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.

TIM-BERRR!

After the chainsaw buzzing and with soft snaps and cracks, Kevin has cut down the 4th tree in our yard. This magnificent tree was right next to the house and dripping sap onto our cars and dropping pine needles daily. We decided when we moved in that the tree was definitely a fire hazard but it provided some desperately needed shade onto the driveway where the kids play, so we decided to keep it around. This year it has turned from green to mostly brown and some green needles. We aren't sure why it decided to die this year but we figure defensible space is always a plus, and the kids are not so little anymore.

Surprisingly, when the tree fell it was hardly noticeable. It simply snapped and cracked and fell softly to the ground. Kevin's mom pulled in the driveway right before it tipped over and Kevin desperately waved at her to back up quickly. Derrick was enlisted immediately to help Dad with the tree and put on a cowboy hat so he could be better at helping. Sam and Derrick hauled the logs to the pile of firewood and figured out they could use the wagon to help them go faster. I stayed in the house to keep KayDee from "helping" so she wouldn't get hurt and we did laundry.

Racecar or racecaR

Derrick is our super boy! He loves all the tools, fixing things, and especially driving around and finding places he can go with plastic wheels. Luckily he loves to share his adventures with his sisters too. KayDee is his favorite to drive with since she doesn't care if he drives.

Our kid four wheeler has broken inside the gears so Kevin told me to find the parts or another vehicle since we have a really nice battery. DI has always been one of my favorite places to find things and so I found this race car/dune bug (or whatever) for $6 hoping that it either worked or had the right parts to fix the four wheeler (the battery was missing so I couldn't test it). Kevin hooked it up that night and it worked perfectly. Then I looked at the tires and they are hardly used. I think someone bought it and parked it outside so the colors are faded, but rarely used it.

Samantha has fun driving it but I think it intimidates her a little. Kevin helped direct her on how to back-up to get around things and she responded with the recognition of "oh" but not the kind that says she will remember for next time. I'm sure practice makes perfect and Samantha will be curious enough to get that practice in.

Heavenly Peels

So I am not the worlds best bottler but I sure try! I tried to do our peaches when they were only picked the day before. I boiled them to get the skins off like the instructions said and only 1 out of 7 would come off, even after boiling for over 5 minutes! So I had to peel them...and waste my time when I really don't love bottled peaches. I'd rather peel pears because I love those bottled. Besides the whole reason I chose to do peaches is because the skins came off easy! So I finally had enough peeling and got 8 quarts done and then I cut the rest of my boiled peaches and dehydrated them. After a few days I started smelling the rest of my peaches and decided I should try again. Confidently I told myself that I should be successful since they were sooo ripe, especially after asking some of the bottling queens in the neighborhood.
I have never been so ecstatic over food! The peels slipped so nice off the peaches that it was so gratifying and the peaches were beautiful! It was HEAVENLY and I got done so quickly that it redeemed my disastrous bottling.

1st Grade

So Sam is finally at school all day and loving it. The favorites are, of course, hot lunch, and being busy all day long with her friends in her class. For some reason this year she is insisting on being called Samantha at school, but she isn't bothered by the other nicknames we call her at home. She has even told other kids all the names she goes by: Sam, Sammy, Sammy Jo, Samantha, Babe and of course Froggy (that was when she was a baby). She is doing so well and even tested another grade higher for reading so that pleases us, especially since she reads to Derrick and KayDee.

I am thrilled she is in 1st grade too. Kindergarten is a lot of work for a mom! Derrick will be there next year...

More Wedding Moments

Here is my dress I talked about.

KayDee and Scott enjoying ice cream together.

Priceless father/daughter moments.

Milt and Shelbi

Derrick is really being trained by his sisters on how to treat a girl. Mandy hauling Scott around during clean-up. I was surprised to see I got him looking too!

Welcome Aunt Bree!

Kevin's brother Travis got married to BreeAnna last Saturday and we had fun taking pictures and celebrating with them. Kevin's mom asked me to take pictures of them throughout the day and reception so she could have the memories. The photographer and I were competing a bit for pictures but he was so kind to give me tips to take better pictures.

My favorite part of the night was the wrestle to get Travis' keys so they could replace his truck with a tractor. Nice thinking DJ!

