Autumnal Recollections... of our own insanity

The Doctor is remarkable. (And so I remark...)

He decided to run another marathon this year. This time in St. George, Utah.

The timing was tricky, though, because it happened to be the weekend BEFORE our kids had a "Fall Break" from school. It also happened to be at the same time as the LDS temple open-house in Star Valley, Wyoming. 

SO- I hatched a daring plan (facilitated by $35 one-way flights from Southwest Airlines.)

It looked like this:

Green represents Me

Red represents my kids

Blue represents my husby

And somehow (with tons of help from BOTH sides of the family) we pulled it off!

September

I like to think of myself as wordy. An author in embryo.

And yet....

 when I sit down to write of our adventures and escapades, 

I come up with a pile of pictures and not much to say. 

These kids are growing!

My job is evolving and I'm actually manage to keep up a little.

Or so I like to tell myself.

Fourth grade and this one-- Socks has officially graduated to surly pre-teendom.

he's NOT what I call wordy, and sometimes

 getting him to talk to me is my biggest challenge of the day.

Pow-Pow (AKA Pencil) is suddenly comfortable in the 'big-kid' category.

 He's reading up a storm and developing quite a sense of humor. 

Cue the punny jokes!

Grapes is still wont to be photographed - a shame because she's turning out to be a pretty girl-

But she is continuing to develop her artsy and musical talents.  (note my sweet hair-do here!)

But here she is enjoying her straight hair.

And Feta the Little Girl (DON'T call her a baby!)

is keeping me busy. She turned 2 in September. 

She has since OWNED the title of terrible two, if in attitude only.

She loves babies (this is our friend's baby, S. She can't get enough of him. Holding and kissing and patting rather roughly with a sweet "good boy" in his ear)

She loves being outside. Especially with Pow Pow.

She has a mighty independent streak. 

"I hewp my-SEWF" is our new theme.

She speaks so well that usually I know exactly what she is thinking-

but on occasion, her idea of communication  isn't the same as mine. 

THAT is when the fireworks happen.

September was also our family trip to Phoenix to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa for a fun weekend and a BYU-U of A football game!

We visited the Lego Adventure and Sea World Aquarium areas.

We stayed at a hotel very near the football stadium and enjoyed time with Grandma and Grandpa.

As my kids age, I am convinced that we will never get enough time with extended family.

I was spoiled as a child to have SO many dear ones so close.

My monkeys especially loved the time we spent with the grandparents at our house before heading to the valley. We upheld a new tradition to make homemade root-beer with them.

Homemade root-beer is always fun, but especially so because it is done with Grandpa.

Christmas trip

We had the privilege to travel to Utah and visit lots of family over the Christmas break.
In all honesty- the more times we do this, the more I struggle with the visiting. We only get to see these awesome people a few times each year, so when we get together we try to cram as much as possible in, logically. I love seeing them and spending time together.
Sadly, with children, trying to spend long hours in cars for days on end, and spending time with people doing lots of crazy fun things quickly turns into a nightmare of grumpy kids, little to no sleep (thus resulting in a grumpy mom) horrible eating habits (that mom gets to take care of/clean up after) and ridiculous expectations for when we get home again.  (ie: "Why can't I eat more chocolate orange for breakfast? I don't want to to CHORES! I'm not getting up for school." to name a few direct quotes from the last few days)

I'm very glad we went. Don't get me wrong. We made some brilliant memories and loved on some dear, dear people. I just need a vacation to recover from my vacation.
(My work trip, lets be real. I was working on this trip)


Things we want to remember:

Before this trip our darling aunt Amanda came to AZ to visit us. We loved every minute of it- we just didn't take any photos. Boo. It was a delight to have her here, and we'll hopefully take better pictures next time! While she was here there was some crazy weather and my kids ended up having some school cancelled for snow days. We also had church cancelled- so there was lots of hanging out in Jams and being together.

Amanda flew from Phoenix to Utah with us- and our adventure began!

We got together with the Doctor's father's extended family for a Christmas dinner- I didn't take great photos there either. BUT-- I caught Feta hamming it up with our sweet Cousie E and Aunt Amanda and Grandma Jen.