Thanksgiving at our place

I know, no pictures I am still working that detail out. I really do miss blogging. I just wanted to share a little something I loved about Thanksgiving today. I was a little sad not to spend it with extended family. I did have a very sweet experience today. I made a beautiful Thanksgiving feast for our little family of which Madee and Sam choose rolls as their only food. That is not the sweet part. After Madee and Sam helped me put a table cloth on our table and we filled our plates and all sat down to eat I recommended that we all come up with one thing we were thankful for. Well we each went around the table and said one thing. As we ate my children kept sharing sweet little things that they were thankful for. It touched my heart. Happy Thanksgiving!

Late night rant

I was looking at the wonderful pictures my sister posted on her blog and realized that I have so many pictures I have not blogged because well sadly our kids (and lets not name any names) did quite the number on our computer that we use to store all of our pictures. Here is to hoping we can find a way to retrieve them. Its very sad. I know we will get the computer running again but its frustrating when your kids destory things. That is all. I need to go to bed now.

Weird Dream

I had a weird dream last night. It was kind of like a dooms day dream. I dreamed that I had Madee and Sam with me and we were racing to leave town because everyone knew from the color of the sky that something bad was going to happen that day. Lincoln was too slow and so we left before him. When the destruction started to happen we (me and the kids) (who knows where Claire was) raced into this large building with a lot of other people. We huddled down against a sturdy wall and I destracted the kids from seeing the bus crash into a near by window. (go figure the bus didn't break the window) In fact nothing hurt the building, we were completely safe inside. When we went outside after all the destruction had settled down, we started looking for family. I saw My Mom and Aunt Kate and remember feeling extreme relief that they were safe. I was looking all around for Lincoln but woke up before I found him. This was my dream. Every so often I have a dream that I remember and I really wonder if there is a deeper meaning to it all. That is truly the question.

Tri Cities Indian Summer Half Marathon

Well I wasn't really planning on doing two half Marathons this summer but my sister in law Sarah and her husband were doing one and asked if I wanted to run it with them. I said sure and so there you go. Two in one summer. There were about 400 runners. This is Sarah and Jeremiah finishing and all the kids run with them the last few feet to the finish line! I love it!
This was me almost to the finish line trying to beat this lady, doing it without having my leg cramp up. It almost did just at the end.
This is halfway through the race and I was going strong! It was super pretty right by the river. Pretty pretty.
We all finished and I did it seven min fast then I did the bend sunriver half! :) That was my goal. I enjoy pushing myself and challenging my self in races. It helps keep me motivated to exercise.

Random things

I have been doing a bit of sewing and made this super cute and easy skirts. This top one I made two of and Madee and Claire both have one but the size for Claire is 2T so she will not fit hers for a little while.


Madee lost her first baby tooth right at the end of school. She was so excited she got to keep it in a little treasure chest to take home.
I colored my hair it was suppose to be a dark blonde but looks pretty brown to me. Its a pretty color anyway I think.
This is one more skirt I sewed. I am still considering making pockets on them we will see.

Earings

Madee had her official birthday yesterday. We had a party for her Saturday but decide to let her get her ears pierced if she wanted to. She decided to get them done and she was very brave. She got little butterfly's that were a blue color for September Sapphira.


We love having this sweet girl in our family its hard to believe your six. We love you!

Butterfly Party

We don't do parties for Madee every year but since she was starting school we decided to have a friend party this year. Madee informed me that she wanted it to be a butterfly party. We got creative. Here she is opening some gifts.
Blowing out the candles on a butterfly cake!
Here are the friends she invited to her party. There were seven of them. It was fun having them all come she sure had a great time playing with them all.
We had a butterfly pinata which Madee and I made ourselves. Lots of fun was had swinging our little plastic bat trying to break it.
We played pin the dots on the butterfly. (similar to pin the tail on the donkey)
Here is a better picture of the butterfly cake.
Madee also came up with her own game she called it caterpillar, caterpillar, butterfly.
(similar to duck duck goose). It was a great party everyone had fun.

