The McMinn bunch

Italia

2011-11-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I got to experience the trip of a lifetime in October. We left our precious little kids in the hands of family and friends and took off for Italy. We left SLC at 8:30 in the morning on Friday and landed in Rome at 8:30 the next morning. We decided to just keep going and sight see all day. By the end of the day we were so exhausted. We were there for 8 days and we were busy taking it all in every day. This was definitely not a relaxing vacation. I took over a thousand pictures for the trip and my friend Stephanie took over 600. I will post only a sampling. The pictures are out of order so I will post a small caption under each to explain. We started in Rome for 3 days, Florence for 2, Pisa for a day, and Venice for 2.

Travestere in Rome, This area was recommended by the locals as the best place for meals.

Church in Travestere

Fountain in Rome, The water was cold and tasted good. We drank the water and we were fine.

The Roman Coloseum

The Roman Forum area.

Venice

Fountain outside of the Pantheon in Rome.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa. I was the least excited about seeing Pisa on our trip, but once I got there and saw it, it was amazing. I had no idea how cool it would be.

Boat in Venice.

Inside the Pantheon. This is a working church where they hold services. Also Raphael was buried here.

Vatican Museums, In amazement at the artwork and how big it was.

Trevi fountain. If you enlarge this picture you will see that Jeff is pulling away from me. He hates PDA's

Inside the Coloseum.

Trevi fountain at night.

Steph and I threw our coin into trevi fountain so that means we will return Rome someday.

Overlooking Pisa, from the leaning tower.

Vatican Museums.

Gelato, we had Gelato every day. It was so good. It was also good that we walked around a lot so that we burned it off.

Outside of the Uffizi museum in Florence.

Scooter parking. There were crazy scooter drivers everywhere.

The Leather Market in Florence. A shoppers paradise! Too bad I didn't have much room in my luggage.

Vatican City. In front of St. Peters Basilica.

Inside the Dome of the church in Florence. We walked up 450ish steps. It was hot, and we smelled a lot of stinky Europeons on this walk up.

Our first Gelato dessert in Rome our first day.

At the top of the Dome in Florence. What a view.

Venice.

A Random door in Rome, All of the doors and knockers were so cool and unique.

Dipping my feet in the Mediteranean Sea. The water was warm and nice. I could have stayed there all day, but we only had 45 minutes for this cool town called Positano and the beach.

Our lunch in Positano, had to be my favorite meal on the trip.

The view out the window of the restaurant. Amazing.

Positano in the distance. I was so sad to leave that place.

Afer Positano, we visited Pompeii. Mt. Vesuvius is in the background. If you don't know anything about Pompeii you should look it up. Too amazing to even describe.

Venice.

This may seem disturbing, but this was how they preserved some of the bodies in Pompeii. This person was praying as he died from the ash.

MMM Cannoli's . We loved all of the desserts and pastries, and Italian food.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse of our trip. Pictures cannot even come close to describing the experience. It was amazing, and I am so grateful!

Tyson is 1!!!

2011-09-16T13:35:00.000-06:00

I can't believe my baby is 1 years old. Time goes by way too quickly with these little ones. We were so lucky to get Deanna to take his birthday pictures right before she left. We had her also do our family pictures last week. It was a good thing that she got to see how active Tyson was for the family shoot because we had originally scheduled him for a studio session. She decided that we should be outside and just let Tyson run and play. Well he did. He had a great time running around. He was also being a ham. Everytime we got a good shot of him smiling and looking cute he would give a funny little courtesy laugh. I was wishing that I had my video camera with me.
I know this is a lot of pictures, but I did whittle it down. There are actually 98 pictures total. I think they turned out so good. Of course I think the subject is the cutest little thing ever! I love my boy!

This last picture was for me. I love to see him sucking his thumb and cuddling with his blankie so I brought it with us. Sure enough as soon as I laid the blanket on the ground he walked over and laid down and sucked his thumb. Perfect! These are the things I want to remember about him.

First Field Trip

2011-06-11T15:22:00.000-06:00

Kaylee had her first field trip at the end of Kindergarten. We went to the Pocatello Zoo (lamest zoo ever). It was so fun to ride the bus!

Mrs. Jensen's Kindergarten class. Next year Mrs. Jensen will be teaching first grade and Kaylee will get to be in her class. Should be good to have the teacher already know Kaylee.

Taylor and Tyson came along for the fun.

Kaylee and some of her friends. Her good buddies are right next to her. Sophia and Madison.

If you look close you can see Taylor's pony tail behind the stroller. She was being a little stinker and wouldn't look at the camera. This one has been going through a very long stage of being a stinker. She is so cute, but just doesn't want to obey, doesn't want to help, doesn't want to listen. Anyone else have a four year old going thru this. Oh yeah and she throws massive tantrums that last for an hour or more. I am trying to keep my cool, but there is a limit.

Having lunch, it was so cold by the time we got to lunch. It was miserable, surprise, surprise!

Easter

2011-06-11T15:10:00.000-06:00

First of all I know I am way behind. Feels like blogging is a lot like life. I feel like I am always behind. Four kids seems to be putting me very near the edge! I do love it, just very busy.

So here are just a couple of pictures from Easter. We had a great time with my family up in Jackson. These pics were taken before church on Sunday. My kids are getting so big.

At Easter time there was still a lot of snow in Jackson. This was taken at the trailhead for the Jenny Lake hike.

Expensive family pictures

2011-04-01T10:08:00.000-06:00

You might wonder why Jeff is swimming in the pool with all of his clothes on. Also notice the i-phone that he just fished out of his pocket. Whoops! Fast forward a few pictures to get the whole story.

Of course it is all my fault for wanting to take a family picture on the waterfall. At least that is what Jeff thinks. Earlier in the day I had suggested taking a casual picture just before sunset on the waterfall. Jeff reluctantly agreed, but then BYU decided to play stupid basketball and had the game go into overtime. So the sun was down all the way but I still wanted to try since it was our last night to do it. We rushed out to the pool. I stepped across the rocks first followed by Taylor and Jeff. Jeff was holding onto Tay to help her across the rocks. Well Jeff lost his footing and was headed for a crash on the rocks. Instead of taking the fall he quickly dove into the pool safely. Well he was safe, but the i-phone was waterlogged. So this has to be the most expensive family picture we have ever had taken. Thanks Kevin for taking it. Too bad you didn't get the money.

The picture turned out pretty good, but too dark. You can barely tell that Jeff is soaking wet unless you zoom in. We had a good laugh. Jeff pulled his phone out so quickly. I joked that had he had one of the kids going in with him which would he have pulled out first--the child or the cell phone?

Might as well go in again since he was already wet. This time without the cell phone in his pocket.

Tyson is 6 months old!

2011-03-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Tyson turned 6 months old a couple of days ago. This last 6 months have been so filled with joy because of him. It has definitely been an adjustment to take care of 4 kids, but I wouldn't change a thing.

We went to his 6 month check up todat. Here are the stats: 18lbs, 10oz. Length-27inches. He is eating some solid foods, sitting up all by himself, and not sleeping through the night. He still gets up once or twice a night.

I did a little photo shoot to show how cute this guy is. He was really serious at first, but then I brought in Ryan and Taylor so that we could get some really good smile pictures. This baby loves his siblings, and they love him too!

cute baby/sad family

2011-02-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

These pictures are from the NFC playoff game that the steelers won to go to the superbowl. Of course we were not sad at this game, but the superbowl was a sad game for our family. For the playoffs we had a fun family party complete with football food and eating in the family room(For those of you that know Jeff well, this is a very big deal). The kids loved it. I had to post these pictures of our family with the self timer. Apparently I am not very good at getting a good shot with the self timer. My hubby was not very patient either to let me have more than a few chances to get it right. The game was sarting after all.

2 more great self timer shots. Gotta love it.

OK now the cute baby part of the post. My baby is growing up so fast. It is really making me sad. These pictures were taken about a month ago during his first cereal feeding. I think he is the most adorable boy. He has been so fun to have around although having 4 kids puts a lot of stress on me, I wouldn't have it any other way. So what is Tyson up to these days? Well first of all he is sitting up all by himself. Which is a good thing because his legs do not fit comfotably in the bumbo chair anymore. His fat thighs get too squished and it is hard to get him out of it. Tyson is also grabbing for everything. He is especially interested in my cell phone and hair. He has caused tears to a couple of his siblings. I wish I could say that he is sleeping through the night still, but we are having a hard time keeping this boy asleep. He is up 2 times a night and occasionally he will stay awake for up to an hour early early in the a.m. He is also an early bird. He must like to see dad before Jeff leaves to work because as soon as Jeff turns on the shower he is up. I could go on and on about this precious little boy, but it is time for bed since I will be up with him in a couple of hours.

