I know it's Thanksgiving, but...

I thought that I'd post the Halloween costumes at our house.

A fairy, Pilot, Indiana Jones, DraculaThe rest of the pilots costume!

For those faithful supporters...

...or those who are just curious. Voting was yesterday. Mark made a good showing, but in the end came in 3rd out of 5 candidates for seat 2. He did well. He ran against one of his friends/clients who came in 2nd. We'll see what we decide to do next.

The man is 7!!!

ALEX ON HIS BIRTH-DAY

We have been busy lately with lots of different things, but we had an exciting day on Monday. Alex turned 7! We had no digital camera then, but my mom sent me a scan. Here is the birthday boy with his cake. Do you like the 7 candles as the stem? He wanted a jack-o-lantern cake with a bat and Brigs wanted dracuala. I added a spider ghost and witch.Alex is doing well in school. He was telling us the other day that the other kids in his class get $s for loosing teeth. Why does the tooth fairy only brings me a quarter?

Mom: Because that's what the tooth fairy does at our house.

Alex: Wait a minute, I get it...you and dad are the tooth fairy! Here is Taylor enjoying the festivities. He is growing sooo much and is now a Toddler. He has figured out how to move the chairs and turn the lights on andoff. He also can climb up on the stove and push the buttons, so we try to keep a good eye on him.

Lissie fell asleep like this. Funny girl. She loves being at home and spending time with Mom. she sings about it. She has also learned to write her full first name (no nickname)and some of the letters and numbers.

Brigham thought up a great sandwich. He made his into a smiley face here. How fun. He is doing great in school. He only has 5 boys in his class and 15 girls! He gets to play with one of the boys about 2 times a week. He is still very imaginative. In fact he started writing a book and wanted to put it in the library.

Mark is running for city council against 4 other people. He had a debate last night and did really well. He has been busy with that and YMs. He has signs and we made some flyers that he is going to hand out. Elections are Nov 3rd. He's been busy getting all sides of the issues and getting out meeting other people. I'll have to get some pictures of the signs later.

I am doing the PTO this year and we finished our first fund raiser a few weeks ago and made money! It was a back to school night. We are now working on a Halloween Carnival which is next week. There are 2 of us doing it and we have been able to get a some volunteers to work on it. Yeah. The boys have also started basketball and Lissie and I are doing preschool. Taylor loves his Dad and will come bring a book for me to look at with him and sit on my lap. We are just having fun and enjoying life. In a couple of weeks hopefully things will slow down and we can rest for a little bit, but we are good.

We're ready!

This is the boys first day of school which happened a little bit ago. It was sad to say goodbye, but the boys were excited. I can't believe how fast the summer flew. Here they are before they head out the door.Waiting for the bus. I let Brigs go the first day because Al was there and we met them both at school.Brigham was the first to get on the bus and Alex the last. Hmmm.Waving good bye on the bus. See Brig's and Alex's grinning faces?Brigham was the first in line. They had to bring their supplies. The teacher helped him bring stuff in. The teacher is so excited to have Brigham in her class and told me he was going to be the helper. Here is Alex meeting up with a couple of his friends. They have 4 1st grade classes this year and he was lucky to get a couple of his friends in his class. He was chosen for something he accomplished in one of the assemblies and he was pretty excited.Now we are having fun those of us that are staying home. Taylor is quite funny and tries to always get us to laugh. The other night about bed time he came walking into the living room and he had put on Lissie's crown. He was so proud. I had to get a picture....

and then another... I should have just taken a video. Then the other day I had Lissie sit on the rocking chair. I was getting supper ready and realized I couldn't hear her and all her energy. I went into the room to check on her and this is what I found...Little Sleeping Beauty. (Or should I say Snow White since she's eating an apple).

This is our 101st Post, Aren't we tough?

Its a bird, its a plane...
The kids had a little fun with the tatoos Grandma LaPierre sent

Alex had 4

Brigham has 5 Lissie has 4.

And Taylor has one.

Thanks Grandma.

Summer going ons....

These are in no particular order. These are just random pics from the summer.
We went to Yellowstone with my fam. Here is my bro and his fam infront of Old faithful.

We went tubing a couple weeks ago when we were visiting Mark's fam for a baby blessing. It was cold but everyone had fun. Here's Mark with Alex and Brigs.

When we were together with my family, my mom had a tea party for the kids. HEre they all are.

As we were packing up the house to leave this is how we found the girls. They were talking and reading/telling stories.

THis is a moose that was walking around our neighborhood. We also had a badger in our backyard, but I couldn't capture that because Mark has the camera.

Here's Lissie enjoying the tubing.

Here are the girl cousins at my sisters wedding.

Here are the bigger boys talking to the couple.

Here is a walk the kids went on with Mark. Notice in the sunshine there is a bunny that was hopping around our yard.

Triplets already? Nope just the baby boy cousing having a fun time.

Here is me with the kids at Artist point my favorite place in Yellowstone.

