Colorado Christmas

 Ellie had her first middle school choir concert.

 She was nervous but did great.

 She also had a few clogging Christmas performances.

 It has been so much fun to see how good she has become since she started.

 At one of the performances Santa was there to talk to the kids.

 Brookie and Mia love to show off their jumping skills.

 The kids love that every year they get three Christmases.  The first on is at home before we go to Canada.  Then they have one in Vulcan and one in Mountain View or Lethbridge.

 For our Colorado Christmas we make hot chocolate,

 make gingerbread houses,

 and open presents.  This year we gave our kids a trip in February.

 Mia opened the first clue, which was an airplane.

 Brookie opened the second clue, which was a map of where we are going.  They saw it was an island and excitedly said "we are going to Hawaii".  Um, no.  Then they realized that Florida was part of the map and they excitedly said "we are going to Disneyworld"  Um, no.  When we told them we are going to Key West they said "What's that?".  Their enthusiasm was a little underwhelming at first but they got more excited.

 Especially when they learned the dates and realized that they get to miss a week of school (hence, Emma's reaction)

 After we showed them pictures and explained what it would be like they all seemed pretty happy.

 Brooklyn had her preschool Christmas concert.

  She attends a Christian pre-school where they are very enthusiastic about praising the Lord.  She gets right into it and is very cute to watch.

October

October is Ellie's favorite month.  The weather gets cooler, it has Halloween and, of course, her birthday.  She was a cute witch this year.  Here she is with her good friend Mataya.

Arrrrr! This is our adorable pirate.

Emma really wanted to be a panda bear.  She made this costume up,  which I was all for. One less costume to buy.

 Rapunzel.

 For Ellie's birthday she invited a few of her closest friends out for a night of fun.

 There was Mataya, Kira, and Claire.

 We went out to Red Robin, then to a local production of Music Man, and home again for cake, and a sleepver.

Pics from Kyle's phone

 Mia dropped my camera and broke it so the only camera we have right now in our family is Kyle's phone.  I finally put the pictures on the computer so I could do a blog entry.  This is a hodgepodge of everything that was on his phone.  It is chronologically backward starting with the most recent.

 After Stake Conference we thought we would head up to the mountains to Rocky Mountain National Park since it was a beautiful October day.  You can barely see Stefanie, Ellie and Emma at the top.

 We went to Alluvial Fan and had a great time climbing around.

 Emma and Brooklyn are Rammettes this year which is a program for kids run by the CSU Ram cheerleaders.

 They perform at CSU sporting events.  Their first major performance was at a volleyball game.  Two of their coaches, Molly and Shane are in this picture with them.

 A few weeks before the volleyball game they walked in the Homecoming parade and performed at the pep rally.

 It was really cold that day as is evident by my little snuggle bug here.

 Emma's party was a luau theme.

 Ellie and Claire planned and executed the whole thing with only minor assistance from mom.  It was great.  I will have to hire her as my permanent party planner.

 Mom was on a youth temple trip so dad decided to take all the girls to a baseball game on fireworks night.  They all had a great time.

 Dad was on a mountain biking trip with some friends when he had an accident.  This picture is after it was cleaned and sewn up.  Don't look further if you have a weak stomach.

 This is before it was sewn up.

 He also got his arm pretty good too.

Back in the spring we had a fun night with friends shooting guns.

 Fun at the pool with the Fowlers.