Princess tea party

2011-01-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have so much to catch up on with my blogging. I just haven't been very motivated lately even though I do have a lot that we have done. In early December the girls and I got to go to the princess tea party. It was so fun to spend time with my little princesses. I am so grateful that Tyson is cooperative and decides that he can take a bottle so that I can get out once in awhile. The girls loves seeing all their favorite princesses, eating yummy food, coloring, decorating their crowns, watching the princesses sing, and taking part in a princess parade. We also got to enjoy spending time with Grandma Byington, Aunt Marcy, and Rylee.

Patty Duke

2011-01-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the show Patty Duke from the 80's? I used to watch it on Nick at Night. ...But they're cousins, identical cousins and you'll see, they walk alike, they talk alike..... Well my brother and his family came home for Christmas. Their Daughter Addison is a few months younger than Taylor. We hadn't seen Addie for about 2 years. When I saw her I was amazed at how familiar she looked to me. I thought maybe I was just remembering how my brother looked growing up, but when Addie and Taylor were by each other I realized it was because they look so much alike. What do you think? Taylor is in the red dress and Addie in the black.

I wish I would have taken an up close picture of just them, but oh well.

A random post

2010-12-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics from our recent happenings. I included one of Tyson in each picture since I haven't posted any of him lately. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.

Family pictures

2010-11-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

We had our family pictures done a few weeks ago. We did a little urban and a little country. I love how they turned out. The only problem was deciding which ones to blow up for the wall. I handled it okay and I already have the kids on the wall. Now we are just waiting for the framing of our family picture so that it can can get hung up too.

I have not been very good at blogging lately. To put it lightly, having 4 kids is a little crazy! I know it will get a little easier once Tyson is a little older and on a schedule. Right now we just take it one hour at a time. We are really enjoying him in our family.

I am currently working on our Christmas card so I didn't put those pictures on here. Enjoy!

Tyson Announcement

2010-10-18T16:25:00.001-06:00

Kids photo shoot

2010-10-13T22:17:00.000-06:00

We had pictures taken 2 weeks ago . Our photographer is Deanna Johnson with A Day to Adore Photography. It was so fun, and I think they turned out great. Tyson was 3 weeks old. He is now 5 weeks old and things are going well. He is growing so well. I weighed him last night and he came in at a whopping 12 pounds! Feel free to tell me which ones are your favorites. I have to decide which ones to enlarge.

2010-09-30T15:52:00.000-06:00

The last Friday that Jeff had off from work we decided to go on a hike with the girls. We have

had amazing weather this month and I have really wanted to be outside. The girls were pretty whiny and it was hot so it didn't last very long. It was still a good outing. I have also been doing a lot of digital scra[booking so I am experimenting with using pages on the blog. I think if you click on the image you can look at it bigger.

Tyson week 2

2010-09-23T14:58:00.000-06:00

These shoes were crocheted for us by my friend and visiting teacher Kristina. (picture on previous post). Aren't they adorable?

This is my favorite thing about having a newborn. I love how cuddly they are. I love to have him sleep on my chest, it is heaven!

I am trying to get used to this new blogger format. Looks like I need some more practice. Anyone else having issues? Anyways here are a few more pics from our 2nd week of Tyson being home. Last night was the worst night for sleep, but he had been sleeping so good. Don't know what the deal is, but hopefully it was a one night thing.

Of course it is Football season at our house which means that Tyson is part of the Steelers cheering squad whether he likes it or not.

Proud big brother. We are getting Ryan a new jersey for his birthday, Shh don't tell. We figured Ben Roethlisberger is probably not the best role model for our son.

Baby Tyson is 1 week old

2010-09-13T16:42:00.013-06:00

Welcome to the world baby Tyson
Meeting dad for the first time.

Tyson has a really strond rooting instinct. He is funny because even right after eating he is searching for more.

All clean and ready for the world.
Meeting Kaylee
Meeting Taylor

Proud big brother Ryan
Meeting Grandma Byington. She was such a big help for us. She took care of our kids and me too while Jeff worked a few days when we got home. Thanks Mom, even though you don't read our blog.

Love this picture, I don't look tired at all do I?

Cute hospital hat

All dressed and ready to go home.

We made it home. The kids were in bed, but not asleep so we let them get up for a quick peek and pictures.

Richards came for a visit.

Cousin Brooke
Aunt Janelle
cousin Taryn
Cousin Kali

They can't get enough of holding baby brother.
Meeting Grandpa Byington, he just got home from Alaska

Meeting Great Grandma Byington
Aunt Mary
Great Visiting teachers, Kristina and Amy.

first day of school pics

2010-09-11T14:26:00.005-06:00

This picture is supposed to show Kaylee's missing teeth. They are the 2 on the bottom, but it is hard to get her to smile and show the bottom ones.
Kaylee's first day of Kindergarten. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Jensen. The Kindergardners are on a weird schedule this year because of budget cut backs. She goes every other monday and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is all day. So the other kids had been in school a whole week before she went to her first full day. She was so excited. I was worried for her all day. I was especially nervous for her at lunch time. She did great and loved every minute of it.
Ryan's first day. He is in 3rd grade and has Mrs. Kelley.

Taylor and her cousin Rylee on their first day. Ms. Lynn is her preschool teacher. She loves preschool and wishes it was everyday. My friend Stephanie asked Taylor what her favorite part of preschool was and she said "snack time" She is such a great eater.

The 2 buddies. Kaylee and I had a fun morning and we went and got pedicures. It was nice to have some one on one time with her.

This pic cracks me up because of the girls crazy hair. We did it after Ryan left. Also Ryan looks so tired. It took awhile to get back on a normal bedtime schedule.

Ryan also got braces this summer. It is weird to see him with braces, it makes him look really old.

Skunk saga

2010-09-09T14:07:00.002-06:00

first of all thank you to everyone that played the baby game. No one decided to put labor day down so no one got the date right. Also everyone was thinking I would have another small baby, thanks for the wishful thoughts. The birthdate of Tyson Glenn McMinn is September 6, 2010. He was 8 lbs. 7 oz. We are so glad he is here and are so in love with this new little gift from heaven.

Okay so on to the skunk story. I will also be updating a few more things from summer and then it will be on to baby posts!

Jeff went outside early one morning to water the plants. He noticed that the trampoline pad was a little off. (see pic below.) So he walked down to sraighten it.

Thankfully he caught sight of a little critter hiding under the trampoline in the pit. If he hadn't seen it our kids and backyard might have gotten sprayed while they were jumping. Yikes. I was sitting at the table eating my breakfast and noticed Jeff walking outside with a smile on his face. I thought it was weird so I asked him when he got in what he was smiling about. He told me I was never going to believe what was under the tramp. You know he was right I never would have guessed, but I sure thought it was funny. Well funny until I realized that we had to actually get the skunk out and that surely it would involve someone getting sprayed. ( I knew that someone wasn't going to be me, but I still felt bad for whoever the poor sucker was that had to deal with the critter) You see I know how bad it can be when you get sprayed. I experienced it first hand the first year that we were married. (story for another day.)
So we called animal control to see if they could come and remove the skunk. The guy was very nice and brought us a trap. We had to remove a large section of springs to fit the trap under. I was scared that all the movement would cause some spraying, but so far so good. The kids were very fascinated, but I was fearful that they were sitting just a little too close. I however didn't get any closer.

The trap was laid and we just had to wait. The animal control guy predicted that he wouldn't even try for the food in the trap until night time when skunks are active. The next morning Jeff went out to check and see if we had success. The skunk had gone into the trap and ate all the food, but somehow didn't trigger the trap door. So we had to wait another night. We rebaited the trap and also placed a piece of wood down there so that he could crawl out on his own. More waiting. Jeff went out first thing in the morning and couldn't see the skunk down in the pit. Yeah we were so glad that he had crawled out on his own. Jeff lifted the trap out and went to put his hand into the back of the trap to remove the bait. He saw as he reached 2 little beady eyes staring at him. He quickly slammed the door shut and that is how we got rid of the skunk. After Jeff cleaned out his shorts, he realized how lucky he was that somehow we got a tame skunk that was apparently not interested in spraying people. He definitely had his chances. I guess I shouldn't have suggested that we just get a gun and shoot it!

You might also notice that we have some changes in our backyard. I think I have posts way back in one of the begining blogs about installing a playset. I know that there is a way to post a link to the old post, but I don't know how so if interested you can go searching. I will post pics of the completed project on the next post.

Lets Play a Game.

2010-09-05T15:41:00.002-06:00

This is the first time in a long time that we have stayed home for the labor day weekend. It has been tough to stay entertained. I find myself feeling restless and bored waiting for this baby to come. Not to mention the discomfort of the last few days of pregnancy. So Humor me will you? and play my little game.
Try to guess when this baby will be born. We have an induction date set for the 13th. My due date is the 18th. Ryan came 2 1/2 weeks early. Kaylee was 2 weeks early. Taylor was induced a week early.
Try to guess the weight of the baby. My other three were 6lbs 11oz, 6lbs 7oz, 6lbs 9oz. I am measuring right where I should be, but most people think I look really big. I feel bigger than usual.
Lastly put in a cute boys name or 2. We need all the suggestions that we can get.

