Four Boys and tons of toys...: 2011

It's much easier to update our blog when it's not months at a time, but just a few weeks. We stay pretty busy with the boys and try to make life as fun as we can. Here's the pics:

Abram earned his Wolf badge this last October. He loves scouts and all they do. I hope that I can still be the 11 year old scout leader until he comes in. It was nice having my dad as my scout leader most of my life and I'd love to be my boys. Way to go Mr. A!

Getting the goods with Teeny.

Nash taking his bath. He loves it. Look at all that chub!

Our city does a free Thanksgiving Turkey Trott every year. It starts right out by our house which is nice and ends in the city center. They give out hot chocolate and doughnuts at the finish line. We didn't do it last year because it was snowing and freezing, but things worked out good this year. It was fun having the boys (all 4) with us.

Nash was bundled up big time. He was an excellent runner.

The boys at the starting line

Abram is apparently #1. We'd agree with that.

The trek to the city center. There were probably 150 people that ran it.

A chugging along

Noly and Teeny finishing strong.

Waiting for the bus. It may just well be the boys favorite part of the event.

Teeny and I have been cutting our own Christmas tree down for about 11 years. It's a great tradition that we've been glad to share with great friends and family. This year was a record setter. We found trees in less than 30 minutes and they were awesome. We missed Becky and Neil this year and even offered to scalp them an extra, but Neil has become too much of a stickler about rules in his old age. Hopefully we'll get them back next year. We headed up with Kristy and Miles this year and went to the same spot up by Daniels Summit. We got stuck for a second, but were able to dig out easily and get on our way. All the kids were great troopers as well as Nash. It was a bright sunny, freezing cold day, but we all had a great time. We hit the local hot spot in town for lunch in Heber before coming home to set up the tree. It is in the top two of my favorite traditions ever.

Posing with the tree.

These guys' feet were freezing. Apparently snow in the boot can be a little cold.

I love that we have to have a ladder to decorate the tree. It's about 11 feet tall. The fellas love it too.

Noly getting set to place the star.

Awwww....family.

Here's our post of the month. We blessed Nash (pagan no-more), had Halloween, birthday, Christmas tree permit-ed, and partied in between. On to the pics:

My sister Rachy and her girls came down one weekend in October for Nash's blessing whilest her hubby (now known as D-Fresh Legit) was securing a home for them in Warshington. It was great having her down and being with all the cousins that weekend.

Here are all the kiddies at Gardners Village. That place was a madhouse of estrogen.

Here's the prize princess and her mom

Taking a breather whilest we ordered some cookies to refuel

We blessed Nash on October 16th. He has been changing so much and we wish he could stay this small for a little longer, but we're soaking it all in, spit up and all. He was great during his blessing. All of our kids have been. If not, it'd be a pretty quick blessing.

Nash and Teeny. Instant classic. Teeny fretted a lot over Nash's little outfit, but it was certainly perfect.

After everyone left.

Mr. A had his first Pinewood derby car race for scouts. He helped out a lot. He helped decide what it looked like, did all the painting, and a lot of sanding too. He placed 8th out of about 20 cars or so and won 2 of the 4 heats he was in.

Mr. A and the machine. It was super light so we had to use just about everything we could find to weigh it down.

In action....

Cornbelly's was a blast this year. We haven't been for years and thought it was still the same little po-dunk it started out as. We were stoked to get there and see how much it had grown. It was like a hill-billy's Lagoon. The kids could have stayed for twice as long to do everything there. It was a perfect night for it though.

Mr. A has the baby down.....training by Nash.

This was the giant bounce pillow they had there. It was tons of fun.

Rubber horses.

This was the picture we took of the boys the last time we were there.

This is the same slide this time around. Kind of sad to see them grow up, but they are such great kids! We are so lucky!

Birthing out of the balloon.

One of the six bounce houses they had there.

Spider boys.

There's always time for a hayride, you can quote me on that.

Hayriding.

The old fire engine.

The 'cool' bus.

Even Teeny got in on all the hoorah!

