Run, Bike, Swim for your Life

So I may have received an email asking why I have not blogged about the triathlon Jaren and Jordan did together. I have now repented and am showing you why I didn't really think about blogging some of this. Oh, don't worry, you'll see...

So here's Jaren at the beginning of the race. Can you see him? Yep, right there. You see him now? What do you mean, no? He's right there...right behind the girl. You can totally see one of his arms, you know, in between the girl and the guy waving his hand. I can't believe you missed it! Don't worry though, we got an awesome shot of him when he was about a hundred feet from finishing the run part of it.

Yep, I told you...AWESOME! I don't mean to brag, but I think I might be the best action photographer I've ever seen. I asked the kiddos to keep an eye out for me for Jordan after Jaren ran past, and J.J. was completely on the ball for me. He said, "Mom! There's Uncle Jordan!" I said, "Where?" J.J. - "He ran past us! We missed him!"

The picture above is all right. I managed to get the sun shining right into the camera and Ryan's tongue out, so it wasn't a total loss.

This picture isn't quite as good. I accidentally got their faces showing in this one.

In all seriousness, these guys did great! They practically finished one on top of the other. Jaren was a little bit faster of a runner and swimmer, and Jordan wailed everyone on the bike. Way to go guys...we're proud of you! (P.S. You two are the best dog paddlers I've ever seen!)

A Happy Halloween to you!

We had a lot of good times this Halloween. All the cousins got to hang out at the Pumpkin Patch and (from what I hear) had a ton of fun together!

These poor kids probably couldn't wait to get finished with this picture below. Every single one of them is squinting in pain. What great sports!

We also had a great time with carving pumpkins too. We got a really fun book that the kids were able to put faces on the pumpkins by dotting the paper with permanent markers. Ryan ended up coloring the entire paper that was taped on his pumpkin with a red Sharpee. You can see on his pumpkins face the remnant of the ink that seeped through the paper. This activity was right down his alley!

Chase was very excited to have a cat. He kept saying, "cat...meow!"

Here are the outfits Jaren put together for our family this year. I think he might have been more excited about the army men thing then the boys were. He thought the hand grenades and bullets were super cool. Do boys ever grow up? :)

Here they are...our all american heroes!

Grandma Ghostie's Haunted House

This Halloween, we're trying to make the season last a little bit longer. We made a haunted house that our Grandma Ford likes to haunt sometimes at night...

Our kids really got into the spirit of this little activity once they understood what they would be getting in the morning at times. They even helped me decorate it with spiderwebs. I think they did a pretty awesome job.

It wasn't easy to lift that house with all those spider webs keeping it down though!

I'm not sure what it is about this picture that makes me think they're excited about what they got the first night...I can just feel it in my bones (buns for those who have seen Murder By Death).

Something I thought was great was how J.J. decided that he wanted to build his own haunted house that the Grandma Ghost could visit at night in his own room. He made this house out of lasagna boxes and colored ghosts and monsters on the outside.

He loves the windows on his haunted house. They gave him a sneak peek into knowing whether the Grandma Ghost visited his very own creation. (He likes the idea of Grandma being able to get inside the house by floating through the walls.)

Another good find!

One of the funniest parts about this is that J.J. didn't make the connection that Grandma Ford was the ghost that haunted the houses, although I thought he knew. We called the Grandma Ghost to let her know that J.J. had made his very own haunted house for her to haunt as well, and at first he acted kind of shy. I wasn't sure why until he said, "Hey! This is Grandma Ford, not Grandma Ghost!" He thought he caught her being sneaky. :) Well, she is pretty sneaky sometimes!

Thanks Grandma (Ford) Ghost for the fun and very sneaky surprises! You can haunt our house anytime!!

A happy happy birthday (the big ?) and raspberry fun...

Yes, I am now 20-10. A little bit scary if you ask me. I did have a good day though! Jar made me a magnificent breakfast and cleaned all of it up afterwards!! I got showered with cards saying how my kids loved me and loved to play with me (presents don't get better than that!). I got to sort of listen to General Conference (more than Saturday at least). And after dinner we had a lovely cake (compliments of Jaren) and ice cream.

Look at all those candles!