I wish that I could offer some great prize for the winner, but that just isn't going to happen. So I guess you will have to settle for the simple satisfaction of being right. Thanks for playing.

temple pics

2010-08-26T10:06:00.006-06:00

A couple weeks ago we got to go to the temple to be with Erica and Casey. Erica is my sister's sister in law, but also my favorite babysitter, house cleaner, and all around great girl. She has been such a great example to my kids and we all love her very much. While we were waiting for them to come out of the temple for pictures we had a mini little photo shoot. The Kids with Great Grandma Byington

I thought this was so cute because Kaylee asked Taylor to hold the water on for her. These 2 get along so well. They are constantly saying "you are my best sister ever" I am so grateful that they were born close together.
Kids with Grandma & Grandpa Byington

Okay so I am posting this pic solely because of comments from friends who do not live close about how cute and small I am when I am pregnant. Well there you have it ladies. Not so small this time.

These next shots are of Jeff and the girls messing around. They are so cute. Jeff is such a great dad!

Here is Erica the beautiful bride. I loved her dress especially the sash that was added to it. What a great idea to incorporate the wedding colors into the dress.

Also I may or may not be doing some more posts in the coming days, just depends on how I feel. Blogging has definitely taken back seat to playing this summer. Also it has taken backseat to resting and surviving.

Only 23 more days until this baby it due! Hooray.

2010-07-16T11:39:00.003-06:00

Kaylee is now officially a 2-wheeler biker. We took her training wheels off months ago, but she was not interested in trying. Jeff and I would both offer to hold her and push her, but we would make it the length of the driveway and she would be done.

Last week I guess she decided that she was big enough to do it on her own. With Kaylee it has to be her own idea. She taught herself to ride in a few days and now she is zooming around the cul de sac. She loves riding her 2-wheeler. Also notice that Kaylee is wearing a dress. She loves dresses and wears one almost every day, but in the summer it is not the best idea. I have bought her a few pairs of shorts to go under the dresses. It is funny because my mom tells me that I insisted on wearing a dress every day to Kindergarten.

Grizzly Family Dash

2010-06-02T21:53:00.007-06:00

Kaylee, Claire, Taylor

Ryan pre-race. He ran with the 2nd-3rd grade group

Our elementary school did a fun run before the end of school. I was on the PTA committee and got to help in the planning and details of the event. It was a great experience for the kids and they have all asked if we are going to do it again next year. At the end of their individual races they said they wished they could do it again. It was a fun event.
Pre race. Kaylee and Taylor were in the preschool category.

Kaylee took second place in her age group behind Hannah (27). Hannah is one of her good friends from preschool.

Taylor loved every minute of her race. She didn't care that she was one of the last ones (she is a few years younger than most of them). To appreciate the full joy on her face click on the next few pics to make them bigger. I love the expression on her face.

This was the family run. Jeff said that Taylor ran almost the whole way. I was manning the turn around corner and taking pics.

Family fun!

2010-05-23T16:53:00.003-06:00

I love to golf! It is something that I would love to do for the rest of my life. Jeff is also a big fan of the sport. So of course we are hoping that our kids will love it too. This year Ryan has really started hitting the ball well and playing almost all the holes when we go. Kaylee love to drive and putt and it getting pretty good at hitting the ball. Taylor loves to ride in the golf cart and eat the snacks that I pack to keep her occupied. She also loves to gather sticks along the course to throw in the river later. It is overall a fun family experience. Hopefully one that we can keep doing as a family.

IT's A...

2010-05-05T17:02:00.003-06:00

For those that haven't heard yet, we are having a Boy! We are very excited and so glad that everything looked good on the ultrasound. Ryan was so happy when we told him. Kaylee was pretty disappointed and acted like a little stinker for the first few hours. I asked her later why she was being so naughty and she said, "I was just so mad that it was a boy!" She will learn to love him I am sure. She has Taylor and now Ryan has his brother. Perfect right?

Hawaiian photo shoot

2010-04-13T14:46:00.005-06:00

The last night before we left I made the kids get dressed up, and hair done for a photo shoot. We haven't had pictures of them done forever. They weren't too excited, but Jeff was even less excited even though he wasn't even in the pictures. It was a little bit stressful for me because we were on the clock until sunset. I had hoped we would make it down to the beach for some shots too, but it got too dark. Overall the kids did pretty good, but I am not happey with the group pictures. We only got a couple of decent ones. Oh well we can always do it again soon, just not in Hawaii. I am still trying to decide on which ones to put on my wall. Let me know which ones are your favorites. I will number them to make it easier.

2. 3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
And there you have it.

Hilton & Volcanos

2010-04-09T16:56:00.004-06:00

We did end up doing a few other things in Hawaii besides the beach and the pool. One afternoon we went over to the Hilton to see the Dolphins. They are amazing to watch. I love that it is free to come and look and you can get really close up to them. Maybe when our kids are bigger we could get into the water with them. That has always been a dream of mine.

We also took a day and drove to the other side of the island. It took a couple of hours to get there and the roads are very narrow and windy. Taylor and I both got a little car sick on the way.

We made our kids do a 4 mile hike down to a lava lake. It was really cool. Taylor did great too and made it to the ascent mostly be herself. Unfortunately right before we got back into the trees she fell and got cut up on the lava rocks. She had some skinned knees and a bloody elbow. Needless to say she got a ride up the hill. Jeff and I took turns. At the time that we started back up the hill it also started to rain. I thought the cover of the trees would keep us pretty dry, but we were soaked and cold by the end. It didn't really help morale much. I was so proud of my kids for doing it. They were by far the youngest kids on the trail. I think I saw one other girl that was probably 10. We got a lot of looks and comments from people about how brave we were to do it with kids. Jeff and I have always tried to stay active even with kids and I hope that someday our kids love the adventure as much as we do.
In the picture above you can see the trail across the lava lake, it is a little bit lighter than the other lava.

Kaylee and Taylor showing off their muscles.

Normally I don't like to post pictures of my butt, especially in saggy pregnancy pants, but Taylor reminded me of a little monkey curled up on my back.
We didn't see any red flowing lava at the volcano rim, just lots of hot spots with lots of smoke.

Hawaii and the beach

2010-04-05T15:40:00.006-06:00

On our trip we spent a lot of time at the beach! So here are the pictures from the beach. This first one is the statue at the Mauna Kea resort that we passed on our way to and from the parking lot. The kids loved to stop and see the flowers that people would place in its hands.

Taylor would occassionally freak out with the waves. I would never know when she would get scared. She would just take off running up to the chairs. It was really fun to try and chase her down across the hot sand before she could make it all the way. This time she stopped in a big hole and cried it out.
Ryan had a little spring break friend that got to come with us to Hawaii. It was an assignment to take a picture with it to take back to school to show his class. You will see him pop up occassionally throughout our trip.

The kids loved building sand castles. We spent hours out on the sand with them. For some reason they really liked it when we were active participants. They didn't love playing alone, so much for relaxing in the beach chairs. (That is another trip without kids right?)

I loved this expression!

We've Arrived

2010-04-01T14:53:00.004-06:00

These posts are going to be extra fun for me to post because our weather here is terrible. So I will live in the past and remember all the sunshine that we got to enjoy. I am also going to draw it out and split up the posts. Here is the first morning with the kids out on the back porch. We spent almost every meal out there and loved looking out at the ocean and spotting whales. it was amazing.
Ryan and I went for a walk and brought back these pretty flowers for the girls.
You can see the whale if you know what it is. Look at the little white dot in the middle, yes that is a whale.
Mealtime! We had french toast on Hawaiian sweet bread and POG to drink. It was our favorite.

Fun Zone Birthday

2010-03-14T22:16:00.005-06:00

To celebrate Taylor's third birthday she wanted to go to the fun zone with her friends. Her best buddies right now are both boys and she loves them. Andrew and Jett(Jetters) are the boys of two of my close friends so naturally they get to spend a lot of time together. Taylor's birthday is not until the 26th, but because of spring break and a hectic schedule we got to do it a little early. I hope she isn't too confused. Everyone had a great time and the older siblings were glad that we did it on a day off from school so that they could take part in the fun too.Andrew & Taylor

Playing Skee Ball. None of these guys could roll the ball hard enough to really play, but they sure liked to try.

