Halloween Has Come and Gone Already?!

So I feel like I had been looking forward to this trip for so long and now it has come and gone. What and AMAZING weekend it was though! First of all I had the wonderful opportunity to escort an amazing girl through the Temple. I was honored to be able to be with her on that special day. I am so proud of her and of the woman she has become. I can't believe it has been 11 years since we met and we are closer now more than ever! Thanks again for including me on your special day!! Love you girl! This is Panks, Jessie and I at the Temple! That night the rest of the Family came up to my Mom's so we could start our weekend of fun!! We had all been counting the days til we could all be together again, but then we all had to get sick that same week!! Go figure! I think most of us had started to get better by the time we got there except the Warn's! We still had a good time inspite of it! Payson was able to go Trick or Treating for the first time with his cousins! We all dressed up as the T-Birds and Pink Ladies!

Me and my little T-Bird!

All the boys! Travis, Terry, Payson and Brandon!


All the girls! Mom, Me, Tab, Stevie, Jessie, Emily, Maddy and Lizzy!
Maddy decided she wanted to be the "Sandy at the end of the movie" so she is all dressed in black!

Payson was having a hard time carrying his bag because it was almost as big as him!

He was trying so hard to stay up with the Girls!

Trick or Treat!!

Once we came home, sang a little karaoke and put the kids to bed, we got out Quelf!! This game is so fantastic for anyone who has never heard of it! Just take my word for it! We still are not real sure what Mom was doing but she had to hold her arm like this for the entire round. The bad thing was that it was the LONGEST round ever!!

Seriously, My Family is so incredibly awesome!!

I let my nieces play with my camera one day and got it back with over 100 new pictures on it! This was one of them and I just had to post it because it was so cute! I am thinking these must be Payson, Maddy and Lizzy footprints!

The next day I got to give everyone haircuts!! Payson and Travis especially needed them and Lizzy and Maddy wanted new do's! All 3 of the girls looked super adorable!! We drove into town to see Cody and of course he wanted In n Out! Payson's Papa was not very happy that we went without him so he decided that when he comes home we are taking a road trip to AZ just so we can go to In n Out!! He cracks me up!!

We stumbled across this car that Payson probably would have stayed in all day if I let him! Especially since right now, red is his favorite color!

Alright! Well that's all for now! I have a SUPER FANTASTIC picture of Jessie in this AWFUL bejeweled jacket at Savers but she would probably never speak to me again if I posted it!! We continue to hear from Shayne daily and he is still doing great! We are coming up on our halfway mark and can barely believe it!! Thanks again everyone for your continued prayers in behalf of our Family!!

October has been such an AMAMZING month..and it's not even over!!

So far this month has been a great one! We had the opportunity to have Panks and Payten come for a visit! It was so much fun watching the kids play...well Payson pick on Payten and have a good time together! We decided to take the kids out for some pictures just for fun! Here are a few of Payson!

While they were here we ventured up to The North Pole and got to ride all sorts of rides and feel like we were in Christmas land in October!!!

I barely fit in this ride!!

Payson loved the chair lift!

The Candy Cane super slide!

Panks was a good sport to ride the spinny rides with the kids while I closed my eyes and took pictures!!

Getting ready for the roller coaster!! Payson squealed with excitement the whole time! He is soo is Dad's kid!

Bathtime for the babies!!

After the girl went home, the next day Melissa came back to play!! We got to go to an apple orchard and pick apples and of course take adorable pictures of this sweet little boy who always seems to be following me around!

He looks sad in this but I still love it!

Picking apples with Mommy!

Way to capture the moment! Thanks "Issa"

Payson was the same size as the box!

Some of the yummy apples that we picked and then brought home and baked!

After the apple orchard we drove up to The Royal Gorge and took a sweet train ride around the rim!

Payson waiting to board the train!

Our conductor and some of our view!

Holding my hair down from the wind. That is the Royal Gorge bridge behind us! Shayne and I are going to ride the Sky Coaster over it when he comes home!!

We had such a great time and stopped and ate at a 50's diner on the way home and had some fried pickles! We were supposed to go to a pumpkin patch the next day but Payson got very sick. :( He is doing lots better now and we are preparing for our end of the month fun in AZ!!!

Oh Happy Day!!