East Lake Campground Bend Oregon

We drove to Bend Oregon on labor day weekend. Three days and three nights of camping. It was hot in the day and Cold at night (even with a heater in our tent)(RV hook ups helps) This is my niece Zaylie chilling by the fire.
All the Denny Family was here. It was great to see everyone and hang out.
Nana and Grandpa were wonderful feeding everyone the majority of the meals. Claire was on the picnic table and in the dirt and all around crazy fun camping.
Sam loved camping too running around with cousins and all.
Rocks are the best.
There was a lake right across the street from the campground and it was beautiful especially at sunset when all the fish are jumping and biting all the bugs on the top of the water. So cool to watch. We went swimming and once you get use to it the water is not bad.
Jeremiah my brother in law found these really old glasses frames and well there is no other word to explain it then awesome looking.
Here is Madee wading in the water with her cousin Cloe.
Claire and I checking out the water too.
Bat Sam liked the water. There was this great little playground also a little house and picnic table they could play in right by the water. We had a great time. We did wuss out after night two. We got a hotel in Bend the third night and all got a good nights rest and swam in the hotel pool. Thanks for the camping Denny family! We love you all.

Kindergarden

Madee started Kindergarden half day this year. She goes every afternoon. She was a little worried before she started but I think she really likes it. She even wanted to ride the bus home and said it was fun.
Here we are walking her to her class with her friend Micheal that is in her class. It was great that she had a friend already that she knew.
Excited I think so. Sorry pictures are not in order.

Here she is sitting at her seat and waiting for class to start. This being my first child to go to school I never expected the feels that I have felt. I always thought I would be so happy when school started then she would be busy and learning new things. In that very same sentence its not me teaching her those new things and I hope kids are kind to her and that she is kind to them. I hope she will be a good example to others and remember who she is. Most of all I hope time slows down and it takes a long time for High school to come. :)

Swim Lessons

We did another round of swimming lessons because the kids really enjoyed it and because it gave them something to look forward to every day for a couple weeks. We did lessons at the outdoor pool this time. Franklyn pool. There were four kids in the class all together. So we were half the class.

The last day of class they got to go down the water slide and surprisingly they both went down with there instructors. Even more surprising they both went down by themselves and someone caught them at the bottom.
Madee got really good at bobs in the water. Up and down with her head completely under water. She could stay under for 5 seconds.


They both had a great summer swimming.

Return to Zarahemla!

We did just get back from camping at Zarahemla Camp a couple weeks ago for a family reunion but we liked it so much we thought we would go back. This time with cousins! Sam is blasting off that tree stump!
Cousin Max balancing on a log! Nothing better then rocks and sticks to play with when your camping.
So we went camping with my cousin Tony and his family. My Cousin Stacey and brother Ben joined in the fun. We had a great time camping two nights.
Yes we did play some fisbee golf but had to watch out for people walking through the woods. (It was a bit busier then the last time we were here.
Ben Slept in his three man tent. We almost tested it out and had Lincoln and Tony climb in there with him. It would have been awfully cozy.
We went out on the canoes and the guys got to go fishing. We played some mean games of speed the card games and nertz. It was lots of fun.
The kids played really well together and we were camped right by the playground so the kids were there quite a bit.
Thanks Epperson's for all the fun camping we will definitely have to do it again.
Undates on our kiddo's Madee has a loose tooth on the bottom and I think it will fall out soon. She starts kindergarden in a couple weeks and is very excited about it.
Claire is saying way more like cracker and up and she just is repeating a lot more of what we say. She is into everything but that is not really new.

Sam is doing so good him and Madee have been doing swim lessons this summer and are getting way more confident in the water. He no longer is using pull ups at night. Lets just say Potty training is going really well. Life savors help as a bribe.