October Fun

We took a drive up American Fork Canyon to see the colors and were amazed at the beauty, unfortunately the pictures can't do it justice!! Fall is my favorite season.....


Justin, Ryan and Derek are not afraid to get dirty, clearly! They went for a little ride one Saturday and three guys that we didn't recognize came back on their 4 wheelers! Talk about scary....and talk about MAJOR cleanup!!!

Dean Halloween '08: This year's party was another success. Everyone looked great and there was delicious food and fun games - Thanks Britnie and Derek for another great party!!

Justin is a "Bag of Leaves" for everyone who can't quite figure it out (his idea, not mine!)

Cole and Macie got to have a picnic with our neighbors and friends the Doney's. It was a perfect day and despite the expression on Cole and Macie's faces, they were excited to eat lunch with their friends Lindsay, Zane and Gavin.

Hee Haw Farms with the Gourleys: Another fun fall festivity (wow, check me out with the illiteration!).......

We are attempting to make our yard nice and comply with the HOA (mostly comply with the HOA) so we bought two trees this summer for our backyard. I love both trees and have become emotionally attached, so they better survive the winter or I will need therapy next year. This is a picture of Cole with my "Autumn Blaze Maple" which the name alone makes me love!

Rich Halloween '08: This was another fun party we attended with more great costumes and yummy treats......

Grandma and Grandpa?!?!?!?

I'm sure Lesa LOVES that I put this picture in, it's just so great!!

Matt spent a lot of time and effort on his costume this year :)

Sarah Palin and her celebrity "friend" Dwight (of "The Office") graced the party with their presence! Too bad Dwight didn't bring any beets.....

This was our attempt at carving pumpkins this year. Justin and I are getting smarter and decided to share a pumpkin this year rather than clean and carve one for each of us. We're working up to pumpkins for kids only!!

Football Season!

Cole is playing flag football this season. It's been really fun to try something different and all of his buddies are on his team-does it get any better?!? We have had two games so far and Cole has had a big cheering section both times. Grandpa Dean, Aunt Shalisa, Ellie and Evie surprised us at the first game. It was perfect football weather and Cole got to kick the ball and hand it off (they don't do passes in flag football) and run around. It was wonderful!

The second game was just as fun. Claire and Avery joined us with some great cheers and lots of energy (and some M&Ms, yum). We had a blast, and Cole almost made a touchdown! We did a few push-ups, summer saults and jumping jacks (not me though, I spared everyone the embarassment!). And Claire totally has a future in flag football.

Macie's First Day of Pre School

Macie got to go to pre school this past week. She has been VERY excited for a VERY long time and it finally came! She got to choose what we had for breakfast that morning (sausage and strawberries - two favorites !) She requested to sleep in her new pre school shirt but I talked her out of it, so she just held it in her sleep. It was pretty funny! Once she was all ready to go see "Mrs. Cole" (who is actually Ms. Nicole) we hopped in the car to drop her off.

I was completely nervous, and not for normal reasons. Most moms feel sentimental and sad to send their kids off. Not me, this time anyway! I was preparing for the worst because it takes time to warm up to new things at our house and after our swimming lessons experience I really wondered if I wasn't jumping the gun a bit and sending her to pre school prematurely. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised. I pulled up to "Mrs. Cole's" house where pre school is and she strapped her back pack on, jumped out of the car and RAN up the driveway to the front door. She barely remembered to turn around to wave at us! I shed a few tears, tears of relief!!

Labor Day Fun

We went to St. George for the Labor Day weekend. We went for the first time to a water park (not like Seven Peaks, a different kind of water park) at the St. George library and had a BLAST! The Cole, Macie and their cousin Ellie ran, jumped, crawled and splashed. You'll see that even two pretty big kids got caught up in the fun!

Justin and I also went to Tuacahn (with Rachel, lucky her!) where we saw Les Miserables. It was so amazing. I LOVE the music and the story is so gripping. I was trying not to embarrass Rachel and Justin by bursting out in song along with the cast members but it was really hard. I'm just extremely disciplined, ha ha ;)

Ahhh....The End of Summer!

Most people are kind of sad when summer ends and it's time to go back to the grind. Not me, I love the grind! Summer for me means no routine and fighting off the requests to "play with friends" ALL the time. The only real routine we have in the summer is arguing every day about who they can play with first and if they have to wait until 10am to play and can they ride bikes while they wait and can someone come to our house and can my 16 friends eat lunch at our house???? So that is why I welcome the end of summer and the beginning of ORDER!

We did have a VERY fun summer however. You wouldn't know since I didn't post a single blog during the summer! I took a little hiatus and now I'm back!

School started yesterday for Cole so we have some darling pictures of our big 1st Grader. He had a fun day of school and thought it was totally cool to eat lunch there. He is getting so big! He did ask me though if he got to keep his school desk at the end of the year. I wish he could be this way forever. They do have great desks, I have to admit!

Here are a few first day pictures and I have also added highlights of our ENTIRE summer.....

Our 2008 Rich Family Reunion was very fun. We have it every year at Grandpa Rich's. There are fun games (usually involving some kind of water where the adults get wetter than the kids), YUMMY food and catching up with people you get to see only once or twice a year. It's so nice to have family close by and to have such a good time at get togethers!

Cole has discovered a passion for water balloons!
A little friendly competition?!? (my arms are totally bigger, its just not muscle!)