The Cabin

I wanted to post the stuff from the rest of our trip to the cabin.

I am so thankful to have grandparents with a cabin. I feel so lucky. It is so refreshing to my soul to go up to the mountains, turn the TV off, and live. I think every time I go there, how mankind makes some nice things, but nothing compares in beauty to what God has made. I think just breathing in the rich pine scent is good for our bodies. I wish we could live there, but the city is where my husband can work... so reluctantly, thats where we live. But I LOVE being outside in nature!!

We started the trip with just my 2 sisters, our kids and my parents.

Ashlin brought her friend Vanessa, but then Vanessa was scared she was sick, so her parents and brother drove up to get her... but then she was feeling better, so they all stayed for a night! Lucky them got to do our annual "Fairy Search Night Walk". I love walking around at night, with the only faint lights coming from within the cabins we pass. So neat. And we sing silly songs as we walk. I am so grateful for those memories, priceless.

My sweet sister always brings glow in the dark bracelets for all the kids, then we arm them with flashlights, and are on our way...

Poor Lily, you will see above she is wearing some pink slippers... in my 1 hour haste packing the family, TOTALLY forgot shoes for Lily. She packed herself slippers. We called them her "hiking boots", and thats what she wore!

(After a few days of ONLY slippers, we did finally break down and buy her some tennis shoes up there!)

Then sunday my parents, Chrissy, and the Herrera's left, but DJ wanted to stay... so that left my sister Carrie and I with TWELVE children.... my 6, her 4, and Dj and Vanessa (Dallin and Ashlins best buddies who live on our street)

It was fun, but exhausting. And mostly because after we get the kids in bed LATE, my sister Carrie and I stay up even LATER because we finally can just sit by ourselves and talk. I love my sister. She is so neat. I am so thankful for her and her example to me. She is always doing kind things for others and such creative neat things for her kids. She is so selfless. She always listens to me talk and talk. And I always feel bad that I didn't listen to her as much as she listened to me... she is so humble, I always leave wanting to be more humble and a better listener.

My sister and I thought, if you have 12 kids, you've GOT to go out to eat one day... just to say you did... so we went on a fieldtrip to EL RANCHO for some mexican food... and the kids were actually so good!

Here's cute Lily entertaining Sophie at the restaraunt...

And here's cute Calvin and Logan, well, entertaining themselves!

THE MUSEUM:
So, every year the kids spend DAYS making a "museum" up there. They rake out a pathway and search for all kind of interesting artifacts/creatures to display for us!

This is the entrance, they made tickets, collected money and even had a ribbon cutting ceremony. SO cute, you can see Dallin in the back getting stuff ready!

Here is Dallin showing off some of the collectibles:

They had a HUGE slug, a wolf spider, a crawdad, some kind of wormy thing and more...

It was the cutest. They had a hands on section with pinecones, acorns, and leaves with insect eggs on them.

WAY TO GO kids, I was SO impressed with the museum this year. Dallin is lucky to have such a sweet cousin Lexi to explore with!

Now, sleeping arrangements with lots of people in a tiny cabin are fairly crazy. I shared my bed with some child every night, and a few others on the floor by my bed... but this was the CUTEST:

I took the bottom drawer out of this dresser

And put it on the night stand by my bed... what cute thing do you suppose is inside??




...........




This was seriously baby Sophie's bed ALL week!
I actually brought a portable crib, but it was so big, and she is so little, that I made a bed out of a drawer instead!

How PRECIOUS is she??!!!

I am so thankful my kids can have such similar memories as me and my childhood days at the cabin, playing games, going on walks, making crafts. This year they spent HOURS one night, all 11 of them COLORING NAPKINS!!??? Who would have thought? Seriously, with markers, they colored like 200 napkins between them all, and were laughing laughing...

Above are just a few of the napkins... they TRIED to keep them all (like my house needs more stuff)... instead I uploaded a few here so I could throw them away!! I love the one Ashlin made of her and I, with my trademark BIG HAIR!

Dirt and Mud

So, the day after Lily's birthday party, we left for the cabin for fall break... it ended up being such a busy couple days, that I didn't have time to do laundry... so I seriously packed each of my kids their suitcase with whatever clean clothes they had, and packed a BIG black garbage bag with the dirty clothes we needed from each persons dirty laundry basket (lovely) to wash up at the cabin (never done that kind of packing before) and we were on our way, packed the whole family in an hour to leave for a week.... wow! I am getting creative with how to manage all the busy-ness! And NOPE, didn't leave a clean house either.

Logan's birthday is 3 days after Lily's, sooooo, his party was UP AT THE CABIN:

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY!!! I asked if he wanted a party with his friends BEFORE we went to the cabin and he said right away NO and that he was so lucky he got to have his birthday while up at the cabin, so we had his party there. He chose the PERFECT birthday treat for being up at the cabin....

DIRT AND MUD cups with worms!My sister and her kids were there, plus DJ and Vanessa... so don't you worry, he still had LOTS of kids with him to celebrate! His other request was to have a Pinata. I was LOVING his easy requests this birthday! So we went to Williams Creek, our new favorite place, and had a little party.