So, my dad's brother called to tell him he had just gone fishing and 'knocked em dead' at Strawberry. Unsurprisingly, I get a call from my dad telling us we need to go fishing. He was great enough to get us a boat and set everything up and we had a blast fishing with grandpa Neil and the cousins.

So, apparently Nolan can only catch fish that are monsters. This is the biggest fish I've ever seen caught. It was a mere 22 inches and had to be 24 for us to keep it.

Even Tate got in on the fishing action. Both he Nolan and I caught fish. Abram was okay because he caught two at Fish Lake this summer.

The weather was actually pretty nice for us, but Abram just loves to wear a hat.

We were lucky enough to also get to have Ava spend a day with us! She is my favorite Ava ever and is such a blast to be with. The boys showed her all the dino magic at the museum.

It was Halloween day at the museum and there was all kinds of things to do. We even watched a lizard eat a rat. Abrams mustache is my favorite.

Abra-cadabra!

Abram at his first piano recital. He played Surprise Symphony and did so good. He is doing great with piano and we love it.

We have to take pics of Nash just to prove we took him along to all these great places. Someday he'll be in the know with us too.

The chillins at the sand and water table.

Ava asked me if she could go inside the shark. Sure, why not?

Pumpkin carving time! We grew a giant pumpkin this year and got the rest from our Bishops patch where we make a donation to the perpetual education fund every year. It's a great idea and we love that we can get pumpkins in our own neighborhood.

Teeny LOVES to carve pumpkins.

Guttin' em out.

The finished products. Nicely done.

Me being a Jack Pirate with the 'Monster Nash'. Teeny thought that was so funny. She cracks me out.

Our city, yes the reservation is a city, held a Halloween party at the park near us. They had some fun stuff and a lot of business booths. We mostly hit the fun stuff.

Again, the Nash and his cheeks. We got the monkey hat from our neighbors the Moyers. Thank you!!

Chub-A-Lubba!

A picture from Farm Country during Halloween season.

Abram at his school parade. He obviously was not any ninja, but the muscle ninja, lest you mistake.

Tate and Nolan went as Vader and Captain America. I think that is their friend Rheagan between them. That's all they talk about. Funny kids.

The party at Neils office was nothing short of stellar again. We got full size candy bars and enough candy to choke a horse. Thanks for the invite!

Heading out to Trick-or-Treat. It was me and the boys this year. Teeny was puking from her headache. Bummer.

So, one of our favorite traditions is cutting down our own tree. We went up to get our permit this year and got THE VERY LAST ONE. Holy smoley we got lucky. We didn't get one for Neil and Becky though, so they might have to poach one this year. We kept the kids out of school and headed up to Heber, then on to Park City and the Olympic Park. It was a great day.

The very last one.

The Spencer sled. Now with Nash they have a legit team........hmmmm........

Luge-ing

They had all kinds of interactive stuff the 'kids' played on.

Sa-weeeeet!

Holding the torch.

More luging and sledding.

Mr. Abram decided to snowball his dad. This is what he ended up with in the end.

We were so lucky to be there on a day they were having bobsled runs. We probably sat there and watched 20 sleds go down. It was so neat to see and hear those things cruise by. You could see their faces pretty good on this turn and they looked like they were crapping themsleves.

So close to the action.

So I'm a geezer now. I had another 23rd birthday and couldn't have asked for a better time with my family. I got an awesome tool chest and an iHome that I love. Thank you so much guys and Teeny for everything!!

The boys are working on keeping a secret. What kind of cake they got me was the hardest one to keep.

They all had messy faces, but Noly put them to shame.

Abram dinking with his brothers.

Abram is quite the prankster. He slapped this on Teeny while she was doing the dishes. It says, 'You are coo-coo-ka-choo".

All the boys love to hold Nash, and he loves it too. Little fatty.

Here he is with Nolan.

Abram has finally earned his Wolf. He'd have done it sooner if his dad could get it together. We had one last thing to to, go to the firestation, to complete it so we went and it was smashing.