Family Pictures

We finally did it. We got our family pictures taken. It was so much fun because I have wanted to do this for such a long time. We have a friend who took them for us in September when the colors where changing on the mountain and so we got a lot of good ones. So many good ones that it was really hard to pick the ones to put on this blog. We will be sending more to everyone so that you can see them but for now here are a few to look at since we wont be able to send all 116 pictures that were taken.

Hunting 08

This season was lots of fun as always. I had 2 antelope tags, a deer tag, elk tag, and wished I had a bear tag. Antelope started on Aug. 15 and I had a few saturdays to try and stick one with a bow. I saw some good deer while out and was excited for September to start. We had a really moist spring and the results on the deer were apparent. About this same time, a forest fire started right in the heart of our elk area and the trails and roads in were cloded on and off. They didn't expect full containment until the snow was flying this fall. Some good stalks put me at full draw on some decent antleope, but no shots presented themselves.
Jason Goodrich and I backpacked into some wilderness area that looked good on a map. To no avail there just wasn't the elk sign we expected and not a bugle to be heard. We did see two different sets of sows and cubs. Only the second time, as the sow came charging in to our cow calls to 20 yards did we have the bear spray out ready to get western. She ran off without incident. A couple more trips to the Bighorns still wasn't enough to overcome my streak of no elk.
Rifle season started and two antelope tags were filled, meanwhile the monster deer I was hoping for never showed his head and that tag went unfilled. Thus the end of hunting season and on to swim lessons with Eli. Maybe next year he will be the good luck I need to get into some elk. Until then more practice and 3d shoots with the bow. Maybe a new shooting partner (Sandra) to boot.

First Snow Day of the Year

So far when there should be snow we haven't really had any. Except for one day in October when we had a really good snow storm. Eli was so excited to get out and play in the snow that it was kind of hard to get him to come back inside. I was ready and so was Mckenna but I think Eli could have stayed out there all day. We went over to the park and made shapes in the snow and also made a trail with our feet that Eli was calling a road. We would act like cars and drive around in the roads chasing and crashing into each other. He also was having fun taking the snow off our car and throwing snowballs at me. It was fun but very cold! Good thing the kids were nice and bundled up!

CAT

Yesterday when I was trying to send all the pictures to everyone the biggest reason was because of the shirts I put the kids in. We have been given shirts that have CAT on them by a few of our friends and yesterday I thought it would be fun to put the kids in both their shirts and take a picture. (Poor kids!)

We aren't happy or anything that Keith has a good job there are we! (:

Favorite Things

I was looking at some of the pictures and saw that I had some really cute ones of the kids doing some of their favorite things. Great Grandma Wharton got Eli a rug with a town and roads on it for Christmas last year and he loves to play on it, ALL THE TIME! The other thing both of them like to do is take baths and once I got really cute pictures of them taking a bath I had to share them. Mckenna is always so happy, (except at night) and so I have pictures of her doing what she does best, smiling. Then Eli always asks Keith and I to have Mckenna come and sit next to him while he is watching cartoons and they both seem to really love being next to each other.

Halloween

Halloween this year was so much fun! We knew it would be since Eli is older now and could understand what was going on. It was nice of Heather's friend Kim to give Eli the dog costume and for Jaime to give us the bear costume for Mckenna. They looked so CUTE! At first I thought I was going to have to buy a new costume for Eli because the 3T dog costume didn't fit him in the torso. But with some help from the lady at the fabric store I got some fabric for 90 cents. Then with Judy's sewing magic the costume fit! When it was time to go and I got the costume on Eli, he was so funny and was acting just like a dog chasing his tail. He was going around in a circle saying, "Mom I have a tail!" and kept trying to grab it.

The best part though was taking Eli around to trick or treat. We went to our ward's Halloween party and what the kids say is, "Trunk or Treat!" Every one opens up their trunks and the kids go around to every car and get candy that way. We were working with Eli all week to teach him to say trick or treat and finally it was the moment of truth. We went to the first car and I asked him to say trick of treat and what came out was just a whisper. Our friend was nice and didn't make him say it again and gave him some candy in his pumpkin bucket. If only I would have had a camera for the look on his face when he saw the candy. He got so excited and from there on out it wasn't very hard to get him to say the words because he knew what he would get just by saying those three little words. He still didn't say it very loud but you could really tell he was having a good time.

Finally Doing It

So here it is my first blog. Keith and I have so many friends and family that blog that every time we would look at them all Keith would say to me is , "We should do a blog." He knew it would just be so much easier than us sending out emails to everyone. I kept putting it off though because I thought it would be a lot harder than it really was. And like he said I am so bad at keeping up to date with emails that I thought I would be really bad at keeping this blog up to date as well. But yesterday I tried to send an email that showed a lot of pictures of Eli and Mckenna and what they have been up to for the last six months and couldn't send it. I had about twenty pictures and so it was no surprise that my email couldn't handle them all. I was also finding it way too hard to pare them down. I liked all the ones I had picked! So then I had Keith try and help me and once again he told me that I should just do a blog. So finally I'm doing it!