The Staten Family

Vernons + Statens = CRAZY FUN

YYYYYY

Introducing The Staten Family:These are our "trailer park" friends, our favorite friends to hang out with. We go back to the days when we were all in Vet school, living in a trailer park... We met when our now freshman children were nursing babies and we were neighbors in Vet school for FOUR years. They live in Tucson now and we all barely breathe in between each time we are able to get together!

The day after Thanksgiving we packed up and drove down to Tucson for the night... and what big event happens every year the saturday after Thanksgiving:VERSUS Oh yes, the ASU vs UofA football game. Above is Sydney and Bruce in their respective football team shirts. We really just went to hang out with them, but coincidentally our 2 rival schools were gonna be playing. They decorated the room we were staying in at their house ENTIRELY in U of A/Wildcat propoganda. It was so funny!

Reasons why we love the Statens: They are so fun, we've known them for years AND....

We all have a friend! Below you will meet each of our friends... This is Christine, my friend. She is MY ONLY friend who I can sit next to while we both nurse our babies AND visit with our freshman in highschool children. I love that they are in the exact same stage of life as us. It is so fun to sit and laugh about parenthood with people who parent like us and are crazy enough to STILL BE HAVING BABIES!

Below is Neil, him and Bruce have both been saying for years, and since the first couple children, that they were DONE having babies... but Christine and I just laugh and trick our way in to more. ha ha
Zach and Ashlin have been friends since she was 4 months old and he was 12 months... Sydney is the same age as our Dallin...
Morgan is the same age and has the same brain as our Emma...
Griffin and our Logan...

Now I said everyone has a friend, but they have 5 and we have 6 children, so poor Lily doesn't have a friend... but there are so many kids they all play and lucky for Lily this trip the Statens had BUNNIES... the kids played with them the whole trip!
And even Christine and I AGAIN had babies within 8 months of eachother and her little Paige is the same age as our little Sophie!
How fun is that?! Both our lives are so busy, that when we are able to get together we clear the calendar and just lay around and do nothing but visit and the kids all play. I overheard Logan adamently arguing to Emma that they are our cousins.. they're not, but it feels like it because we love them like family! So even though it was crazy to have Thanksgiving at our house all day, then turn around and leave the next day for Tuscon, it was the only day that fit both our schedules, so it was worth it!

(Zach and Sydney)

Vernons Y Statens

Ashlin's Thanksgiving

(turkey by Dallin)

Thanksgiving-November 26

We ended up having Thanksgiving at my house this year. We had The Bradys, Chrissy and Rich, My parents, The Jone's family, Pearl, Ray and Anita, Grandma & Grandpa Blake...

all together 28 of us.

Since my camera was stolen from the church in October, I had no camera for Thanksgiving, so we are going to have to rely on the pictures that Ashlin took that day... her perspective of Thanksgiving is a lot different then mine would have been and revolves mostly around her and her cousin Macy...

If you notice above and below, you can kind of make out the Thanksgiving food in the background, and the face of my Aunt Jeni...

Below you can see my dad...

And look, below here you can even see some of my tables set up in the entry way

cousin Amber...

Below you can make out to the side Uncle Dick and Pearl

This picture below Ashlin calls "Ashlin wearing a 'Rich' hat" because the top half of my sisters fiance's head, Rich, looks like its a hat on Ashlins head...
Ashlin says Chrissy and Rich should use the above picture for their wedding announcements since with so much of Rich's head in it, they're both technically in the picture. ha ha

Lucky cousin Robert got a whole picture of himself without the girls

Since it was the FIRST Blake family Thanksgiving meal not all together, because the family is getting so big, we invited any who wanted to come later in the day for the traditional Football at the park, Blake family style...

Ashlin and Macy's feet above, ofcourse

Luckily Ashlin was feeling charitable enough to take a picture of something besides her and Macy and below there is one shot of the football playing in the background...

Then Lily playing her own version of football with a rock...

