Our Halloween was "OUT OF THIS WORLD"

Well, we had a great time at our ward Halloween party. I am so proud of my kids costumes. I was having such a hard time thinking of just the right thing. My boys wanted to be knights again for the 3rd time ina row, and I didn't really want to go with that again. I knew if I didn't come up with something super awesome, it just wouldn't fly! Well, luckily I found Weston's astronaut costume and knew that this had to be his. Even if we didn't go with a family theme, he still had to be an astronaut. Then I thought of the space ship and with the help of Cindy it was sewn together just the way that I had imagined! Sorry, Kaiden. I didn't have a good shot of your costume all by yourself. I wish you could see the back of it! It has a tail fin and these really adorable "blast-off's" with fire coming out! SO COOL! Now Hannah I wanted to still be girly, but what a moon or a star?....boring! I decided an alien was the best way to go! I loved her little outfit. Notice her knobby bows too. I thought those were awesome! Cindy also whipped out her purple jumpsuit in a matter of an hour! She is so amazing!!! Thanks Cindy for your help. So really now, aren't my kids costumes just out of this world?!?!

Here is a video of them "gettin down". Poor Weston is SO not flexible, but hey, you can see Kaiden's full costume in it! Hannah wanted to, but I think she got scared and bailed right at the last moment.

Clayton is officially deployed!

On Wednesday, the 21st Clayton took his first flight of many to leave for his deployment. We all of coarse went to the airport and they check-in counter employees were so kind. They offered to give my kids and I all a visitors pass to go past security to the gate with Clayton, so we could wait with him and spend that last little bit of time with him. It was so sweet and so special. I am mostly posting these pictures so Clayton can see them so I hope you like them too. I just find moments like these perfect. Yeah, there is the sadness and tears, but the power behind each hug and kiss captured in a picture seems to make it all ok. I love to see my husband holding our children like he never wants to let them go. That is just so sweet to me and so intimate too.
He would have taken Hannah in his back pocket if he could have. Not that he wouldn't have taken us all, but Hannah just loves and adores him and it is heartbreaking to know what pain she is going to face with out her special daddy. He is her world and her life and he is the only one that brings out her true happiness. I am totally ok with that, I have 2 boys, I understand their connection.

Clinging on to Kaiden and Kaiden holding on so tight right back. He is taking this the worst out of all of us so far. As far as Kaiden understands and knows, daddy is going to help out in the war. War to him is Lamanite Armies, Stripling Warriors, Nephites and all the battles that we read about and the Living Scripture movies that we let them watch. Kaiden just doesn't understand that his daddy won't have a sword or a gun and be on the front line defending his life. Clayton is going to be in an office doing his everyday contracting job with all the paperwork that it entails. I bet he would rather be holding the sword and shield though, probably a whole lot more fun!

Weston on the other hand does understand that he won't see his daddy for a LONG time. He is a lot like me in the sense that when something inside his heart is hurting, he doesn't want to face it. He pulls away and turns his head and tries not to think about it. Clayton and him have had a HUGE bonding experience recently so I think this was super tough on poor Weston. I am just waiting for his meltdown.

Daddy and the kids right before it was time for him to board. He was showing them his plane out the window.

Clayton we love you and miss you and hope that you have tons of fun! We can't wait to be all together again and have you back in our arms and in our home. See you in 6 months!

Family Pictures in the Fall

I think they turned out almost PERFECT. I would love to have a cute, smiley one of Hannah, but that is an impossible task so....I am thrilled with these pictures. I didn't really know I wanted "fall" family pictures, but it seemed to be the cool thing going on around here so I jumped in on the band wagon and I am so happy that we did. Thanks again Karla for such an awesome photo shoot. We love looking at these memories already :).

Positive, happy memories of this past summer

We woke up this morning to a nice and beautiful blanket of snow. I am beyond sad when it comes to the snow. I do love snow, it is beautiful and it reminds me of Christmas time, but I am just not ready for it yet. It is only the middle of September for crying out loud! Either way, I found myself reminising of this summer. I had such an amazing summer! I haven't been able to share much because of my camera (or lack there of), so I thought I would go down memory lane for a bit. Maybe give you something to wish for next summer!
I am apologizing now for the order of the pics. I have been uploading for over an hour and I am just ready for bed.

Some pics of white water rafting. I went alone on a weekend getaway to Denali with a group of girls. It was SO much fun. This is a raft "high five" and we are "drifting" in glacial meltoff. I think the water temp was just above freezing. Yes, it WAS cold.

My kid-os love playing at the park. We have the best park on base across the street from my house, it is perfect.

Girls camp. Oh these are some of my Mia Maids. I miss them. I am now the Primary Chorister, which I do love too, but this pic just makes me miss my girls.

Mmmmm, popsicles.

More Denali rafting pics. These are all the girls that went and stayed over night.

My first REAL run. It is the midnight sunrun which is a 10k. My time was 58:09!

Clayton dipnetting for some salmon! Go, baby GO!

The first of MANY!!!!!!

Park time in Valdez, AK when we went camping with the Gerwig family.

What 1 year old can do this by themselves? She climbed all the way up there over and over and over again. She is fearless. She scares the living tar out of me too! Apparently I must have been pretty bad as a child to deserve this kind of stuff.

bubbles, definately a summer time treat.

Our family at a minor league hockey game. I sang the National Anthem for it.

Valdez pictures. Most were taken on our glacier and wildlife cruise we went on,

Clayton deep sea fishing for Halibut.

Valdez's Bridal Veil waterfall.

We spent at least 2 days a week at the "fake beach" this summer. My kids got VERY tan for being Alaskans.

Clayton and I went canoeing with the ward.

