Strawberry Shortcake

No, the title is not referring to the popular kids' cartoon or her do-gooding ways. It's in reference to what we happened to enjoy for dessert on Friday night up in Sugar City. Here's a look at some of my favorite shots of just how much we (particularly Luke and Layne) enjoyed to goods.

Ahhh ... what am I going to do with those two? I'm not including Layne in that either.

Day at the Cabin

On Thursday morning, Becky, the kids, and I headed up to the cabin to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and scenery. We had a great time. Here's just a couple of pics from the day ... with more to come when I get a chance to do a little editing, but this is just proof in picture as to why Beej is the best and most-loved aunt of all time.

Nielson's Construction

Wednesday morning, right before we headed up north, K&K had their third field trip of the week with preschool and this time, I was privileged to be able to come along for the adventure. Sure I had to drive six four-year-olds and two adults to a construction site, but it was worth it. Here's a few pictures from the outing. This first one is of Koria getting to blow the horn on a big rig. Kimball's next, with the perma-grin.

The preschoolers got to see a giant bulldozer run over two junk cars, after they had been lifted up in the air by a giant crane and set back on the ground again. It was every Tonka-loving little boy's dream come true. Kimball was kind enough to point out all of the cool stuff for the other kids.

They each received the lovely orange vests and hardhats that they are seen wearing too, which definitely were outstanding. I wish they would have given the adults some too.

Painting the Holidays

Last Tuesday, the day before we headed up to Idaho for our Fall Break, I whipped out a set of wooden month-by-month cut-outs that I'd found in a giant package, unpainted, at the D.I. about six months ago. When I saw it, I thought to myself, "For 75 cents and some paint, I'll bet I would have a fun project for the kids to do." Let me tell ya, it's worth more than the cents I paid for it -- at least two bucks worth. Koria and Kimball had a great time painting to their hearts' content. Most of those are covered in at least five layers of paint. They'd paint one, then let it dry, then decide that the previous color scheme just wasn't right. My favorite is the "flying angel" a.k.a. Cupid that is all green. A lot of them started out with a green base coat, per Koria's instuctions. Guess she likes green.

By the way, can you guess which ones I did?

Happy Birthday Aunt Becky!

To the one-and-only, fabulous Aunt Becky, we wish you the best of birthdays! You make our taste buds go KAPOW!!!!!!

The Blacks vs. Lagoon

Yesterday, Oct. 9, marked the annual Black Family Day at Lagoon for 2010. We met up with Jana and her kids, Steph and Jerry and fam, Mike, Grandma and Grandpa Black, and us, around 11:00 a.m. and played until 7:00 p.m., enjoying the cooler fall weather and Halloween festivities. Here's a few pictures I took near the end of the day's events.

Aunt Jana with Luke

Kimball taking in the last ride of the day

A very wet Jared, Uncle Meekie, and Aunt Steph

Kendra and Koria on the Scrambler (for the third time), about when Kendra's flu from the day before started to kick in again ...

And Jared and Kimball soaking it all in (pun intended).

Black Family Day at Lagoon (Cont.)

Jerry's Splash Down

Abby, Madison, and Taeya after the log ride

Rattlesnake Rapids

Kimball and Jace flying high

Luke and Layne's R&R

Indians ... No Cowboys

The Monday morning after conference, the kids asked me if we could make indian headbands, "just like they used to wear. You know, Mom."

Sure I do. We had a lot of fun putting these together, and Koria and Kimball did their own. They started out strong, cutting their own feathers, but gave out on me about one feather in, so I finished up the rest of the cutting. Notice that Koria didn't feel in the mood for feathers on her headband that day. She made sure that I was aware of that fact. Luke's didn't stay on long.

Our House #2

Yeah, yeah. It's our house again, but this is after it had rained a bit ... so it's different.

General Conference Festivities

You'll be shocked to know that I made a real meal for our mid-conference meal, complete with a dessert and real drink. What luxuries. the kids enjoyed trying out our newly decorated house and playing some Scooby-Doo 3D as they like to call it in the moments after the last session.

(more sat. afternoon pics)

We stopped by Joe's Valley Reservoir on our route home. It's one of our favorite spots to throw rocks.

The fall colors and weather made for a beautiful afternoon.

Saturday afternoon session of conference

We decided to go for a drive up in the mountains while listening to the Saturday Afternoon General Conference session on the radio of our truck. Jared drove us to a high overlook of the surrounding area that we enjoyed. All of the kids zonked out except for our stubborn Layne, who conveniently (and as always) fell asleep about two minutes before we reached our destination. Here's a few pictures from our excursion to the mountain top. We enjoyed conference and snacks along the way.

Halloween Underwear

The first day of October marks the first day of setting up Halloween decorations around the house. We al love it around here, especially Jared, Koria, and Kimball. Last year, Becky scored Koria a fabulous pack of festive undies on the Halloween clearance sales, which one little redhead was more than thrilled about.

When I left to go do some grocery shopping that night, Jared gave the kids a bath, afterwhich he had the kids go into their own rooms to get dressed for bed. He said that Koria walked back into the bathroom that she took her bath in and announced that she needed his help. After marching him back into her room, Jared found this sight below. Koria had arranged all of her band new underwear up in the neat line (which glows in the dark, by the way) and asked his opinion as to which pair she should wear first.

Ahh, all the tough decisions in life ....

The Black House

Sept. 30. Nothing too exciting, but here's a look at our house these days.

Pigtails

Sept. 29 marked Layne's first double pigtail day. She was very excited ... as was her big sister ... as was I. Here's Layne in all her glory, busy trying to eat some fake french fries. Yum.

SLC Airport

Early on the morning of Sept. 28, the kids and I loaded into the car and drove up to the airport to pick up our much-missed dad. After circling the airport about 5 times, Koria and Kimball decided that it would be a good idea to say some prayers to help Mommy finding the parking garage. Hallelujah. Even though Jared had beaten us there, he waited above so that we could get into the airport for his grand entrance. We made a gigantic sign to welcome him home and were the subject of many comments and interesting looks. We overheard several conversations to the effect of, "Wow, they sure have their hands full." Come on, people, you can be more original than that.

Disney World

Here they are, in no particular order, a few pictures from Jared's trip to Florida for a business conference that happened to be in a conference center located in Disney World. Since I wasn't there myself, I'll just give you a brief explanation as to what is what.

Mickey and the gang fishing of the manmade banks of Florida.

On of the princess castles. Koria was pretty exticed to hear about it.

That's a real giraffe. There's a wild animal park that's part of Disney World.

That tan building is part of the building that Jared stayed in. Not a bad view, huh?

Below is a dinosaur that arose from the lagoon in Jurasic Park World. Jared wasn't supposed to be taking pictures, but they didn't tell anyone that until a director made an announcement over the boat speakers after Jared's flash started going off.