Our trip to Oregon

I am about a month late, but better late than NEVER right?! My entire family took a trip to Oregon for the BYU/Oregon State game in October.

Kami and I surprised each other by wearing the same jacket. Heidi gave us these jackets a couple of years ago, so we both had one.

We flew into Portland and then drove to Newport where we stayed for a couple of days before going to Corvallis and the game.

The house we stayed at was right on the beach so we spent a lot of time there. My boys (all three of them) of course, loved it. I think both Nate and Kace could spend hours on end searching through the tide pools for whatever moves.

Except for at this moment when somebody (Cort) let Ty fall into a hole in the cold cold ocean and he got drenched.

I really like this picture of my brothers (both still single), Cortney and Brandon. Brandon always says how "tight" they are. I guess this picture proves it.

I am really blessed to have my best friends (other than Nate of course) be my mom and sisters.

On the second day we decided that we should go on a bike ride. I usually love doing this on every trip we go on, but I really should have thought it through. There wasn't a bike for Ty (and I wouldn't have wanted him to ride by himself if there was one) so he was cramped in this tiny trailer. He didn't last very long and I felt bad for him in that blasted thing. I had fun though. Believe it or not this is the first time in my entire life I have ever put on a bike helmet.

Heidi took a picture of Kace and then I found another one of her copying him. I am pretty sure she is making fun of him. I am posting it as proof! haha

We then we to Mo's to have some of there famous clam chowder and everything else they served (well everything else if your name is Nate......I swear he ordered one of everything on the menu. He was very hungry)

We then went to some lighthouse. It cost $21 for us all to get in, it was freezing and the actual lighthouse was closed. We probably should have thought it through and just Photoshopped ourselves into a picture of a lighthouse. Could have saved $20.

The last thing we did that day was go get some Tillamook ice cream. Usually before one orders a parent is consulted to see what is okay to order. Not so for Kace. He just orders. When they handed it to him he said he didn't know a triple scoop was so big!

Ever since Heidi introduced us to Yogurtland a couple of years ago my family LOVES self serve frozen yogurt. It wouldn't have been a family outing if we didn't go have some. This place was SO GOOD (I can't even remember the name of it now), but the toppings were big chunks and they even had little mini cupcakes as toppings. In this picture please notice Nate in the background devouring his sample!!

Nate didn't go to the game because he decided to come last minute, so when he decided to come we decided Ty should come too. He is Nate's flying "companion" so he can fly for free. We didn't think Ty would do super great at the game and it would probably be a waste of two (his and whoever was watching him) tickets, so Nate took Ty and they went to Portland to watch the game at our hotel.

Kace and I had a great time though. All the OSU fans sitting by us got a kick out of Kace. He kept trying to do their cheers. Towards the end he finally got it and they all cheered. Too bad that is all the had to cheer about. GO COUGS!

Brandon is a geek

Like mother like son

I still need to get our Oregon trip posted, but I wanted to get this done first. Sometimes your kid does something that reminds you of yourself. I was always a fanatical BYU fan. It was something that was in my DNA when I was born. I would stay awake with Heidi and we would memorize every players number from the media guide. We stayed after games for autographs. We had a BYU Christmas one year Santa only brought BYU things. I think you get the picture.

Well, this year's red ribbon week Kace wanted to do something that totally reminded me of something I would do as a kid. Crazy hair day is always his most favorite day of that week. He woke up and told me that he wanted BYU hair. He at first wanted blue.......but we didn't have blue paint, so we agreed on this (he really wanted Jimmer to be memorialized!)

Anyway Kace's BYU desire reminded me of one year, I think I was in fifth grade, I decided that I wanted to dress up for Halloween like a BYU ????. I am not for sure what I was, just a BYU thing. Please don't judge me by my former looks. It was a really trying time for my parents, when I really thought I knew how to do my hair. I actually looked in the mirror and thought it was cute. On the plus side I did have nice legs though :) I really don't have much else to say.

Halloween festivities

We started our Halloween festivities by going to our neighbor, Brian Pali's to pick out our pumpkins. He is a guy in our ward that really enjoys growing (a ton) of pumpkins every year and then calling all the ward kids to come and pick a pumpkin. The kids like it too. Kace picked a pumpkin that was shaped like a peanut, because his classes theme for their pumpkin walk was outer space so he thought he would be able to make it a pretty cool alien.

