Kids and Santa

 Here are some pictures of the kids and Santa.  They got to see Santa at our ward Christmas party.  It was fun!  Annika likes Santa and goes right up to him to tell him what she wants for Christmas!  She wants a big kitchen and a pink dress.  We will see how Santa does with that.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

 I made Ashling and Annika's costumes.  After spending a fortune on material I was blessed to have the exact costume given to me for free for Ali!  How wonderful was that?

 The kids met their friends at Grandma Sue's house and they went around their neighborhood.  I stayed home and off my foot which is apparently broken although I have not been to a specialist yet to see what they will do about it.  They even got to go through a pretty good haunted house.

First Win!

Ali is on the team called the Crush.  I am the team parent.  We have had a pretty difficult season and had not had one goal in about 5 or 6 games.  We lost every game except the last one where we tied.  As parents we just wanted the kids to finally score a goal to make them happy.  This game was with the other Running Springs team.  We were pretty evenly matched and we seemed to be doing a little better.  The girls kept getting it down by the goal and scoring only to have it called off-sides.  Cameron was getting pretty emotional and the ref told our coach to control her side-line.  We were all upset for all the calls that we felt were wrong.  Finally the other team scored and we were all sure that was an off-sides call too.  

In the second half Ali played forward.  She had told me all day that today was the day she would score a goal.  She kept getting it down there and getting it close but missing the shot.  Finally she broke away and dribbled it down the field and shot.  The goaly tried to get the shot but it rolled out of her arms and right into the goal!  

We celebrated a little too much but it was great to finally score a goal!  We figure it was because Grandma Sue and Papa were home from their mission and came to see the game!  

 The rest of the 3rd quarter they tried but did not actually get another goal in.  I was worried the score would once again be tied.  But in the 4th quarter while Ali sat out her friend, Isabella, scored a goal!  The whistle finally blew and the crush had finally won their first game!  The kids were so excited!

 Here is a picture of Ali, Louise and Isabella in front of their sign!  Louise scored a goal too but it was called off-sides so her goal did not count.

 We went to the beach last Wednesday as a family.  The kids had a minimum day so Cameron took a few hours of work off.  It was supposed to be at least 84 degrees and it was warm.  I love Corona Del Mar because the waves are always very predictable.  That gives my kids a lot of confidence and all three of them spent some time out in the waves.  Cameron helped them to enjoy body boarding and the kids loved it!  Annika just enjoyed holding tightly on to daddy out in the waves.

I enjoyed a quick, frigid swim and also enjoyed reading my book since the kids were so involved with Daddy.  It was a great afternoon!

Field trip to the Apple Orchards

I went with Ashling's class to the apple orchards. It was really fun to spend the day with just Ashling. We bought an apple pie to take home with us and then spent the afternoon shopping together and getting a slushy. I love one on one time with my children and they always behave like little angels when I take them by themselves.

broken wrist

I took the kids to the park one day like I do every Tuesday when Ali is at piano lessons. This time when I called them to come Ashling fell off the monkey bars and landed on her wrist. She started crying and I felt like it was probably broken. I loaded her in to the car and went to pick up Ali at piano. At home I iced it and she complained whenever it was touched. I wasn't sure what I should do since I had all the kids and didn't want to end up sitting in urgent care with all of them.

Eventually I had someone else look at it and she was convinced it probably wasn't broken because Ashling would move it all around for her. Fast forward to Friday and she fell on it at school as she was getting on the bus and was crying quite a bit. Now I knew it was for sure broken. We went to urgent care where they confirmed that it was broken and Ashling had to wait labor day weekend before she could get a cast.

She chose a pretty blue cast and only had to have it on for 3 weeks. She is fine now but missed the first 3 soccer games.

Labor Day Happenings

We didn't do much on Saturday or Sunday for the weekend. We were simply too tired. We visited the urgent care, cleaned the garage and worked on a few other projects. We also had desert with friends but we didn't go anywhere besides church. So Monday we decided to do something. Due to Ashling's broken arm, swimming, the beach and several other ideas were thrown out. Finally we decided to go to big bear for lunch and to ride the ski lift. When we got to big bear it was pouring rain. We went to a ski shop sale and imagined how much fun it would be to go skiing... soon. Then we bought lunch and it was still raining hard. After lunch the rain slowed down and so we decided to go up.
I can't believe how different snow summit is from Snow Valley. Snow valley has hardly any trees but snow summit was covered. It is also much more green over there and feels more like you are deep in the mountains. I loved all the green and the nice cool, fall day. Annika loved riding the big swings.
At the top of Snow Summit they have a beautiful lodge and we went and hid in there for a while because it was raining once again. I begged Cameron to bring me back in the winter to ski but some of the beauty of the place was that there were only a few others there and I am sure that the winter crowds will diminish that immensely.

After riding up we decided it would be fun to hike down. The trail was pretty steep and hard to hike down and the kids didn't seem to like it much. At one point we were hiking down a steep black diamond slope by accident but eventually we found the right path. The wildflowers were beautiful and it was a fun day overall.

Our grass yard

Cameron and I have wanted grass for a long time. It finally hit how important grass was to me one day last June. We were laying down in the shady grass on a hot day and I realized how nice it would be to have grass in our backyard. We decided to get our yard ready for grass by the end of the summer. It involved a lot of work. Our yard was sloped quite a bit and we wanted a flat area for grass. Cameron decided to try to start digging with a shovel. There really isn't a way to get a tractor back in our yard anyways. I thought it was a little crazy but after watching him do it several times I started to see some progress. Eventually I even helped a little.

Cameron created a nice level pad even with a concrete patio already in our backyard. There were lots of obstacles like a concrete wall with rebar, a lot of huge roots and some big holes where animals had once lived.

Cameron used the wheel barrow that he found for free at the dump to help him out with moving all the dirt.
The ground was very hard in some places and he used a pick axe until he broke it!

Finally after working many nights after work it was time to actually order the sod. Chalon and girls helped by picking up the big pallet of sod and coming up to help us install it. Chalon, Denali, Torrey, Ali and I unloaded the sod and brought it down to the patio while Cameron started installing it. We worked pretty quickly and were able to unload in less than an hour on the hottest day of the summer.

The square in the back is for the sandbox that we will buy sand for soon.

As the sod was brought down Whitney and Ashling helped by laying it out close to where it would be laid for Cameron.

After the sod was finished the girls rested on the semi-completed lawn.

Here is a picture of Sierra and Annika laying on top of her while they rested on the grass. Sierra really seems to enjoy the grass but since she is so sick there is nothing more for her to do than just lay there.

The grass did not completely finish the job and we will be doing some more work to get the yard the way we want it this fall and then lay a little more sod next spring.

This is how the final product looks. Don't you love our green beautiful yard? I do. Thanks to Cameron for all his hard work in getting it done!