About a month ago I sent a small tape recorder to Shayne so he could record some songs for Payson so he could "help me" sing him to sleep at night. He recorded all of the songs and had a Soldier who was coming home for R&R and sent the package with him to mail to us when he got back to the states. Well this morning the Soldier showed up at our house to hand deliver the package. He wanted to make sure it got to us safely! I knew immediately what is was and was very excited to open it!! I opened it up and turned it on and Payson's whole face lit up like it was Christmas!! He was very excitedly chanting "Papa Papa!" I handed him the recorder and he refused to give it back!! He was so excited!! I am so excited to have Shayne's beautiful voice back in our home! What a great day!!

Apparently Colorado Has A Fall Frosty Freeze!!

I know this picture has nothing to do with a frosty freeze but I just had to post it! He was looking so handsome for church today!! I cannot wait for his Papa to come home and see what a big boy he is in his suit!!! I love this kid so much!!

These on the other hand, are very frosty pictures!!! We woke up to what looked like snow but upon closer evaluation we realized it was ice! SOLID ICE! No snow about it! Some of the pictures look like there is snow in the background, but I promise it is all ice. WARNING!!: You may want to put on a coat before looking at these pictures because I guarantee they will make you cold just seeing them!!!

These are the rocks in my front yard...they were so slick that I had to sit in them rather than squat on them to take a picture because I kept falling!!


This is what WAS my beautiful green grass...now it is beautiful white grass!

Shayne's car had about 1/2 an inch thick of ice on the whole thing!! Thank goodness my car was in the garage so we did not have to do any scraping before church!

Here are some of my Fall decorations...

This was a spiderweb!!! I thought that looked so cool!

Yesterday before we realized how cold it was, Panks had a swell idea to go for a walk!!! The kids were less than thrilled to put on giant coats...as you can tell!!! They definitely were not complaining once we were outside though!!!

I am hoping for some warmer weather this week so I can take Payson out to take some nice pictures!! This morning everything was so icy and slick that after I was done being a crazy woman walking outside, I tried to walk back up my driveway but it was too slippery!! I couldn't even crawl! I had to walk all the way around to the back to get into my house! It was pretty funny but I was so frozen that I could hardly move my mouth to talk!!! We got a good laugh out of that!!

Fall is Officially Here!

I have to say I am kind of ashamed at how long it has been since I have posted!! We have been coming and going and had company coming and going so we have been busy!! Here are some pics of some of our happenings this past month! First of all, Payson got some wheels!! This little car is way more fun to cruise around the block in than a stroller! Not to mention, it's way cooler! The first thing Payson does every morning is go sit in it waiting for a ride!! Payson's Great Aunt Tricia sent him a new track suit that was super darling!! Here are some pictures of Payson showing it off!

I thought it was too cute!!

Also, Cody came up and spent a couple of weeks with us!! We took a short drive to Manitou Springs for an evening!

Playing at the park!

Having a great time!!

One day we stopped at the PX and they had this hotdog place! Well Cody said he does not eat hotdogs so I got one and then when he saw mine, he quickly changed his mind!! This is him waiting in the freezing cold waiting for his lunch!!

We had to go get bacon bbq burgers from GoodTimes and decided to share a small spoon bender between the 3 of us! It was very good, but after a couple bites we were so sick we barely ate half of it! Thansk Dad for passing on those anti dairy genes!

That afternoon we decided to go check out the Focus on the Family Welcom Center because it had a SWEET giant slide. Well we got there and the slide was closed. :( But we did find a giant play place that had some neat but random things in it! But like always, we made the best of it!

This was the best part. There was a room with a random Wardrobe in it....little did we know it was going to take us into Narnia!!!! Snow and everything!!

We had to take a picture with the Lamp Post...especially since our Narnia Lamp post in Bozeman got taken down! :(

So Shayne ahs finally been able to send me a couple pictures from the good ol middle east. first one is the river that runs through where he is at.

This is my poor Soldier's face after he was hit with something while trying to recover a burning truck. Poor guy!

The infamous truck!

And this is a NASTY spider that my brave Husband, who is deathly afraid of spiders, killed all by himself! That is enough to give you nightmares for the rest of your life!!

Alright, well that is what has been going on with us lately. All is well and we are still just taking life day by day! We are now over a quarter of the way through this deployment and half way to R&R! We are so excited and cannot wait!