Spencer's Christmas Program

Spencer had a Christmas program at his school.  That was the night that James had a fever of 103, so i didn't stay the whole time, but Devon got some good videos.  This might be overload, but I figured some grandparents would enjoy watching.
Spencer and Isaac are the only kids in Kindergarten, so you can hear them really well.

If you can't tell, in the first one Spencer says Isaac's part, and then they just don't know what to do.  The one of them singing didn't work, but it was cute.

 This is the whole school, small but fun, and perfect for Spencer.

After they got to open presents, I think Christmas morning may not be a lot more than they got there.  Spencer was so nice to share everything with James and even saved a present to open with him since he was so sick.

Thanksgiving in Mesa, AZ

for Thanksgiving we rented a condo in Mesa, AZ with my parents and my younger brother and sisters. We had a great time. We were really looking forward to swimming, an dit was 85 degrees, but the pool was not heated and it was like ice water. The first day James just jumped in, and then jumped right out and said "I'm all wet!" Spencer and Natalie braved the cold water, but no one else did. We got a lot of Christmas shopping done, and on the first night we took the boys to see Santa. James was so excited he kept saying "It's Santa, I love Santa!" He told Santa "I love your hat." Spencer wants a magnetic dartboard, and James wants a "present." We couldn't take pictures with Santa, but they are behind the Santa land.

On Thanksgiving we went on a little hike in the morning.  There we lots of huge cacti, and Spencer took about 50 pictures with his camera.  I guess Devon was too busy with the boys because this is the only one he took.

There was also a playground there, so we couldn't pass that up.

The reason we stayed in Mesa was that my Dad's family had a reunion the day after Thanksgiving.  It was a lot of fun, they had an auction and lots of games and each family did a little something.  One family did a really funny rendition of "Once there was a snowman."  After the reunion my parents left because they had a lot farther to travel, but we stayed around and saw the lights at the Mesa temple, they were pretty impressive.

I found on the internet that the Bass Pro shop in Mesa (kind of like a Cabela's) had a Christmas wonderland with free games and Santa, so we went on the way home.  We chose not to wait in line for an hour for the Santa, and just do the free games instead.  They had a great merry-go-round that the kids loved.

Spencer got hurt as he came off, but this picture just made me laugh.

They had some huge remote control Jeeps to drive around, a bow shooting game and some gun games and a race car game.  They also had lots of taxi-dermi animals and some huge fishtanks, so we were really glad we went.  I think Devon was mostly glad there was a Famous Dave's right there so we could go to lunch.
We had a great Thanksgiving.  The kids loved playing with their aunts and uncles and James has asked where each of them are, by name.  It so nice to be with family.

New Monument Valley church

So we finally got to move into the new chapel that was built in Monument Valley. It was supposed to be finished in March, but they ran into lots of snags, so now it's November. It is so nice because it's right across the street from the high school, so we can just walk, and we don't have to go 30 minutes early with Devon. it is also so much bigger than our other church- still small compared to others, but it seems huge to us. The chapel was packed for the dedication, which was great to see. We really hope people will keep coming. So on our last Sunday in Mexican Hat we had to take some pictures. Her are Spencer and James by Spencer's "favorite rock." We have to say hello to it every Sunday, so it will be missed.

Here's the branch at the old building, there are some visitors too. We usually have 20-40 people at church, so really according to the numbers we don't qualify for the new building, but the First Presidency felt very strongly about putting one here, so I am really excited to see what will happen. That's the thing about the gospel- you really can't stop it from moving forward.

I will have to get a picture of the new chapel, it's really pretty, and huge.  We will miss our friends from Blanding though since we were moved to a different stake too.

Halloween

Halloween is a really fun holiday at our house, mostly because the boys are so into it. Spencer wanted to be a "monster" this year, so I said you can choose a few things for less than $5 to make your monster costume. After our Walmart trip he decided he wanted wings, so i had to get a little creative with the little green felt that I had.

James just wanted to be a bat, that was a little easier, but turned out cute too. Of course he had to have green hair too.

On the Friday before Halloween was the school carnival.  Spencer was really into the Haunted House this year, so Devon took him in the kids one, which wasn't so great.  Devon's class was in charge of the grown-up spook alley, so we went in and looked during the day.  Spencer asked about going like 100 times, he was scared of the kid one, but he likes to be scared.

