I love my Family!

Each year we have family pictures done for Christmas cards. This year a friend of mine took them and did the most fabulous job (thanks Erin).
Erin Bentley Photography

Life has been its normal crazy busy life. It is sad when the truth slaps you in the face and you realize you are not being as good of a person as you should be. I had that happen to me recently. I hope I have learned from this. I know I have and I want to be better. I really try to be Christ-like. It is always my focus but sometimes I lose it and I am negative. That is how I have been to many people in my family who are always so accepting and loving of me despite my oddness. I want to be better. Thank you to all my family. You all truly teach me to want to be better through your example. All I know is I love my family.

Halloween, Haunted House & The Hunt

I do not know why the deer hunt and Halloween always happen around the same time. It is hard to be without Clint on Halloween. This year was fun either way. I went to our ward Halloween Party on Friday with the kids. Monica's family came with us. She is always willing to help me out. I am very blessed to have her. She also helped me with the girls costumes. We made the girls costumes and I bought Jacobs.

My Fruit Salad

Strawberry (Katie), Pineapple (Eliza), Grapes (Ester),

Watermelon (Hanna) & Banana (Jacob)

Our ward party was so fun. I loved seeing all of my primary kids dressed up.

Some of my primary kids. I love them all.

Clint came home to get Jacob late that night so he could go hunt with him the next day which was Halloween. I knew I was going to be alone with the girls on Halloween so I made plans with my good friend Jenny Powell and went to her house for dinner and then we took the kids trick or treating.

Me and my Good Fruit

Hanna and Audrey

Hyman & Powell Girls

My Strawberry

She was kind of bitter that night.

My pretty sweet watermelon

After we went Trick or Treating we went with the Powell's to a haunted house. A family in our stake put it on every year. It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of friends there. It was spooky. I am so thankful for my friends and the fun we have together.

Meanwhile........

Clint and Jacob had some good bonding time together hunting.

Clint got his deer.

He was so happy.

He looks so handsome.

Jacob was happy also.

He is so cute.

Just before the gutting.

It was a good weekend Clint and Jacob had fun and got their deer. The girls and I had fun with family, our ward and friends. It was a good Halloween, haunted house and hunt.

BYE Little Pigs

Our family was so excited to get new pets. Our little Pigs. We got two that we named Pork chop & Chorizo last Saturday. Then last Wednesday we got three more that were not being cared for on some farm in Maricopa. We were all so excited. The little ones were so cute. We named them Bacon, Sausage and Peperoni.

When Clint brought them home one of them was not doing well. It was so cold and shivering. So we brought it in and gave her a bath to try and warm her up. Hanna was so good with her. She is so loving with all our pets.

After the bath we tried to feed her with a baby bottle and kept her wrapped in a towel so she would stay warm. It was a good effort but was not meant to be. She died during the night. It was a learning experience. The kid said so many prayers for the pig. They knew she was cared for before she died and was comfortable. They understood it was not meant to live.

Hanna taking of Peperoni

On Friday Animal Control was called on us by our neighbor who doesn't care for us. He knows every code in the city code book by heart. He knew it was against city code. We did not know that. Our other neighbors have horses. So we thought it would be fine. I guess not. Animal Control was nice to us. They said we should have been ticketed $250 for each pig but would give us a break. They gave us 72 hours to get rid of them. Then if they were not gone we would get the fine. So we do not have our new pets anymore. Clint took them out to the desert. Now we have a bunch of pork in our freezer. Bye little Pigs.

Halloween FUN

I try to carve Pumpkins for a family activity for FHE every year. This year I googled LDS pumpkin carvings and found a web site that had some really cool patterns. I chose President Monson for mine. As I was carving I thought this doesn't even look like him. Then when we lit it I was surprised.

President Thomas S. Monson

Jacob tried to do a pumpkin where the mouth spelled out SMILE but he kind of messed up so his just had a big mouth. It still looks cool.

Jacob's Big mouth Pumpkin

Hanna of course could not do one without it being a cat.

Hanna's Cat Pumpkin

Ester was going to do a CTR pumpkin but she said it looked to hard. So she just wanted a simple carve that she drew up.

Ester's Jack-O-Lantern

Pigs are a big thing in our family lately. We have gotten them for pets. That is what Eliza and Katie wanted their pumpkins to look like.

Eliza & Katie's Piggy Pumpkins

Usually I am the one to help the kid do theirs and I don't really do one. Clint helped them this year and I got to do mine. They lasted the first night then then they started to rot. It is sad they don't last longer. Any way pumpkin carving is always Halloween FUN.

We are so Lucky again!

Oh my heck, I think our house is destine to burn down again. With Clint's stove incident and now with what happen last night just a week later. First I will start from the beginning.

Friday after I picked the girls up from school I had a brilliant idea to get a new kitten. We all like them but mostly Hanna. She is so good with animals. So we went over to animal control here in Apache Junction to see if maybe they had any kittens. We were lucky they did and they had the most cutest one. We named her Patches.

Patches & Hanna

Patches has been so loved this whole weekend. Hanna being Hanna and being such a good caretaker for Patches keeps her in her room with all she might need and more. Any way last night we got home from a friends house and Hanna got ready for bed and thought Patches might be cold. She set up a heat lamp for the cat. This heat lamp was set up under her bed. Along with the dress Hanna wore yesterday for a blanket. This morning when Hanna woke up there was an awful smell in her room. She said she was dreaming someone came to visit us and they smelled really bad and she didn't know why. Then when she woke up the smell was the heat lamp which had melted it's plastic shade to the carpet

The heat lamp

Melted lamp shade in the carpet

It had started to melt the carpet. I guess the dress was on top of the lamp. This is what happen to the dress.

