Scarecrow Festival - Oct. 16, 2009

We went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point again for the second year. This year Shelly, Mark J., April, Riley, Millie, and Breanna came with us.
It was fun to have our cousins there with us this year. They loved the blow up slides,
the climbing wall


and the animals in farm country. They loved riding the ponies.
It was a such a fun day!

Happy Birthday Samantha - Oct. 12, 2009

Samantha turned 11 on Oct. 12. She can't wait to grow up! She got mostly clothes and jewelry this year. She is turning into teenager already! Happy Birthday Sammi, we love you!

Fire Safety Fair - Oct. 7, 2009

After our field trip we went over to one of the fire stations in Orem. They have several demonstration to promote safety and fire safety. Jacob loved when the big helicopter took off. He had to hold onto his hat so it didn't blow off. Her is a picture of the kids with our friend Ben Williams who is now a fire chief in Orem City.

HeeHaw Farms - Field Trip Oct. 7, 2009

I have a picture of Jacob at this same sign for the past three years.

Jacob's favorite drink - Diet Coke

Each fall we take our kindergarten classes to HeeHaw Farms in Pleasant Grove to the pumpkin patch. Shelly came with and brought Jacob along with her. It is such a fun place. We had such a great time.

Fall - September 27, 2009

I love to go up Provo Canyon on the Squaw Peak road to look at leaves every fall. They were especially pretty this year. I love to take pictures of the kids in the fall mountains. Sammi and Joe were at their Mom's house on the Sunday that we got a spare afternoon to enjoy a drive. We were hoping to take them up another time, but we never made it before the beautiful leaves were gone. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite things combined fall, photography and kids.

Pirate Island Pizza - Sept. 22, 2009

We went to the new Pirate Island Pizza in Orem at the end of September with Grandma Linda, Shelly, Nathan, David and his new fiance, Lee and her little girl Kinlee. It was family karoke night. My kids loved singing. It was a great night to go because they weren't very interested in playing the games. They were more excited to sing, which was free. They kept putting their names on the list. When we finally left they were disappointed because their name was on the list to sing more. We ate good food and had a great time. Jacob even loved being up on stage. He just danced though. (My camera wasn't working very well since I dropped it. Sorry about Sammi's blurry picture.)

Flag football - Sept - Oct. 2009

This year Joe played flag football. He wanted to do tackle, but we convinced him to try out flag for a few years first as he learns the rules and the game better. He played on the defensive team as a nose tackle. He had such a fun time. He progressed and improved his skills over the season. It was fun to watch him! Way to go #13 !




Joe would always cheer his teammates on. Here a boy got an interception. You can see Joe cheering in the background. He would always congratulate his teammates on things they did well with a big high five and praise. He learned good teamwork skills.

Wipeout - Sept. 2009

A week before school pictures, Jacob did a face plant on the cement driveway. He was pushing around one of his big trucks and fell on a crack and hit face first. It was pretty yucky and four months later he still has a bit of a scar under his nose. Needless to say we didn't get his picture taken then, we waited another month for the retakes and even then we put a bit of foundation on his scar. This photograph was taken a few days after his fall.

A photographic journey of our Butterfly - Sept. 2009

Each fall we look for caterpillars to take to school and have at home. It is such an amazing transformation that occurs! This year after hours and hours of searching across a few weeks span of time, we were only able to find one caterpillar. Shelly was doing an observational science project and journal for one of her classes. She let us keep the caterpillar at our house, since we only found one and we helped to take photographs daily and describe the changes for recording in her journal. It was a fun way to watch the transitions occur.

Jacob loves to hold the caterpillars and butterflies!

Hanging J stage

Next day just after it changes into it's chrysalis. It is an amazing thing
I observed it go from the j to the chrysalis last year.

After 10 days it came out of the chrysalis. The first few days after it comes out of the chrysalis it is pretty docile and you can hold it without it flying away. It is pretty fun. Jacob would hold it constantly if we would let him. After taking the first picture of the butterfly I dropped my camera! I was able to fix it, but it was making some weird noises.

We released the butterfly out to the big beautiful world. I didn't get a picture because as we were trying to open our cage it took off immediately to have a new journey!

Labor day campout 2009

Singing around the campfire. Jacobs favorite songs are
Going camping, camping, camping out under the stars and I love the Mountains!
He is my boy alright.

We finally had a cake and officially celebrated Jacob's birthday.


We decided to fit another camping trip in for the year, but we decided just a few days before the weekend and all of the campground spots were completely booked everywhere. We ended up dry camping off of a dirt road up above Tibble Fork Reservoir in American Fork Canyon. We actually loved our spot, except the dust and noise from all of the motorcycles and atv's that went by. The little area where we were hanging out was down away from the dust and noise though. We were down by a stream and the kids had so much fun playing in the water. Nathan make two little pools for them to play in. They also panned for gold. We didn't strike it rich, but we had a fun time trying.







We hiked to Timanogos cave. We were worried if we would make it, but they kids did awesome. Jacob even hiked a lot of the way. Mark did give him a piggy back part of the way, but overall he hiked the majority of the way. We had his leash/backpack on him so he wouldn't fall off the cliffs. We had a fun trip through the cave. We say flying bats inside. The ranger said that was the first time in her 10 years at the cave that she saw flying bats. The kids thought that was pretty cool. We loved seeing all of the formations. We went to the Jr. ranger program and the kids earned their badges. We also went to a gold panning class with the ranger. It was such a fun trip. I love American Fork canyon! I spent so much time there as a kid camping with my family and it was great to take my kids there to experience the fun.