Of course I had to embarrass myself by not being able to blow them all out, but really, you couldn't stick them a little closer together, Jar?

Now for some more fun...

We went raspberry picking for the first time! It was so fun for the first ten minutes! Then, because the awesome mom forgot to bring water, we had one screaming child, one whining child, and one tired child for the remainder of the time we were there. Chase really impressed me though when he picked the berries. He picked the ripe ones and was careful enough that he didn't squish them in his hand.

Ryan was stalwart. He was picking berries up until the last! He'd dump his bucket into Jar's bucket and then come take mine!

Jaren was the cream of the crop. He picked so much and worked berry hard. (Jaren wrote that...can you tell?) It's true though. :)

This little guy was so super good, as always. (Of course, his bottle was remembered...)

And here's our load...12 pounds of funlovin' raspberries, all of which we made raspberry jam out of. YUM, YUM!!

The last three months in pictures...

I graduated (I promise), but I can't find any pictures of it...(I sure hope somebody got pictures).

J.J. graduating from kindergarten.

J.J. after too many pictures of him graduating from kindergarten.
My Mother's Day bouquet.
Father/Son's campout.
It's really cold every year...so they weren't dressed for style. Where's the flood?
What's camping without loads and loads of treats?
And then J.J. lost (pulled really) his two front teeth! Mo money, mo money.
Sparklers bring out the actor in our children.

Except for maybe this one. I think he was focusing too hard to really enjoy it.
In my mind, this was the best part of the 4th of July. Those little neon tubey thingy's were so fun. They goofed around with them,
we played frisbee with them, and Ryan threw them in the street numerous times and got it stuck up in a tree (no picture sorry).
Then our own little fireworks show. This was the only pic I got of the three of them. Chase started just bawling and wouldn't calm down until I took him inside and watched with him from there.
Well, that's all folks! We'll see what comes next...

Ford Family Outing...Guess what we did... :)

Can you tell yet?

We went shooting!! J.J. shot the gun for the first time. He'd been asking for a while to go, but it just never worked out. So this time, we ALL went. I could tell J.J. was scared when he shot it. I don't think he knew that it would be so loud or hard. When I tried to talk about it with him later, he got a little anxious until I asked him if he was a little scared. He didn't really want to say he was, but after I admitted that I got scared too, he willingly said he was a LITTLE scared.

Jaren has been wanting to show me how to use the gun in case I ever needed to use it (crossing my fingers here that it'll never happen!). I thought it was horrible and scary. I think I need a smaller gun without so much bang. The first time I shot the gun, I had my hand in a different spot and when the gun recoiled, it got my thumb. Ouch. I am glad to know how though.

Here's the master. (Jaren asked me not to write this...but since this is my blog, I can do what I want) J.J. and I watched him from the car and he nailed some pretty good shots. I kept thinking, maybe I'll be better next time. And then I'd remember that I didn't really want a next time. :)

Here are the boys...watching The Incredibles. Chase just woke up; therefore, he's not happy.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day.

A very blessed day...

Yup, we blessed our sweet baby today. We had LOTS of family come and we were so grateful they could make it. The last two baby blessings we had I think one family member came to one of them (thanks Mindy!) We've finally got more family around and are LOVING it.

Sweet daddy gave sweet baby a great blessing. I'm so grateful for him!

Ryan loves his little brother. They all do. If Chase sees someone give Clawson a kiss, he has to too! J.J. is great at holding and feeding his little baby brother and they're all so good to him. He's one lucky baby.

We also celebrated Chase's birthday. He's recently loving Elmo and when he saw his cake pops (that kept me awake until 1:30 the night before), he gasped and cried "Meh-mo!" Yup, it was worth it!

J.J. wasn't feeling so good. He had a little fever and it kept him on the couch and not eating much that night. :(

Ryan liked eating the candy off the pops. I've never seen him open his mouth that wide!

Chase got some cute little toys that he really enjoyed. Thanks to his grandparents (Ford and Armstrong!) for the fun play things!

We got him a lot of batteries for his birthday so he could actually start playing again with the toys he's loved. This mischeivous look on his face is a very common one! Happy Birthday, buddy!!