A Winter Wonderland???

Well this is what we woke up to Wednesday morning and it snowed ALL day long. Of course it interrupts the potato digging (a.k.a. harvest) but the severe cold temperature that comes after this actually makes the snow a blessing because it insulates the potatoes. Well it all melted and we went for a walk on Sunday afternoon in the 50's but this morning we woke up to this picture out our window again and it's 30* . I can't believe it was in the 70's less than a week ago!

An "Earie" Day

Well two weeks ago Tuesday, I had a reality check. Brittany got her ears pierced! Now this may not sound like a big deal but it reminded me how fast time flies and how old our children are and consequently how old we are getting. Like a friend said: we spend our life protecting our children from pain and injury, so then to willingly take her to have a little hole shot through the body we created for her is hard to do. I do remember back when I had mine done and how excited I was and how grown-up I felt so that tempers the pain I felt watching her have it done. It also didn't help that I had called a professional piercing business and the guy scared me to death almost to the point of having Brittany wait longer when he told me that Idaho State law says you have to be 14 to have it done with the autoclave unit they have which is medically sterilized. He told me that hepatitis is spread through ear piercing etc... anyway it is over now and I am happy with how it turned out and so is Brittany. Another milestone, another victory!
Before...Here are the earrings Brittany picked out! They are gold stars with a diamond in the center.
This is the actual moment that the gun pierced her ear. I was holding her hands and they got all cold and clammy. She said it hurt. I videoed the second ear and it was cute because she didn't wince as much but she said, "that one hurt a bit more," all the while smiling of course! For the next couple hours she said each ear alternated between feeling good and then burning/hurting.
After...The happy girl, she's doing a very good job of keeping the ear antiseptic on them twice a day and turning them with clean hands. Six weeks of healing now....

What a weekend

We celebrated Brittany's 11th birthday on Wednesday. We made popcorn balls for her class of 30 and also for her soccer team, yes that amounts to eight batches of popcorn and a quadruple recipe of yummy gooey sauce!!! I'm either crazy or I love my children :) Then we had the family over for presents, ice cream and cake. (She requested a sports jersey)

Saturday we got up at 5:30 am to get ready to go to Grand View (by Boise) to go to Wyatt's Grandma's 90th birthday party. She has eight children and there are over 60 grandchildren and everyone but 2 were there, quite an amazing feat! It was an awesome party So many marriages and babies have come into the family since the last big shin dig so it was great to finally meet everyone and catch up with all the ones we knew. Once we were ready, we just woke the children up to use the bathroom and put them into the car in their PJ's, the hope was that they would continue their slumber but no that was not to be the happy ending to this mother's careful planning, they were all so excited that only Parker fell back asleep and that was not until an hour before we got there. (Disclaimer: Well truth being told, Savanna slept but that's what babies do). We had breakfast and got ready, hair and all in the car!

Here are the 2 sets of triplets. Mason, Parker and Jarrett (exactly 3 months between the last 2) and Savanna, Oakley and Cole (2 weeks between the 1st 2 and 2 months between the next)!

Lastly but not least, we sent Daddy home with his Daddy and all the children and I headed to Randy's home to see his wonderful wife Heidi and their cutie Tyson and baby girl-to-be. We had a fun day spending time together for Labor Day.

Family Outing

We decided to drive to Mesa Falls for the day since Wyatt needed parts from Rexburg so we went the long way...we packed a picnic lunch, went to the waterfall and then stopped at Warm River to throw the fishing poles in before heading home. It was fun.

Summer Fun

Have you ever ridden a bull? Neither have I but Brittany and Alex thought they would try it out! Abigail just spun around on the bottom, I would definitely get sick. Our friends have a fire pond that is right out at the edge of our potato field and they invited us to go swimming. It was very warm on the top 2 ft. since there is no water flowing in or out. We have been 2 more times since. I even got in for an hour while Savanna was napping and it was so much fun to be me!

Back to School

Brittany is in the 5th grade this year, it's her last year in elementary school. It's off to middle school next year.... Yikes!
Alex is in 3rd grade and Abigail is in 1st grade. This is the only year that they'll be in the same school together, what a joy this will be!

