Thanksgiving

So it's almost Christmas, and I havn't posted my Thanksgiving pictures yet.  Such is life... I don't want to miss these getting posted, so here we go.  We had Thanksgiving with Rob's family at his sister Tara's house.

Madi loves Abby, and always wanted to hold her.Whenever I was nursing Abby, Madi would ask to hold her.  I'd tell her she couldn't, because I was feeding her.  She'd say, "nuh uh, you're not feeding her."  I'd say something about mommy's milk, and she'd say, "no...you don't have any milk"  Um... I'm not going to explain that one to her.

Here's the yummy dinner.

Sena and Abby

My kids loved the big meal.  They especially loved having all the pie.

Nathan, Weston and Madi

We have Clint to thank for most of the food.  Rob thinks he should have his own cooking show:)  After Thanksgiving, Clint made his famous "Grouchy Burgers," and it was the first time I got to try them.  YUM!

Abby and Cameryn

Matt was caught eating huge spoonfuls of corn out the the bowl.  I tried to get him to do it again for a picture, but he was too upset from everyone laughing at him.

Rob & Sarah, and Steve and Madi enjoying a friendly game of poker.

At one point, Rob was winning big.

...and Clint was borrowing chips.  He ended up winning though.

Grandpa helped Brandon with strategy.

Abby loved all the toys Tara pulled out for her to play with!  Tara sent most of those toys home with us.  Yeah!

The kids played school toghther, with Nathan as the teacher, of course.

Matthew is always in cars and truck heaven when we visit Tara and Steve.

I love this picture of Abby grabbing Grandpa's shoelaces.

Rock Band was a huge hit.  Sarah is playing drums with Jerany.  Cameryn and Tara are on the guitar and bass.

Staples

Last week at book club, we were talking about injuries our kids have had.  I made a comment about how my kids had never broken bones or needed stitches.  I pretended to knock on wood, but I guess I should have really found some wood to knock on.  Yesterday, at the end of school, I got a call from Nathan.  He said that they had stacked their chairs and he was cleaning the floor around his desk, when a little girl knocked his chair off his desk and it hit his head, putting a gash in it.  I woke the kids up from naps and raced to the school to pick him up.  The gash wasn't big, but it looked pretty deep.  At home I checked the web site of my sister-in-law docmisty, because I had remembered her having a post about determining whether or not to go to the doctor for stitches. The cut looked like it went through several layers of skin, and my gut told me I should take him in.  We have a huge deductible (basically it's catastrophic coverage), so I'm super selective about going to the doctor.  Someone has to be really sick, or I have to have a strong gut feeling for me to take them in.  People complain about co-pays, but they are much better than paying out for the whole amount of the office visit.  Anyway... So I wouldn't have to drag four kids along with me, I waited a half-hour for Rob to get home. I took Nathan to our friend Dr. F., and I'm glad I did.  The wound did need to be closed up, so he got 3 staples in the back of his head.  He was really good about it and didn't freek out at all.  He even made us all giggle as he was getting shots to numb the area. 

 I feel bad for the poor kid.  He's doing fine though, and seemed to get a little too much attention at school.  Hopefully they won't crawl around cleaning up the floor with chairs perched on their desks anymore.  

Merry Christmas to us! (sigh)

Abigail the Destroyer

A few days ago, Matthew and I built an awesome 4-story building/tower out of his Cars mega blocks.  It didn't take Abby much time before she made her way to it.  She had a blast tearing it to pieces and chewing on it.

I'm sure this won't be the last time- she's just at the beginning of the destruct-o phase.  Oh the fun times ahead.  She just brightens our day, and makes us laugh all the time.  We love this Abby-girl.

Our Walk on the Wild Side

A few weeks ago, when the weather was nice and Nathan had a day off from school, we went into the wild at the Odgen Nature Center.  We had a great time, got some good exercise, and learned some too.  I took a lot of pictures, so here are some of them.  On the walk in, we had fun looking at all the bird houses.

The Visitor Center has fun hands-on learning activities, a nice gift shop, and some small caged animals.  I'd been here long ago for training when I was a working woman, but the kids had never experienced a place quite like this.  It was so fun to see it through their eyes.  My friend and former co-worker used to work here.  Does this make you miss it Chalae?

Outside they have birds that were injured too bad to live in the wild.  Our favorites were the bald eagle, the golden eagles, the pelican, and the great-horned owl.

The Nature Center sits on 152 acres, with lots of fun trails to explore. The kids loved crunching through all the fall leaves.  The trails lead to different ponds and look-out points.

We thought the teepees were awesome.  Matthew quite liked this rock too.  (Will ya check out the tummy on that girl!  Looks like she is practically starving to death, doesn't it?!  What a cute little chub.)

One of the trails leads to this great bird blind.  Unfortunately there were no birds to watch.  I enjoy birding, and love trying to teach my kids to identify different birds.  I'm excited to come back in the spring and see some fun birds.  This bird blind has great signs to teach about all the different birds that use the waterways here.

Here's my view.

Matthew was excited about something out there.

Isn't it so beautiful!?!  Who would guess a place like this exists in Odgen?  There's actually several great nature places there.

I think it's awesome!  Just imagine these fun trees with leaves.

We hiked to a big tower...

...and these are what we saw!  Mule deer!

And these.

I wish I could just get one picture, one day with all four kids smiling at the same time!

Aw, there's a cute smile from Abby, but oh- Matthew's got his eyes closed.  Darn, today is not the day.

Abby loved it!  Who wouldn't love a cozy ride out in nature with some crazy kids to watch?!

For some reason I just love this picture of our snack break.  Maybe it's because they had this big bench to sit on, and they chose to sit snuggled up to each other.   Matthew was checking out the airplanes overhead.

Nathan wasn't wanting to go on all the trails because he wanted to follow the sign to the "bear cave."  I guess he thought we were going see a bear. This is what he found.  Sorry, no bears here...

...unless you count these two up on top.  Ha ha ha

We ended the trip with a run around this fun pond.  It was a perfect day for our walk/run in the wild (or semi-wild at least).

For a long time, Nathan has been asking for a nature kit for Christmas (he plans these things out months in advance).  He wants a bird identification book, a scat and tracks book, binoculars...  It makes me so happy inside!  Oh the fun we'll have.  I look forward to coming back here again and again.  Our Union Station pass gets us in here as well as the Dinasaur Park.  Yeah!

Chuck E. Knows How to Party

Nathan got invited to a birthday party  for Kylie (a girl in his class) at Chuck E. Cheese's tonight.  He and his friend Spencer were the only two boys attending, and I didn't know Kylie or her parents, so I took the boys together.  I'd never been to Chuck E's before and was a bit leery.  I had heard that it was a mad-house etc.  Rob had always convinced me that it was a place to be avoided. Some friends earlier today assurred me however, that it would be great, and safe- if I needed to leave him there.  We ended up having a great time. 

I did leave to go shopping for a while, but Abby preferred it at Chuck E's.  I didn't take my camera, so the only pictures I got of the trip were from the little photo/sketch booths.  What a cool idea, I thought they were great.

We tried to get me, Abby, Spencer and Nathan in the picture at once, but Nate didn't make it.

So now I know that I don't need to be afraid of Chuck E. Cheese's anymore.  Nathan and Spencer got enough tickets to get some cool prizes, so they were really happy.  Thanks Kylie and her family for the great party.

The best part about the whole thing was the drive to and from the party.  I loved listening to the boys talk as we drove.  They made me giggle.  Aw, the world of 7-year-olds.  I'm so glad Nathan has a good friend!  What a great thing it is to have good friends.