Front of dress

Back of dress

When Hanna realized what had happened she started to cry because she thought I was going to be mad about the dress. I wasn't mad. How could I be when she was being so sweet to the cat. I just keep thinking it over and over in my head how dangerous it could have turned out. It makes me want to have an emergency plan if something should happen for FHE tonight. We have been through it before and we all made it out safely before. I think I am being warned we need to have a plan. That is what we will do for FHE tonight for sure. All I could say about today's happenings is we are so lucky again.

I don't know if I like this new stove.

For all of my friends and family who have heard me complain the last six weeks about not having a stove and cooking on the camp stove. We finally got the beast. Clint was so excited he hooked it all up and went to lite it for the first time and it blew up in his face. He burned the hair off of his right arm all the way up to the back of his head. It smelled awful. The thing that I was worried about is the flames got all in his face and burned his beautiful eyelashes completely off and his eyebrows. He was in so much pain I took him to the urgent care just to make sure he was OK. Now his face just looks like a bad sun burn. They told us at the urgent care his eyelashes would grow back. Thank goodness! They were beautiful and long . We had to shave his head to even out his hair. Burned hair smells awful. I am just glad he didn't burn down my house again. I keep saying this stupid stove and Clint keeps saying It is not the stoves fault and that he loves it. Well the thing is such a beast and ugly. I don't know if I like this new stove

It was fun at the Cinders

We finally went to the cinders in Flagstaff for Labor day weekend. It was so cool there but hard to ride. I am use to the sand or trail riding. It was still fun. We have some friends the Brice's that like to ride so we met them up here. They put up with our crazy family and I am always thankful when they invite us back for more fun.

We always have to take both the truck and the van when we go camping or to the dunes because we have so much stuff. I told Clint he could have Katie and Jacob go with him for less problems. It did not work out that way. He took Katie thankfully and Mr. Jacob the big tease came with me and the rest of the girls. I wanted to ring his neck into the first hour. We were calling Clint telling him to pull over to take Jacob. Clint said the next stop which ended up being a gas station in Flagstaff a Sinclair. The kid were excited to see the dinosaur there. They all got on it and we took pictures till my brilliant son decided to push off his sisters during this picture moment.

Katie, Eliza, Ester, Hanna & the pusher Jacob

(Notice Hanna's face the other girls had no idea they were going over. Then of all girls to get hurt it we the two little ones they both hit their heads on the hard ground. I had to pick them both up and carry them to a table and sooth them. This whole time Clint is filling up on gas and water for the camper. I will admit it was so stinking funny I had to laugh while my babies cried.)

So we got to the Cinders and it was so amazing how you will be riding and all the ground is black then it turns red my two favorite colors.

You can kind of see how it changes from black to red

I had Hanna hold up some of the little cinders to show how it is black and red

We were pretty high up. The girls enjoying it.

The Guys

(Jimmy Brice, Clint & Jacob)

You could see the clouds in the back ground it had rained and some mountains higher up had snow on the tips. I thought that was so strange being only September.

This is a picture of the slant we were coming down. I was sitting in the passenger seat. I was scared coming down. It is kind of hard to see but I screamed several times coming down. It was like a roller coaster. Which I do not like .

This is my Katie in the camper being funny with her hot chocolate mustache laying on my bed.

While we were in Flagstaff we went one of the days to the Meteor Crater. It was this big hole in the ground. They charge a butt load of money to go look at this hole. Well Clint paid it and we all went to look at it. When we got there and we were all getting out of the van we realized Katie didn't bring her shoes. I was so annoyed. I told Clint to get shoes on her before we left but Clint listened to me like he always does and the result no shoes. We went as planed. Katie just walked around bear footed the way she likes it best. Anyway so we went and looked at the hole. It was interesting but a little boring. Clint was asking one of the tour guides a bunch of questions and this guy was one of those guys that takes their job very serious he was answering Clint's questions and then Clint said yeah right like you could even know that. I was so embarrassed I walked away.

This is the kids standing in front of the crater.

Katie, Eliza, Ester, Hanna & Jacob

I was happy to leave there because I was nervous the whole time because I am afraid of heights and Katie running all around made me very uneasy.

Jacob doing a jump on this ramp we found

Clint was kidding around with Katie and told her she could ride on top of the camper on the ride home. She really wanted to. She was upset to have to get down.

My cute Eliza she loves to go with daddy and go fast on the Rhino.

Ester is a total daddy's girl. She loves having Clint all to herself and would ride all day & night.

Hanna is my funny little prankster. She likes to stay with mom and is not so much a trill seeker like her younger sisters.

Jacob we like to refer to as the DORK.

He was fine with forgetting his bag of clothes at home and he would have been fine with no shower for the long weekend but I wasn't. I went into town and got him some cheap clothes so he could at least change once. He is funny though. He is so carefree and I hope he always stays that way. I love everything about him and my girls. It was fun at the Cinders.

That's whats new!

I have had such a busy summer. Things are slowing down now that school is back in. I only have one child home with me and I don't know what the heck she is thinking most of the time. She is so mean to me I get called all kinds of poopie head names and she does mean things. I don't know if it is because she misses the kids or that she is three years old or maybe she is the challenge I need at this time in my life. She is loved either way. Here is what happened today.

Monica was coming over. I asked Katie last night are you going to be nice to Grant (Monica's three year old). She said yes. I asked her again this morning. She said yes. Well she wasn't very nice to him once he came over. She loves to ignore him. I wonder who she got that from. Any way then they went downstairs to play.

Jacob got a tortoise on Saturday we named him Franklin. He is really cute.

FRANKLIN

Well Katie was told to leave Franklin alone while Jacob was at school. I don't quite know what part she didn't understand because she went into his room got Franklin put him in the sink and poured hand soap on him. I asked why she did that she answered cause. I am glad to report he is ok. That's whats new.