Around here

I am so behind. So behind. Yet at the same time there has not been really much to document. Here are a bunch of pictures from my phone. Some go clear back to summer and before our move even. Like I said, so behind.

 1. Right before school started, we went on a field trip with some friends from our previous ward to the California Pizza Kitchen. The kids got to make their own pizza and have a tour of the kitchen while their pizza baked. It was such a fun trip and the kids loved it.  

2 & 3. After our pizza we walked down the mall and visited the Lego store. That was so much fun too. We especially loved the magic screen that makes the contents of the box come to life and shows you what the set looks like assembled. Brendan has been asking to go back since.

4. I have mentioned so many times how much Emery loves her dog. Although the attachment isn't quite what it used to be, she is still pretty attached to the darn thing. A long time ago, after briefly losing him, I found and ordered a back up dog. I had completely forgotten about it until we moved and Emery found it. I opened it up for her and she looked him over, but promptly put him up on the washer. She said he didn't smell as good as her real dog. She has since at least put him in her room and now he sleeps in her bed, but certainly hasn't replaced the real one.

 5. At the end of the summer, the girls and I tried out Jamberry nails for the first time. While they are kind of time consuming, they are a lot of fun. The ones I put on my toes lasted for 2 months before I finally pulled them off. The girls lasted pretty long too. Well except Emery who had pulled four off the next day and wanted me to fix them. I did and then more were off the next day. So while they are fun, they are too much work and too expensive for a busy five year old. I'll stick to polish for her. 

6. Another picture from before our move. For activity days, Hailey learned to stitch and did her initials on some fabric that was sewn into an apron. She was a natural and loved it. 

7.Last summer, a friend of a mine and my younger kids, moved to Texas, but whenever she comes to visit family, we all get together with them and all the kids other friends to play. We always have a good time. Although this day, when we got to the pool, Emery jumped in without her floaties and gave us all a good scare. She's been a little more timid in the water since then.

8.For my birthday this year, Corey gave me this cool blue tooth speaker. He also found a bunch of songs for me to listen to on it. They were all songs from the show "Chuck". We started watching it this summer and we all love it. We actually have watched it several times through now, but I once said I liked a lot of the songs from the show and he spent hours hunting many of them down so I could have them. It was really a great present and a lot of fun.

 9. My parents came for a visit shortly after we moved. We did fun things, but I always forget to take pictures. I did take one picture of the cute Halloween blocks my mom brought and made with the girls. 

10. This house has been a good house for us so far, but I hate, hate the hard floors in it. It has this cheap vinyl floor in the kitchen and bathrooms. It drives me crazy, it has these spots that no matter how much I mop, they are just always sticky. It drives me crazy. If this were my house they would be the first things to go. 

11. Mmm, just for me. Thank you.

12. Emery took some pictures. Apparently her eye was the subject one day. I found about 15 closeups of it on my phone. 

 13. One night we took a stroll around our new neighborhood and checked out our park. It is finally, finally cooling off a little bit that we will be able to get out and enjoy it a little more. 

14 & !5. Before we moved I bought a few things to do a little makeover in the girls room, then we decided we were going to move and I decided to just hold off until we were settled again. A few weeks ago I pulled it all out and the girls and I are loving the little change. 

16. French toast for dinner. My older boys ask for this quite a bit. One night I gave in, and they really loved me that night for it. Teenage boys can always be bought with food. 

17 & 18. Last month Corey and I celebrated our 18th anniversary. A friend of ours invited us along to an Alabama concert in Salt Lake. I'm not going to lie, I like them and it was fun to get away. My parents were kind enough to let us drop our kids off for the night and we were able to enjoy our time alone. 

19. Emery cracks us up a lot around here. One afternoon she set up this "desk" and told us she was the principal. She made us all come and interview with her. If we did well, she payed us money, but Hailey didn't do well and got suspended. She's a tough boss.

20. The company Corey works for does real estate development. They are doing a great big master planned community in Texas and with that they are having a massive trailer built that will taken down there. They had to have something to pull it with so they also bought this monster truck to pull it. It is a Ford F650. It's massive. It's hard to tell from the picture how big it actually is, but the tires on it are semi tires. The trailer is not built yet so in the meantime, before they are both taken to Texas, Corey had to drive the truck around last week. The kids thought it was so cool. It was fun, but I had to pick him up lunch most days, because really this is not built for driving around much through parking lots or drive up windows. It is just a bit impractical for the everyday.