Christmas Time Continued

We took a trip to my brothers house that he has been building (and doing an AMAZING job). His English Bulldog just had puppies six weeks ago. Apparently I thought this was the only thing picture worthy. Forget that all of my four brothers and their families were there, my little sister and her family, my mom and stepdad, my dad and stepmom. Oh we BROUGHT the camera, it just didn't make it out of the bag much...you only get the pictures taken from my phone (and I'm not so good at holding really still to take a good picture)So HOPEFULLY my stepdad will share with me all the pictures he's taken of everyone else...

Hailey wants this puppy more than anything in the world. It's a little sad. And it's the only one left for sale. She wanted to hold this puppy the whole 3 days we were there. She cried when she didn't get to help take them out, and she didn't even want to go to bed because the puppies would cry (and she KNOWS it's because they needed her to hold them. :) )


This is Ashley and my little niece, Emily. My nieces live so far away, so it was nice to see them and finally have some girl cousins for Ashley and Hailey to play with.

Featuring:

HAILEY. Hailey had a birthday not too long ago. I can't believe how fast time flies. Here's picture before we sang Happy Birthday.



That night when I put Hailey to bed, I was telling her about the day she was born and when I went into labor, etc. She looked REALLY worried when I got to the part about how she had aspirated a lot of fluid and one of her lungs didn't inflate, so they rushed her off to the newborn intensive care unit . I told her it all turned out fine because she's healthy now and just fine, but she still looked terrified. I guess it's still a little early to include ALL the details. Poor girl.





This is Hailey's Thanksgiving Program that her kindergarten class performed. It was REALLY cute and fun to see her and all her class sing and say their lines. I didn't even know she had any lines until I got there. Her line was even the longest and she said it by herself when all the other kids said their lines with two or three of them together. Had I known, I would've helped her practice at home. She never told me, though and I never got any papers telling me about speaking parts. She did great and spoke so loudly and clearly.

Halloween

And only a week late. We had a lot of fun Halloween festivities. The ward trunk or treat was excellent. A lot of fun carnival games for the kids, and then a lot of candy gathering of course.

We also went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Around here there is one street that closes to traffic that's like a "Halloween Lane" or something...all the houses on this street decorate and ALL the kids in town go there. I've heard that there are big lines and the kids get one piece of candy per house, etc. So we just trick or treat around our neighborhood. Our kids are LOADED with candy. We had one trick or treater at our house, and I think our kids were probably the only visitors at other houses. Needless to say, they were quite a hit at every house and got all sorts of attention...and candy...

Tyler was Mario, Hailey was a Barbie Mermaid, Ashley was a giraffe and Jason was a shark.




We also had this skeleton that was motion sensored and would talk when you walked up to it. At first,Jason wouldn't get close to it (like in this picture). But by the end of the night he wasn't as scared. That's all he talks about still--he says, "the scary guy fell over" (the wind blew it over one morning) and, "the scary guy....ha ha ha" and he mimics the way the skeleton laughs. It's really cute, I hope he doesn't have nightmares.

Three Down, One to Go

Nope, not potty training (although that too, I guess...but that happened long ago.)


RIDING BIKES!! Ok, so it's old news by now. She's actually been riding for two months. I'm just that good at blogging. Ashley did great, though. It took a lot of prodding for the other two (...one...) but Ashley begged me to take off her training wheels one Saturday while Trevor was gone. So I did and we practiced and by the time he came home, she was showing off her mad bike riding skills. She could even kick off on her own. I guess she was ready. Now if Jason could just learn to ride a bike in the next two months, that will be all four kids learning in 2010. I won't hold my breath.


Not much of an action shot, but I couldn't take any while I was running alongside her, making sure I caught her if she fell over :)

First Day of School

Tyler had a great first day. Tyler's such a fun kid. He has some kids in his class from last year, but his two favorite friends are in the other class. He has a really good attitude about it though and says he can be friends with all the other kids and still play with his two favorite friends at recess.

I was worried Hailey might be a little shy in kindergarten. She LOVED her first day, though and feels so grown up. She loves getting homework and thinks her teacher is amazing (and she is). The elementary kids have lockers and everything :)

This is Ashley in a box sliding down the stairs. (PS I did NOT make them wear that helmet, they came up with that on their own. I thought it was pretty funny, actually) She has preschool this year, which she loves. But I didn't get a picture of her first day. Boo. Her first day was a week after Tyler and Hailey's and it just about killed her. It's funny, after her first day when I went to pick her up--the teachers were commenting on how different Ashley and Hailey were/are. They said Ashley is more outgoing and wants to answer all the teacher's questions. She plays with all the kids and doesn't cry a lot if she gets hurt :) Poor Hailey--that makes her sound bad. Hailey is SO great, just a little more sensitive and shy than Ashley.



So that's that. They had great first days, and I miss them while they're away. Jason hardly knows what to do with himself. If we ever drive past the school while running errands, Jason yells: TYLER! HAILEY! I'm glad they have great teachers,great friends and a great school.

A Family Reunion

We spent a weekend at Trevor's parent's house with ALL of Trevor's brothers and sisters. It was really a lot of fun to have everyone there! Bryson, Briana and Scott from Provo; Britta and Brett from California; Cliff and Lisa (and Nyah and Saibra) from Idaho, and us (from Montana :) )


We played a crazy game of whiffle ball...a little safer for the kids to participate. Don't think it wasn't just as competitive. :)


All the Strupp grandkids--except Jason. He ran off right before I snapped the picture. See next picture.


Here's Jason, in different clothes than he was the day he ran off. Just pretend he's in church clothes and standing nicely next to the other children, like a good little boy.


Hailey, Ashley, and Nyah getting ready to ride the horses. Nyah's quite the little cowgirl. She even gets a twang in her speech when it's time to ride. SOOO cute.


Lisa with Ashley and Grandma with Nyah. The kids love riding the horses!


We were able to get a bunch of family pictures (thanks Lisa!) And as soon as I have some copies I'll have to post them (Lisa? :) )

We also went skeet shooting so I'll have to post a picture of that one day.
Lots of fun over the weekend with the family. Lets do this again, OK guys?

Some Summer Fun

That's right, my kids haven't started school yet. :) So we still have some fun going on. These are random pictures from over the summer. I was going through the card on the camera and thought maybe I should share :)

The kids kept asking if they were going to get to do "gymnastics camp" again this year. It's way overpriced and very little gymnastics going on. More like a day care...but they had fun last year, so we signed them up again this year. Between their story time and craft time, I was able to get some pictures of the gymnastics they did.


Tyler (the one on his back) on the trampoline.



Ashley swinging on the rings.



Hailey swinging on the rings.


We visited grandpa and did some fun things at his house, including a ride on the scooter with grandpa. This makes me laugh. Never in a thousand years did I think my dad would buy a scooter. More of a motorcycle/4-wheeling kind of man. He is getting old though...


Hailey and Grandpa.



Jason was relaxing one day while eating his pizza. Such good manners. One day I'll teach him you shouldn't put your feet on the dinner table.