Besides my cousin Casey dislocating his shoulder during the football game (we all felt horrible) it was a great day... and many cousins came over after the big meal for football and to hang out through the evening.

Though we all enjoyed the 30+ people at our house that day, I think Ashlin and Macy would have had just as much fun with only them two.

Here is one that Macy took of Ashlin, Ashlin swears she is just getting sugar down for Macy's mom who was making Whipped Cream.... sure looks suspicious though

Happy Thanksgiving!

(turkey-lurkey by Emma)

Lily was so funny, and I kept telling her we were going to eat "turkey-lurkey" on Thanksgiving, just making a funny rhyme... but I think somehow it made her picture some cute turkey cartoon character and she was adament that she didn't WANT to eat "turkey-lurkey" for Thanksgiving, and told me she didn't think Cooper (her 4 yer old cousin) would want to eat "turkey-lurkey" either. She was true to her word, and wouldn't eat any turkey.

Porta Potties

November 11-Veterans Day
While Bruce was out of town my sister Carrie and I took our kids to Freestone park for a picnic and to do some summer sledding. We ended up staying there for FIVE HOURS... that is a long time. And did we ever walk around the park... oh no.... five hours in the same spot at the back of the park on a blanket while the kids ran around like crazy people. Both of our husbands were out of town, and we needed a BREAK!!

The only pictures we have of the day are the ones her 7 year old son Calvin took when he stole off with her camera. So here is a look at our day from his perspective:

Our picnic spot, you can kinda see the side of me nursing Sophie:

The kids literally spent HOURS trying to climb this tree, while we watched other people iceblock... after these people left... LUCKY US... they left behind their iceblocks... and our kids iceblocked for hours too!

And ofcourse we brought our sweet summer sleds... Go Logan Go!

We were right by the train track....

... so obviously we wooped it up for the people on the train and waved to them whenever they went by!

Don't we LOVE a day of FREE ENTERTAINMENT... but that wasn't the best part of the day.

Probably a one time event happend in mine and her childrens lives.... we let them play in porta potties for one full hour. This is no lie, nor was it gross... don't judge us. We laughed so hard. There was some kind of event happening at the park the next day, so we watched the big truck come and drop off like 10 porta potties right by where we were at the back of the park. They were brand new, un-used, and the perfect little line up of play houses. They obviously didn't touch the toilet area, just ran around knocking on all the doors and pretended it was their own suburban neighborhood. It was so funny.

And then seriously 2 girls from a choir group came around passing out flyers for their event, and my sister says, give us a preview... and they really sang to us, our own private concert. After they sang, we begged them to go get the rest of their group and come back and sing more. So THEY DID. It was so cute, they were mostly african american, like a gospel group, and were so good. They waited for us to call all our kids over from the porta potties, to take a seat for our free personal concert, and the group sung us up some rockin gospel tunes with such great messages about their Savior and mine, I teared up. Beautiful.

What a great day. And heaven knows Carrie and I both needed a good day.

Funny how a day with 11 kids (her 4, my 6 + DJ) could be such a break, but it was.

The Big Night

Bruce had to leave out of town to a Veterinary Continuing Education conference last week. (November 7-12) He was gone saturday-thursday. Poor Bruce. This is what he missed last week:

Saturday- Daddy/Daughter Activity Day Hike for Emma

Sunday- Primary Program Practice (Only the practice, but since I'm Primary President, I wanted him here to help with Sophie for this!!)

Tuesday- Ashlin's highschool dedication that she spoke at and they showed the video her group made.

Thursday- Emma got an award in her "Character Counts" assembly for "Trustworthiness"

Poor Bruce, he was so sad, and said, "Turns out a father of 6 kids can never leave out of town or will be missing something." We managed to make it through though:

-Lucky for Emma, her GRANDPA (my dad) took Bruce's place and took her on the special hike, and Emma was excited for a date with Grandpa! He picked her up in his cool black jeep.

