Halloween 2010

I love Halloween. Always have.

This year, Wyatt got to have a parade with his preschool class. Love his preschool teacher! She makes Wyatt feel so special, even if we just run into her somewhere in town.

This year, Wyatt wanted to be Curious George. I found the monkey costume at the Old Navy outlet--score!--but then I had to add a little felt fur to the top so that it looked "more like George" according to Wyatt. Wyatt loves to pretend to be George and speaks "George" to us. We have to figure out what all the "hoo-hoo-ha's" mean. Luckily, he usually points or acts something out, and that helps.

These next two photos don't really have to do with Halloween except that they were taken around the same time. I opened up the face paint, and let them go to town.

Jonah didn't get to have a parade this year. I don't know if the school doesn't do it or if it is just because he is AM kindergarten, but he still had plenty of places to wear his super-scary, glow-in-the dark skeleton costume, like Tutu's house with the Stirling cousins...

and the annual Nelson Family Halloween Party.
My mom and dad throw a great Halloween party! All the cousins come dressed up, most of the grown-ups do too. We eat, dance, play games and have lots of fun.
This was part of the dance party. Max is the crazy uncle and usually gets tackled by the hordes of children. My mom can still do the splits on demand and where better to do it than the middle of a dance circle in ... whatever it is she is wearing.
Limbo---I was a tiger, but my mask is missing.
All the kidlets--minus angel Tessa whom we miss very much--now that everyone has moved back.

My dad is a great grandpa. I had one very old grandpa (he was 88 when he came to live with us when I was 5) and a distant grandpa in Texas. I love seeing my kids get to play with my dad.

The best game: Guess the Grownup. Each grownup would pop their nylon-smashed face up for just a second and the kids had to guess who it was. They (the kids and the grownups) loved it and so it will probably become part of the annual party tradition.

Jonah Turned Six

Way back in September, Jonah turned 6!! He was and still is (since he watched Star Wars a couple months ago) into all things space. Since we had just moved here and I didn't know who to invite to a birthday party--and if you give Jonah the reins he will invite at least 50 people--I decided it would be a family/cousins party. We headed down to g-ma's house for cake, ice-cream, and presents and then took the cousins, closest to his age, to the planetarium and fountains.

I've never taken a cake decorating class, so my cakes don't necessarily look professional, but they are a lot of fun and I must say, this is one of my best--a comet, the moon, the earth, and the space shuttle complete with fire.
Jonah got a "big Woody" to go with his big Buzz Lightyear. He was very excited! He kept saying, "A big Woody, a big Woody, bigger than my small Woody." (since he already had a small plastic Woody doll) Max was wishing we could have caught that on camera to embarrass him when he gets older, but we missed it.

Jonah gets more excited about presents than anyone I know. You feel like you did a really good job picking out a present because he lets you know how much he loves it. He loves to make other people feel good. I was volunteering at his school one day and a new girl was there for the first day. You could tell she was nervous and feeling very shy. Before the end of class, I watched as he made sure to go over and say, "I'm glad you're in our class." He seems to sense other people's emotions and wants to make them feel okay. He's done the same for me on my sad days. Love him so much!

On the moon...
at the fountains...

I adore this next picture of Wyatt. To me it shows the total inhibition and joy of childhood. I wish I could feel this way more often.

September

September was an interesting month of learning our new routine with Jonah in kindergarten every morning and Wyatt going to preschool two afternoons a week, and me trying to get Emmett to nap somewhere in between the coming and going. Max was also trying to get into the groove of his new, very busy job. Still we found time to play as we always do and it's way more fun to record playing than figuring out routines.

Max and I ran the "Dirty Dash" at Soldier Hollow with our good friends, the McQueens. We are so blessed to have awesome friends who like to play with us. Seriously, how many couple-friends do you have where you and your husband were friends with both the husband and the wife before you or they even became husband and wife. We've got several of those because we worked on the river. It's great. Plus, these friends love getting dirty as much as we do--whether it's camping, river running, or sloshing through a muddy race.

Our team was called "Ham Slamma Jamma" and you can't see it, but we had a drawing of a pig making a slam dunk on our shirts.
I couldn't go for the full dunk--good thing too because Ashly did and couldn't open her eyes at all for a few minutes and I had to lead her through that final mud hole.

We took a fall hike through Cascade Springs on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Since Jonah and Wyatt are arguing or bugging each other at least 50% of the time, it's good to catch the other 50% on film.

I'm one lucky mama.

