Amusing Ammon

We all adore our outrageous 5-year-old Ammon.

A few days ago Leia, Ammon and Peter were eating Spaghetti O's.  I noticed Leia had dripped some on her pants and told her to wash it off.  Then I saw that Peter had spilled tomato sauce all over his shirt.  Ammon looked down at his clothes and said, "Look Mom, I'm clean as a whistle!"  I'm not sure where he heard that phrase, but he was definitely clean.

With our active children, we have frequent spills at our house.  I find myself expressing gratitude when the spill is "just water."  I guess Ammon had been listening to me, because the first thing he said after he dropped a jar of pickles all over the kitchen floor was, "At least it's just pickle juice."

Ammon LOVES going to preschool!  Everyday when I drop him off at school, he makes the "I love you" sign with his hand and holds it up toward me as he runs to his school with his little backpack swinging behind him.  I love dropping him off at school!

Sometimes I am frustrated having to tell my kids to do things over and over.  Last week I had repeatedly told Ammon to do something, and in frustration I exclaimed, "I've told you that a million times!"  Ammon calmly looked at me and said, "no, only like a hundred times."  I guess he was probably right.

Family Time

We had a fun evening this weekend at the Deseret Mill with Spencer's family.  We canned food for our own food-storage and did a little service too.  We love working and playing with our family.

Peter wasn't the most helpful worker in the factory,
but he sure was cute in his little hair net.

My kids love spending time with their grandparents and cousins.  The other night, my parents were leaving our house after spending a fun day with us.  The kids were begging them to stay, and Ammon said to me,

"I'm gonna miss those two...I wish they could sleep over."

Halloween!

We had a wonderful Halloween this year!  The rain came just in time for trick-or-treating, but that didn't stop us.  The kids had a great time collecting candy at a trunk-or-treat with Jake and Quin's family.

Spencer and I got into the holiday spirit this year and dressed up. 

Spencer was Flash Gordon and I was a Cheetah.

   After loading up on tons of treats, we headed over to the Rollins' home for an exciting, spooky party.  We enjoyed playing games, eating food and visiting with family and friends.  Peter and Zoey were so cute dressed as a fairy and a skunk!

We love Halloween!  So, ya better watch out, or we'll scare you!  Boo!

Fright Nights

We've enjoyed several fun evenings this fall at Frightmares.  The kids loved trick-or-treating and walking through the little corn maze.

 We made the mistake of taking our whole family into one of the scary haunted houses.  Hopefully, our children won't be scarred for life.

 Leia the butterfly, Peter the bee, and Talmage the spider.

Ammon was really excited to ride the zebra, and it shows!

While we're at Lagoon, we always have to get in a few stomach-turning rides.

We love it!

Wedding Day

We had a wonderful day last week celebrating my youngest brother's wedding.  Steve and Alysha are so cute and happy together.

All of the Collier kids are now married.  "We're so old", Steve would say.

 Some things never change.  Aren't Spencer and Anthony so hot!?

 Steve and Alysha's wedding really brought back memories for us.  They had their reception in the same place we did, and they were married two days before our twelfth anniversary.

 We enjoyed remembering the good-old-days as we sang together at the reception.  I can't believe we've already been married twelve years! 
I sure love my Spency-Baby!

Terrible or Terrific Twos?

We had an exciting day yesterday!  Our darling two-year-old seemed to get into everything!

While I was working on some primary stuff, Peter dumped a whole container of Quik pink milk powder all over the kitchen floor.  A little water got into it and the entire floor was sticky, with little footprints tracked all over.

After scrubbing the floor and bathing the boy, I wiped up the bathroom floor that he had splashed water all over during his bath.

We needed to make cupcakes yesterday, so I thought Peter could help put the cupcake wrappers in the pan.  When I turned around, the whole stack of wrappers was completely smashed and had to be thrown away.

While I was trying to get everyone else ready and dressed for the day, Peter decided he wanted to eat another cupcake.  He climbed on the counter and dropped the messy cupcake onto the recently scrubbed kitchen floor.  He then climbed down and ate the cupcake while smearing it all over his third outfit of the day.

I took him upstairs to wash in my bathroom sink.  While I was getting some more clean clothes for him, he somehow flooded my vanity, including the drawers and cupboard, with water.

When we were all finally dressed and ready to leave, Peter walked up to me and Talmge completely naked except for his sandals.  Talmage gasped in shock.  Peter proudly stated, "I naked."

I dressed the boy for the fourth or fifth time that day, and we finally made it out of the house late in the afternoon.  Then I looked in the backseat to find this perfect angel sitting behind me.

Leia's Baptism

We are so proud of our beautiful princess for becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She has been looking forward to this day for a long time.

Leia was blessed to have her Dad baptize and confirm her.  After her confirmation, she sang "I'm trying to be like Jesus."  Her angelic voice was perfect as she shared her testimony in song.

We enjoyed feeling the love and support of our wonderful family and friends in celebrating this special occasion.

Holding Hands

I recently overheard this conversation between Leia and her cousin Luke. 

"Luke, lets hold hands while we're swinging." 

Luke replies, "what, you want to date me or something?" 

Leia says, "no, it's just fun holding hands."

Funny, silly kids!