On our way back home we were able to catch the airshow. Much to the liking of all the boys present. We also had my sis and her hubby here,but I didn't get any fab pics.

I hope you don't mind this...

Last weekend, Mark and some friends ran the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay Race and they did FABULOUS! This is the start of the race and this is when they announced their team the Random Runners. They all had matching shirts, so the guy in green is who started. Mark was the 6th leg and had 3 different legs he did (as did all the team mates). He made all his projected times plus was quicker on a couple of them. (They projected them from 10k times that they did earlier). His first leg was 6.1 miles down hill, the second 8.1 uphill, and 3.1 pretty even keel. They started at 1:00pm and finished at around 6pm the next day. (the whole race is approx 188miles). Overall they came in around the top 12% of over 600 teams. Pretty good I think for a bunch of amature runners.

Here he is on his first leg of the race receiving the baton.

Here he is with great running form.

This is their time (I think it was a little bit off, but they are team 430).

Here he is with his team mates (minus one who was chasing his child) when the race was finished.

They were excited and a couple of them have come up to me and said how amazing of a runner Mark was. They all did really well. I guess it was an amazing experience.

One year ago Sunday....

This was the little ball of happiness that joined our family a year ago. I can't believe that it has already been a year since Taylor was born. He is such a happy and very determined child. Taylor was in our room when the other kids woke up. All 3 of them came in and and one said "ITS THE TODDLER." (side note, when I refer to him as my baby I'm quickly reminded that he is a toddler). Then all 3 of them sang him Happy Birthday. That day they all called him the birthday boy all day long and then would say stuff like they loved playing with the birthday boy. They ran into church and told everyone it was his birthday.

Singing happy birthday, Taylor grabbed the cake.

Here he is enjoying the ice cream. He didn't get much messier than this. In fact he started to cry when he saw his hand was a mess. We just had to wipe him down without a bath.

Enjoying part of his toy (its a car that came with a boat, he absolutely loved). It was fun.

Well I haven't written in an extremely long time because we have been BUSY. Alex finished school and had a fun program. Brigs and Alex started T-ball, which they are enjoying. Mark has been training for a big team race (187.9 miles in total, I believe). Planting the garden, weeding, etc. Then we had visitors and visited for 2.5 weeks, with Mark's fam and then mine. Finishing wedding dresses, skirts, necklaces, doing reading programs, and getting a new garage door, because the other was destroyed. Well we are back and now we're trying to get the house back in order and semblance of normalcy. Our dryer broke the Monday after we got back and we had to get a new one. It was great fun, but I think we're back to okay.

This is Betsy and Tanner with the nieces and nephews when they got out of the temple. Congrats guys.

My mom and dad did a lot to make this special for everyone and we had a blast. I'll be trying to post pics before they get too dated. IT may take a while.

One last pic I thought was cute, Al helping Brig tie his shoe on Sunday. Well hope all is well with everyone. :)

Yeah

Amidst all the boy cousins that have been born this past year, we finally have a girl cousin! Welcome Amelia DeeDee. She was born VERY VERY early Thursday. She was 6#8 oz and 21".
We can't wait to meet you! ( we would post a pic but unfortunately we don't have one, if Julie posts one maybe I'll steal one of hers). So congrats Becky Ben and Addy! We are excited for you guys.

In case you were wondering...

I haven't written in a while because I've been working on some things for my sisters wedding. I have now finished and have a couple things to post. This past weekend we made a quick trip to Mark's parents to say Happy Mother's Day to Mark's Mom. We didn't get there until Saturday and we were busy until we left. (so sorry my fam we weren't able to see you but we will see you for 1.5 weeks, and you aren't either of our moms). Saturday night Mark's parents, Mark and bro went to his other bro's house, where they were hosting a wedding shower for his sis in law. He wanted Mark to come and see, as they'd fixed their lawn up really nice for it. Well they asked me to go, but I didn't want to leave the kids. Mike persuaded me to go and he and his friend watched the kids for about 1/2 hr to 40 mins. Its the first time we have left Taylor with anyone, except at Jamie's wedding. The kids were easy to entertain. Taylor looked around after playing for a bit and his eyes watered. Mike and his friend hurried and filled his bottle and then sat him on the couch next to him and my boys on the other side. THis is what we came back to, mind you it was only a little over a half hour. How cute is that? Of course I had to run and take a pic. Thanks Mike!

This is a face that Taylor constantly is making, We can't seem to capture it on video, but we did catch it this way. It is absolutely hilarious.

This is Lissie with her Easter Hair do. (was too slow to post the other Easter pics, but we got some good ones.)

And here are the boys being silly. They are such good friends. Alex brought pics of Lis and Brigs for show and tell the other day (he already did Taylor at the beginning of the year) and he told them who they were. He said this is my brother and we like to play together.

AND...... Mark finally reached the ranks of 30. We celebrated with his fam! It was great.