The boys wanted to paint their pumpkins this year. I was perfectly fine with that.

Ty is learning how to write his letters and numbers so his pumpkin consisted of his favorite colors blue and green and a variety of "letters". You may see some E's, Y's, X's, T's and other letters. He is getting quite good at his letters and only doesn't recognize about five of them. I was getting worried because he had shown NO INTEREST in learning them, but in the past month he has been writing them, saying them, and wanting to do flash cards with me. I don't know what the change has been, but I like it!

Ty wanted the biggest pumpkin there was. Brian had to load it in a trailer and bring it over on a four wheeler. I love the look of pure excitement on his face!

After our ward carnival (which I was in charge of this year along with the YW...and am sooooo glad it is over :) ) Kace had the grand idea that he should set up a booth at Kent's in the parking lot and try to sell his face painting skills. He got a little bit worried when I told him that he would have to get a business license to do it, but he thought he could make the money back pretty quickly. He practiced his skills on Ty! At first Ty didn't want to have his face painted and Kace was devastated, but quickly gave in (by quickly I mean, 2 or 3 hours later). I think he did pretty good!

For Jessica's birthday we went to Calloway's in full costume and had a dinner. People were giving us crazy looks, but it was fun! I couldn't get enough of Mac's costume. Jess had warned me and said that when I saw Mac I would pee my pants and sure enough it was HILARIOUS! Kace now wants this costume for next year. Probably not going to happen though.

For my costume I just got a wig and sunglasses. I am not much of a dresser upper. I told everyone that I was dressing up as my sister. I think I look kind of like her. I have absolutely NO IDEA what Nate is. He just started putting things on. On the way to the restaurant he kept looking at himself in the rear view mirror to see what he looked like with hair. We almost got into an accident more than once!

Kace's school always does a costume parade on the Friday before Halloween. The kids always get so excited to parade around in their costumes. Kace was in perfect character. He is pretty proud of his costume. He wanted to be something that would bring lots of laughs. I picked it out all by himself. I was ordering the carnival prizes on Oriental Trading he started looking for costumes and found this one. He wanted it as soon as he saw it. I was worried that it might be inappropriate (because of the nipples, they are really life-like!). Nate didn't think it was that bad and Kace couldn't stop talking about it, so we got it. As soon as his friend Easton saw it he wanted it too!

Every year at the costume parade Ty and his friends have had a great time playing in the leaves. This year was no different.



All year Ty has wanted to be black spiderman for Halloween. We went to WalMart as soon as the costumes were put on the shelf and he wore it all over. By the end of the month he no longer wanted to be black spiderman, he wanted to be Optimus Prime. Good think we already had that costume. So he went as a Transformer. Good thing I bought the black spiderman costume :)

Ty was pretty proud of his pumpkin on head trick!

My boys :) I sure do love them!


Kace is ALWAYS in character.

The Sunday before Halloween we celebrated Erik's bday at my parents house. The boys came in their costumes to go trick-or-treating to grandma and great grandma's. When we went over to MY grandma's she was probably flabbergasted because she thought Kace was a pregnant lady. I had to (gently) explain that he was a SUMO WRESTLER (two very different things). I found out later that the younger kids at the costume parade thought he was a baby with a big diaper! Whatever he was he got lots of laughs.

Notice Ty's pumpkin trick!

My whole point in doing the ward carnival was so that no one would do a trunk or treat. I do not like trunk or treat at all. I think it is parents being lazy. We have always taken our kids trick or treating, but are sometimes the only kids that go out. The older people in our ward don't go to the trunk or treat and always look forward to kids coming to their home in costume and then are always disappointed when hardly anyone comes. It makes me feel bad. SO it was decided to ban trunk or treat. That meant there were a TON of kids out trick or treating this year. I loved it!

Even though it was bed time when we got home we still had to sort our candy into piles (i.e. candy bars, tootsie rolls, fruity things, suckers, etc). They then put all their candy in different baggies and they are perfectly organized. I used to do this as a kid. After we would sort our candy the bartering would begin. We would trade the things we didn't like as much for things we did.

Ty is pretty proud of his loot. He didn't want to put it all together this year. He wanted to keep his separate. I think he is going to be sick!