-The primary program practice was stressful, I was wishing I had my husband/Co-primary president!! He is the best and most helpful and supportive husband ever in my calling!!! Oh well.

-Ashlin still had lots of special guests to come see her in her moment of glory. Me, Dallin, Emma, Grandpa, Aunt Chrissy, Vanessa and Rachelle all came!

The night before, I loaded up all the kids and we went to the mall for FHE (don't worry, we had a lesson afterwards at home) and she got a new outfit for the big night!

This is her group standing with the principal. It was real official and a bunch of town people spoke at the meeting, then at the end, the student body president introduced this group, and they each spoke a few lines (that Ashlin wrote) to introduce their video. It was SO neat to see their video on the BIG huge screen in the auditorium, and see all the pictures Ashlin took! Such a neat night for her! She was stressed because she forgot her lines a little, poor Ashlin, but it sounded great! You are always harder on yourself then anybody else is.

We video taped the night for Bruce to see! And he watched it with Ashlin right when he got home.

And I was so proud of Emma at her assembly that Sophie and I went to. Emma always gets so excited to see me at school (more than Ashlin or Dallin ever did). And she sat by me through the whole assembly, with her head on my shoulder or arm around me. I love Emma's school!! They do such a good job trying to reward kids for positive behavior. None of my kids had ever been chosen for this before, just a crazy coincedence that my kids got TWO awards in one week!

Although Dallin didn't get chosen for the assembly, teachers have little pads and they write up little "character counts" slips when they witness a child doing something praise-worthy for the kids to take home. Dallin just got this one. It is amazing how motivating a little positive reward is!
And its a little messed up how, while Bruce was gone, I managed everything pretty well, and never lost it. Then Bruce got home, and since I didn't have to do it all alone anymore, I sorta fell apart then, and he had to see me wiped out, lose my temper, and cry the morning of the program because I was stressed. Then I was just trying to convince him that I really handled it so good while he was gone... funny how I can wait to fall apart until there is someone there to pick up the pieces! I LOVE YOU BRUCE, SO GLAD YOU CAME HOME TO US!!!

Halloween

Halloween Activities:

It is so much neater to experience life as a mom. A dusty hot visit to the farm, which would on its own NOT be that exciting, becomes a darling day, and ONLY because of the cutest little 4 year old I had with me...

Lily's cute little preschool class took a field trip to "Mother Nature's Farm"... yee-haw!
She got to decorate a pumpkin, see the animals, (jump in the very unfarmlike bouncy thing- which was probably her favorite part of the farm-ha ha)... and go on a hay ride with baby Sophie and me!

I was so happy to have a special outing with Lily. It has been so busy lately and Lily is THE BEST little girl! She will just play up on her own for so long, and come as soon as I call her. When we go places, she always stays by my side sweet and happy. (Not all my 4 year olds were like this!!) She deserved a special outing... and I LOVE my special time with Lily!!

But for this outing, little Sophie came too... and if she could talk I bet she would say she also liked the farm! I LOVE this little outfit of hers that my Aunt Amy got her... the little ruffles on her pants are so cute. It's size 0-3 months, but I keep squeazing her in it because I love it so much:

(all the cute little name signs, like above, in my latest posts were made by Ashlin at the cabin, I kept them to scan in my blog posts... LOVE the blog for being able to preserve cute art my kids do)

It wasn't the only trip to the farm, because we went as a whole family to Schnepf Farms also! No pictures though. And my sisters FIANCE Rich flew down, so came with us. He seems like such a nice guy, I am so happy for Chrissy!

We also made Halloween Shape Sugar cookies and frosted them..... this always sounds like it's going to be so fun, and I suppose there are some fun elements to it... but sugar cookies are SO.MUCH.WORK! Then the kids each made halloween cards and we delivered the cookies and cards to some new families in our ward. (Lily's Card)

This year with a new baby, I was forced to let go of some control... and allowed Bruce to take the kids shopping for Halloween costumes! I have always tried to be a little original, and not just store buy, because its fun to create something a little more unique... not this year my friends.

