Continuation of my lengthy 8 month update!

For my dad's 80th birthday we all got together to celebrate and of course took pictures. Our last entire family pictures were taken at their 50th wedding anniversary which was almost 8 years ago. Some people were missing that lived far away, but we got a lot of the crew in the picture. It was fun to see everyone again. And it is nice to live closer so that we can actually be there for exciting events.

Mom & Dad

My Parents and Siblings

My Parents, Siblings and Spouses The Whole Clan

My Family...........

So my husband's brother got married a few weekends ago. It was nice to have another excuse to get out of town. He was married in SLC. I have been taking a photography class, however, I am still terrible at it. Someday I will get better, but I enjoyed taking random pictures while I was there.

Clarke & Jessica--the beautiful bride and groom
Arin, Nick (Loren's brothers) & Felicia
Corinne (Loren's sister) & Greg
Clarke & his mom
This is my favorite...Heather noticed that I was taking her picture so she thought she would give me a dirty look, well...I am getting her back by posting this on my blog. Sorry Heather, next time smile!

Loren & his brother Marc (Heather is his wife)

Poor Marin, she was sick this day. She ended up throwing up in the car on the way to Orem. Luckily we had a bucket in the car for just that exact occasion!


Evan was too cute, I couldn't pass it up. Corinne I will give you a copy--remind me!

Macy just lost one of her front teeth. She thinks it is great to put her "whole" finger in the space. I have seen the size of her permanent teeth in the x-ray and she is going to need a bigger space to fit those big teeth:). I guess she is more like me every day!

Corinne, Greg, Alayna and Evan

Arin and Stephanie--they got to come without their kids! We were sad to not get to see them, but I am sure they enjoyed seeing some of the old stomping grounds on their own!

There was a reception here this last weekend and Corinne and I got to do the cake. We had a blast and luckily it turned out great! Good job Corinne!

Well hopefully I will update this again before Halloween! Just kidding.

yes, I am back!

Ok, we really didn't fall off the face of the earth, I promise! There are just some things that take courage for me to face and for some reason blogging is one of them! We have had a lot of fun occasions in our extended families over the past little while. I won't bore you with all the details but I will share a few highlights!

Our family had the privilege of going to the Twin Falls temple open house. The kids were so excited to see what the inside of a temple looks like. I guess they were able to feel the special spirit there because they were very calm and quiet. It made me think about the future and that the next time I would be with one of my kids in the temple would be a wedding or mission. That kind of freaked me out. Luckily that is several years away!

I know it isn't appealing to look at Halloween stuff in February but... oh well. My sister-in-law Corinne and I enjoy decorating cakes. We have our own little business. Anyway we decorated 6 different cakes for the ward chili feed and trunk-or-treat as prizes for the best chili and best costumes. It was a lot of fun! However the same day we decorated a wedding cake, so it was a little crazy!

I think Marin will be a soccer player every year for Halloween! But as long as she is happy then that is all the matters! The kids had a blast and I of course tolerated halloween--not my favorite holiday ;)

The girls played soccer on the same team this last fall. Their dad was their coach which of course was the highlight for them.

We had to have the yearly pictures taken for the Chirstmas card! Here are some of my favorites:

Thanks Janelle for taking great pictures!

So, I was really pathetic and didn't take any pictures of Christmas at all! Not even a pj picture! What in the world was I thinking? Luckily my sister took some pictures at her house. We went to my parent's house after spending Christmas at home. We got to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday! It was quite a milestone for all of us because both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer and treated with chemo etc. this year. We were very lucky to have them both still here. My mom is now considered cancer free and my dad is in remission so we are very grateful for our many blessings this year. Anyway, we stopped at my sister's house and she had 2 of her married kids visiting as well. We had to laugh at the 3 mini vans in the driveway.

There was tons of snow so we went sledding with all the kids. The best part was Sydney sledding. Loren sent her down by herself and she loved it! She would get to the bottom and then roll over and say "again!" She went farther and faster than anyone.

The kids got to have a big sleep over in the basement. They loved it but it was hard to get everyone (especially my kids) to sleep!

Ok, time for dinner...I really hope that I get back to this soon and don't forget again for 7 months!