Here are our pumpkins.  Also, our Halloween cat.  No it's not really ours, some nice stray that someone dropped off (and someone picked up at trick-or-treating).  It was a cute cat, but so curious, he would not leave our pumpkins alone.  Spencer loved this cat, and thought it would be funny to let it in our house right before his school party.  It was in our house for like 3 hours, thankfully no messes, but we were just lucky, i wasn't too sad to see another kids get it.

this is Spencer's face paint on Halloween.

And James had to have some too.  We had fun trick-or treating.  We live in the only real neighborhood here, but it's just enough.  One of our neighbors was dressed up like a skeleton, but he looked stuffed, so the kids would walk up and then he would move and they would get scared.  Spencer just ran off, but James was hilarious, he would step forward and then the guy would move and he would run back.  Whenever anyone brings it up he says "I was freaking out!"

Devon and I were Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.  I think that hat was my favorite costume to make.

Scary monster Spencer

Happy Halloween!

Mesa Verde

My sister Mandy and her family came to visit us over fall break. We went to Mesa Verde.

This is on the drive there, the leaves were all changing color and it was really pretty.  One thing I do miss in all this red rock beauty is trees.  So speaking of drive, on our way home in the dark we saw something on the road and slowed down and it turned out to be a cougar.  I wish we had our camera handy, I have never seen a cougar in the wild before, but it was pretty cool, and I was glad to be safely in the car.

Here are Spencer and James showing their "brotherly love" or constant competition to be in the spotlight.  They are wearing the glow in the dark Halloween shirts that Mandy brought them.  They were perfect because we drove through and crawled through a tunnel where they glowed.
We did 3 tours, well I did 2 and everyone else did 3.  The first one was the best, it's the one we did a few years ago with the Whitakers.  There are a few pretty short ladders, and the ruin is huge.  Also, the tour guide was very kids friendly, and it was the first tour, so the boys did great.

James is always good at getting people to hold him, and he loved the extra attention Anna gave him the whole weekend.

The last tour- number 3 for everyone else was also a guided tour.  It had a 35 foot ladder that James had to climb by himself. I think Devon might still be having nightmare about this one.  It was an interesting ruin though, they think it was for religious purposes.  There was only one way in, through a tunnel, and there was a huge smoke signal thing that looks like a face.  The tour guide was less kids friendly, and it was the end of the day, but the boys did surprisingly well all things considered.

This is the first tour, the Cliff Palace, it's huge.  James kept telling Devon to "take a picture of the castle"

We also hiked to the arch by our house and mostly just played with cousins. Spencer learned to play "wall ball" from Jase and loved having a friend to play with. James loved the attention from Anna. Thanks for coming guys.

Random October pictures

Here are some random pictures from the beginning of October.

I just love this picture.  Spencer really is calm and sweet sometimes, and he is always really cute.

What would it be like to have no inhibitions?  Well these boys could tell you.  They love to dance.  We just got "Just Dance" for our Wii and the boys love it, I think they are dancing to something different here, but they love to groove.  this reminds me of something that happened in September.  Devon didn't come, so there are no pictures, but we went to the Navajo Days parade in Bluff.  this girl next to me said "Your bag is not big enough for all of the candy."  I thought "This is a pretty big bag, and we are in Bluff after all."  But she was right, we got a ton of candy.  We have been eating it and there will still be plenty to give out for Halloween.  Anyway, there was an old man rock band in the parade and the boys were dancing in the street, it was pretty funny.

For homecoming week they had lots of fun dress-up days at the high school that Devon got to participate in, so we had our own "crazy hair day" for the football game. 

If you look close there are sparkles- there wasn't a lot of hair color at our local store- where's Walmart when you need it- oh yeah, 2 hours away.

James likes to say "Make a funny face" and stick out his tongue.  His new favorite thing is to ask everyone what their name is.  He walked up to our neighbor yesterday and said "Hi Rena, what's your name?"  He has turned into a really tease lately.  He sings "The wheels on the bus go crash into the rocks!"  He thinks he is so funny!

Spencer went on his first field trip.  They went to pick pinion nuts.  I was not able to go, so I missed all of the excitement.  Spencer cam home with this prize, apparently he climbed a tree and the branch broke.

The next day he got this on the other eye, something about racing even though the teacher said not to.  And all 2 days before family pictures; that's my Spencer.

 

September

So I lied.  This week was crazy busy, and I obviously did not get all the way caught up on our blog, but here we are another post closer to meeting the goal.