Andrew, Taylor, and Jett

What a special little girl. She is my joy!

hair cuts

2010-03-10T08:46:00.004-07:00

The girls and I went and got our haircut yesterday. They love going and getting pampered and having attention. Kristi Smith at Dragonfly always does an amazing job and I am so happy with how the girls look in their new short hair cuts. Kaylee came out of preschool saying that she wanted to get her hair cut like Tambree's. Tambree has a short little bob so I was surprised. Jeff has been telling Kaylee she needs to cut her hair short for awhile, but she loved her long hair. For some reason Jeff loves shorter hair on girls and women, weird huh? Anyways, by lunch time Kaylee had changed her mind and wanted just a trim. So just a trim was what we decided. You see I really like long hair on little girls so I was happy with the decision. I didn't tell Kaylee that because I did not want to sway her decision.

When we got to Dragonfly Taylor went first. I knew I wanted to cut hers a little shorter and since she is still only 2 it is really my decision. Once Kaylee saw how cute Taylor's looked she was excited to get hers the same. This is how they turned out.

On a side note--Yesterday I broke the news to the girls that we are going to have a new baby in our family! Yes I am pregnant with number 4! The girls were super excited, Kaylee couldn't stop smiling. She has been asking when I was going to have another baby for awhile. She has even had a couple of dreams about me having a baby. Taylor of course is excited, but she doesn't understand completely. She asked this morning "how many days until the baby comes?" It is going to be a long summer. I am due Sept 18th and I am 12 weeks along. I am still feeling super yucky, but I have hope in sight. Usually by 14 weeks I am feeling much better.

Day Four Coronado Island

2010-02-25T10:51:00.004-07:00

This was by far my favorite day on our trip. I am trying to hold on to the memory of the sun on my face and skin as long as I can. I am trying to make it through this winter without a major meltdown about the loonnnggg Idaho winters. Thank goodness for San Diego. I think I might make it. The kids loved the beach too! They played in the sand and water for hours. The only problem we encountered was when Taylor had to go to the potty. Ryan and I and Tay set off to find one. About a half hour later we still hadn't made it. We were probably a mile from the potty. By the time we got back to our towels Jeff and Kaylee were no where to be seen. What we did see were seagulls eating our apples. We scared them away and shook of their sandy footprints from our towels.

We called Jeff and of course Kaylee had to go potty. He was wondering how much farther he had to go. Ha Ha just keep walking. We decided at that point that maybe we should get some lunch so I took the kids and we met him for a Panera Bread lunch and yummy frozen Yogurt for dessert. The yogurt was my favorite food on the trip. They had about 8 different flavors, we tried Banana, Raspberry, Hershey kiss, oreo, and vanilla. After you get your yogurt you get to put whatever toppings on it you want. I filled mine up with fresh fruit. Then to figure out the cost of the treats, you weigh it. It was great!

They tried to all work together on a sandcastle, but it didn't go so well. Too many bosses wanting to fill the bucket, pat the sand, dump the bucket, or be in charge.

Day 3-Sea World

2010-02-22T15:16:00.003-07:00

Sea World was the next stop on our San Diego adventure. One of our first stops was the Shamu show. I am always amazed at these whales and the things that they are trained to do. I wondered how my kids would like it, and I was very pleased that they loved it as much as I did. When we got there we split up because Ryan and Kaylee wanted to sit in the splash zone. Taylor was adamant that she did not want to get wet. So we parted. Tay and I ended up sitting in the splash zone, but at the very top of it. I also had to cover her with my sweat shirt whenever we knew the splashes were coming. Ryan was very disappointed that he did not get wet even though he was in the zone. Waiting for the sea Lion show. Ryan was complaining before it started and asked "why do we have to sit through another show?" He ended up loving it and laughed the entire time. I admit that my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing.

I wanted to post this serious picture of Taylor, she is rarely serious.
Kaylee showing her sticker finger nails.

We don't have a picture of the favorite thing of Ryan and Kaylee. They loved the Atlantis ride. I was the sucker who had to go with them. It was a fun ride if only it didn't require us to get soaked. Of course that is one of the reasons that the kids liked it.

Day 2- Legoland

2010-02-18T09:31:00.006-07:00

Day 2 in San Diego we spent at Lego Land. The kids loved it! It was pretty fun for us too except that Jeff and I had to ride most of the rides with the kids because Kaylee and Taylor were too short. Ryan had fun, but he kept waiting for the thrill rides like they have at Lagoon. He is a thrill Junkie. Unfortunately the rides at Legoland are a little too tame for him. He enjoyed his day anyways.

This is a little lego family in the parking lot.

The Zebras in the background are made of Legos. Just about every prop or decoration in the whole park was made out of legos. It was pretty amazing.

Taylor did the best Lion Roar!

Posing as always.

For some reason when Kaylee did this ride she fell apart. It may have been because she had to do it by herself or because she had complete control of the car. She didn't have any more melt downs the rest of the day.
Ryan enjoyed his driving school experience, no tears here.

Taylor got to see the real Bob the builder (in costume) and she was so excited. I am thinking she would love to go to Disney and meet all the characters. This Bob is made out of Legos

San Diego-Day 1

2010-02-16T11:38:00.006-07:00

Yes this is going to be one of those many post trips. We just love to take pictures too much! We went to San Diego this weekend so that Jeff could do a CE Course. We flew out on Thursday morning and got home Monday afternoon. It was a quick trip that left all of us exhausted. It was fun to be together as a family. The kids did pretty good and we can see many good trips in the future as they get older. Our first afternoon we went to La Jolla to walk around on the beach. Jeff had me look on the map for La Hoya (La Jolla), but apparently I couldn't read Spanish and all I saw was La Jolla sounded out phonetically.
The kids loved running and playing on the beach.

This is the Children's beach in La Jolla which is really a birthing sanctuary for seals. They were laying all over the beach and there were some really little ones. So cute.

Skiing at Targhee

2010-01-22T09:42:00.008-07:00

We went skiing at Targhee last weekend with the kids. Jeff had Thursday and Friday off so we went a stayed at the resort and played on the slopes for 2 days. It was Taylor's first time skiing and it was so cute. She is starting the youngest of any of our kids. By the end she was doing so good and skiing on her own. Kaylee got to where she could do it on her own without her edgie wedgie, Only because it broke. We did have a melt down by the 2 girls on Friday morning and they got to experience 4 hours at the kids club. It was really nice for Jeff and I to ski with Ryan on the big hill.

The kids also loved the outdoor pool and hot tub in the evenings. The pool is heated, but not enough for my enjoyment. The hot tub felt great and it was such a pretty setting. Targhee has some great deals for lodging and skiing right now. It was fun to ski right up to the hotel when we were done. We had never experienced that before.

Doesn't this look fun? Jeff is so patient with beginners. He stayed on the magic carpet with the 2 girls for about 2 hours on the first day.

Ryan liked the magic carpet too for awhile, but then we headed up to the bigger hill.

Going up on the lift. Kaylee was pretty brave and wanted to go up. The meltdown happened when she fell down and wouldn't listen to us about how to lay on her side and learn to stand up. She just wanted us to pick her up and do it for her.

Up at the top of the hill. I love the views at the top of Targhee, you can see the Tetons in the background.

Taylor got so good that we were playing ski through the tunnel with her. She loved it. I will have to have Jeff post the video of her skiing. It is so cute.
Jeff could tell her little pizza, big pizza, and stop and she could do it by herself. She was also turning on her own.

Taylor's tumbling class

2010-01-20T16:22:00.004-07:00

*I posted 2 posts today so after this one continue on.

After almost three years, well actually longer, of accompanying me to watch Kaylee do tumbling it is finally Taylor's turn to take her own class. She absolutely loved it. It cracked me up when they tried to teach her how to do the splits and do a backbend. For a 2 year old she is pretty good and is very brave. It is funny because I remember when Kaylee started tumbling she would not jump off of anything, she couldn't jump on the tramp right and it took a couple of years for her to bear jumping into the pit. It is amazing the differences in their personalities.

Cousin time

2010-01-20T16:11:00.003-07:00

Over Christmas Jeff's brother Kevin and his wife Stephanie, and their two cute girls stayed with us for a few nights. It was so much fun to have them here. This is their last night and the kids were having so much fun playing. Of couse I don't think Sophie got put down once. She is so sweet.

Rylee and Taylor were going to school. I put the hat on Tay because her hair was out of control. I thought she would look back on these pictures and think that I was a neglectful mom and that I didn't take care of her. The truth is that her just showered hair is not a pretty sight. We have to either curl or straighten her hair after the shower or it looks terrible. She looks cute with a hat though!

Christmas

2010-01-17T16:16:00.005-07:00

I know Chrismas is over. It already feels like it was months ago. I feel like life is finally settling into a normal pace so you will get to now see pics from Christmas. We had a wonderful holiday and are so grateful for our blessings and our little family.

