SNOW!!

Our first snowfall in Orem - appropriately on December 1. The kids had a great time playing outside with their cousins Madeleine, Beth and Mary Sorenson who were staying at our house for the day.

Children's Museum in Salt Lake

A trip to the fun Children's Discovery museum in Salt Lake. Here's Spencer working at a construction site and riding a horse on the farm.

Reading the News and flying a rescue helicopter.

Our Funny Boys

Recently took some funny pictures of the boys that capture what they're like right now. The one above is my favorite, I think. :) My Dad captured that one at the wedding. I have really enjoyed having my days with my little boys. It has been funny as I remember this stage with the girls at these ages and it has been even funnier to contrast the difference between each set. Our girls were definitely entertaining and funny in their own way, but these boys win in terms of being a lot more physical.

Spencer is so funny - as well as your typical, demanding 3-year-old. He's so much more aggressive (and heavier) than the girls were, but I also get such a kick out of his funny humor. Above we were raking the leaves and he was loving it! I have discovered, and Michael constantly reminds me, that if I can keep him doing something physical - or even wrestle him myself - he is his happiest self. Evidenced by this picture. I remind myself that one day as he learns to channel all that enthusiasm and aggression, it will make him a productive person. :)

David is so cute right now. Here he is in Emma's doll's bed. He smiled and said, "Eeesh!" (cheese) when we took the picture. He is saying new words every day. Saturday morning while Michael and I were making breakfast, he started yelling, "Rizz! Rizz!" and we wondered what he was trying to say. Then he yelled, very clearly, "Breffast!" So he was trying to call the kids to breakfast. He is still infatuated with pictures of animals. He saves his most enthusiastic giggles for when he knows he is doing something he shouldn't - like climbing up to Catherine's bunk, or trying to run away.

One night as I went to check on the kids before I went to bed, I went to Spencer's bed first and he wasn't there. I looked on the floor, under his bed, behind the rocking chair and didn't see him. Then I turned around and found him here. Pretty cute.

Retry on the costumes

Don't know what caused the technical problems below. Here's try #2.

Catherine was a specific fairy called "a water sprite"- whose name was Lily. She was very particular about this. She even wrote us a full 2 page description with more details and information about water-sprites in general and Lily, specifically. I made her jacket. I wasn't fully on board with the water-sprite theme until I saw this fabric in the prom-clearance fabric and it looked like something a water-sprite would wear. So here she is. She looked very cute.

By looking at this happy picture, you would never know the drama that surrounded Emma's costume. Our cousin Abby Cannon let us borrow this very cute fairy costume which went so perfectly with the afore-mentioned water-sprite. Well the night before Halloween as we were laying everything out before bed, Emma starts pulling out her different church dresses and asking if she can wear one of them instead. Through all this I was battling internally with deciding whether "it really didn't matter and I should just let her wear whatever she wanted, even if it looked like she had no costume at all" and feelings of "no! My child WILL look cute on Halloween - esp when the costume is all ready to go!" When I finally got her to explain what the problem was with the adorable blue fairy costume, she said that she didn't like the pointy skirt. So I found lots of pictures of fairy costumes on line and (fortunately!) all of them had pointy skirts. I tried to convince her that that was just a trait of all fairy skirts and she looked really beautiful! So she decided to wear the costume and everything seemed to go well the next day and then last night after they'd already gone to bed late, Emma came downstairs crying and said, "Mom, I just didn't want to wear the blue dress!" and wouldn't stop crying about it until Michael rocked her to sleep.
Fortunately there wasn't nearly as much drama with Spencer and David's costumes. They just looked cute. David really had fun this year. He did a little trick-or-treating and then hung out on the porch with me handing out candy.

Happy Halloween!

Michael in his "scary" costume. (No offense to our beloved U of U alums.) I was Taylor, an East High School student from High School Musical in my authentic East High sweater. :)

Photo doesn't do it justice, but our house looked really cute.

Costumes

Catherine was a specific fairy called "a water sprite"- whose name was Lily. She was very particular about this. She even wrote us a full 2 page description with more details and information about water-sprites in general and Lily, specifically. I made her jacket. I wasn't fully on board with the water-sprite theme until I saw this fabric in the prom-clearance fabric and it looked like something a water-sprite would wear. So here she is. She looked very cute.

By looking at this happy picture, you would never know the drama that surrounded Emma's costume. Our cousin Abby Cannon let us borrow this very cute fairy costume which went so perfectly with the afore-mentioned water-sprite. Well the night before Halloween as we were laying everything out before bed, Emma starts pulling out her different church dresses and asking if she can wear one of them instead. Through all this I was battling internally with deciding whether "it really didn't matter and I should just let her wear whatever she wanted, even if it looked like she had no costume at all" and feelings of "no! My child WILL look cute on Halloween - esp when the costume is all ready to go!" When I finally got her to explain what the problem was with the adorable blue fairy costume, she said that she didn't like the pointy skirt. So I found lots of pictures of fairy costumes on line and (fortunately!) all of them had pointy skirts. I tried to convince her that that was just a trait of all fairy skirts and she looked really beautiful! So she decided to wear the costume and everything seemed to go well the next day and then last night after they'd already gone to bed late, Emma came downstairs crying and said, "Mom, I just didn't want to wear the blue dress!" and wouldn't stop crying about it until Michael rocked her to sleep.

Fortunately there wasn't nearly as much drama with Spencer and David's costumes. They just looked cute. David really had fun this year. He did a little trick-or-treating and then hung out on the porch with me handing out candy.

Annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch

(Also formally known as "the pumpkin catch" or "the patchy patch")

Aunt Laura gets married!

Extended Udall family at the temple

Gorgeous bride, dress and flowers. Laura designed her dress herself.

Cool guys. (Spencer found these sunglasses in the car on the way and insisted on bringing them.)

Cute kids

Officially sick of taking pictures:

David loved climbing on the steps of the temple.

The reception

I don't have many good pictures of the reception, so I'll post more another time when I get some better ones, but these are good for now.

Spencer was so happy when they finally cut the cake. He'd been asking for cake all night. So tempting right there in front of him!

Laura tossing the bouquet - which Catherine dived on the floor to catch. :)

Kids dancing. They loved it!

Swimming at the Ft Detrick Pool

One of our kids' favortie parts of visting Grandma's is going to the pool We were able to go lots and the kids - particularly Emma - made lots of swimming progress and had a lot of fun. We ate dinner at the pool and stayed later a few nights.