I just opened the pictures on our computer and September only had this picture in it.
In case you hadn't heard we are expecting #3 in the beginning of March.  We were very nervous with such a late miscarriage last time, and I have had a lot of pain, but things seem to be going well.  I am so happy to feel the baby move on a regular basis.   Spencer has nicknamed our baby "cutie" and prays for it every night.  We had an ultrasound this week, but elected once again to not find out the gender until it is born. We are all so excited to have a new little one join our family.
Well, September was easier than I thought, maybe I'll start into October too!

August

My goal is to catch up with our blog this week, so hopefully I will do a post everyday. Here is August in a nutshell.

Spencer started school.  James did too, but he didn't wear his PJ's on his first day, he started a few weeks later than Spencer.  Spencer is going to a private 7th Day Adventist school here.  There are only 3 kids in his class, and that is great for Spencer.  They do lots of fun things that you wouldn't find in a public school, and he is enjoying school and becoming a great reader, so we are happy with it.
James goes to preschool at the local elementary because he qualified for speech last year.  He loves to go.  He gets to ride the bus home and he says it goes super fast and crazy.  I get to volunteer in both classes once a week which I love.  I just can't believe how big my boys are.

This happened before school started- lets just say these pictures were all from August, but otherwise no particular order.
This was one of my favorite adventures of the summer.  In the end of July (another favorite adventure) I got to go on my first river rafting trip with my sister Melissa and her family.  We just did an over night trip, but it was a lot of fun.  Only Spencer and I went because James seemed very sick the morning we were leaving, then of course he was fine.  We rafted from Bluff to Mexican Hat and went over what I thought were some pretty big rapids.  We saw tons of animals- Blue heron, big horn sheep, cow, wild turkey, deer, and dragonflies (which Spencer named).  We were planning to go see this ruin by the river called "River House", but we were not able to because of time, so Devon and I decided to try to find it by car.  Also near this spot is the last pull that the "Hole in the Rock pioneers" went up before arriving in Bluff.  Jens Nielson's oxen died at the top- so it was quite a climb.  Anyway, it was a little bit more more of an adventure than I bargained for.  There were tons of water crossings that Devon waded into before we crossed, and lots of big hills.  At the end we got to a road with huge rocks and very narrow, really only accessible by Jeep.  We started to hike, but it started to get cloudy, so we decided we didn't want to sleep in the car that night.

This may or may not be San Juan Hill, it looks good though.

Really I thought the ride was so fun, and someday when I can hike again we will go back and find the stuff.

One of the fun things they do at Spencer's school is hike.  One day he said they had hiked to an arch, so he showed me the way.  It was a really quick easy hike, so we took out friends back to show them.  This is what Spencer calls the "super shady place."

How did I live here for 4 years without hiking to this- it's like a 1/4 mile hike, and no 4-wheel drive required.

This picture just shows their personalities so well, yes they usually have a few scrapes, but they love a good adventure.

All the kids that came with us.  It's so nice to have lots of good neighbors around.

James is just so cute

It was my birthday in August.  Devon and the boys made it fun as usual.  Also, my neighbors surprised me with a cake and ice cream out side party thing.  It was great.

James loves cherries, and this just proves that we do wash his face, even though it is messy in every picture, it could be worse.

Harvest moon, it was even more amazing in real life.

Our new favorite sport, volleyball.  Spencer is the loudest fan in the crowd.  Actually it has been really fun to go to football games this year too, they are both old enough to sit and watch for more than 1 minute at a time, and they both are great cheerleaders!

I don't remember a time when Spencer was not a tease, he is just like his daddy.

So that's August in a very small nutshell.  Hopefully we'll do September tomorrow.

Other July Adventures

We had a busy summer. Here are a few adventures of the rest of July.

Spencer got a dino-dig kit at the cousin party, he loved working on it and would dig for longer than I have seen him do anything in one sitting.

This is my favorite part of our garden this year.  I planted some wildflower seeds, and they went crazy.  Now they are taller than the wall.  They attracted a few hummingbirds, which was really fun, we will have to try these again.

This is the rest of our garden when it looked good.  Actually we had a great tomato year this year, but beyond that the rest of our garden was eaten by ants.  We had beans for a few weeks, and we have lots of pie pumpkins, but the rest was pretty sparse.  It was fun though, I do enjoy gardening.

Kids love boxes, what can I say.  For about a week the boys played Jack-in-the box with these boxes.  As Devon says, "Why do we buy them toys?"