Camera broke!

I am so enjoying blogging that I look at each situation with a blog description in mind! It was a sad day when our camera took it's last click! No postings here for a while...here's to hoping Santa remembers what a good girl I've been!!
Know of any good cameras?? Please contact Santa with details! Thanks!

Denver for Mission farewelcome and Halloween!

What a fun year for our family. We have welcomed home two missionaries and sent off another. Terryn Acker was the first to come home in Sept. from Odgen, Utah mission. He and his dad and brother spent a fun weekend out here in Kansas after he got back.
Halloween weekend happened to be the only Sunday where Dawnanne(my sister) had all 5 of her kids home in a while and probably for many years to come. Nathan Gill returned home from his mission in Ontario, Canada the Wed. before Halloween and Collin Gill his little brother, left on his mission to Kentucky the Wed. after Halloween. Clark, the oldest brother flew out from California with a friend Marissa, and the first night they had a quadruple date (with youngest brother Josh who is finally old enough to date). The rest of the weekend was the Farewelcome for Nate and Colin! Here is a picture of them playing games on Sunday!

Denver happened to get the biggest snowstorm in 12 years 2 days before we were headed out..so with many prayers and the a few hours delayed, the sun shone bright and led us on dry roads safely! It made for a very fun time in Colorado. We don't ever get snow like this in Wichita. Brock didn't even know what it was...crazy!







It was a great weekend, we started off at a Halloween party with the Ackers and got to see many of the cousins and aunts and uncles. We will return for the holidays to spend more time with them!
Lots of my side of the family came out for the big weekend, Patti and her daughter Gentry, Amy and all her family, Jan, Stacie and the grandparents! We played lots of games, ate lots of yummy food, went trick or treating and even dressed up as burritos for free Chipotle...well the braves ones did...















It was a great weekend and good experience for my kids. Especially Jaxson, he saw three cousins serving missions, his cousin Colin took him to the bank and Jaxson saw him take out all the money he had earned himself to pay for his mission. He also got to go to his cousin Grant's church as he received the priesthood. We are so grateful for the wonderful example family members are setting for my children and the unconditional love that is always felt!

Football/Cheerleading season is over!

It was bittersweet to see football and cheerleading over. It was a crazy schedule with practice 2-4 times a week, 2 hours long and Saturday's wiped out with, first Jaxson's football games, not to mention an hour warm up before, and the girls cheered for the 5th graders in the afternoon(what were we thinking...we weren't obviously) with a warm up too. So we are grateful for our time back. However, we did make some good friends and had fun watching our kids do so well at new sports, we will miss that. Jaxson scored 11 touchdowns(only 12 were scored all season..making it a hard season for him to loose every game. We were talking with some friends telling them how we lost every game and Jax chimes in, "we won one"...a adds a couple seconds later, "the other team forfeited!" Sad!
And the girls went from quiet little shy voices to audible little dancers by the end! I am very proud of all of them and Brock for enduring it all so well!!
Let's hope we can learn our lesson for next year and make necessary changes!

Lift Camp day

Another Earhart camping day. Grace, as a first grader, starts with a fall day camp and then in the spring it will be an overnighter. It is always fun to get to know the teachers, kids and other parents better!! Plus, we learned lots of cool things about leaves, putting up tents and even saw some wild turkeys!

Horseback riding!

Our friends that we met from football this year, the Wetzels, invited us to G-ma's house to ride horses. We had a lot of fun, although the girls were nervous at first, they really enjoyed themselves. So much that Grace decided she would like to take horse back riding lessons. Her first lesson was last Sat. and she was even trotting on Queenie by the end of the lesson! These are some of the great things I love about Kansas!








Brock had fun with the donkey and all the poor little kitty cats that tried to not get caught by him!

Lessons!

Bel Aire ward campout!

We had our annual ward camp out and the weather was great. Our neighbors, the Rogers, joined us. Caroline's husband worked late, so she came with her 3 kids, Luke, Kelsie and Kate. They are like family, our kids are very close and they go to school together too! It was a lot of fun to have them join us! My kids were tired this year so we only stayed up til like 11pm telling ghost stories! It was a lot of fun still. We had to leave early in the morning for football but Caroline said it was a great dutch oven breakfast and worth the wait while it cooked!

Lift 3rd graders overnight camp

Each year, our school has camp. For kindergartners and 1st graders, it is day camp and 2nd grade, they add one overnight camp, 3rd graders add 2 overnighters. Derek went on day one with Jaxson and stayed over night in tents. It was held on school property, which is beautiful with lots of acreage, trees, paths picnic tables and a pond. I switched places with Derek on day two and the kids tested the water in the pond. It was so pretty, you can see the flowers growing out ot the lilly pads, and a frog sitting on one too. Just another reason we LOVE Earhart! Great learning environment!

Jaxson's birthday party invitation!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

While the cat's away the mice will play!

One of my sisters pointed out that I have awfully wordy blogs...as a warning...this is no exception! I do use my blog as my journal, so just look for the bold, italicized letters and view the pictures if you are not into reading wordy blogs!!(just for you Jibbs!)


I must be the cat, because no playin' went on here! Derek had a convention in Logan, Utah and although he learned a lot..sounds like he played like a mouse!!

Brock, like always kept me busy. First day Derek was gone, I was helping the older kids with homework and Brock was off quietly playing so I didn't worry. Grace ran downstairs to get something out of her room and comes to me yelling that her ceiling was leaking?!?! Sheer panic comes over me(Brock now on my lap) as I try and think where Brock just came from and figure out why there would be water coming out of a ceiling..ahhh..the bathroom! I run there to find the toilet spilling over and atleast 2 inches of water on the floor and a whole roll of the nice thick toilet paper (the kind we only allow in the adult bathroom) pluggin up the toilet!
I paniced again but knew I had to move fast! I reached in the back of the toilet and stopped the water from running, I took the toilet brush and took out as much tp as I could and was able to successfully flush. Then I grabbed every used towel I could find, reminding myself I didn't want to wash more towels than I had to. After about 9 large towels, 2 socking wet area rugs(all of this thrown in the shower...knowing I would get to that mess after the kids were in bed!), having to repeatedly remove kids from the bathroom...without throwing them(tempting as it was) and wet carpet on either side of the bathroom, I headed downstairs to see the girls room. They had taken all their clothes out of their plastic drawers and used them to catch the water, on the already wet bed and a big wet ring around the vent on the ceiling.
After 2 days and many hours of labor, everything seems to be dry and back to normal..thank goodness for no seminary this week! Thanks Brother Archibald!!(if you look closely you can see water dripping out of the vent and yes that is still water on the bathroom floor in the picture!)
















































After I recovered from that, I took to organizing parts of my house that have been complately ignored in the past. After too many games of sardines in my messy closet, I took to organize it. I wish I would have taken before pictures..but trust me...it is much better!















































I also organized both storage rooms, setting up a better area for food storage(thanks to the last enrichment..or should I say, Relief Society meeting). The kids were a big help and it feels like my secret hiding places have finally been cleaned out!




Derek's home safely now, after driving 17 hours straight through the night, and we are glad to have him home with us and back to our busy schedule!