Are we a "Desert Family?"

Well the jury is still out on that, but we did go to Glamis with Russell's parents over Veteran's day weekend and we did have a pretty good time.  Morgan and Madylin were scared of the quads at first, but Madylin warmed up when she got to go on a little ride with daddy.

Morgan still refused to go on the quad until about half-way through the day after Madylin rode this

Then Morgan decided she was brave enough to try.   Here she is with Russell holding a leash to stop her if needed (which it was. Often)  It's only an 11 second video, but I think it's funny to see Morgan give herself whiplash and Russell running behind her to keep up.

Note to self: don't dress the twins alike when we are riding.  I'm not sure who's who in all my pictures when they are on the bike with the helmet on!
There were several other people in our camp (most of them I was only vaguely familiar with) and they were all so kind to share their toys with everyone.  The Burgesons let us take out their razor and the kids all loved it.  Nathan even fell asleep going around all those dunes with the roar of the engine.  Here is Grandpa Kinser, Me with Nathan asleep on my lap, Morgan and Madylin.

Even more than the razor, the girls loved riding in the rhino with Sammy Stuart.

 Sammy was sweet enough to let the girls tag along with her everywhere.  They were always in her trailer or in her rhino and if they weren't, they were asking to go play with Sammy.

Nathan was obsessed! He learned a new word: quad.  He would cry if he was inside the trailer, pointing outside saying "quad quad quad" over and over until Grandpa took him outside and then he HAD to be sitting on one.  Whenever he would get to go out in the rhino or the razor, or when Russell just took him around the camp on the quad he would cry as soon as you came to a stop and turned off the engine.  It was funny, but made things kind of miserable because he was only happy when he was riding on something!  When Russell and his dad were out on rides, Grandma and I had to deal with the unhappy kids.  

The worst part was actually the night.  We were perfectly comfortable in the trailer with Russell's parents, but the noise was so annoying.  Can't there be a curfew in Glamis!??  I felt like I didn't even sleep because every 10 minutes someone would ride right by our trailer with their noisy toy and wake me up ALL night long.  Sorry to complain, but those are the things that would keep me from becoming a "desert family."

 Russell and I went on a couple of rides as well and that was kinda fun.  I learned how to use a clutch!

And I only fell off once and it was actually kind of fun.  I was following Russell up a razorback and I didn't get both the back tires on the right side of the dune, so I got stuck and then kinda got bucked off.  But I pushed off so that I'd land far away from the bike and landed in the soft soft sand.  Didn't hurt ONE bit and I thought that was pretty cool!  (I did break something very minor on the bike though, sorry Travis) I got pretty good by the last day I think.  And I even got a good jump and got all 4 tires off the ground (on purpose, this time).

At night we hung out around the camp fire and the crazy other parents let their teenagers have roman candle wars (shooting them at each other from like 30 ft away, Civil War style!)  Sorry I don't think I'm that much of a prude, but if that's what our kids are supposed to be doing in the desert when they are teenagers, our days as a "desert family" will be short-lived.  There were some really great families out with us, but those parents were seriously unhinged in my opinion!  Russell's says I need to relax.  Here's what my cuties were doing instead.

Just hanging around the campfire making s'mores.  So I'm sure we'll be going out again this season, but I don't know if I'm ready to call us a real "desert family" just yet.

He Amazes Me

So I don't usually do posts bragging about my kids, but I am just so amazed by Nathan!  He is SUCH a talker!!  He has a new word like every week and is only 15 months!  I'm sorry, but I'm impressed.  These are the words he says

