Look who came to visit the White house!

A Greaser, Weirdo, Mad Scientist, Vampiress, Superman, and a Princess...what a treat to have such a range of characters for Halloween! It was so nice to have Halloween on a Saturday, the kids had so much fun decorating the house, getting ready for their Halloween party and putting their costumes on...the trick-or-treating hours could not come soon enough! I never did a final count but we had around 35 kids in and out of the house all day and into the night. Each kid invited a few friends over for a pizza, video game, karaoke, candy comparing, dancing, skit making kind of party.

Some of the kids at the middle school just read The Outsiders so I thought it was cute they dressed up as greasers.
Emily and some of her friends decided to recycle old costumes by wearing bits and pieces of each. Thus "The Weirdo" was born...sounds good to me, free costumes are always the best!









I thought Maggie was very creative with her costume this year, she was very specific about everything she wanted to do so I did what I could to transform her into Professor Poppers! Once Maggie took her costume off, everyone asked her if she was supposed to be an old lady!

My Super hero!

Isn't she scary?! You're missing the "I want to suck your blood" part that makes it really scary!

Conner took charge of the pumpkins this year and did a great job. We waited until the day before Halloween to carve them because we have crazy squirrels that like to eat pumpkins.

Yosemite National Park

Cory and Conner went on an amazing hiking trip this summer to Yosemite National park. They were gone for 11 days and hiked around 62 miles. This was Conner's first major hike and I was so impressed at how well he did. They went with a group of friends from our ward, Cory and Conner were the only ones to finish the whole hike. It was a great experience and so nice for some father/son bonding time!

Honeyrock

Emily and Maggie went to Honeyrock camp this year in Three Lakes, WI. They were gone for 10 days and the only communication was through letters! It was hard to be apart for so long but they had so much fun. They get to try a bunch of different things and then focus on the things they enjoy most so Maggie chose rock climbing and a wilderness course where she learned all about animals. I think her favorite part of camp was catching frogs which she is really good at and couldn't wait to show me when I went to pick them up!

The camp is out in the middle of nowhere and so beautiful!! It is about 7 hours north of Wheaton. It was neat to watch the girls experience different things together and they really helped each other when they got homesick.

Emily decided to focus on mountain biking and learned so much, she also earned the Solid Rock award which she had to get up early every day to run a mile, swim (it was in the 40s and 50s in the early morning so I don't even want to know how cold the lake was!), memorize some scriptures, and do service around the camp. I missed my girls so much and realized how much they help around the house while they were gone!

Utah/Idaho

What a great vacation! A little crazy with an 11 month old but the kids were great. Cory and I flew into SLC on separate flights so I had Emily, Maggie and Clare and he took the other three. Emily's ticket was upgraded to first class so she was well taken care of!

Our flights arrived in SLC within minutes of each other so it worked out perfect. While we were in SLC, we were able to visit with Shane and Heidi Pierce and their family and then Cory's Aunt Jessica and her kids. We had to go shopping at the distribution center WOO HOO! and of course swimming at the hotel pool. We had the perfect set up at the hotel with connecting rooms so five kids were in one room and Clare, Cory and me in the connecting room. We spent a day at Snowbird then spent a couple of hours at temple square which they are renovating right now so it is kind of a mess.

The kids loved driving around Utah (in our huge 12 passenger white van!) counting the churches and temples! It is very different than what they are used to.

We had a fun photo shoot with Clare on temple square, she was being so cute, we couldn't stop taking pictures. Of course it didn't take long for her to start eating the grass!

From SLC, we headed up to Logan and spent the day with my sister and her family and then drove to SunValley ID. Lots of driving in a van with NO TV! Thank goodness for 2 PSP's and 3 DS's!

We met up with Jim and

Krisann Charles and their kids and stayed in a condo for a few days. 9 kids in a condo with white carpet! Not to mention, they are trying to sell the condo! The kids were great and had such a fun time together, you would never know it had been a year since they had seen each other!

It was fun to be in Idaho and see some of the spots where Cory served his mission. We drove to an old gold mining town which the kids loved and got to see the Sawtooth Mountains. Then we drove back to SLC for the plane ride home!! The week went by too fast but the kids had a great time and even asked if we could move to Utah!!

Fourth of July

I love the 4th and look forward to it every year. Chad and Adrienne and their kids came to stay with us for a few days so it was great to have family during the holiday weekend. We spent the day downtown at the Field Museum and then spent the evening with a group of our friends at the Ross' house.Gotta have sparklers!

I don't understand the fascination with those snake things but the kids were out in the street lighting them forever!

Cory and Clare

Me and Clare

The Girls (I love my friends!)

The Guys (they were not very happy about posing for this picture and tried at all costs not to touch each other!)

That's a lot of kids!

Ballet, Soccer, Lacrosse

Our Saturdays are very busy this time of year with Conner playing Lacrosse, Emily, Maggie, Kate and Davis playing soccer. Then add to that Kate having her dance recital this past Saturday, it gets a little complicated getting everyone to where they need to be. It has been fun watching 4 year olds play soccer, Davis thinks as long as he is running up and down the field, he's doing what he's supposed to. If he does kick the ball, he turns to me with a big smile and says, "I did it!"

Kate made her first goal at this game! The park district creates teams according to schools so it's a fun way to get to know friends from school better.

Maggie's been on the same team with a few of her friends for two years now, very cute group of girls.

Emily is in a league called Kopion this year, it is a little more intense but she is learning a lot.

Conner has enjoyed Lacrosse, he's #61! It's a pretty rough sport but exciting to watch, this is his second year playing.




I think the recital is the true reason Kate still does Ballet. She loves getting dressed up, hair fixed and it's the only time she gets to wear make-up. After the dress rehearsal Friday night, I started talking about the performance the next day and she said, "I get to do it again!"

Indianapolis Children's Museum

We met Niki Tippets and her kids at the Museum over their Spring Break, the kids had so much fun and it was great to see Niki! Davis loved the construction site...I think he dug in this mulch for an hour. The museum was really crowded so anytime I tried to get a picture of one of our kids, I would end up with some random kid in the picture. My three older kids were in school and Cory stayed home with Clare so I had Kate, Davis, and Brandon Smith with me. This was the super hero exhibit which the kids were crazy about. Davis went nuts over the Captain America costume!! Brandon told me he could still be a super hero without getting dressed up!

Tyler and Kate had fun together, it had been awhile since they had seen each other so when I told Kate who we were going to the museum with, she asked, "is it the boy Tyler or the girl Tyler?" (Tyler Woods)

Another random kid in the picture with Davis!! :)

They had glass sculptures in the ceiling so the kids were all laying on this couch looking up at the glass. The kids were all really good but with six kids under the age of 6, you can imagine how many potty breaks we had to take!! :)