Samantha did a great job helping with serving the food and taking plates.

Derrick helped take presents and after a while got bored and told people there wasn't enough room on the table. He was reassured that there was room under the table, so he was energized to take the rest of the presents. KayDee enjoyed the food and the dancing.

We all had a great time and we hope Travis and Bree had a great night too! We stayed and helped clean up after and got home just before midnight. We had very tired children in the morning and amazingly made it through church without too much drama.

We hear Travis and Bree are visiting Travis' mission in Oregon for their honeymoon.

Swimming Lessons

We went to the library once a week this summer and they gave us little coupons for reading 10 books each week. We recieved a few passes to the swimming pool and so we went twice. I put life jackets on all the kids since I was the only adult and we had fun playing. KayDee would scream "No, no, no" over and over when we climbed the stairs to the slide, but after 3 rounds she was yelling "again, again!" Derrick is not a huge fan of the water but since we swam those two weeks he was really comfortable, and Samantha is always up for more water fun. It was perfect timing for swimming lessons.

For two weeks we went Mon-Thurs and I can say that I am exhausted from going to town and being in town all day to save gas money. It all worked out and again, the timing was perfect.

Yeah! July is Over!

July was a long month for me and for Kevin. Although Kevin works on his trucks and gets things done, he doesn't have a good stop button. So we are rearranging how he works on trucks so... We had a deal that he needed to get all of his trucks in order throughout all of July and be done before August 1st. He worked really hard and nearly made it at the end of the month; he finished August 2nd. Since he went two days over, he then "owed" me.
I had gone shopping with Rachel that weekend and we had found some really cute dresses. I didn't get one dress I completely loved because it was more expensive and so when I got home and told him about it, he said I could get the dress and we would be "even". So that is how I accidentally worked it to get a new dress, which is absolutely adorable (I'll have to take a picture).
Now that July is over, he still works on his truck projects but in a more balanced way. I am so blessed that my husband is the kind of person he is and that he will do what it takes to make life better!

Funky Trucks

So, if any of you don't know Kevin, this describes him very well. Some of the vehicles leave our driveway looking crazy but that saves Kevin time and money. He makes deals and gets trucks for free, takes what he wants then puts it back together (obviously not always the right way), gets rid of it and carries on to the next. I am grateful my husband is a worker and gets things done. These things would never come into our yard if he didn't work on them.

Slinky Truck: We had many ideas for what could go in that space... Double Take: The double cabs still gets me when I look at it (it is still in the yard but will be leaving soon). Bare Bones: The often occcurance of a frame with a motor is typical. Just thought I would share what my driveway has to deal with.

Memory Lane

This will be fun especially if everyone and I do mean EVERYONE will join in! This is just too fun to pass up.
Here are the directions:
1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember, good or bad but be nice please! ;)
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.We can make it a competition if anyone wants. Let's see who can come up with the funniest memory and who has the most memories. Please keep it going. ENJOY :)

Rodeo

Once again we went to the annual town Rodeo and still we have not caught a chicken. KayDee had a bad week for naps so she never ended up going, but I promised the other two that we would go, so I took them the last night.

They had fun eating snowcones and nachos, and of course trying to catch a chicken. We laughed through the donkey-watermelon race and the kids tried to win new boots by racing to put on their own shoes with the other kids.

This is the only Rodeo I have ever been to and it is a lot of fun, but I don't stay until it is over, which is usually after midnight. Kevin on the other hand helps every night with the gates to keep the cattle moving smoothly. It is a tiring weekend but we are glad we get to go and do our small part.

I am not sure why I let Samantha wear that purple hat, since she has the cowboy attire. She got a few smiling comments and she was definitely happy to wear it.

4th of July

We spent the 4th of July celebration with Justin and Rachel. Rachel loves this holiday so she cooked amazing ribs and they had Justin's family over (which are Kevin's relatives too) and we ate heartily. Then we went to hear Rachel sing the National Anthem at the Rodeo and afterwards we did the fireworks in the driveway. Maxine and Jack were sitting with Sam and Derrick watching so they wouldn't get burned. Maxine was traumatized by an ash falling on her toe, so they stayed back. The dogs sure didn't like the noise, but the flashing lights didn't bother them.