A girl & her dog

She loves this dog... A LOT! Poor Bingo.

I sure do love her...

Merry Christmas

Winter Wonderland

Lots and lots of snow today. It looks like we are done with the snow and the Reed is already making plans for making a igloo. We are hoping the snow plow comes by tonight. It looks like we got about 2 feet of snow.

December Happenings

We have been busy this month getting ready for Christmas. On night for FHE, we went the the temple visitor's center to see the lights and listen to a concert.




Sadie and I went to Molly's school for her holiday party. We made snowflakes together and threw snow balls. (Snowballs are on the girls' heads.) Sadie loves to go to Molly's school because it there is always something fun to do there.



Last weekend, Sadie and I went to look at the trains and villages at the local garden center. We were lucky enough to meet Mrs. Claus. She was even handing out cookies. Yum!




Now this picture is from today. We are having fun watching the snow fall. The weather man is predicting 20-30 inches. We are wondering when we will get out of the house again and when the snow plow will show up.

Before Thanksgiving arrives.... I had to show you our Halloween pictures

We had a Fancy Nancy and Indiana Jones this year. Both were very excited about their costumes. Reed loved his whip and Sadie loves putting on every fancy thing she owns.

More of our 12 year old.

More of our recent 12 year old. Reed was asking me about shopping online. I was telling him about PayPal and Reed wanted to know how he could use PayPal. Michael chimes in... "You can use my PayPal account." I asked why he had a PayPal account. He explained to me that if you are setting up a business you need to have merchant account. I am sure there are a lot of other things that he is setting up that I have no idea about.

Michael's trip to Utah

We have had a tradition of when the boys have turned 12, David has taken them to Salt Lake City for General Conference. Michael was in heaven. David took him to a BYU football game, to hike to the Y, fly fishing, to a business meeting (you have to remember this is Michael), to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Olsen, to see Grandpa Edgeworth, and to Conference (where he saw Nana & Grandpa). Did I miss anything? It sounds like so much fun, I can't wait until Sadie turns 12. (Actually I can wait-- I want to enjoy her being little for a long time.)

Had I been there, there would be lots of pictures to show you. But I wasn't. So lucky for me, the guy who took David and Michael fly fishing took a few and sent them to me so I could see some of the fun they had.

Well, she is five!

We have been talking about her birthday since March so it seems like she has been turning five years old forever. We are now talking about her next birthday already. Maybe Halloween and Christmas will distract her for a while-- like until March.

12

Did that go by fast or what? It is hard to believe that Michael is 12 years old now. In some ways he has always been an adult and in other ways I sure enjoy him being a kid.

We are trying to decide how many more months until Michael is taller than me. He is only 4 inches shorter than I am.

Today he was ordained a deacon by David. We sure are proud of our Michael. We can't wait to see what the next few years bring... ( and for all of you who enjoy the outtakes of Michael, I do have some that I will try to share soon... he is the boy of many faces.)

Can I have my own house?

Tonight we were watching Zeke and Luther on Disney. In one of the scenes a little girl has an adorable pink play house. Sadie says to me, "I can cut my own food now. Can I have my own house?"

They are back...

in school that is. Actually except Sadie everyone went back to school on Monday. Sadie started today and I get a whole hour and a half before the older kids start coming home. I need to get a picture of Molly and add it but her bus has been coming a bit earlier than I expect and I end up racing out the door in the morning. No time for a picture.

Reed was not as sad as he looks in the picture.







And one cute one of Sadie giving the dog a thumbs up and a wink before the bus arrived.

More cousin fun

Monday night we went to the park and ate a yummy dinner prepared by dominoes. The kids loved dinner and had lots of fun playing on the playground.



Michael was less than excited about the camera.


After the park, we came home and played some Wii. Everyone did a great job dancing.




And at midnight the lights went out and I think they went to bed.

Beach

Hannah working on the sand fort. She did dig a deep hole in the sand and Grandpa told her that he saw Taiwan. It was a deep hole.



Lindsay and Michael stayed in the water the entire afternoon. The waves would knock them down over and over and they loved it-- except maybe all the sand in their suits.



Reed and Hannah built Sadie and sand fort while she was afraid of the water. Lucky for me, she quickly got over her fear and loved the water.



Reed doing his slow motion running towards me.



Sadie dancing on the sand.

We all had a fun and tiring day in the sun and sand.

Six Flags Fun

I think that we successfully tired everyone out. Okay maybe just those of us over 13 years old. It was a fun day in the sun. I think Hannah has a new best friend. Sadie loves her and Hannah is so good to Sadie. Sadie only wants to hold Hannah's hand and Hannah got the privilege of taking Sadie on her first roller coaster ride.

Cousins

My kids have been so excited to have their cousins come for a visit. They have not been disappointed. They all are having lots of fun together running through Nana and Grandpa's house, playing ping pong and feeding the ducks at the park.

Michael is never thrilled when I take his picture but I think it was a bit more bearable because he had his favorite little sister with him.




Reed on the other hand is always up for a few pictures. Even when I said that I wanted him to wear a sweater (in July), he said, "Oh, good! I can be extra warm." He is so sweet.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fun 4th of July. Starting off with the local 4th of July parade. The kids love to get the candy that is thrown. We spent our day shooting Reed's new BB gun, eating Jello (Sadie was sooo excited for Jello. I really should make it more often.) BBQing with family and friends. We had some special guests from CA (Emily & Marcie) and KY (Jeremy and Valerie)& Dee and Nadine. In case you didn't know it, but Valerie is quite a good shot with a BB gun. I was impressed.

We also enjoyed a fun fireworks show with front row seats right in our own driveway. Reed had fun lighting them and calling out the names of each firework. It was fun day.

I don't even know what to call this one

I could call in my little rock star or playing in the wind. Anyway, it was fun.

Back to our regular programming...

Now that the wedding is done, it seems that my pictures are back to mostly Sadie with a bit of Reed thrown in. I need to do better. Actually I am always willing to take pictures of the other members of my family, they just are not always so willing.

Sadie was so excited to help my make dinner the other day. She loved cutting the grape tomatoes in half for me. She did a pretty good job too.



See I do have other children. Reed is usually a pretty good sport about it too.


I love dresses on her. I figure I better get a lot of dress wearing in before she starts to care about what she wears. Notice the jewelry, she loves jewelry. I think I know where she gets that from.

Nicole and Jeff are ...

so patient with me. I just want you to see a few more and let you know that I am working on them.

Maryland Reception

Nicole and Jeff have been having so much fun having wedding receptions that we had one last reception here in Maryland last night... The rain held off until the very end of the night.