Christmas Snowmobiling

For Christmas we went to Island Park.  It was tons of fun and there was a lot of snow to play in.  The cabin has a new addition which made for fun game nights and more room for watching movies.  One day we took the kids to Big Springs on snowmobiles.

Blake fell asleep on the ride there.  It was so cute!

Here's Carson pointing to the fish and ducks we fed.  We also saw a muskrat.

Carson and Mom on the way home.

Blake and Dad giving us a wave.

Here's our attempt at a family picture.

Gingerbread Houses

We received a gingerbread house kit for Christmas. We've never done gingerbread houses as a family before, so a kit was a perfect way to get us going this year. The kids had lots of fun and we want to make it a tradition now!

Birthday Ice Skating

Mike's birthday was also in December and we decided to go ice skating.  In theory it sounded like lots of fun, but when we got there we realized it was also a lot of work to get two kids stable on skates.  We ended up getting these ice skating walkers to help us out.  Carson loved ice skating and often asks when we are going back.  Blake lasted about an hour and then we took his skates off and let him walk around in his shoes.  It was a fun adventure, and hopefully we'll do it again!

Afterward, we all enjoyed some cake and ice cream at home.

Christmas Trip

In December I invited my family to have a Christmas party with us. Our town does a Christmas movie (free movie at the local theater) and we went to that and then we rode FrontRunner to Salt Lake City and saw the lights on Temple Square. Then we ate at the Lion House Pantry. It was a fun day and the weather was great for walking around.

Here's my brother Conner. He got his mission call in December. He's going to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He leaves for the MTC in March.

Here's the best we could do for a family picture!

Snow Day

These pictures are from December. We had a few big snowstorms and Carson loves to play in the snow. He went out as much as he could.

A Fishing Tale

 We have been fishing a few times this year and having a great time. It seems like I never have my camera with me or just forget to take pictures. So, we went the first part of November with the kids. The kids lost interest after a while (that's pretty typical--they really want to go and then they end up throwing rocks or playing with the fish we catch instead of actually fishing). Mike and I kept going and I was ready to go home when Mike pulled in the biggest trout that we've seen caught from the reservoir we were at. We were really excited about it. We decided to fish some more and I was about ready to be done when I felt something on my line. It ended up being a huge fish (for us!) and dwarfed Mike's big fish. I definitely took some pictures when we got home to document this trip.
 

My fish was about 18 inches long and we think it weighed about two pounds. Earlier in the year we caught trout that were only 6 inches long so this was a big difference!

Carson's birthday

Carson turned five in October. He was really excited to be five, but on his birthday he commented that he really didn't feel any different being five instead of four. We have a tradition that you get to blow out the candles a lot on your birthday and we put candles in every meal. Above is a picture of Carson's breakfast. Below is a picture of one of his presents. He kept asking for a "bone and arrow" set. He was really excited to get it along with lots of other great presents.

Here is his cupcake bulls-eye cake with one of his arrows sticking out of it.

This picture was taken a few days after his birthday. He got this little plane that he could paint and he and Mike had a great time assembling it and painting it.

October

In October we kept busy doing some fun autumn activities.
We had to make our annual trip to the straw bale maze down the road.

We also had a fun time decorating and carving pumpkins before Halloween. Carson was sick on Halloween, so we didn't go out and I didn't get any pictures of their costumes.

Harvest

For the last couple of weeks we have been visiting my parents in Idaho. My dad is a farmer and grows grain, potatoes, and sugar beets. While we were there they were harvesting sugar beets. Here are some pictures of the tractor and beet harvester. I got to drive a truck. I used to drive truck during harvest when I lived at home, but it's been about 10 years since I last did that. So, I got to drive for about a week. Mike was a good sport to take care of the kids and bring them to the field for visits.

Carson showing off the sugar beets he found.

Here I am climbing into my "10 wheeler" truck. Carson loved to ride with me in the truck and he loved to visit Grandpa in the tractor, but I'm pretty sure his favorite thing to do is pictured below. My mom worked at the sugar beet dump (the place where the trucks would deliver the beets that had been dug up) and Carson liked to sit with her and help her. He got to talk to the truck drivers on the microphone and tell them how much the trucks weigh. I got many reports of funny things he would say to people as they were driving on the scale.

Hanging out in the truck:

Pumpkin Picking

We have been visiting a friend's garden recently and picking cantaloupe, raspberries, corn, and watermelon. Then last week he invited us over to pick some pumpkins from his pumpkin patch. The kids loved it. Blake liked picking the little gourds and Carson kept wanting to take the biggest pumpkins.