Taylor loved her boots and had to have them on most of the morning.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

McMinn photo shoot

2010-01-11T14:35:00.005-07:00

During our trip to Utah for the McMinn cousin Christmas party we had family pictures done. It was so fast and painless and most of the kids cooperated really well. I love the setting with the barn and the snow. It was fun and we surprised Grandma & Grandpa with them for their Christmas. They loved it.
We loved the huggy pictures
This shot took a little work to get Rylee to stop pulling on Kevin's face and to get Corbin happy. So in the middle of the shoot, Corbin was switched out for Maddie. In the meantime Poor Rob had Brooke on his shoulders. It's a good thing for Jeff, Kevin, and Craig that the youngest in the family is 2. Well in Kevin's case his baby was too little for a shoulder ride.
All the cousins. This is one of the only ones that Corbin is not crying.

Another hugging pic.
The sibling clowning around
We did not get a single picture with these guys where everyone was looking at the camera. Hmm they are all old enough to follow directions don't you think.
Once again not a single good picture with everyone looking. Mostly it is the siblings again. The in-laws did a good job :)
I loved the color in these pics and of course the model.

Clogging ppictures

2010-01-07T11:57:00.003-07:00

Finally getting around to post pictures from Kaylee's clogging performance. After the performance the girls sat on Santa's lap. All of the other days the Santa's helper was a 20 something kid with a spray painted gotee with the beard on top of it. He gave me the creeps and the kids seemed a little freaked out. This day the santa was wonderful and the girls smiled for the picture and talked to him. Kaylee & Tambree

Saydree, Tambree, Kaylee

Kaylee is all about posing. Sometimes I have to tell her to act natural and stop posing.

Happy Birthday Kaylee!

2010-01-06T14:18:00.003-07:00

I know that I am a little slow with this post since Kaylee has now been 5 for a couple of weeks. Her birthday was on December 18th. We had so much going on that week and we were so busy with her birthday and holiday stuff. Don't feel bad for her though she got to have 3 separate celebrations plus a Christmas celebration with lots of presents on her birthday. So here is a recap.

We got up before Jeff went to work and Kaylee opened her presents. She got some fun stuff including a polly pocket roller coaster resort. That afternoon her cousins on the Byington side came over for a gift exchange. Grandma and Grandpa also spoiled the kids with more presents. When Jeff got off of work we drove to Utah and stayed with the McMinn cousins. Before leaving though we got to go to dinner at Golden Corral (Kaylee's choice) Kaylee was especially excited to stay with Maddie! On Saturday we had a Christmas party with said cousins and we also had cupcakes for Kaylee's b-day. Then on Sunday evening when we got home we had a party with grandparents and cousins with cake and ice cream. It was a really great b-day for a really great girl.

Just a fun picture of the girls, not taken on an actual birthday.

Opening presents, it was tad early and Kaylee looks a little sleepy. Ater opening presents Kaylee got to pick her favorite thing for breakfast, German pancakes.

This present is from Grandma & Grandpa McMinn, Kaylee says thank you.

Kaylee chose the barbie cake from Barbie and the Diamond Castle. It is one of her favorite books.

A couple of days before her birthday we took cupcakes to school for the treat. She chose the ornament cupcakes out of our cupcake book. They were fun to make.

Hopefully I will get caught up on the other activiities from December.

Annual Christmas pics.

2010-01-01T20:46:00.005-07:00

Here are the annual Christmas eve pictures of our family. There are a few missing when we didn't make it home for Christmas. It is funny to me to see the changes in our family. Glenn this post is especially for you.

PS if you want to start with the earliest years then go down to the bottom.

2008, last year, if you blow up the pic you will see the matching braces for mom and dad.

2007

2006-love this picture with me big and pregnant, gotta love the chubby cheeks. This was the year we moved to poky.

2005

2004-obviously we did not go to Idaho for Christmas. Kaylee was 1 week old.

2003-Ryan was 2. Sadly we do not have a family pic this year. We were also in Pittsburgh this year because Jeff was on call over the Christmas break. It was a hard Christmas for me not being with family for the first time in my life.

2002

2001-We didn't start the stair tradition yet, but we were at the Christmas Eve party at Belnaps.

Christmas Eve

2009-12-31T11:19:00.002-07:00

We had our annual Christmas eve party at Jeff's aunts house. It is really fun with lots of great food. Every year the kids also get to act out the Nativity scene. This year Ryan was Joseph, kaylee was an angel and Taylor was Mary. We also played a few fun group games and did a white elephant gift exchange. Before the party we did our own traditions. The kids opened up their Christmas Jammies, and a Christmas book. We also read the story of Christ's birth out of the bible and set up our nativity set. When we got home from the party we got on our Christmas jams and read our story and went to bed. This is our annual Christmas eve pic on the stairs. One of these days I will post the pictures from each year that we have done this. I think It will be 8 years in a row.

Tyler was a Donkey and Taylor(Mary) rode in on his back with the help of Ryan(Joseph)

Clogging

2009-12-16T12:56:00.004-07:00

Kaylee had her first clogging performance on Saturday. She did such a good job. It was so fun to see her get up there and do it without being too nervous. She is really growing up. The performance was really short and I wondered if it was worth all the time, and effort. We had to have the black pants, socks, and a blue bow. When it was all over Kaylee told me that she wanted to do it again. I guess it was worth it since she loved doing it.

If you can't tell Kaylee is the one in the middle front. She is playing with her hair and waves at the start.

Girls Scrapbook weekend

2009-12-15T16:39:00.002-07:00

In November a group of Scrapbooking friends and I went up to Jackson for the weekend. We spent the entire weekend inside working on scrapbooks, talking, laughing, eating, and watching movies. It is so great to have such a wonderful group of friends. Our husbands were joking about how much scrapbooking we really got done. We worked nonstop both days. I scrapbook online and I completed all of 2006. It was a fun weekend.

Piano recital

2009-11-24T17:01:00.004-07:00

Ryan had his first piano recital last week. I think I was more nervous than he was. He did such a great job. It was also fun because my nieces and nephew take piano from the same teach so we got to be there for them too. There was no smiling during the recital. I kept waiting for all of the kids to smile when they were done, but they were very serious.

Kyle

Ryan's supporters, whether they like it or not.

Taryn

Great Grandma Byington, Grandma Byington, and Ryan.

Highlights from Hawaii

2009-11-16T10:00:00.005-07:00

It seems now that hawaii was just a dream. Was I really there a month ago? It seems like forever ago, my tan has faded, I can no longer taste the toasted coconut ice ceam, but at least I have all of the fun pictures to look at remember. We have about 700 pictures from our trip. I can't narrow it down and I don't want to do 10 different posts. So I am posting about some of my favorite things that we did. If you are dying for more pics about a certain place let me know and I can add more.

These are in no particular order...

1. Snorkeling with the turtles.

We snorkeled on 2 different beaches where we saw turtles. They were so beautiful to see swimming in the water. And no these are not sea turtles in the picture..it is Jeff and Casey, but they are looking at a turtle that you can't see.

2. Captain Cooks Bay

We rented kayaks from some guys that were also willing to sell us some other questionable items. Then we kayaked across the bay for some snorkeling. The snorkeling was great, but it was very difficult to get in and out without getting hurt. Casey and I both ended up bleeding by the end. After snorkeling we walked to the point of the bay and watched the waves crashing and spraying the lava rock shore.

3. Mauna Kea Resort Pool.
We spent our entire last day here reading, talking, napping and playing in the pool. Ahhh

4. Good Friends.

It was fun to travel with Shaunna and Casey Leavitt. Here we are before the Luau. It was not on my favorites list. It was fun and the food was okay. I think it would have been better if we didn't plan it the first day. We had been up for about 20 hours at that point and I was too tired to care about hula dancers and buff guys playing with fire.

5. Scuba Diving and Fishing.

Our scuba trip was so much fun. We did a 2 tank dive and saw some very cool Hawaiian reefs. There were lots of fish and beautiful coral. During our surface time as we were traveling to the next dive site our dive amster and captain were doing some fishing. We hooked into 2 Ono's at the same time. Jeff and I both got a turn reeling in the big fish. It was fun to watch. One of the best parts about it was getting to have some of the fish to take home with us for dinner.

6. Pololu Valley

We drove around the tip of the island to see this beautiful shoreline. We took a hike down to a beautiful black sand beach. Because we were on the rainy side of the island we did get rain spots on a lot of the pictures. It was a fun hike down and a hot hike back up. We enjoyed playing around down on the beach.

7. Golf

Casey and I got in a round of golf while we were there. The course was okay. We didn't feel like dropping a small fortune on one the the nice resort courses so we played this one and had a lot of fun. It had some very pretty holes. We saw peacocks, guinea fowls, turkeys, and wild boars. The boars had torn apart the number 1 tee box and they had started to try and kill them so they didn't destroy the whole course.

8. Helicopter Ride

This may have been one of my favorites, right up there with the dive. I thought it would be really scary, but I loved it. it was so smooth and relaxing. What an awesome way to see Hawaii. It is a must do! We took a ride over the lava flow. This was where the lava met the ocean. It was amazing to see houses that are completely surrounded by lava. Also where people are rebuilding on their properties in the middle of the lava with nothing around them.