Soccer Season

For the past couple months, our kids have been enjoying playing soccer.  We've been cheering at six soccer games each week!  I'm quite excited to have the season over with Talmage's last game tomorrow night.

Talmage has been a star player on his team this year, he scores a goal at most games.  Leia runs fast and plays hard and enjoys playing goalie.  Ammon also enjoys playing goalie, but he doesn't care too much for the running fast part yet.  Peter is great at cheering.  As soon as we sit down by the field, he starts yelling, "Go, Go, Go!"

We really enjoyed attending BYU's first game this season!  The rest of the games haven't been quite as rewarding, but we still love our Cougs!

Ammon is Five!

We spent a fun evening at Chuck E. Cheese's celebrating Ammon's birthday.  We loved having the Rollins and Collier grandparents enjoy the chaotic party with us.  Ok, this picture was actually taken at Boondocks, but we had fun there too, just a few weeks earlier.

Pajama Party!

We had a fun pajama party for Leia's 8th birthday!  We had 12 crazy girls doing each other's hair, getting their nails done, playing freeze dance, eating ice cream sundaes, running around screaming just for fun, etc. 

 We don't do sleep-overs, so we thought this was the perfect compromise.

Our boys enjoyed a night at Fat Cats, so we could have just a silly, girly night.  My mom helped with the party so I didn't go crazy all by myself.  I think we all had a great time!

Shower Surprise

The other day, I turned on the shower to let the water warm up, then walked away for a minute.  When I came back to get in, I found Peter enjoying my nice, warm shower with his diaper and pants on--little stinker! 

Peter can sleep anywhere!

Luckily, we noticed him sleeping before he fell off these stools.

How comfortable does that look?

He really wanted to finish his cupcake, but just couldn't stay awake.

I am totally jealous of this boy's sleeping ability!

I wish I could sleep anywhere, anytime.

Bear Lake #2

We were lucky to make another fun trip to Bear Lake this week.  We went with Spencer's family this time.  We enjoyed boating, water-skiing and riding on the "big banana" (the nicest name anyone could come up with).

Spencer, John and the kids enjoyed making sand castles, villages and pyramids.

Dan took us to a shooting range and taught us all how to safely use firearms. 

Even Talmage was able to learn how to shoot our 22.

This was my first time ever shooting a real gun.  The shotgun was heavier than I expected, and I almost fell backward from the recoil of my first shot.  Cole and Tammy were much better than I was at hitting the clay pigeons.

Spencer was very proud of his clay pigeon throwing abilities.  We all had a great time learning how to shoot safely!

Talmage is very good at climbing rock walls, he easily climbed to the top of this wall and pushed the button at the top that sounds off a siren to notify everyone that the climber has reached the top.

After watching Talmage, Peter decided he wanted to climb the wall also.  We got him all strapped in, and he climbed up about two steps and then got scared and got down.  We encouraged him to try again, but he refused.  When we finally got him unstrapped and started to walk away, he decided he wanted to try again.  We spent the next half hour listening to Peter scream, "I push the button!!"

While staying at Ideal Beach, we played a few competitive games of mini golf.  I think Spencer, Clint and Ben ended up winning the different golf games.

We hadn't been to Minnetonka for a few years, so we went through the cave with the Achters and Clint.  We were pretty chilly even with our jackets, but all of the kids were tough and made it all the way through the cave.  After our spelunking, we headed to Bloomington Canyon to hike up to the lake where the brave boys swung on the rope into the lake.

We loved laughing at the funny show at the Pickleville Playhouse.  The kids especially enjoyed the silly bunny!

We enjoyed a nice afternoon riding surreys with the whole family.  Spencer initiated a few wild races during the ride, but we all escaped the adventure unharmed.  We loved spending time with our family up at Bear Lake this summer and hope to be able to do it all over again next year.

Bear Lake #1

We are making two trips to Bear Lake this year. We enjoyed our camping trip with my family last week. We stopped on our way through Logan canyon to walk into some small caves and feel the cold spring water.   My kids love exploring with Grandpa!

Ammon and Peter loved riding on Grandpa's boat, and they even took a calm ride with me on the tomcat.

Talmage enjoyed knee-boarding several times in the chilly Bear Lake water.  He's very good at it!

We had fun hiking through the Paris Ice Caves.  All four of my brave children climbed through the icey, snowy darkness of the caves.

This is the smallest section of the caves that we crawled through. (Well, I'm sure Steve found some other scary cracks to squeeze through.)  Ammon kept his lucky feather with him at all times.

Talmage and Grandpa found another exit from the caves that the rest of us chose not to follow.

We always enjoy hiking up to Bloomington Lake, the glacier pools are so beautiful.

The lake was still mostly covered in ice because we made our trip earlier in the summer this year.  Talmage and Steve were the only two psychos crazy enough to swing out into the frozen water.

At Bear Lake we always have to make time to build a few sandcastles on the beach. You just have to build fast before Peter comes and stomps on your castle.

Some of the nicest time camping is spent sitting and chatting by the campfire.  We  loved our first trip this year to Bear Lake!  My kids loved spending time with their cousins, sleeping in a tent, and following clues to prizes from the Collier Clan Culprit (Grandma).  We are excited to head out to Bear Lake again in a couple weeks with the Rollins Family.