And finally, we are caught up. Here is Sydnie and TJ on halloween. In case you can't tell, Sydnie is a Ritz cracker - her trick-or-treat bag is a cracker box. I made her dress in orange to be cheese. It took her weeks to decide what to be - what a creative girl! TJ was an Emoo (I don't know how to spell it, but it's a sad, depressed person or something like that anyway).


I got off work early (the kids didn't have school, again) and we took TJ, Gavin, Sydnie, Gramma, Julie, and myself to a corn maze. Then that evening, we had TJ and his mom over for dinner and trick or treating. For dinner we had 'mummy' pizzas and 'eyeball' carrots. The haunted house in the back ground was by Sydnie at school. She did a great job! After dinner and trick-or-treating, we went to TJ's house and watched 'Nightmare before Christmas'. All in all we had a fun day!

We must have pumpkins in October. Sydnie and I picked out pumpkins to carve. She had her heart set on carving this one because it had a mark on it that looked like a scar. She immediately thought it would make a great frankenstein.


Ewe - digging out the insides! I don't like the way my kitchen smells during this process, but it leaves quickly.



And here is her finished product. What a great creation!

Whew - we are almost caught up! Nope, this isn't halloween. During red ribbon week (say no to drugs) at school, they got to do different things every day. This day was crazy hair day - do you like what we came up with? It was a little difficult to get out that night, but fun for the day.

The week after Syd's birthday, she had the opportunity to dance with the local high school drill team at a football game. The night was freezing, but Syd had fun. See if you can pick her out in the photo.


Here is a picture of her and her friend after they performed. As you can see, she was not being very cooperative that night for pictures.

Sydnie wanted sea creatures for her birthday cake theme. She has had a fascination with the Lochness Sea Monster recently. Since I counldn't find one, I made one with a huge gummy snake I found. I made everyone try it, even though it was disgusting. The cake was yummy though and Sydnie love it! Happy #9 Sydnie! She is growing into a beautiful young lady!

Opening presents.

And wearing the bow - what a cutie!

To celebrate our birthdays, Syd wanted to go to Lagoon. The had it decorated fun for halloween. I made Syd pose for several pictures and go through a few haunted houses. You can't see very well, but inside this old hurse was a scary looking werewolf thing - ooooh, so scary!


This was a fun miniature circus - Syd, TJ and Koree posed fun behind the glass.



Sydnie loved the merry-go-round!



Sydnie wanted me to take this picture of her holding the flower. I thought it was a fun one.

We have had a very busy last couple of weeks. We didn't celebrate Syd's birthday until the weekend after. She didn't have school on her birthday, so was able to spend the day with Gramma and some cousins. When I get pictures from her Gramma of what they did, I will post them. We had a little celebration our selves that evening - I bought her favorite cookies, put a candle in it, and sang to her. We had fun! and of course she thought it was a little silly.

A couple weeks ago, we had a small snow storm. We were inside decorating halloween cookies when it started looking like a blizzard outside. Sydnie lost interest in the cookies and went outside to catch some snow. It's still in our fridge - I should probably get rid of it now.




Then she decided to go sledding. Since we do not have a real sled, she tried our garbage can lid...

When that didn't work, she tried just sledding without anything - right on her stomache. As you can see, there wasn't that much snow so it didn't work very well. She had fun and that's all that matters.
Then she picked the last of our carrots - we are slowly getting better at our container gardening. Hopefully next year we'll have an extraordinary one!

Here are some quick pictures we took at our 3rd grade 'photo shoot'. I kind of think the pictures they take at school are a little boring, so I always like to take my own. Plus, we have so much fun looking for the perfect spot and the perfect pose. I hope you enjoy these. I will get more pics and wordage up later. We are both alive and well plus we finally have internet at home so I'm hoping to update at least once a week now.

Now for the Birthday Bash! Sydnie had wanted a magician for her 8th birthday party for 3 years now, so I knew I had to get one. Since a professional was sooooo much money, we hired The Great Kassiopia (Sydnie's cousin). She did an awesome job!


We played pin the wand on the magician...


Took turns batting a 'Magic 8 Ball' Pinata...


Opened presents...



And ate these wonderful rabbit coming out of a hat cupcakes. Yummy!

Then-Grandpa surprised us all with balloon animals! Whew, what a day!

Okay, we'll start at the beginning. First, Sydnie chose to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as was able to do so right on her birthday. Her Grandpa was able to baptize her. We had lots of family and close friends there to support her on this special day! Sydnie sang a song all by herself - what a sweet little grown-up she is!

Grandpa & Sydnie - Mom & Sydnie - Sydnie blowing candles out on her cake while talking to her Dad (what a great multi-tasker). Aunt Buffy made cute little people out of suckers and foam to represent the great day.

Once again, I am behind. It will sure be easier to stay up to date when I have internet at home. Anyway, last month was so crazy with baptism, birthdays, and halloween, but I finally have pictures to share with everyone. I hope you enjoy them! Before I get to October though, I have to share these cute ones from Hogle Zoo. We went with our good friends and neighbors and had a blast!
Wow! Real water comes out it's nose!
This does not smell very good. Can I take my nose out yet?
Oh, what a nice pose!
Hmmmm....almost there, eh?

Our annual Salt Lake trip started out at the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. The kids had fun, but when we went to the gift shop, the kids found a bean bag and got comfy and watched ..........Jurassic Park! Next stop -


Cherry Hill! We camped at Cherry Hill for 2 nights and had a blast! I will add swimming pictures later - they are still on my waterproof camera. We played in Hamster's Haven, Sydnie finally learned to ride her bike with no training wheels, and we played miniature golf. I tried helping Sydnie with her bike, but I must have been a little annoying because she said to me, "Mom, I don't really want your help anymore, I can just do it myself". And she did it!

I could just see Sydnie's Dad cringing at the way she held her golf club, but I thought it would give them something to work on together.

Well, I'm behind again, so her are a few of our summer highlights. We actually had a fun summer. Sydnie tried softball and learned good form. She did pretty good for never having touched a baseball bat before.


For the 4th of July we went to a parade in Lewiston, then had lunch at Big J's where the kids got these awesome hats. Oh, also Aunt Buffy decorated their faces for the big day. That night we got together for fireworks in Grandma's street. Sydnie and TJ liked taking turns dancing in front of the strobe lights.


This was a fun day at the park with Sydnie's cousins Gavin & Rian. We played in the water and tried to climb a big tree. Sydnie made me laugh because she just kept going around and around the tree to find a good place to start climbing.

This was just a random shopping cart at the park, so we just had to snatch a picture. Well, I will add some more 'highlights' later.