9. Getting Lost

After the helicopter ride we decided to go and fine a snorkeling spot that we had seen from the air. It was supposed to be really cool. We got directions from the pilot, the toll booth lady at the airport and our not so trusty GPS. We ended up going way too far and our road was literally ended by a lava flow. So we found this road. It was so hilly and bumpy. We came across this section that was covered in vines. We swang on them for a few minutes. It was amazing to see the lush rainforest as opposed to the desert side of the island where we were staying. We did end up finding the snorkeling spot, which stunk! Oh well it was a fun adventure. You will have to ask Jeff about his little incident in the bushes!

Wrapping up Halloween

2009-11-12T13:55:00.005-07:00

I just had to finish wrapping up our Halloween celebrations. ( I know I am a bit behind.) We have had a very busy October and November. Hopefully things will slow down for awhile and I can get caught up...just kidding I know Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming. Okay I can hope that in the New Year things will settle down and then I will get caught up. A new years resolution already. Ryan the motocross dude.
Taylor and I went to Ryan's class to help out with the party. It was fun to watch the parade and to get to know Ryan's classmates a little better.

Taylor the cowgirl

Little Miss Hannah Montana

Trick or Treating at Grandma & Grandpa Byington's house.

Trick or Treating Great Grandpa Byington

posing with Great Grandma Byington

A few friends and cousins

Trick or Treating Great Grandpa Hanks

Posing for a picture with Great Grandpa

The Gang at our house. We got together with a few friends. We ate soup, chili, fruit, and rolls. Then the dads set off with the kids trick or treating. We had 3 seperate groups divided by age group and interest. Surprisingly the 2 four year olds came home first. The 2 year olds stayed out about an hour longer than them.

I love this picture. It is especially cute with all their makeup on.

Kaylee's Halloween party

2009-10-29T13:31:00.002-06:00

First of all I wanted to let everyone know that I have done a major update with 4 different posts so keep reading.

It is especially important to read the PSS two posts ago about me losing my phone and needing everyone's numbers again.

Okay on to this post... Kaylee had her preschool Halloween party today. She dressed up as Hannah Montana. She was glad that she grew her hair out long so that it was like Hannah's hair.

Miss Lynn and the classmate. Poor Tyler is the only boy in the class of princesses, pop star, and Fancy Nancy's

Miss Lynn let Taylor do a neclace too. She will be ready for preschool next year.

Miss Lynn with her students. A few kids were missing. There are normally 8 kids in the class.

Fun fall photos

2009-10-29T13:19:00.002-06:00

This morning Kaylee had a Halloween party at preschool. We took a few pictures of her in her Hannah Montana costume. Taylor had to have her turn as well. I took a ton of Tay because she just kept hamming it up. I was surprised she was smiling at all because it was so cold outside.

If you look closely at this picture you will notice the frankenstein has braces.

Here is Hannah Montana. Well we aren't allowed to call her that. For some reason Kaylee does not want to be called Hannah, she is just dressing up as Hannah for Halloween.

Kaylee has the longest darkest eyelashes. I put some mascara on her today and they looked so long.

Mom's birthday

2009-10-29T11:12:00.003-06:00

Well I had another birthday. It seems the older we get the less of a big deal it is. I didn't feel any different, but it was nice to be important and feel extra loved for the day. I got to have lunch with some awesome friends. Jeff also met us at the end of lunch so that was fun to see him during the day. Jeff also surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered to our house. The kids bought me a pair of headphones since I lost them somewhere on our trip. We also went out to Pizza hut for dinner. Pizza Hut? I know some of you are wondering. Well I really like Pizza Hut and Jeff does not so we don't get to go there very often. I also was not in the mood to fight my kids and make them be on their best behavior. At Pizza Hut, no one cares! It was a great dinner.
Don't know what set Taylor off, probably just tired.

Beautiful flowers from Jeff

My little sweeties. Glad I could spend my birthday with them.

PS Thank you for all of the birthday wishes on facebook and my phone, ect...it made my day extra special.

PSS I also lost my cell phone in Hawaii which means I no longer have anyones phone numbers. If you would all please send me a text(remember to write your name on it.) or e-mail me with your number I would appreciate it. I feel lost without people's numbers. Thanks.

Carving pumpkins

2009-10-29T11:02:00.002-06:00

For Family Home evening this week we carved pumpkins. Since I was feeling a budget crunch from our recent trip to Hawaii we decided to do a boys pumkin and a girls pumpkin. The boys did a great Steelers logo and the girls did a princess pumpkin.
Ryan took this picture of us. Not too bad except for cutting off my head.

This is a repeat picture. Does anyone know how to delete a picture once you post it? I can't seem to figure it out. Kaylee asked me what we had to clean out of the pumpkin and I told her the "Pumpkin guts". For the rest of the evening the favorite word was "guts". The girls didn't want to touch the guts though. Kaylee thought they smelled bad.

Blankies & Scouting

2009-10-15T14:11:00.002-06:00

Today Talor was helping me wash the sheets and blankets. While I was loading the washer she was sneaking in some cuddle time with her blankie. She didn't even care that it was wet. She loves her blankie and her thumb. As you will see in the last picture, she loves her thumb a little too much. Check aout the buck teeth. Good thing Dad knows how to fix them later.

Ryan is now officially a cub scout. He has been to 2 den meeting so far, but I finally got on the ball and got him his shirt and book. Even though I was a den leader myself not too long ago I never had to tackle badges on a shirt. Who knew scouting could be so complicated. Last week in between the den meetings Ryan worked and already passed off his bobcat. He is really good at memorization so it was a breeze for him. Now we need to get working on all the other stuff while he is so excited.

This is Ryan running to den meeting. It is awesome because it is in the culde sac opposite our house. Yeah! I don't have to drive him anywhere.

Ryan's Baptism & 8th Birthday.

2009-10-05T15:56:00.006-06:00

Well we have officially made it to this momentus birthday. At least as a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints it is a big Birthday. Ryan turned 8 and was baptized on the same day. He was also confirmed a member of the church and given the Holy ghost. It was an awesome experience. I am so blessed that Jeff was able to perform these ordinances for our son.

We are also so blessed that we could have some family in town. Jeff's two older brothers and younger sister and their families were there. My parents and Grandma were there also. Jeff's Grandpa Hanks came as well as some close friends in the ward. We did miss having Grandma & Grandpa McMinn there, but we know they are needed in Nauvoo on their mission. We love them and appreciate the example they are setting for us and our kids.

My handsome boys all in white.

We are so proud of our son.

What a handsome boy. we tried to get some pics of just Ryan when we got to the church, but of course that is the moment the camera decided to stop working. Luckily it came back to life so that we could get Ryan in his white baptism clothing.
Since we had so much family in town and the kids had the day off from school we decided to go to the fun zone and play lazer tag and have some fun. The red team rocked (yeah for mom & Ryan).

Ryan with his spoils. He earned quite a few tickets and used them for treats.

My sister in Law Tiffany after she got sprayed with disappearing ink. I like this picture, it is too bad she never checks our blog.

Kaylee with her candy neclace

Taylor also chose treats with her tickets. Kali is helping her eat her sixlets, she was loving them.

Excited to open presents.

His first set of scriptures from Grandpa & Grandma McMinn

Ryan opening his marble toy from Grandma & Grandpa Byington & Uncle Phil & Aunt Stephanie. It is really cool, but it had 500 pieces to put together. Thanks to Uncle Brian, Mom, and some cousins for helping Ryan to put it together.

Kaylee's soccer

2009-09-30T11:00:00.006-06:00

Kaylee is playing soccer this fall. We are having a great time. She especially loves that her mom is the coach. She is having a great season and scores goals almost every game. She loves to run and kick the ball. She dribbles,
She shoots,

She Scores!! Yeah! you gotta love the pigtail grab after the goal.

Our team "The Dragons & Mermaids" We couldn't just be the dragons or just be the mermaids.

Eli, Laina, Kaylee, John, AJ, and Samara.

Message on a truck!

2009-09-28T14:04:00.002-06:00

I have been going through a lot lately and I am feeling a little down today. Normally I don't post things that are too personal on our blog, but I really wanted to share this. So back to feeling down....I was driving home on the freeway really feeling sorry for myself. I don't know about anyone else, but when I get down sometimes things seem to spiral out of control. So as I was driving and working into this downward spiral I was passed by a dump truck. I noticed on the back of the truck that there were some words. At first I couldn't make them out, but as it got farther away I read: "too blessed to feel stressed." For some reason those words touched my heart and it really helped pull me out of my depression today. I am so thankful for someone who decided to paint that on their truck because it really helped me today!

Junior Jazz basketball

2009-09-25T16:06:00.003-06:00

This shot went in!

Yeah this shot went in.