Bruce came home with coordinating "Super" costumes for him and Sophie.... By the end of Halloween week I was wiped out... after homemade chili and cornbread, costumes, SCHOOL class parties that I volunteered at (MAN it is exhausting to be a teacher), making and frosting 30 cupcakes for Logan's class party, and cutting 130 cheese shapes of bats, pumpkins and ghosts, to have with crackers for Emma's class, and Trunk or Treat... it was finally:

HALLOWEEN NIGHT!

I was busy that night, so Dallin did him and Logan's "zombie" make-up, he did a good job!

For Halloween this year we brought our popcorn popper out front and played our rockin fun Halloween tunes really loud for the street and passed out popcorn all night. I made popcorn straight from 6-9pm. It was so fun... I had invisioned dressing up like a witch for this... but turns out you can't do it all, and that never happend. It was rewarding to make it a fun night for the trick-or-treaters... then at about 8pm Bruce projected the movie "Ghostbusters" out front on our garage wall to watch. Emily, Mckane and Beckam, Chrissy, my dad, Rachelle, DJ, Vanessa, and Macy came for this too. (Macy was here for the whole weekend because her parents were in Hong Kong picking up her brother from his mission!!)

Ashlin and Macy dressed up as "Siamese Twins" in an outfit big enough for 2 people, with their 2 heads sticking out. Turns out, its really hard moving around as Siamese Twins. I kept asking them to help me with things and they could barely walk! Next year I am having my oldest child wear a more "helpful for mom costume"... Ha Ha

Happy Halloween!

(Lily's spider)

Ashlin WON!!

I am SO proud of Ashlin, HOORAY!
My post below about her picture/video project for English was ALSO a contest for her new highschool... and they're showing the winning groups video at the Dedication Ceremony of her highschool!

The principal chose the winner... and Ashlin came home from school SO EXCITED saying the principal came in her classroom and announced that Ashlin's group WON! And her teacher gave their group these cute little trophies. Their video is being shown at the dedication ceremony of their school... and the mayor is going to be there, and all the important school board people... AND they chose Ashlin's group to be a few of the students to give little speeches at the ceremony.
Ashlin has been so excited for the honor.

(NO- I did not help make the video, they had to do it at school, couldn't even work on it at home, they could only take pictures if they wanted, to use. These pictures I took of her on the field they only used 3 of in her video, the rest she took)

Ashlin took all the pictures for her group (she really is a great little photographer) and wrote the lyrics.... YEAH. And Brandon did the computer work. It was worth it that when she told me about the project I told all the kids- GET IN THE CAR- we are driving to the school to take pictures on the football field. The whole family went, they loved running around the field and on the bleachers. I thought it made for a fun family outing.

Congratulations to Ashlins group!

(picture by Ashlin)

Change is gonna come....

For a school English project Ashlin had to write song lyrics about graduation day and do a picture video. We realized that Bruce still had his graduation gown and its the same school colors as Ashlins, so we went down to her football field and took some pictures....

Now Ashlin is just a freshman, just started highschool. But its so bizarre when your children get older, and you realize you are getting older too. I LOVE having children at multiple stages of life, not just because it makes being a mom so enjoyable with so much diversity of needs, but also because it helps me keep in perspective just how fast time goes. I am so much more patient with my younger kids, just knowing pretty soon they will be grown and I will just wish with all my heart that I had been better. I know, because thats what I do now with my older kids.

Being a mother is the most joyful/painful process.... joyful because nothing brings me greater rewards.... but painful because of my constant mistakes, and they grow up... and darn them for growing up before I became as good as I wanted to be!!!

Ashlin is wonderful and it is actually so fun to have a teenager, so neat to have a child grow in to being your friend. But all the boys/texting/facebook/BOYS/grown-up talks are
FREAKING ME OUT!!