Maggie and Will

We have been watching Cory's parent's dog Maggie. Will loves Maggie, but I think Maggie puts up with Will, unless he has food. So when Will spilled a box of Trix, Maggie and Will worked together to clean the mess up. I do understand that I am letting my child eat off the floor, but I only let him while I took some pictures. Then Maggie took care of the rest of the mess. That is defiantly one good reason to have a dog around.



He also hates it when things get stuck in his toes and I think it's pretty cute watching him try to get them out!

Happy Halloween

We had plenty to do this Halloween. We went to a Halloween party at Grandma Cindy's on Tues. then a Halloween party at Grandma Donna's on Thurs. Plus a church party last week. By the time Halloween hit, Braden and Will were sick of putting on their costumes. Good thing Braden was willing to put on his costume when there was candy on the line.

This is Will hanging out in Maggie's (the dog) bed. He loves dogs.

Braden and his cousins playing Halloween games at Grandma Donna's party. She had a lot of cute games and a very scary spook alley. The kids love it.

Every year Cory likes to carve a pumpkin. He has carved the Aggie Bull, Jack Sparrow, Sherk, and even Pres. Hinkley. This year Braden talked him into carving a dog. I think it turned out pretty good considering we had some time constraints.

These are the rest of the pumpkins we carved at Grandma Cindy's party. Danika's (it has some issues!), Dan's, Lukes, mine, and Braden's.



We ate a dinner of eyeballs, brains, giant's fingers, and spiders for dessert. Everyone had a really good time.








We spent Halloween night passing out candy, trick or treating, then up to Grandma's. The boys had fun and we got way too much candy. Mostly because I over bought candy. I never can guess how much to buy. I guess it's better to have too much than not enough. Especially when it's candy!

Last camping trip this year

I thought this sequence of pictures was kinda funny when I looked at them. This is Braden, Luke, and Will in the back of Cory's truck and I was trying to get a good picture. Will is screaming because he doesn't have a graham cracker like the other boys.



This is Braden giving Will a cracker.


And here's a happy camper!



Luke really enjoyed his corn!


Taking a one year old camping is not an easy task! He did had a blast wondering around and throwing rocks in the river!

The boys loved the headlamps and wore them all night.


This was the boy's table. Grandpa, Branden and Luke enjoyed a yummy dinner of steak and dutch oven potatoes.

Luke had a cool fishing pole that Luke shared with Braden while Dan fished. We had a good time camping and the boys really love it. I'll be ready to go again next spring!

End of Summer

Even though it's the fall now, I thought I would put up some pictures of how we finished up the the summer. I guess they are mostly of Braden, I guess he had a busy summer!

Braden started kindergarten.





Braden and his buddies played a lot of football in our yard.



Braden lost his first tooth, literally. He had it in one afternoon at Grandma's house and after dinner it was gone. He either ate it, or it fell out while he was playing football outside. Good thing the Tooth Fairy has a magic wand and we think she was able to find it because he still got money under his pillow. And it's a good thing kids believe anything you tell them!



We went swimming one last time for Cory's work party. His work had a big party at Willow Park and then swimming at the Aquatic Center. The kids love swimming and had a good time!

California 6-9

Thursday we spent all day a Newport Beach. The waves were great for boogie boarding and there wasn't as much seaweed as the other beach.

It was a little cold out of the sun as you can tell by my dad. I don't know if it was cold enough for a wool blanket though!



This was Braden's first attempt at boogie boarding. It took a lot to convince him to try again after the wipeout.



On Saturday we went to Huntington Beach and had a cookout. We played games, boogie boarded on big waves, ate, played beach football, and relaxed.

It was especially nice to relax after Will fell asleep!



On Friday night we had a friendly poker game at the house. Even though we were playing for nothing, we still had a good time. Cory ended up winning the pot. Which was nothing.




This was the hotel that everyone else was staying at. It had a fun pool that we ate our dutch oven dinner around while the kids swam. I think Braden had more fun here than at the beach (at least swimming).

We took Dan, Danika, Luke, Layna, Jenni, and Grandpa to Boomers. We had a good time, but Luke was too small to do almost everything.



We looked forward to the family reunion for 6 months and it did not disappoint! We already want to go back. For now I'll have to face the winter and dream of the beach!

Happy Birthday!

Ok-I'm a little behind and still need to blog on the rest of California, but I wanted to throw in Will's 1st Birthday. We had Grandma Cindy, Grandpa Rick, Dan & fam., and Aunt Terri over for some cupcakes. Will really didn't care about opening presents, he just wanted to dance to the music in the background.



It's a good thing he has an older brother and cousin that love to open presents. He did, however, enjoy his cupcake!



Will then got another party on Saturday with Cory's family. Everyone was getting together for a BBQ so we thought we would throw in cake and ice cream and make it a party. Of course, Will had no idea what was going on, but he did enjoy the ice cream and presents. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!

California Days 2-5

After another 5 hours of slow traffic we finally made it to California. Cory's parents have a house a couple of blocks from the beach, and it just so happened to be 5 miles from where the family reunion was. So we had Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday morning until anyone else showed up to take it easy. We went shopping, miniature golfing, to Boomers, and Cory and Braden played a par 3 golf course Tuesday morning.






My parents and sister flew in on Tuesday afternoon and then we walked down to the beach.








On Wednesday, we went back to the beach for a while, then we took off to see a Dodger's game. We enjoyed a Dodger dog and some peanuts. Nobody I know EVER eats peanuts, but when everybody came back from getting their food, they had a bag of peanuts! I guess that's what you do at a baseball game. Gotta say, I'd rather have the cracker jacks!



The crowd hits around beach balls (which you want to hit in the right direction, or you get booed!) and Braden wanted to hit one sooooo bad. Bottom of the ninth, the ball comes right to us, Cory catches it and gives it to Braden to hit and this is what Braden was doing-

Oh well- maybe next time!


The Dodgers ended up losing 1-4, but it was still a lot of fun. We almost didn't go because I thought Will would be all over the place, but thanks to the rowdy LA fans, Will was quite entertained. I'm glad we went even if they did lose.