This is the line that they are supposed to wait behind before they can start guarding. He is ready!

Ryan is playing junior Jazz basketball this fall along with soccer. It is really fun and he is enjoying both sports. Here he is in his first game. He scored about 6 baskets!

Eastern Idaho State Fair

2009-09-23T11:48:00.004-06:00

We took our annual trip to the fair a couple of weeks ago. Jeff and I really like to go so that we can eat all the yummy food. The kids love to eat the yummy treats like cotton candy. We also love to see the animals, ride a few rides and enjoy watching all of the interesting people.

Milking the fake cow.

I couldn't tell if Taylor liked this ride or not, she seemed a little tense.

Ryan took this picture of us. He did a good job.

Island Park family reunion

2009-09-21T13:33:00.003-06:00

Over Labor Day we went to Island Park with Jeff's siblings (Minus Kevin) for a family Reunion. Well I went to Jeff's reunion. He stayed home so that his back could continue to heal and so that he could stay with Taylor who was still sick.

We got up there Friday night right after Brian & Tiffany. Boy were we greeted with a surprise. The cabin was a disaster and there were dead mice everywhere. It is the most mice I have ever seen in there. All I can say is how disgusting it was everywhere and I mean everywhere. We completely cleaned the entire cabin before we got unpacked. What a fun job that was.

Saturday we met Kristen & Craigs family at Macks inn. (Rob and Janelle arrived friday night a few minutes after the clean up was complete). We had such a fun day floating the river. The water was numbing cold! Ryan fell in at one point and it was so funny to see his face when the cold water took his breath away. As we floated the river we played on the rope swing, played tag with each other, ate lunch, tossed the football between rafts and had a lot of fun.

That night we went to the play mill to see The Secret Garden. The kids sat through it really well and we all enjoyed the evening even though the play was a little dull and hard to follow.

After the play we of course enjoyed ice cream in West Yellowstone.

On Sunday we held a little church service. The highlight was having Grandma & Grandpa McMinn give us a lesson via video tape. What a great idea Brian & Tiffany to include them in our reunion even though they are far away.

That afternoon we worked on a few crafts. we did prayer rocks, and rock creatures. The older kids did a hackey sack with rice inside balloons.

The hightlight of the day was the smores contest that we had that evening. Each family was in charge of bringing an original smore recipe to be judged. Rob & Janelles smore won first. It was 2 shortbread cookies, milk chocolate bar, slice of strawberrry and roasted marshmallow. It was yummy! Our smore took second. It was 2 ritz crackers, a heath symphony bar(2 pieces) and a toasted marshmallow. It was a good combo of the salty and sweet. We had a great evening ended with games around the campfire. It was really fun to have all of the kids participate.

Monday was the usual rush of winterizing and cleaning and heading home.

The clean up crew.
Craft time on Sunday.

This is a rock Taryn found that was a little bit too big for her prayer rock so she and I painted it to look like a ladybug. We named her Lucy and she is now guardian of the cabin. She now lives on the front porch.

The kids loved painting their prayer rocks and rock creatures. I should have taken more pictures of the finished products, but I didn't. I actually didn't take many pictures at all. I need to get some from the other that took more.

Maddie & Kaylee & Jocelyn

The kids before the rafting. I left my camera in the car because I was paranoid about it falling in. So I only have before pics.

New hair cuts

2009-09-20T20:17:00.004-06:00

The girls and I went and had our hair cut on Friday. Taylor was so cute about it. Kristy came to ask us who wanted to go first. Kaylee had decided that she wanted me to go first, but then Taylor blurted out, "Me go first!" Then she clomped clomped in her high heel sandals across the wood floor and climbed up in the chair. She was oh so serious the whole time and watched Kristy the whole time in the mirror. It was funny. She loved her first real haircut.

Kaylee loves to go and get her haircut. She asks for months before it is time when we are going to Dragonfly?(that is the name of the salon) Afterwards we were playing outside. I wanted to snap a few pics to show everyone and she really hammed it up. She made me take this last one from the blanked where I was sitting. She thought it was her own little photo shoot.

On the fritz

2009-09-10T13:52:00.004-06:00

I have tried on several occasions to post the rest of our Nauvoo photos with no luck. In the meantime life has been going on and I am now way behind on my blogging. One of these days I will figure out the problem. In the meantime I will be moving on with our blogging life.

Probably the biggest event(s) in our lives has been the rampant sickness in our home. Ryan was the first one to come down with the flu. He was staying with his cousins in Utah when he got sick. I went and picked him up on a Wednesday. He had a fever for the next 10-11 days. He had a sore throat, stomache ache, and cough. He didn't eat much and felt crummy all around. He laid around for about 2 weeks solid. It was horrible to watch him go through it. I did take him to the doctor to rule out strep and they sent us home to wait out the virus. In the meantime I had a family reunion and had my brother in town. We also had plans to go to Jackson for a few days. Ryan assured me that he was up for the trip. I figured he could lay around home or lay around at the cabin. Plus I figured at that point that his fever was going to break at any moment. Well it didn't and Ryan kept getting sicker. In Jackson I ended up taking him to the ER. (as a side note the er in Jackson was nice. There was no one else there and we had an awesome nurse and dr. ) They said that he was fine that it was just a virus and sent us home with cough syrup. The Dr. was puzzled that no one else in the family was sick. Remember virus's are very contagious. One other detail we found out was that Ryan was low on iron. So even when he started feeling better he was still really tired and it took him a long time to recover. Not only was he tired, but our skinny boy lost some weight too.

Breakfast alone at the cabin. Everyboday else went to Yellowstone. Notice Ryan ducking behind the bar, he was embarrassed that his shirt was off.

Our only excitement for the day was lighting a fire. Ryan was so excited and it kept him entertained for a couple of hours.

Poor sick boy! You can see it in his eyes.

Our next stress was Jeff having surgery. He is doing great, but it has been a lot of work for our family. I really took for granted the things that he helped me out with that he can no longer help with. ie taking out the trash, cleaning up after dinner, packing for a trip, carrying suitcases, coolers ect, unloading groceries, picking up toys. He is also not able to put on his own socks or tie his shoes. One other thing that is hard for him is bending down to put up the toilet seat.

Next, Taylor got the sickness. She had a fever for about a week followed by a cough that won't go away. She is now on her 13th day of sickness. The saddest part of her being sick is that she missed out on our family reunion with the McMinns. She was really disappointed that she couldn't go. She stayed home with dad and they watched plenty of Dora.

Ryan also had some stomache issues while we were at the cabin. Luckily after 4-5 days and some laxatives he is okay now.

Lastly Jeff had a stomache bug for about 4 hours on Tuesday. It was the weirdest thing. He threw up several times and had to come home from work. He slept for a couple of hours, ate lunch felt fine and went back to work in the afternoon. We are wondering if he had food poisoning or a reaction to his medication. We are just grateful it didn't last any longer.

So now we have had sickness and recovering for the last 4 weeks. I have been going crazy! I have had to miss out on so many fun things, and it has been miserable to watch my family suffer. It is a good thing that we have some fun things to look forward to. I don't want to sound like I am complaining too much. I am very aware that there are people out there facing more serious illness, heartache, and stress. Mostly I am just reporting the facts for our own records. I am grateful for the blessings in my life, including the challenges. It really makes us appreciate the good times.

More of Nauvoo

2009-09-01T14:28:00.004-06:00

There were quite a few antique wagons around for picture opportunities.This was the oxen ride. Gary & Gabe were our Oxen. They were awesome animals. They were so docile. They didn't even flinch while we were standing there petting them. Gary even fell asleep while he was standing there. It was interesting to find out about them chewing their cud.

Ryan was even brave enough to touch the horn. The horn was warm and you could feel the vibrations from their chewing.

A sweet hug on the banks of the Mississippi River.

Ryan shooting his sling shot.

On the trail of Hope or the trail of tears. This is the path the saints took to leave Nauvoo to head west.

Apparently I was the only one that got the message to look at the camera and smile. I don't know who or what the kids were looking at.

One of the days on our trip we drove about an hour and a half to Hannibal, Mo. For those that don't know Hannibal is the birthplace of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). We took a paddle boat ride.

Hannibal is a cute little touristy town.

We visited the museum that displayed original Norman Rockwell paintings.

The white picket fence. Don't know why Taylor is flashing the camera.

Taylor blowing the whistle. Each of the kids got to pick a toy as a souvenir. Ryan chose a slingshot, Kaylee chose a Jacobs Ladder and We chose a steamboat whistle for Taylor because it sounds like a train whistle. She loves trains.

We got to go to Vocal Point one night. They were awesome.

One evening we spent at the adventure zone. We had pizza for dinner, drove go carts and played on the giant toy.

The go carts were a little boring because we had to take turns and couldn't race each other. Oh well when our kids get bigger we can have some fun races.

We interrupt this....