Logan's grandpa worked the rope... Wow... check out that great action shot above... the candy flying, and the kids a runnin!
Logan LOVED spending hours on his birthday exploring around Williams Creek with his cousin and best buddy Calvin!

LOVING Logan's "explorer hat" he wore most the day. He brought it from our dress up box at home, its his "Indiana Jones top hat"... you need THAT for some serious adventure!

What a great birthday location for the WHOLE family...
(Ashlin brought her friend Vanessa to Pinetop with us)

All the cousins (minus baby Sophie) with Aunt Chrissy........................ WHO JUST GOT ENGAGED... YEAH!!
Logan's birthday was:

OUT OF THIS WORLD! (picture by Logan, and requested to be on my blog)

Happy Birthday my handsome man!!!

A Storybook Birthday

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY!!

Lily had so much fun putting on "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears" play with her playgroup friends a few months back... that for her birthday she requested we do ANOTHER storybook "play".

So we had her friends over for a "Play-in-a-Day" Party!

Again, we set up our living room for the play...

Can you tell below what play we put on THIS time?!

A kitchen/cottage with a pan of "goodies", a basket,

a Forest, a Grandmother's Bed...

Yep, Little Red Riding Hood!

I have these cute "Storyteller" masks they wore, with some simple costumes...
and we put on a play!
Don't you worry, we did the play multiple times, so each girl got a turn being different characters! Changing costumes between plays was a little hectic, as I was doing it alone, while holding a baby.. ugh, but it was worth it, they were having fun... and I was not stressed, because...
there was no other parent here watching the chaos!!

Finally when I was able to put my baby down for a nap,
I FILMED our little play!

They chose the characters they wanted to be for our LAST time through... I had planned on letting the birthday girl be Little Red Riding Hood for her "Birthday Movie"... but the funny little thing cried and cried because she wanted to be the "Hunters Wife"...this was the character I "made up" for the play so we would have SIX characters to equal the number of guests at the party... and I thought they wouldn't want to be the new one...
ha ha, I was wrong!

So, if you have 9 minutes of time to spare... here is our little play below!
(I don't expect many to watch it, but its cute)

I stayed up until 4am last night making this movie for Lily... I realize I'm retarded. But I think it is so fun and rewarding making family movies, and I've had no other free time lately. So I decided it was worth a night of little sleep to make me a new family movie for my shelf!
(Sheesh, what we go through as mothers...)

Happy Birthday my darling Lily!

Creating

One of my favorite and most rewarding parts of being a mom is the variety of things I get to be constantly creating: Homemade meals, memorable moments, fun parties, and as of late...

....I have been surprised at how much I've gotten in to and enjoyed all the School Projects around here... Ashlin and Kendell had to do this 'Summertime Tundra Biome". They let me help, and afterwards Ashlin and I stared at it forever telling eachother how cool it was.... so fun!



Then the week after we finished the Tundra Biome, Dallin came home from school with the project list he had to choose from for their Egypt Unit.... we were so excited!

He chose to make a mummy, pyramid and travel brochure.

Dallin LOVES science and projects. He was so cute with this. He made a man out of playdough. Before he wrapped it like a mummy he wanted to cut slits in it to represent that ancient Egyptians cut out the organs before mummifying the bodies, then he really poured salt in each of the incisions of his mummy man to "preserve the body".

He spray painted a box and animals gold to represent that their kings were buried in gold and the ancient Egyptians buried in the tomb with them animals of gold.

I LOVE that Dallin is just soaking it all up at school and has been constantly informing us of new Egyptian facts he's learning!

We searched the internet to see if there were any pyramid next to water. (It was so fun making water for Ashlin's project, he wanted to also)

And, yeah, we found that the first pyramids of Giza were built on the West bank of the Nile river. Did you know that the features of the pyramid can be seen from the moon, they're so large?! The interior stones fit together so well, you can't even fit a card between them. And they are the oldest structures on earth, wow.

Way to go Dallin!

Then look at my newest toy!! Yeah, I am just dreamin of all the fun memories to create...

We actually bought this because I was dreamin about putting it out front halloween night, blaring my loud halloween music, dressing up like a witch and passing out popcorn all night...
can't wait!!!

But then we decided we wanted to use it right away, so Ashlin invited her seminary class over for movie night in our backyard. We had a movie, popcorn, homemade rootbeer, a fire pit and roasted marshmallows...
Here's just some of the kids...
Such a fun night!

Then look at the cute gigantic "card" Logan made Aunt Chrissy for her Birthday:


Logan spent so much time on it, and it was all his idea to tape together multiple pages. (It is him standing next to her) And we cracked up at what he wrote on the shirts...


On her shirt she's saying: "I love you"

On his shirt he's saying "you love me"

Clearly, he feels loved!


So many fun things to create!! If only there were more time in a day. Thats okay... its worth losing sleep on occassion to make something cool!

(Pyramid picture by Logan)