Jonah and Wyatt also played soccer in September and October. Because of their ages, they got to be on the same team one last time. From here on it probably won't be that way because of grade level, but they had a lot of fun on the same team.
It was a good little team too. All boys and all pretty aggressive with the ball. They won all but one or two of their games. They also had a great coach who rotated them in and out well and made it fun. It was a good experience, so they want to do it again next year. I loved how, unlike Iowa where it was 5 on 5, here it was only 3 on 3--6 kids running after and crowding the ball is much more manageable than 10. And I'm too cheap to buy the soccer package photos, especially since I spent a pretty penny on my own camera. So these will do.

Lucky boys!

I know I've posted things like this before, but my boys are really lucky.

First Day of Kindergarten and A New Preschool

Back at the end of August, my oldest started Kindergarten. He was so excited! He wore his new shirt, his new pants, new shoes, and his new backpack. I was pretty excited too. I still remember my first day of kindergarten picture with a bookbag my mom had made with my name on the side.

He loves school (at least for now)--kind of takes after me in that way rather than his dad. In 4th grade Max's mom found out he hadn't been doing his homework. When she asked him why he said, "When I'm at school, I'll do work, but when I'm home it's 'me' time." Fourth grade!! Hopefully I won't have to deal with that because I was the complete opposite. An extreme over-achiever, I didn't know how to not have an assignment done, and when, in middle school, I told my mom that a friend got $100 for every A she got on her report card, my mom offered me $100 if I could force myself to get a C.
Little bro needed a photo that morning too. And I should just pretend that this was his first day too because on his actual first day of preschool, I forgot the camera when I dropped him off and...
then when I picked him up I realized I hadn't combed his hair. I think it was a busy day. Poor middle child! He loves his preschool too--can't wait to go every time.

Nelson Family End of Summer Party

At the end of the summer we had a fabulous Nelson party/family reunion. All of my brothers and sisters are back in Utah, one having just returned from Germany. So what did we do? We rented a huge slide, of course.

My sister and her family had just moved into their new home (after waiting 9 months for it on short sale!!) and it has a great backyard for parties.

This next picture makes me LOVE my camera. I upgraded cameras just before we left Iowa because I found a great deal on a used one. It takes fabulous pictures with amazing color in my opinion!



Such a fun day, and it even went into the night with a sleepover for anyone who wanted. The kids all loved it. I don't have a picture, but my sister told the girls they could toilet-paper the boys. They did, as well as most of the house, and they even toilet-papered my sister and her husband while they were sleeping. She woke up thinking, "Great, that's comforting to know we can sleep through several people walking around our bed and toilet papering right over our heads."

Hope we can do it again next year!

Moab with the Youngs and Cabin with the McQueens

As soon as we got back to Utah, we made sure to plan weekends with two of our closest friends' families. Max and I worked with both of the Youngs and both of the McQueens on the river. This makes it extra fun to play with them because we're both friends with both of the husbands and both of the wives. None of that awkward, let's go hang out with your friends of my friends kind of thing. I love it and hope we are always very close friends. In fact, I would love it if the Youngs lived on one side of us and the McQueens lived on the other. Maybe we can make that work someday. It is also fun because all of our kids are very close in age.

First we went to Moab with the Youngs. We did a little overnighter on the daily section of the Colorado. Thank goodness the Youngs have a raft. A raft will be our first major splurge as soon as we can afford it.

Compare this photo to photos from our river days and man we've aged. But at least we've done it together. Still wearing the same river shirts though. Max's was a gift from the Youngs and mine was a gift from a passenger. I had told him how much his pearly-snappy was coveted on the river and on the last day, he took it off and handed to me. It smelled pretty bad, but I still use it to this day.

I think here they were digging to China.
And then they decided to meditate.
We also went to this great tunnel, Tusher tunnel, outside of Moab. It was nice and cool inside it and of course the kids loved it.


We also found some real dino tracks.

Then another weekend or so later, we went up Weber Canyon with the McQueens. We came down for some boating.

We did some four-wheeling. I think Wyatt and I look kind of crazy in this photo with our wind-blown hair.

Snakes. While I will not touch them, it is fun to see little boys get so excited by them.
We did some fishing at Smith and Moorhouse and a lot of throwing rocks, chasing the dog, and just plain hanging out.

I love this photo. Fisher loves to cuddle up to Jonah. We miss River, born just a month after Jonah. She would have fun with all these little boys.
Love you Youngs and McQueens!