Hello Again

 Here are a few pictures of the past little while.  Ruby LOVES being outside.  She could be out all day long every day.  She is fearless and wants to do everything that the big kids do.  These are pics from about a month ago when it was still a bit chilly!

 Play Group to the Fire station.  We had playgroup at our house yesterday.  So I planned a little field trip to the fire station.  Mike was on shift so it made it really convenient. The kids had a great time.  Spencer and Ruby were in heaven showing off everything to their friends. 

 Mike got out the fire hose and let all of the kids spray it.  Ruby has become quite taken with all of the fire stuff.  She loves it.  Everytime she hears a siren she gets so excited and yells "Dad, Dad, Dad"

Climbing around in the fire trucks.  It is really a kids paradise.  The station got new kids plastic fire hats.  So they were all thrilled to get one.  It was awesome... Thanks to Mike...

***This post goes out to Ash... for making me feel guilty about not blogging!

Happy Anniversary...

Can you believe that I have been married to this guy for 13 years!  My first thought about that is... "We must be getting old."  Thirteen years is a pretty long time.  Mike informed me that we "could" have a 12 year old by now.  Good thing we don't! (although it would be pretty sweet to have a built in babysitter)  I am content with my life the way it is.  So to this great, amazing, sweet, funny guy....Happy Anniversary!

I am treating myself to getting my hair done for our anniversary.  It has been forever.  I am in desperate need of a change.  So many decisions.  Over the past couple of years I have been from blond to black and every shade of brown in between.  What to do today....   I am also considering a good chop.... We shall see.

72 hour kits...

 

Well conference has come and gone.... I am very sad.  It is one of my favorite weekends of the year!  I always try and change out my 72 hour kits over fall conference.  Due to baby Ruby, last October nothing got accomplished.  So needless to say we were really overdue.  Nothing quite like 2 year old granola bars to choke down in an emergency.  What I thought I could tackle in a couple of hours took me 8!  Yes...I can't believe it either... 8 whole hours of complete madness.

 I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of when I started.  There was a huge pile of clothes, hats, gloves, shoes, food, first aid, activities... oh the list goes on and on.  This is just organized chaos above.

 Finally we are finished.  I made Mike take them out to the garage last night.  He could barely carry them... Oh do you think they are to full?  My opinion is that it is better to have it than not.  You can always discard items along the way.  Boy am I glad that the project is over... on to bigger and better!

SIDENOTE... Look at my babies...Aren't they so precious!  I can't believe how little they were.

I always make emergency tags with info for the bags with photo's attached.  I am such a nut because I am having a hard time parting with these sweet things.  I even considered keeping them for the scrapbook.  What!  who does that....scrapbooks their kids old emergency tags.  No I must throw them away... but they are sweet!

Well, For now I better put our newly organized bags in the garage to gather dust and pray we don't have to use them!  Goodbye to them until next fall when I do the whole thing all over again!

...Ruby...

Ruby is One...
I can't believe that my baby is one year old. It is hard to imagine that she being the youngest of four is growing up. Today she threw a tantrum and even got mad at me. What is up with that. She needs to stay a baby forever.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Ruby loves to eat. She will stay in her highchair for an hour and just keep eating if I let her. It is truly amazing that she is as little as she is. One of her loves is crackers!

Yummy!!!

Playing "Peek-a-Boo" with her cracker.

Well off to more things... Mike took the older 3 kids to the cabin tonight. So it is just me and Ruby. Wow life is so simple with just one kid. You forget!
I am tearing apart all of the 72 hour kits and updating them all. (I try to do this every fall conference) It is quite the project with a family of Six! Can't wait for Conference...

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER...

The First Day of School!!!! The girls were really excited to start at their new school. McCall loved it from the moment she hit the building. McKinley had a rough first week or so. She has grown to love the new school.

"Strike a Pose"


Spencer LOVES to close his eyes in photo's. Hopefully he will grow out of it. I can't believe that my baby boy is in pre-school. He is so adorable with his "huge" Spiderman backpack. When it is filled, it looks like he is going to fall over backwards.

We went to "Heritage Days" in Pleasant Grove. McCall's little choir sang at it. The kids had a lot of fun. One of their favorites was the face painting. It also gave dad a little time alone to recover from his surgery. Everyone was happy!!!

Summer Hiking

We feel so blessed by where we live. We have moved to a new house minutes from many awesome hiking trails. We tried to hike quite a few times this summer. We had a really good time. As you can see Ruby had such a good time that she pooped herself out! It was hard work for her!

Mike and the Kids!

Our cute kids. (spencer will NEVER just smile for the camera anymore)

I took photo's of the first day of school. I still need to download them. So I will post soon!

RUBY...

Ruby is getting sooo big! I decided that we needed to dedicate a whole entry on her. Being child #4 she doesn't get a whole lot to herself!
I can't believe that in just over a month she will be one. Where did the time go? Ruby loves crawling and pulling herself up on everything. She is even starting to walk around furniture.

Ruby is almost always happy!!! She loves to laugh and her favorite thing to do is crawl into Spencer's room and get into all of his stuff. (this might be foreshadowing the future)

Ruby's hair is finally long enough for "ponies." Now I have one more head of hair to do. Getting everyone ready Sunday morning by 9 was a little rough.
We love our Ruby!!!