I had baby birds living in my dead plant. It hung right in front of my front door, but I couldn't move it because of the nest. I was SO thrilled to watch my babies grow. The went from hatched to flying in about 3 weeks. It was much faster than I would have expected.

googles. only in the summertime.

mmmm, corn on the cob. it's the best in the summer

train rides.

beach bum

ice cream

more park time

chitina river. a.k.a. the best salmon fishing spot!all the hard work payed off! this is the best food ever.

RASPBERRIES!

riding bikes on 2 or 4 wheels

Denali National Park

Clayton and his dads moose hunting spot. Hmmm, I forgot a picture of the moose. That is another good thing about the summers! And of coarse, 4 wheeler rides.

Clayton's MOOSE!

I have had such a hard time getting this post up on here, so I am going to try to keep it short and sweet. Clayton's dad came up for a week, just to go moose hunting. They decided to stay "on base" which is still about 40 or so miles out. They had some awesome luck (oops, I mean skills!) and Clayton shot his moose on the first day of hunting season. I am SO proud of him. This is the first animal HE has actually shot, and what is better than getting a moose for your first? Not to mention, I am super happy that my freezer has been re-filled :).

I know, I know. Gross! I did it last year too, so now it's all about tradition!

Clayton and his dad did ALL of the meat procesing themselves. It took them 3 days total, but I would guess that it saved us around 800 to 1,000 dollars. Well worth the 3 days. This is Clarence cleaning off all of the meat before they cut it up.

Hannah thinks that most animals are her very own personal pet, but this moose in particular she was quite fond of! She was all sorts of excited to get to pet him....and sit on him.

We took her off for about 30 seconds (a HUGE FIT!) and decided to just let her sit on him. Why not? She would have stayed all day if I would have let her. I think she ended up with a good 20 minutes before I made her get off.

Clayton grinding up the meat into burger. Mmm mmmm, good.

This is day 1, I promise they didn't look this happy on day 3. They were pretty tired by the end of it all. Still, after it is all said and done, Clarence went home with a full suitcase and totally happy and Clayton and I are thrilled. I really am SO proud of him and I am so grateful that he and his dad could do all of the processing themselves too. We are so blessed!

Happy Birthday to ME!

So my Birthday was onthe 29th and the girls wanted to clelbrate with something CRAZY F-U-N! Not just your everyday fun, but Kari FUN! (That is totally different by the way!) So the girls arranged for all of us to get some shopping done first at Old Navy (yep, I love me some Old Navy sales!), then we went to dinner at Chili's (probably one of my most favorite places to eat, lame and boring I know, but I just LOVE their food. It is all sooo good!), and then after dinner they surprized me with a KARAOKE NIGHT! (I love to get up in front of people to sing. It is such a rush and yet still so much fun!) Let me tell you, no other night could have been more "me" than that night. I had so much F-U-N! Thanks to all of my awesome friends :) In this picture, Cindy, Jenny, Cheri and Karla are singing me Happy Birthday. Maaret is behind the camera taking the picture.

Karla, Me, Jenny, Cindy, and Maaret around the table at the Karaoke bar writing down what songs we wanted to sing.

(below) Me, Karla and Cheri at Chili's

Maaret, Cindy and Jenny at Chili's

I'm singing "Lucky" by Britney Spears. Karla and I thought it would be funny if I sang it and she acted like the chic in the video. It was pretty funny for the first half of the song, but then poor Karla had to just sit there and act like she was crying the whole rest of the time.

Karla, oh Karla. She is something else. She struts on the stage like she owns it!

These to pics are of Jenny and I singing the song "mouth". I was sure that I knew the song so I offered to sing it with her, I just had forgotten what the song was about. Remember the lyrics? "when I kiss your mouth I wanna taste it. Turn you upside down, don't wanna waste it." Then it goes on about turning him on and ......well, I couldn't stop laughing once I finally figured out what I was supposed to be singing.

Cheri and Karla going to town! These girls rocked it out!

Me, Jenny, Cindy and Maaret. I have no idea which song we are singing, but it looks like it was a good one :)

Jenny and Maaret

Cheri, Cindy and Maaret

I have some seriously awesome friends here! So awesome, that it is making me want to NOT go home for the Holidays at all when Clayton deploys. I love these girls...and I just can't get enough of them!

Weston's first day

Oh, my baby is SO big. Although he does look like he is going to be eaten alive by the enormous abckpack, he is still so big. He has been so excited to go to school this year. This kid just loves learning and loves friends so to him the idea of school is just AWESOME! I got a couple pictures of him heading out as we waled to school. This picture he is showing off his totally cool packpack. I had my friend Cindy help me embroider his name across the pocket and he loves it. He is so proud of his new backpack.

When we got to his classroom we found his "cubby" and took his shoes out and all of that first day stuff and then I bent over to hug him goodbye and my dang eyes started leaking! What the heck? I wasn't ready for that at all. I mean, I hear of it all the time....you know, the mom that's just sobbing because her baby is all grown up and ready to face the world without her. I am just not typically that mom. I am all about my kids getting out there and facing the world and learning with all new experiences....or so I thought. Apparently I have some sappiness in me too. When he grabbed me and hugged me sooo tight (not because he was scared, but because he was so excited) that was all it took. My eyes filled up almost instantly! Luckily there was no heavy shaking or sobbing invovled, just a tear or 2, but still! I should have known. I should have been more prepared.

I am so proud of Weston. He is such a good kid all around and has such an amazing personality. Everyone around him wants to be his friend, he is so smart, he is a good example and loves choosing the right, and he is (almost) always happy. My most favorite thing about him is his laugh. The way it sounds, how often he laughs, how easily he laughs...he is such a happy little (big) guy. He is going to LOVE this new world of his.