HAPPY BIRTHDAY BREE-BEAR!

My little girl just turned six. Breeley is so much fun. She has fun no matter what she's doing. She is constantly singing, either a song she knows or usually one that she's made up. Her life is a musical and I love it. She is a big tease and she loves to play with her brothers. She has learned how to hold her own with the boys at our house and she can wrestle with the best of them. She has a laugh that is totally contagious. As soon as she starts laughing hard, we're all laughing hard. She is very independent and loves to do things by herself. She loves to read and write and does very well at school. I am so glad to be her mom. I wouldn't trade her for the world. Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Breeley loves Hannah Montana, so she wanted a Hannah Montana party. A guitar was the only thing I could come up with for her cake that would go with the theme. She really liked it.

The only thing that Bree wanted to do for her birthday was go to the "game store", meaning an arcade. We took her to the arcade at Fat Cats and she had a ball. We let her choose where she wanted to have dinner-of course she chose McDonald's. That's her favorite place to eat.

When we got home we invited the family over for cake and icecream. Breeley wanted to skip the cake and icecream and go directly to the presents. We held her off long enough to get a piece of cake down her and then she tore into them. As you can see, she got pretty excited opening her gifts.

She got a Hannah Montana game, similar to Guitar Hero, she loved it and all the other gifts she got. She has slept in the Hannah Montana sleeping bag she got since the night of her birthday. The main thing she wanted was an Easy Bake Oven. She got one of those and loves to bake in it.

"SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN"

We have a holiday kick-0ff where we live. On November 29th we went to the park and had doughnuts and hot chocolate and waited for the big guy to arrive. He finally got there riding a fire truck. The kids were excited to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

Chase got to go first because the other two wanted to make sure that it was safe. He asked Santa for an Ice Blue Nintendo DS and a black acoustic guitar like his dad's. I told Chase that he just might get a lump of coal for asking for two big things. He said that he would be happy with either one.

Breeley went next, she asked Santa for a "High School Musical" tent. She was all smiles.

Keaton wanted nothing to do with the big guy and couldn't get close enough to me. Keaton's request from Santa was a dinosaur, although I had to tell Santa Claus because he was not speaking to (or even looking at) Santa. Keaton calls Santa Claus "Ho Ho". We think it's so cute.

THANKSGIVING

We had a really fun Thanksgiving this year. We spent the day at my mom's house. All of my family was there, except for Jeremie's kids, we missed them! Lucky for us they were able to come up that night and spent the rest of the weekend with us.

My three little cutie pies waiting for dinner.

Steve, Chase, and Breeley enjoying dinner.

Keaton was so cute at dinner. He was so tired that he was leaning against the wall falling asleep as he ate. I finally had to hold him, as soon as he snuggled down in my arms he was sound asleep.

My family has a tradition of shooting clay pigeons on Thanksgiving. It's always a lot of fun. Chase kicked butt this year. He almost beat out all of us, it came down to him and Zach in a shoot out. His gun jammed, so I guess we'll have to decide the winner next year. He's a pretty good shot and this is definately his favorite part of Thanksgiving.

Steve-Look at that form, what a stud!

Aren't they sweet? We were actually all trying not to freeze to death at this point, it got pretty cold by the end.

Me attempting to shoot. I am no good at this, but it's still fun. I'm pretty sure I close my eyes when I pull the trigger, probably not a good idea when trying to aim, but Steve's gun kicks a bit. Gina is standing next to me shooting as well. Paula beat out all the girls this year when she hit a clay pigeon. Yes, we're just happy to hit one.

OK, this was by far the funniest moment up there. Laci decided to shoot the gun. We told her to put the gun against her shoulder, but apparently she took that as against her arm. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. She shot the gun and when it kicked it was pretty painful. She left to go to the car in tears-she denies this, but I know that she was trying not to cry. We were all laughing so hard, she didn't get too much sympathy-sorry, Laci! I got the perfect picture of her shot. You can see her hair whipping back as she shot the gun, it really got her good!

On Friday, my mom, Gina, Laci, Madison, Taylor, and myself went shopping. It's always a lot of fun. We came home that night and played BINGO. My mom furnished the prizes. Thanks, mom and dad, for keeping all these fun traditions alive. I know it's what makes our family tick-we love you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASE-BUG!

My baby boy turned 10 on November 4th. I'm not quite sure how that happened because it seems like I just barely had him. I can't believe he's reached double digits. Since it's his birthday, it's only fair that I tell you how wonderful he is. Chase is just a genuinely good boy. He always tries to do the right thing and has a testimony that is growing and growing. He is extremely smart and can figure almost anything out. He is in 4th grade but is reading at like a 7th grade level. He's a good friend and truly cares about other people and their feelings. He worries about everything, I don't know where he got that from (ha,ha). I am just extremely proud to be his mom and I love him to pieces. Happy Birthday Buddy!

Chase loves to fish, so he wanted to have a fishing party this year. I was able to use pictures of him fishing at Marsh Lake this summer on his signs. He loved that. By the way, this picture was taken the next morning because I forgot to get this picture. I try to take one every year with the sign that has their age on it-yes, I'm a dork, but what do you do?

Chase with his fishing cake. This was a really fun cake to make. Isn't he a cutie pie?

Chase chose to celebrate his birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's. We had a great time. We got home a lot later than we wanted to, but it was his birthday, right?

HALLOWEEN

Halloween is by far Steve's favorite holiday, so when it rolls around, he goes all out. He had his spook alley in our garage again this year. There were cars lined up and down our street all night. He added a new thing this year. He projected some scary Halloween scenes to music onto our front window. We had people sitting on our front lawn just watching the movie. The kids and I were trick-0r-treating with Laci and Brent and their kids, so we missed most of it. We filled each bucket though and the kids had a lot of fun.

