My Baking Crew

I have lots of time on my hands now on Sundays.  What's fun is hanging out with my family.  Here you can see my baking crew!  I always have plenty of help whenever I need it.

Happy Halloween

Tradition is dinner at our house with Papa Murphy’s pizza courtesy of Papa.

Can you tell that Tyler doesn’t like the smell of pumpkins?

Tyler is a ceiling fan this year.  Get it?  A fan of ceilings?

Lauren is a bat this year.  Costume courtesy of Jeana Dahle.

Gotta have homemade root beer.  I think there is a lot of kid spit in the root beer as all they wanted to do was blow on the dry ice “smoke”.

Did you sort your candy when you were a kid?  We did.

Ava was a Hershey’s Kiss.  She didn’t really want to wear the hat.  Here she is enjoying some chocolate.

Tyler on a sugar high.

Lauren on a homemade root beet diet.

Here are the pumpkins we carved this year.

Ava Jane's First Birthday

So we are way behind on our blogging, but we will try to catch up just a little bit.  One huge event that happened in August was Ava's first birthday.  How grateful we are for such a wonderful addition to our family. We truly are blessed.

Happy Birthday Ava!

Photo taken by my sister Rachelle Butterfield.

Thoughts on another birthday

I turned 36 yesterday and people have asked if I feel older.  The honest answer is no.  I feel like all the birthdays so far in my 30's are pretty much the same.  The numbers don't mean too much.  I think it will start to hit my radar when I reach 40.  I still think I am young and try to convince myself that I just graduated from high school just a few years ago.  Then I attend a function with high school kids present and realize that I am getting older.  I have lots of gray hair which is something I get from my Dad.  If you have seen my older brothers or my Dad, you will see that I will be either 100% gray or 100% white.  Both are fine with me.

I do want to thank my family for a wonderful day.  I was spoiled on Sunday as you can see below.  Linda made one of my favorite dinners.  She made short ribs with mashed potatoes and all the trimmings.  Then they spoiled me with my favorite cake.  I don't know what to call it, but it is good.  As you can see from the picture, they piled Meredith's homemade ice cream on top!  Not a bad way to finish the day!

Just as a side note: the extended family is getting better at singing happy birthday without my assistance.  They still have room for improvement, but they are getting there.  Luckily they only have to do this unassisted once a year.

Happy Birthday Meredith

July 18, 2011

So I am a little behind in my blogging……

Happy Birthday Mere!  We love you!

Just a casual game of ping pong

July 9, 2011

We stopped by Steve and Liz’s house to hang out with family and a “casual” game of ping pong started.  We then turned it into a game that rotated people in as someone made a mistake.  This happens a lot in our family.  We just make up games that try to involve a lot of people.

Well, somewhere between casual and fun, Martin thought we were in the Olympics and treated his opponent like the Gold Medal team from North Korea.  He will say he was relaxed and what not, but there are plenty of photos of him completely flexed.  He was out for blood.  I do have to admit that he is really good.  He stayed in longer than anyone else.  It quickly became everyone’s goal to get him out of the game.  We played for a while and everyone had a great time.  Check Whitney’s blog for better pictures.

 

Martin and Lindsay

Keith and Lauren

Lindsay and Tyler

The self proclaimed “dream team” – Bob and Keith

Ava

Ava reacting to a bubble!

Summer fun with cousins

Thank goodness for cousins!  These kids can play together for hours.  They have such a great relationship with each other.  We are so thankful for family.

Ava Loves Shoes!

All of our kids have loved shoes from an early age.  Especially Lauren and now Ava.  To be clear, they don't get that from me.  They have a Mother who has great taste when it comes to shoes.  

Here Ava is wearing some cute Robeez shoes that you can't see because she is also wearing Lauren's slippers.  Once she put on the slippers she just wanted to walk around everywhere.  She thought it was pretty funny......and it was.

Another thing Ava does that it unique is when she walks she sometimes puts both arms behind her like shown below.  Not sure why, but it is cute.  It's like she is an airplane or something.  Maybe she is imitating Jason "The Jet" Terry from the Dallas Mavericks?  Who knows?

13 lucky years!

How did I get so lucky?  Seriously!  I ask myself that often.  I remember walking out of the temple after getting sealed (married) and I was so darn happy!  I knew that I had just made to best choice in my whole life!  Nathan Karl Anderson I love you!

Boating with Papa

I am trying to post this from the boat. Papa is this very nice to take us all out today.  The weather is perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4th of July–Independence Day

We feel so blessed to live in this country.  We are thankful to those who helped establish a country where we are free.  We are thankful to those who have fought and are fighting to defend freedom.  We truly are blessed! Happy Independence Day!

We love to spend time with family on the 4th.  Usually the weather doesn’t cooperate on the 4th in Oregon, but this year was an exception.  The weather was perfect.  So, it was time to play in the water.

Lauren is our little dare devil.  You can see her giving the the thumbs up sign which means speed up! 

It wouldn’t be an outing with Papa if something didn’t go wrong.  Here we are being towed in because we ran out of gas.

Ava fell asleep on the boat.  This is a tradition for all of our kids.  They all slept on the boat when they were little.

Celebrating the 4th involves good food.  Here we have homemade root beer brewing.

Can’t go wrong with Mere manning the grill.

Linda always prepares a spread to rival any other celebration.

I think Mere is asking me if anything is in her teeth!?!

Steph is the family photographer.  Her great pics are found on her Town Hall Blog.

Alice is pretending to hold a “boom box”.  Not sure where she learned that, but that is what we love about Alice…..she is funny!