• up (first one I pushed because I was tired of the screaming when he wanted to be held)
• Mamma and Dadda
• ball
• nana (for banana-  he practically sing/screams this one out of excitement when he gets one)
• hot dog (this one shocked my when he started saying it at about 13 months. It sounds like "hot gog." Should I be ashamed that one of his first food words was hot dog??)
• hi (constantly- even if he's just gone upstairs for 30 seconds he comes down with a "hi" that sounds like he is in awe and soooo happy to see you again)
• drink ("dink" technically)
• help
• doggie (always followed by an enthusiastic "woof woof woof")
• goat
• Granna (my mom's title)
• Poppa (my dad's title)
• Jesus (points at pictures all the time at church and in our home)
• cheeeeeese (when playing with the girl's play camera)
• shoe (sounds more like "sue")
• bye (just that. Not "buh-bye" like most babies say, which I find interesting)
• pretzel (sounds like "petzel"- no "r")
• nose
• button (when referring to his belly button)
• baby (while holding the twins' dolls- and then he gives them hugs)
• quack quack (in the bath playing with the rubber duckies)
• car (complete with the "vroom vroom")
• apple
• cracker
• cookie
• bite (over and over again, especially if you're eating something he wants)
• mine (not so much said as it is screamed, unfortunately. Thank you sisters)
• no
• ticka ticka ticka (when he is being tickled or trying to tickle)
• sissy
• horsey
• boo!
• hot (usually in the form of a question, as in he'll walk up to the oven and ask me "hot?")
• night night (more like "nye nye"- it's so cute he actually begs for this when he's tired.  He loves his sleep)
• Nathan (okay slight exaggeration, but he does try when you ask him to and he always says "Nay Nay")

A 50s Halloween

We have a couple of Russell's cousins and their families who are in our ward and that we love to hang out with.  I had the idea this year to have all of us dress from the 50s for Halloween.  All the girls wore poodle skirts and all the guys were greasers.  I had not dressed up for Halloween in I think 11 years and I had SO much fun.  We went to our church "trunk-or-treat" the day before Halloween where all the kids go from car to car to trick or treat. Here is our family all dressed up.

And the girls giving some attitude

Nathan being cute with his hair all slicked back

 Here are the 3 little girls (Madylin, Riley, and Morgan)

 Best picture I go of my 3.  Nathan would NOT hold still

 What made the night really fun was that we decorated the truck with a diner theme and the 3 of us mommies served root beer floats to the trick-or-treaters.  We spent several hours the night before on this juke box that hardly got noticed (but hey- the 3 of us girls had a ball making it with lots of good-natured criticism, sarcasm, and laughs into the wee hours of the night) and we played a cd through the car of 50s music that I put together with lots of great songs like Yakety Yak and Hound Dog, and Rockin' Robin to a name a few. We were singing along while scooping ice cream and having a ball even though we were too busy to even look up at to who we were serving.

Here are the 3 ladies that put it together with our precious juke box. 

We changed the names of the songs on the box to incorporate our kids' names.  

We had: 

Rockin' Riley

Nathan Angel

Braden B. Goode

Wake Up Little Mady

Morgan Sue

Luke Potion No. 9

And here's the whole gang with our ribbon we won for our "trunk."  Time to start planning for next year!

Pumpkin Patch 2010

 I am involved in a preschool co-op with some friends and the first 7 weeks I have been teaching. The last day of my unit we took our first class field trip down to Yucaipa to the Live Oak Pumpkin Path.  We had a good time and the weather was beautiful!

Madylin

Morgan

Nathan

 The only other groups there were big school groups, but all the rides were closed.  The John Deere quads were just sitting there unused so the kids had fun sitting on those pretending to drive.

Madylin and Casey

 See that flag rope behind the kids?  Yeah we weren't supposed to go past that, but we honestly didn't even think about it. Everything was closed so we just let the kids sit on the rides and didn't even think twice about it, but we got in trouble for that. Sheesh such bad examples for our children.

   Here's the whole class.  (Madylin, Morgan, Riley, Casey, and Caiden)

 This was their favorite part.  Christy and I carted the group out to the pumpkin fields in these wagons.

All the kids including the younger siblings.  Aren't they cute?

Photo Shoot Part 2

Here are the fabulous shots of just the kids.  Seriously there are so many that I love it is hard to choose a few!

Family Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago my old college roommate/teammate who is a wonderful friend and a fabulous photographer took family pictures for us.  She took over 500 photos!!  And then I went through and narrowed it down to my favorites.  Um . . . yeah . . . I still have 157 favorites!!  Okay but here are some of my very very favorites of the whole family and me and Russell with the kids (the kids individual and group pictures will come in another post because this is too long already!)