A Walk Down Memory Lane In Heber and Midway

As a fun family activity, Grandma Smith put on a little scavenger hunt for all of the families during Thanksgiving.  We did a family history tour of Heber/Midway.  We got to show all of the kids our grandparents houses or places they used to take us.  At each site, we shared a fun memory of Great-Grandma and Grandpa Smith and Guernsey.  It really made an impression on my kids.  It was so fun getting to share things that are so important to me!

G-ma and G-Pa Smith's house in Midway:

G-ma and G-Pa Guernsey's house in Interlaken:

Where Grandpa Guernsey would take me to the Provo River to go get pick rocks for his landscaping:

G-ma and G-pa Smith's other house in Heber:

Where G-ma and G-Pa Guernsey would take us when we came to visit them in Midway before we moved to Heber.

At the Cemetery in Heber:

Gymnastics Galore

Erica had so many gymnastics meets, that I decided to combine my favorites.  I'm making her a DVD of all of her routines throughout the season rather than try to post them all.   Here are a few highlights:

They're not great pictures because of me any my awesome photography on the camera phone, but they work.

Erica's earned first place with one of her vaults.  She scored a 9.4

 Erica and all of her medals and ribbons at a meet.

Check out the pointed toes in her back walk-over!

 
Erica on the beam....from far, far away.  She's so good at pointing her little feet!

Forward mill-circle!

A quick team shot

The Night We'd Been Waiting For

Our school holds parades for the kids to show off their Halloween costumes.  Halloween morning was a bit hectic, but I did manage to take this one picture.  

It's so fun snapping pictures of them as they walk past in the parade. This year for me, I had four kids walking past.  I was on high alert.  It's so easy to miss them when over 1,200 kids walk past in costumes.  But YAY ME, I didn't miss anyone!

Jace, the hobo.

Erica, the gypsy.

Kent, the baseball player who was killed by getting hit in the head by a ball (he came up with this one!!)  SO cute!  He just kills me :)

And Ryan, Iron Man.  He had to wait to wear his mask until after school.  

After the parades, I got to help with TWO parties!  I love doing this part!  Kent was first.  I got assigned the "Don't Eat Pete" Table.  Always a favorite!

And then Ryan's party was right after Kents.  I saw the stations they had prepared and noticed they had a "Don't Eat Pete" game planned for his class too, so I volunteered for it again.  You can't ever play too much!

Daddy wanted a close up of Kent's awesome idea.  Kent was so proud and got comments all night!

We headed out to go door to door after we hit the ward "Trunk or Treat."  There is no such thing as too much candy!

My baby, Jace, is not a baby anymore.  He took off with his friends to go be scary, and maybe get some treats on the way.  We missed him all night.  STOP GROWING UP!!

This is the view that Tony and I got all night. We just sat back and sighed.  How cute our little people are!

Grandma and Grandpa Smith even met us on our route to say "Boo."

Ahhhh!  The spoils of a good nights work!!  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

The "BOO Train"

Every year, we go to the Nightmare Express in Lindon, but Ryan has named it the "Boo Train".  I think it's because the kids told him that it's not scary.  All that happens is kids dress up in costumes and say BOO too you.  It's become a Halloween tradition. This year, we had to go without Dad because he was out of town. I practically drug Ryan through the line for the first 20 minutes while he screamed in terror. He is so scarred from the Disneyland rides that he was sure he was going to be terrified.  Somehow, when I told him that this is a funny ride, and that we get to laugh with the guys who say BOO, he decided it was fun and had a good attitude for the rest of the time we were in line.  Which was good because it was two hours long!  Totally worth it though!

Standing in line...........(I should mention it was Crazy Hair Day at school)

Kent put on a tough face and tried his best not to be scared, Erica was fine until we actually got to the train, and then she decided she was scared, and Jace was just fine.  He loves this stuff, and wished that he could be one of the scarers. (Ryan's not in this pic, because had had to sit behind me. I got a giant hug the whole ride!!)

Hooray for tradition!  We had a great night and came home to eat some homemade cinnamon rolls that had been waiting for us all day!

Punkins

We look forward to the night that we carve pumpkins every year.  We've had a tradition of making caramel apples for treats.  They get to set in the fridge while we carve the pumpkins, and then we get to eat them afterward.  It's always so much fun.  This year, we made sure to carve them on a night that daddy wasn't travelling.  SO MUCH EASIER!  We turned on music, danced around, sang, carved, de-gutted, it was a blast!  

What Tony and I especially loved was that both Jace and Erica could do their own carving along with scooping out the insides all by themselves.  This pumpkin thing is getting so much easier!

Kent and Ryan needed a little more help with the knives,

But they were awesome scoopers!

Each of the kids designed their own pumpkin. Jace and Erica drew their own on the pumpkin, Kent drew his out on paper what he wanted, and Ryan found his idea online.  He said he needed to find a pumpkin with a mustache.  

I should've gotten more pictures of them eating their yummy apples, but I was too busy eating mine!  I did get a pic of Ryan's after he was done.  No candy left on the apple.....just apple left! He licked it clean!

The finished pumpkins for Halloween night.

Happy Halloween!!

Yeah....No Thanks!

So wrestling for Ryan started like this.... (Big Smile)

 Big Muscles....

 Posing with big bro...

......and then ended up with "No!!!"  

Ryan did NOT like going to wrestling.  He was absolutely terrified. He kept saying, "But I don't know how to wrestle!!"  WE tried to tell him that we go to practice just to teach him, so he didn't need to worry, but that didn't help.  Ryan does NOT like doing something if he doesn't know exactly what he's going to expect.  So after the second practice of lots of tears and a terrified little boy, we decided that we'll skip this year and try it when he's ready :)

But Kenters is still super excited to wrestle.  He has his first tournament coming up, and Daddy made sure to be in town to see his super-star wrestler get some pins!  Yay Kent!  We'll post some pics of next Monday later...

"Princess Pretty" Hair

Erica loves getting her hair done "fancy."  I'm so relieved.  There were about two years where she refused to wear anything but her favorite pink headband.  Now, if she and I have extra time in the morning, we'll look up some fun hairstyles online.  For some reason or another, we took pictures of a few.  A lot of the time, its because she can't get a good view of the back in the mirror, so I take a picture so she can see it.  These pics are still on my phone, so we can add them to the blog.

For this one, we did her hair in a bun at night and got to see what pretty curls we would get the next day.

We found a softer way to sleep in sponge curlers this time.

 This is what the curls ended up looking like :)  We loved it!

Erica and I had TONS of time last Sunday.  This one turned out SO cute!

Crazy Hair Day...Bun Mohawk!

Fun pretzel knot!

We love getting to try fun ideas!  It's our special mommy daughter bonding time :)  I love you Princess Pretty!