Last Weekend

Most people probably considered this weekend their last blast before the outdoors freeze up and turn from gold to a murky gray--their last chance to play before winter sets in. For us, last weekend was the pinnacle of all our fun until the holidays roll around.

The fun started with the delight of having a visit from Grandma and Grandpa -- who came on Wednesday for an extra long weekend! This meant that Brielle had the pleasure of dragging Grandpa along with Daddy for her very first field trip -- to the pumpkin patch and corn maze. She could hardly sleep the day before and was so enthusiastic that it almost made them as excited to join her.

The best part of that whole deal was it meant Breje and I were free to spend a whole day with Grandma in Boise -- and we literally shopped til we dropped!


The only way this weekend could get better was by having Travis, Hayley and the girls arrive on Friday afternoon. We kicked the celebration into high gear with another trip to Boise for dinner.
I'm pretty sure Brielle and Sienna were the only ones who didn't notice what a long, hungry drive that was!
We eventually made it and delicious Mexican food was had by all -- along with yummy brownie sundaes for Kutter and my birthdays! Whooo hooo!The real highlight of the weekend was that Kutter was able to be baptized. I got this shot just while we were waiting for everyone to arrive. Can you tell that Kutter is "seriously nervous and really happy"?
We were able to have a very simple, small ceremony with just our friends and family, and the only thing that could've made it better is having the rest of the fam there!


Grandma Linda always makes a special baptism book for the kids to remember their special day. Besides all the fun pictures, she includes a personal testimony from everyone in the family that the kids can read whenever they want.
It was a pretty big hit and Kutter even admitted to me later (although if you tell him that you read it here I will deny it with all my heart and then hunt you down!) that he cried when he read all of the testimonies. We were pretty much worn out after all that, so we spent the rest of the weekend eating great food, playing games, and just watching the kids hang out.

You can't really beat that weekend!

Kutter's Eighth Birthday!

I can't believe our little Kutter has reached the age of accountability! There are so many things to love about Kutter, but I think my favorite is his sheepish grin! I adore how much he loves school and how quickly he makes friends. He loves all things boy -especially sports, which is why we threw him a football party for his birthday. I tried and tried to get him to agree to USU colors, but he's officially ditched my team in favor of BSU blue and orange -- we'll try to forgive him! I'm kind of proud of my BSU blue turf tablecloth ....... it was supposed to be bad weather, so I planned all sorts of football themed games -- a football toss and football bingo...

.l. but I was thrilled when I was able to ditch that plan and just send them outside to play football!

I eventually had to let them in for dinner -- good ole ball park franks, blue and orange nachos and some nasty orange gatorade. They thought they'd died and gone to heaven!

I have to give Jody credit -- I started whining about Kutter wanting a real cake and not just cupcakes (I am so not one of those talented cake decoraters) so Dad stepped in and created Kutter's football cake!

Gift time was the best part! You know you got good stuff when you're older brother is sneaking up behind you to snatch your new toys!

He liked his new BSU shirt way more than he's showing. I swear! Happy Birthday Kutter!

Feelin Crafty

It hasn't exactly been feeling like fall around here lately, but something happens to me when the kids go back to school and I just desperately need to craft. The problem that I constantly run into is that there are hardly any places to buy craft supplies in this small town -- so I literally jumped for joy when I found this idea somewhere out there in blog-heaven. The supply list was surprisingly do-able.
Old sweaters: check
Twine: check
Rubber bands: check
Stuffing: Well, you're supposed to use actual stuffing, but if you're as cheap as me then you just use the wasted pieces of the sweater and then you feel even less terrible about cutting it up in the first place). So check!
The cost of this adorable little pumpkin patch? Totally and completely free. That's not even the best part. It involves no sewing and it's completely possible to complete them in one afternoon (as long as you and your friends are prepared to completely ignore all of your sweet little girls and not notice that all the flowers have been decapitated and a frog may or may have lost his life in what possibly could have been a science project gone horribly awry!)