New house progress

In October, we bought this.

Two weeks ago, this is what it looked like.

Last week, it looked like this.

Three days later, we saw this.

That's progress!

Now if we can be sure we will sell our current house...

Hello this is Scott on 12-2-08 I got my tooth puled out I got chekd out of school to go to the dentest so my tooth could be puled out. Ihad to get my tooth puld out because it was dead. The new tooth was behind it, so it didn't break the root. The root was longer than the tooth. I got a prize!

I feel...

queasy.

What I learned this Thanksgiving...

BEFORE you get too ambitious about the many kinds of pie you are going to make, count how many pie plates you have. Shop for new ones before Thanksgiving morning.

(From Ben)

Well, here it is. Yesterday was the first time I got to start my engines. Wow! I've got four Saito 82a engines turning a 12-inch 3 blade prop. Each of the 4-stroke engines have a 16 oz. gas tank (that's a lot of fuel). Everything went well breaking the engines in. I'll probably taxi the plane again a few more times and then, hopefully, make the maiden flight this spring after we move to our new home. Now all I have left to do (I believe) is to make the machine guns coming off of the turrets and paint my pilots.

Happy Thanksgivoween

Since I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be a nice time to post some Halloween pictures. We got to the Church for Trunk or Treat very early to make our homemade rootbeer. I brought dinner to eat there--mummies (hot dogs wrapped in croissants), witch fingers (carrots with almond "nails"), pumpkins (cut out of salsa tortillas and baked), and Wolf Blood (V8). The kids were not thrilled with the meal. They were, however, thrilled with the rootbeer and the candy that soon came!

Ben pulled out his Batman costume (which he made himself--he is very multi-talented), and I went along with the theme as the "She-Hulk." What a happy family!

La Otra Mujer

For those who may not have seen this yet, this is Ben's "little" project--the Dogpatch Express. He is fortunate that he decided to build my grandpa's plane, or this would not have been brought into existence for many, many more years... (He is a smart fellow.)



Here's what it looked like on the day it arrived:The wing, in the midst of its creation:The first attempt at painting:The nose art:

Any questions?

Saturday Nights

This reminds me of Saturday nights with my sisters, sitting around getting curlers in our hair. I laughed so hard, I cried when I saw this. I'm still giggling now!

Caytie Lady

Our little Cayte is 17 months old today, ALREADY! I haven't put many pictures of her on here yet, so here are a few shots to show off our cutie...
With Grandpa on a hike in Antimony, UT

Thoroughly enjoying Daddy's birthday cake!

Sneaking someone's post-soccer game bribe :) (Don't tell Gracie...)

We love having this little ball of personality in our family!

PS--we'd love to see any posts with pictures of you all, too!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

A couple weeks ago, Ben had a free day at work. (He was going to go help in Galveston after Hurricane Ike with our ward, but the trip was cancelled.) What better thing is there to do with a free day, then to check the kids out of school and go to the State Fair of Texas? Scott and Emma were enchanted with the idea that we could take them out of school for such a fun thing, and everyone was a good sport for a long, fun, mildly hot day of walking around the huge fair. We saw "Big Tex" (above), a daredevil show, a dog trick show, and a puppet show. We saw lots of arts and crafts, a huge sand sculpture of Egypt, played with a children's farm display, and ate some of the required fair food. The corney dogs were not our favorite--too hot outside, not cooked inside. The fried cheesecake was delicious! The line for the Country Fried Bacon was too long.

This picture does not do the size of this pig justice. It was the LARGEST pig I have ever seen! It was easily longer than Ben is tall. Granted, my pig perspective is fairly limited, but I did hear that it has won records for being the largest, or heaviest, or something-est pig around.

Here are the kids after the puppet show. Scott was inspired to become a puppeteer when he grows up, after he becomes a paleontologist, and a mad scientist that finds a cure for cancer with his potions.

Something funny from the day... We passed a booth selling saunas. Scott saw them and was telling the girls that they were elevators. We told him no, and what they were. He asked what a sauna was. I said that they were for people to go inside and get all hot and sweaty, to help their bodies feel better. He said, "Oh, so they're like microwaves for people." Made us laugh...

Soccer girls!

I've had to wait a while to post these pictures, because one of my little soccer girls has been rather reluctant to play...and therefore rather hard to take pictures of! But we got some good ones, so I thought I'd share what Emma and Gracie have been up to on Saturdays.

Emma is the smallest one on her team (and any other team), so she has to work extra hard to keep up with everyone. But she has really loved doing it! She is on the Hamsters team--all girls, all in Kindergarten. One of her teammates is in her class, which is really fun for them. I've been proud of how she works, when the shadows in the grass are not stealing all her attention.

Gracie's team is the Stingrays. They are all 3 years old. There are two girls, including her, and the rest are boys. This week Gracie got to kick the ball to start the game!

Go, Gracie, go!

OK, so the truth is, this picture below is how Gracie spent most of her games. It took much persuasion (and a little bribery) to even get her to play enough to get the shots above. But she actually learned a lot in her practices, and likes to play soccer at home with us.

The best part of the season, of course, was spending time with Daddy, who was the assistant coach for her team. Go Stingrays! Go Hamsters!

Lagoon Pictures

"Grandpa--put your camera away!"

(This was Scott's favorite moment of the whole day.)

School Began August 25th

Emma is a big Kindergartener now! She has been ready all summer.

Walking to school, she had to pick up a roly poly or two...

In front of her new locker. She has the same teacher that Scott had, and already loves her!

Scott started second grade and also loves his teacher already.

Go Paul...uh, Paulette?

In honor of the Olympics...

Those "back circles" are very impressive!

Gracie says...

Gracie loves to draw people lately. They're the cute, typical first people, with a giant head, arms sticking out where the ears should be, and long legs coming out the bottom. She always includes a floating belly button right between the legs, and I have to explain to everyone what it is, because it LOOKS like she is being more anatomically correct than she really is.

That's why I was worried today in Scott's taekwondo class, when she started to describe what a woman has instead of a girl. I held my breath as she said, "When I am a woman I will grow lots of teeth and have long, long arms." Whew! Made it through that one without too much embarrasment!

But now I am wondering about the pictures she draws of me--I never noticed, but I do seem to have long, long arms...and lots of teeth...

PS--She has never used Microsoft Paint before, but I wanted to show what her people look like, so she did this for me. (It looks almost exactly like she would draw it on paper.)

Hi--this is Scott. We are leaving for Utah on the 25th of July. I'm VERY excited! I want to go to the Bean Museum because I like the animals that they have, and the big elephant skull. Right now I am teasing my cat Abe. He just bit me. OUCH! I'm the only one that he likes, though. See you soon.

Hello Everyone!

I'm new to the whole blogging thing so here it goes. We have a new addition to our family. Meet Harry! Carley and Drew saved up their money and bought a bunny rabbit. Yeppee!

Baseball 2008

Hey, ya'll!!

I am posting my first blog. Will write more after I finish laundry and recover from the past 4th of July weekend! Dad has pictures. Love you all, Mom

San Antonio!

We took a trip to San Antonio two weeks ago. Again we spent two days at Sea World and a morning at the Alamo. Lots of fun and lots of heat!

One of the first things we always do is feed the dolphins...

The kids really enjoyed the dolphin and beluga show this year--could be because of all the times we've sung "Baby Beluga" lately...

The Alamo was crowded and hot--and poor Emma started throwing up that day, but Scott got a coon skin hat, so all was well...

In all, it was a fun trip. We wish we could have shared it with more of you, like we did in 2005!