besides Rachel. She had to hose off her pants and shoes. We went home to get some pictures of us not squinting in the "Grape House", and those turned out pretty nice.

Halloween

So we had a busy Halloween. We saw Samantha in the school Halloween parade. Clearly, she is a Fairy Princess and being shy. Derrick got to pick out a costume at the Dollar store since $1 is a good deal for a costume. He picked the SWAT armor and it was nice since I didn't have to paint his face. KayDee was a butterfly and barely survived her costume so it was a good choice this year. I wore an old, shiny dress and Kevin went as a mechanic who over charges people (he claimed he was the scariest of all).

After we went to all the houses in town we went to the Halloween party. Kevin and Justin did the doughnut eating contest. I don't know who won but the picture is really good! Our favorite part about Halloween is the candy sorting. As parents of young children who have extremely full bags from a very generous community, we have the duty to make sure their candy is distributed appropriately. We take candy out to save for other events (like pinatas or Christmas). After all that sorting, our kids ended up with a large bowl full, which they completely enjoyed for days! Samantha learned what it was like to get sick from eating too much candy.

The Mystery Machine

So, I made another car and I am posting it because it takes time to paint! Kevin requested The Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo. We try to pick a car that doesn't take a lot of cuts so this is what we came up with. Kevin cut and sanded it at work and I bought the paint, picked up the car from him, and painted it in the car. This we accomplished the day of the Pinewood Derby. The tires were nailed on in the church parking lot. We did place higher this year and we won most colorful car.

Just Girls

We went to the Laub Girl's Weekend this year. I took KayDee and Samantha and we drove up with Rachel. We played games, watched movies, quilted, played the Wii, did makeovers and went for a hike.


Not to mention, we ate some really good food. The homemade granola was my favorite!

Grandma Laub and Samantha were the brave ones to get make-up and hair done.


Samantha took the picture of us on the hike.


Kevin and Derrick stayed home and slept in the camper since Kevin had too many things to do Saturday to drive it into the wilderness.

Zion at Last

We finally made it back to Zion. It has been a long time since we went to the park. We were up in Springdale a couple years ago while Kevin tiled for my friend MaryJane, but never went into Zion.

The last pictures we have are of Samantha next to a weeping rock when she was about 15 months old. We took Pete to see Zion (He's from Kevin's mission in England and yes Kevin baptized him).

The first time Kevin and I went to Zion together was actually on Kevin's brothers wedding day. We went to kill time before the reception. Kevin and I were just dating but soon to be engaged.

We realized while were there that this was the first time that Derrick and KayDee have been to Zion. We are so grateful we went.

We saw and hiked the Court of the Patriarchs, Weeping Rock and the Riverside Walk at the Temple of Sinawava. The kids did great, although we learned to not let Samantha sip on the water backpack because it made her bladder have an excessive, continual flow. We practically ran down the 1.5 mile Riverside hike to get to the bathroom, just to have her dancing in the shuttle for 15 min to get to the next bathroom!

KayDee loved being in the backpack and that she could hold on to the bars in the shuttle. Derrick loved to wear my hat and the water backpack.

Preschool

I started doing preschool with a neighbor for Derrick and of course KayDee gets to do it too. We do it twice a week and take turns every other week teaching. I figured I might as well use my college education for something, since I took preschool classes when I found out I was pregnant with Sam. We follow a similar format from the college and it is easy to prepare and do. We have 4 kids in all.
So here is what Derrick did for preschool. He actually made a really cool helicopter with noodles (its on the bottom, under the "D").

Picture Tag

The rules are you have to take pictures of the following things, and you have to do it right away. No cleaning, straightening, or wiping your child's nose (and I mean it!) Then tag 6 others.

We'll I'm sure everyone is dying to see how I keep house! I am actually surprised my house was having a good day.

1. Kitchen Sink: Lucky! I just washed dishes and washed the dehydrator trays.

2. Laundry Room: Nothing too exciting except I have stackables and love them since I have space in the room to walk now!

3. Fridge: We have a busy fridge and it makes us do our errands!










4. Bathroom: I ripped off the paint that was bubbling to see what was underneath. I do like the green better than the light blue, but it doesn't matter since we will redo it soon anyway.







5. Closet: Yes, we have a messy closet.







6. Favorite Room: Honestly, I don't have a favorite room. I am just grateful I have a house!

7. Favorite Shoes: Love shoes. I would have more but...it's excessive...sigh...

8. Self Portrait: Still not photogenic. It took me 5 tries to get my eyes open and not doing a funny face.





9. Children: Always cute. Sam's at school.




10. Dream Vacation: How am I supposed to have a picture of my dream vacation? I haven't been on it yet. I just need to figure out where I would want to go first. I have too many other obligations for me to make a choice like that right now. Right now it is not a specific place, its an atmosphere... Children not fighting, doing fun things like hiking, biking, swimming, etc...

TAG: Bonnie, Rachel, Suzy, LeAnn, Elisa, Sheri

Don't have too much fun!

Laub and Shepherd Reunion

Kevin has been friends with Sam Shepherd for a long time! They met working at Big O Tires while Samantha was a baby. We try to hang out with each other when we can and so far it ends up that we visit them once a year and they visit us once a year. Sam's wife brought a cake with all the decorations and gave it to us to celebrate our reunion so we made it and ate it before they left. And yes, that is Gumby! I gave that lighter to Kevin for Father's Day, since that was his nickname from wrestling in High School. I can proudly say that I am now more flexible than he is, which really is an accomplishment.