Steve's spook alley costume. His theme was aliens, so he was suppose to be some kind of scientist doing research on a meteore or something?!? And yes, we did give almost all of that candy away.

Zach and Paula are always great to come and help out in the spook alley. We hope they actually like it and don't just feel obligated to do it. Either way we appreciate them! We also roped my mom and Gina into running the gate. Thanks for being such good sports and for freezing to death all night-sorry! The best part of the above picture is Laci in the background trying to be funny. OK, it was funny!!! Just look at her face. Classic.

Here are my little ghosts and goblins. Breeley is, of course, Hannah Montana. Keaton is Elmo and Chase is a bleeding skeleton. He's really proud of the bleeding part, and yes, it actually bled down his chest-gross!

This was right after the Halloween parade at the elementary school. Steve dressed up and walked with Chase's class. I dressed up as a queen, in case you couldn't tell, and walked with Breeley's class. It was a lot of fun and a little embarassing all at the same time. Keaton had not dressed up quite yet.

The kids carved their pumpkins the night before Halloween. They have lots of fun, except Keaton won't touch the inside of the pumpkin to clean it out. He thinks it's really yucky.

Corn Maze

Steve and I took our kids to the Black Island Farm Corn Maze in Syracuse this year. It was a lot of fun. The kids especially loved all of the activities that they had outside the corn maze. It was a really neat place. We even saw pigs racing, Keaton thought that was great. We also saw Ronald McDonald. Keaton didn't think he was so great. We steered clear of the scary clown. As we were looking at all the farm animals, we heard a lady say to her kid, "Look at the horsey." I had to chuckle due to the fact that it was actually a donkey. Good Times!!!Steve & The Kids In The Corn Maze

The Kids & I In The Corn Maze.

Steve and the kids going down the big hay slide.

Breeley, Keaton, and Chase at the entrance.

Football Fun!!!

This was Chase's second year to play little league football. He really loves to play, but the practices get a little old. He plays wide receiver and does a great job of blocking the defense. His team had a great season and they, with one other team from North Summit, were the first little league teams from our school to make it to the playoffs.
Steve takes stats for the team. He loves it and Chase loves having him on the sidelines.
My baby boy is growing up and it makes me so sad. As you can see, he is #6. Steve was #66, so I love that their numbers are so close.

Basketball Woes

I decided to be a good mom the other day and play with Chase and his friend, Tristan. They were playing basketball and wanted me to play poison with them. I agreed remembering my good old days of freshmen basketball, I only scored 4 points the entire season. Defense was definately better for me. Anyway, Chase passed me the ball and I caught it with the end of my finger. I seriously almost passed out it hurt so bad. By the next day my finger was really bruised and swollen. We decided to go check it out at the instacare after Chase's football game. Well, I actually broke my finger like a big, dumb dork. I'm in a splint for the next three weeks, so that will be fun. Isn't that just my luck? I'll try to post a picture later. I look pretty crappy today-sorry!

Summer Fun & Recent Updates

OK, so this post is going to be really confusing because the pictures are all mixed up and I'm not smart enough to figure out how to move them around-sorry!!! Good luck following along.

Steve & I have been eyeing some playground equipment that we really wanted for about a year. It was a little out of our price range. It finally went on sale for Labor Day so we went and snatched it up. We put it together inbetween rain storms. We love it and so do the kids, as you can see by Bree's face.

Chase & Breeley trying out the new slide.

Breeley had a little accident, she fell off of our bar stool right onto her face on our wood floor. She looked like she'd been in a fight, her poor little face was pretty swollen. She came out of it with this fat lip and a sprained jaw. Happy to report she's doing fine now.

Sorry, these are a little gross, but you can see just how hard she hit.

Chase fishing at Marsh Lake. He gutted his first fish. He was really afraid to do it, but he finally got up the courage on the last fish and then was mad that he hadn't done more.

Breeley was probably the most successful with her Scooby Doo fishing pole. It never fails us.

The proud fishermen.

Our family at Marsh Lake.

Keaton trying out the monkey bars on our new playset.

The annual Dallin family reunion at Bear Lake. It's always lots of fun and very relaxing.

Playing in the sand. Steve's seriously a really good sand artist. He always makes cool animals in the sand. He has a little-known talent there.

Keaton's personal lake.

Chase & Breeley swimming in a little cleaner water after a day at the lake.

Keaton's catch at Marsh Lake.

Zach & Paula's Wedding

I thought I'd post a few pictures of Zach and Paula's wedding since I had not started my blog then. Zach and Paula were married on August 1st. It was a really fun day. We are so glad to have Paula in our family. She and Zach make such a great couple. My kids are so glad that Paula is "officially" their aunt now. We couldn't ask for a better sister-in-law. We all feel really grateful that Zach found her, with my help, might I add. Welcome to the family, Paula!!!

Rustyn, Keaton, and Chase waiting for the ceremony to start.

The Flower Girls: Kamryn, Breeley, Taylor, and Kaylie

Taylor, Kamryn, and Breeley: Very bored waiting for the ceremony to start.

My little sweethearts!!!

Zach & Paula-They are the cutest couple.

Here's my handsome little Keaton, isn't he cute?

Chase & Breeley waiting for the ceremony to start.

Chase & Rustyn got to take the gifts. They thought it was great fun.

Me and my boys at the end of the reception. Keaton's not quite tucked in anymore. I got a little, well, a lot fried at the ceremony, it was pretty hot.

Breeley was a flower girl. She looked darling and did a wonderful job. Taylor, Kamryn, and Kaylie were also flower girls. This picture was taken during the ceremony.