2009-08-25T16:51:00.004-06:00

We interrupt the Nauvoo posts to bring you a very important announcement....The kids are back in school! I thought I didn't want them to go, summer was too short, and I loved every minute of it. But today was wonderful. Kaylee started preschool three days a week and Ryan started school yesterday. When he got home he said it was Awesome! I was so glad to hear it. Today his friend Ty met him at the door to ride bikes to school. He was really excited. He loves to ride his bike more than anything.Ryan starting 2nd grade. Mrs. Reed is his teacher.

Ryan & Ty Leavitt

Ryan heading out on his bike

Kaylee starting pre-K. She goes to playhouse preschool and Lynn Desfosses is her teacher. She goes 3 days a week.

We are so excited that Kaylee's hair is growing out. Finally!

This is Taylor being sad that Kaylee is leaving. Well actually Jeff just took her toothbrush away and said it was time to leave so she was upset.

I just couldn't stop taking pictures of her little fit. Oh the drama.

Another important update for us is that Jeff had his surgery on his bulged disc yesterday. It was outpatient surgery and so far he is recovering nicely. He has been up and walking yesterday and today. He is just very tired and sore. Good thing for drugs eh? He is on some pretty big restrictions for the next 6 weeks. He is hoping to return to work full time in 2 weeks. We are just waiting to see how his body heals. The doctor is pretty sure that there will be future surgeries since his disc was in pretty bad shape. We appreciate everyone that has sent us well wishes and offered to help. It is times like these when we realize how many wonderful friends and family that we have. Thanks also to Grandma & Grandpa for keeping the kids and getting Ryan off for his first day of school.

Nauvoo post 2

2009-08-24T19:54:00.003-06:00

Once again pictures are in order from bottom to top, but it really doesn't matter. The next day we went to church with Glenn & Annette. It was a sacrament only ward since they have so many visitors. When we were done we walked up to the temple and took some pictures while we were in nice clothes. It was not the best time for pics because the sun was in our eyes, but we had fun and the flowers all around were so beautiful.

On Monday we went on a carriage ride with Glenn & Annette. We were so glad that they could sneak away from their work to go with us. That afternoon we went to Carthage jail to see where the prophet had been killed. I had been to the jail 2 times before so I was not that annoyed that Taylor was needing to be taken out. The church sites are really not the best for energetic 2 year olds. Ryan and Kaylee did great though and I think they learned a lot.

Ryan took this picture of us, not bad huh?
The kids in the kitchen under the jail. I cannot fathom being the jailers wife and having to have criminals eating at my table with my family. I am sure they were glad when they had Joseph, Hyrum, and other apostles at the dinner table. Can you imagine what a good influence they were on the family?

On the carriage ride. yes we are wrapped in blankets. It was a chilly morning. Nauvoo had record low temps for July. What a blessing for those involved with the pageant.

Our trusty horses pulling the carriage.

This begins the photo shoot by the temple.

Nauvoo trip Day 1

2009-08-23T20:24:00.003-06:00

Because of the mass amount of pictures and things that we did I am going to have to update by the day. We had such an amazing family trip to Nauvoo this summer. We loved first and foremost seeing Grandma & Granpa McMinn on their mission, secondly we loved being in Nauvoo and feeling the spirit in that special place, thirdly we loved the area with its beauty and history. We always enjoy traveling with our kids and doing fun things. We caught the very last show of the pageant. It was a wonderful production put on by many wonderful volunteer and core casts. We also got to meet many of them before the performance. Grandma & grandpa took us to the High School to eat dinner with many of them. We also got to go to the preshow cast meeting. It was wonderful.
Closing scenes.

This was at the puppet show that is part of the preshow activities. They had so much to do we had no idea that there were so many activities and fun things for the kids.

Ryan picking out his sock puppet. The family casts make these puppets before the show starts and every child gets to pick one to keep and take home.

Taylor in front of the little cut out city of Nauvoo.

Pulling the handcart. I started by myself up the hill, but that sucker was heavy. I recruited Jeff and my mom to help push. I gained a whole new respect for the pioneers that pulled the handcarts across the country. Holy Cow!

Kaylee with Grandma's bonnett.

Taylor had to have a turn too!

We got to see Grandma Byington also in Nauvoo. She went for three weeks to help with the costumes. It was a huge job and she loved every minute of it. On Saturday nights during the pageant the sewing ladies took all of the costumes to the laundry mat to be cleaned. They were up well into the morning. On final night many of the ladies were up until 5 or 6 in the morning taking care of the costumes. Thank goodness for volunteers.

Grandma & Grandpa McMinn dressed in period clothes for the final performance. They looked so cute!

3 little cuties. We had some time to kill in St. Louis while dad went and picked up the car.

When I first became a mom I would have never dreamed that I would lay my daughter down to sleep on an airport floor. Oh well she was out and I needed to use the bathroom. Looks quite comfy don't you think?

Tay Tay on the airplane. The kids traveled so good.

Of Course these pictures are not in order. You will just have to pretend that they are.

Happy 12th Anniversary

2009-08-09T12:38:00.004-06:00

Today Jeff and I celebrate 12 years together. 12 years ago we were married for time and all eternity in the Idaho Falls, ID temple. It seems like time has flown by at times, yet it seems like we have been together forever. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband. He is always so willing to help me with whatever I need. I am especially grateful for how awesome he is as a dad. When we are choosing our future spouses we can only imagine what they will be like as a parent. Jeff has surpassed all of my expectations. How blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband and father for our children. I Love you Honey!

I also want to thank many of our friends and family for the love and support that they have shown us through the years. We love you all.

Pictures taken by Dan & Denna Burrup.

Also a special thanks to Ryan, Kaylee, and Taylor for putting up with us as their parents. What 3 great blessings.

Fourth of July Weekend.

2009-07-29T14:18:00.006-06:00

So I am once again playing catch up. For the fourth we took the kids and went to Island Park. We packed plenty of bug repelant, (boy did we need it), and I forgot sweatshirts for the kids. We really could have used those. Oh well we survived. The first day we went on a 4-wheeler ride. The next day we went to Yellowstone Park and ended up in West yellowstone for the 4th of July parade then dinner at our favorite pizza place. It was a great weekend. We love how well our kids travel and how much we love being active and outdoors together.

Lunch on the 4-wheelers, what a great picnic place.

It was a little chilly. Luckily I had packed long sleeve shirts and pants. Of Course I didn't forget my sweatshirt. I don't go anywhere without one.

Over looking Henry's Lake.

Everything was so green and all of the flowers were in bloom. It was magnificent! The kids were tired of posing in the different flower patches.
Usually these flowers bloom in Late May early June.

Tay was holding my hat and glasses for me. She loves her licorice.

Roasting Smores at Grandma & Grandpa's fire pit.

Warning: these next pictures are way cheesy!!! We did refrain from stripping down and dancing naked in the flowers. Jeff thought that would make a great picture! Oh and speaking of Jeff he is going to be a little annoyed at me posting these to our blog.

We just felt like dancing in the meadow.

Classic flower sniffing picture.

Classic mom kissing baby picture, I mean mom kissing 2 year old picture. Taylor thought it was funny.

Tower falls hike. The water was so high that the trail is washed out and you can no longer hike to the falls. We did enjoy our little walk. We made it just in time before the rain started. We also enjoyed ice cream cones after. Ice cream is a great motivator for tired little hikers.

I finally broke down and paid way too much for these sweatshirts for the girls in West yellowstone. They were so proud to be matching.

Getting ready for the parade. The most exciting part was watching the 2 Asian ladies next to us. They kept running out in the middle of the street to pose in front of the horses. One of the cowboys was laughing and saying Hey Lady you might want to move. She was close enough to touch the horse. They also got the biggest kick out of catching the candy. They ran out and took it, racing the little kids. They were probably in their 40's. It must have been their first parade.

It was a great holiday!

Lake Powell the end.

2009-07-22T16:17:00.003-06:00

Okay I know the trip was like a month ago and that I keep adding more, but I need to finish it up and move on. Normally I would just skip it, but I plan on doing a blog book later so it has to be done. I never tire of pictures of my kids, and our boat, and Lake Powell. Combine all three and I can't resist.
Kaylee practicing for her part in the Titanic part 2 .

Loving the last boat ride.

This little guy woke us up our last night. It was already a bad night with the rain forcing us to sleep inside. Then the wind and the heat. It was not pleasant especially when you throw in over tired kids and grumpy adults. So this little guy was not a pleasant site running across us at night. Luckily Seth is an excellent mouse catcher. Other unpleasant things that night were the bathroom door blowing open then shut and the fridge beeping when the propane tank ran out. It was a horrible night. FYI mice can swim! We watched this guy hitch a ride on some debris in the water after Seth launched him in. We watched him by flashlight.

Bye Bye beautiful water and tapestry wall.

Swab the deck Mates.