2009 Reunion

We just got back from California to our annual Pryor family reunion. Monday late afternoon we left and made it to Battle Mountain, NV. Tuesday we made it to the San Mateo Memorial Park and camped in a beautiful redwood forest 20 minutes from the beach. EmmaLee (Scott's wife) grew up in this area so she and Scott planned this reunion and did a fabulous job. It was so much fun and definitely worth the drive!!! We had great food, great company and great activities. EmmaLee gathered recipes from everyone and spent so much of her time in our behalf creating a family cookbook and even included the recipes from her family when they did the same thing, I've been making a few and they are sooo fun and I get to think about each of you when I make your recipe :) Thank you!
Scott made a treasure hunt with a real pirates chest and real pirate booty, Dad and Mom planned a fun FHE and the family talent show was a real "treaure."
We went to the beach each day and played in the ocean, searched all the tide pools for sea life, enjoyed the sun and got sand where sand shouldn't be! Lucky for us the campground had hot showers to get rid of it and the salt water.
I love taking turns feeding our clan, it's fun to be the cook and fun to eat others' cooking :)
Heidi took our first official family picture with Savanna at the beach and did a great job. Thanks Heidi.
On Saturday, Wyatt and I went to Hailey's home (less than an hour away) to attend the blessing of Cole and the children spent more time swimming in her in-laws pool, we went to an awesome frozen yogurt place called yogurtland and enjoyed seeing their home for the first time. Paris rode home with us Sunday and we stayed the night in Reno at Circus Circus which is always interesting and fun, then we got home late Monday night.
What a fun week this was for our family. Looking forward to next year (it's our turn to plan it send me your good idea's!).

Painted Toenails

Brittany was so cute to paint Abigails, hers, and my toenails patriotic. She did a great job and in fact mine are still painted.
Grandma Penfold always gets matching outfits for all the grandkids for the fourth. Don't they all look so cute?
Here we all are, I even got Wyatt to wear shorts!
Watching the parade.

I am finally getting around to writing about the 4th of July! We went to Victor to the parade. I think the children's favorite is the candy that is thrown. There is a craft fair in the park afterwards that we wandered through and then we got lunch at a deli that had a big blown up jumping house, sumo wrestling, a dunk tank, and waterballoons so we played in all of those then went to Grandma and Grandpa Penfold's for a BBQ dinner. And to end the day you can guess what we did of course...fireworks! We watched the city's display and went home very late with very tired children since it doesn't get dark for so long. It was a great day!

Mom's Surgery

Well as I mentioned in the previous blog, we went to Utah for Dr. appts. and on Father's Day (Sunday) Wyatt left Savanna and I at my Mom's and took everyone else back home so I could stay and help her the first part of the week that Dad went back to work. She had a total knee replacement surgery. I appreciate Wyatt so much for wanting to have "special time" with our children, it was pretty hard to say bye with lots of tears from all the children but it was a really enjoyable time to get to know Savanna better just the two of us! I even got to go out for a fun evening with my sister to a movie and dinner at Zupas, we decided that we needed to do it more often! This is Mom "laid up" enjoying the baby.
Savanna at 2 1/2 months, she's a cookie cutter of all our children.
Here is Grandpa Pryor with Savanna, we know where those beautiful blue eyes come from!

Penfold's in "High School Musical"

This is the famous cafeteria from High School Musical, we have seen all three movies and my children all love it. While we were in Utah for Alex and Wyatt's doctor appointments I took my sister and her children and mine to East High to see where the movie scenes were filmed. If we go to St. George again we'll have to go to the resort the 2nd movie was filmed at!
Here is Sharpay's locker!
This is the stage where all the theater tryouts etc.. are. The children had to go out into the auditorium to sit where Mrs. Darbus had tryouts.
This is East High School, here is the sketched concrete that shows at the beginning of the movie. The children thought it was soooo hot, it's a big school so they were a little tired after we'd walked around campus.
Sharpay's pink parking spot is almost all there. :)

A big blog

I got on the computer and realized it's been awhile since I've updated everyone on our family's life. There is a lot to tell! I can't believe a month of summer vacation is already finished. I will post some of the last of school and post another blog of our first month of summer later.
Alex's 2nd grade class performed "Peter Cottontail" he was so excited for me to come to see what they had been working on for so long at school!
Abigail made this flower in Kindergarten and I just love how cheery and happy it is, it's still hanging up. It rained for nearly a month here and this flower made the days brighter! It's almost as big as she is. :)
Brittany made this pop-up book in 4th grade this year and she wrote the story all by herself, I loved it so I took these pictures so she could "read" it to all of you and you can all enjoy it too! She is so creative and does well in art!







Well we finished up the baseball season with games every night of the week between the three children (yes Alex played too but I never got a picture of him).
Here is Abigail ready to bat, and her throwing the ball. What a cutie!
Brittany on base! This was a regular sight, she enjoys ball, does really well and even got invited to try out for the all-stars team but you have to travel to places as far as Bear Lake for games...no thank you, we'll get to that in H.S.
Hitting the ball is the best part of baseball in my opinion, go Brittany! I got to watch almost all their games from the inside of the car with Savanna- the cold, rain and wind didn't agree with her. She's already logged more time at ball games in her short life than most!
The end of school music program, here is Alex and his grade singing "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas. He wanted to keep his ribbon he had so much fun.

Here is Brittany playing the recorder. They really sounded great, their teacher had accompaniment for their song which made it very fun!