Making Brownies

It was Savannah's turn for a sleep over at Grandma's house by herself. Syd was gone with Naomi and this gave us a perfect excuse for some personal one on one time. After a great night in the "big bed" without having to share it with her sister, we started our Saturday with breakfast and a few chores like making our beds and straightening up. Then we made brownies, personal pan size! We used my grandma Larsen's old individual pie pans for the brownie pans. Savannah did all of the work herself. She even poured all of the decorations on herself. She was so thoughtful to include making one for her sister because she wasn't there with us. After brownies we wrote Thanksgiving cards to her Great Grandparents serving a mission in Boston. She put extra thought and care into these cards. After the cards was a browsing through the most recent "Toys R Us" catalog. Savannah very carefully circled the items she thought she might like for Christmas, but before long just about everything in the catalog had a circle around it for someone. If not for herself it was for her sister or her brother or for someone else. We had an awesome day and I'm so glad Savannah was able to spend some time here with me. At the conclusion of the day Wayne and I took Tyler and family to SLC to Simply Sushi for Tyler's birthday. It as a great day all the way around.

On The Road Again!

Wayne and I have had a great week traveling with our kids Zach and Hayan. We've seen DC and New York City but we ended our trip here in Boston with Wayne's parents. They are here serving on a mission but they were given the day off to travel with us around the city and show us around. We've really enjoyed our time with them but now our travel and fun are coming to an end and it's time to head home. Life is good, we've seen lots of new places, we've had lots of memorable experiences that we will treasure a lifetime. We are grateful for them all!


We went to Dinner at a place called Mikes. Mom and Dad wanted to make sure Wayne enjoyed his visit so it started off with a great Lobster dinner!
You might have thought he couldn't do 2 whole lobsters but anyone who knows Wayne knows it was going to be NO PROBLEM! Loved it to the very last bite!

Family Pumpkin Carving - Caramel Apple making night

It is out of my nature to allow 8 pumpkins on my dining room table to be opened and carved - all inside, yuck and everything! So when we did exactly that tonight with Zach, Hayan, Tyler, Karie and the kids I was pretty proud of myself. I didn't have a melt down. I didn't even have to run for cover. I sat at the table with everyone as we all opened and scraped out our pumkins. We had a huge pile of seeds and goo in the middle of the plastic lined table. Then the real fun began! Check out all the budding artists! Who would have knew? Hayan said this was her first time to carve a pumpkin. I guess the people of South Korea haven't discovered this lovely messy delight. I don't remember carving many pumpkins as a kid and I sure don't remember having done them inside. I'm pretty sure they would have been done outside. We've had these cool patterns for the pumpkins since the kids were young. We've used them numerous times and each year they try a new pattern or different idea all together. I thought they all turned out really cool this year. In the row of pumpkins, it is Sydnee's on the far left, then Wayne's skeleton, Zach and Hayan's face and then Savannah and Tyler's smily pumpkin. You can't see Karie's very well. Her's is polka dots cut out of the pumpkin but there needed to be just a little more room around them if you wanted to light a candle in it. Karie painted the dots and it looked really cute. I was a little slow running around getting things for everyone so mine was incomplete. I will have to post a picture of mine later when I have it finished. In addition to pumpkin carving we started the night at Maddox to celebrate Tyler's birthday. Crazy, how quickly time flys. Afterwards, we all came here for pumpkins and we made the yummy caramel apples dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. So yummy. We missed Jocelyn and Brandon and Emma, they are in California with Brandon's brother and sister-in-law and family but we know we have to share. We will have to do the apple part of this evening agan. To make the evening even better, Little miss Savannnah and Syd wanted to spend the night with me and have a sleep over. It all went well until Syd had the start of an asthma episode so I had to take her home. Savannah wanted to stay and she is asleep as I write in her little pop up tent on the bedroom floor. I think I shall call it a night as well.

Sunday's are a Blessing!

Today we were able to spend the day with grandkids and family minus a few. We always miss those who aren't able to be with us but you are in our thoughts. Grandma and Grandpa Sexton are in Boston serving an LDS mission so this blog is a way for them to see pictures and feel like they were a part of things. Nash wore his Daddy's blessing outfit. He looked adorable. Little Emma is anxiously awaiting the day when Nash can get down on the floor with her and play.
We couldn't have ask for a more beautiful autumn day to spend outside. It was a great day. I'm so happy that my parents were able to make it. Mom was discharged from Alpine rehab today just in time to come and celebrate with us. I'm so glad that she has recovered well from her surgery and she continues to make progress every day.

Out of the Groove

It's been a long time since I've had some craft time or time where I didn't feel guilty for doing something I wanted to do. Oh sure, I've painted the bathroom recently, fell off the ladder and had to have Wayne help me finish my project ;-( Somehow that just wasn't what I was thinking of. I used to love to get out my paints and paint, or scrapbook or just create something for my house. Lately it feels like we are pulled a million directions once we get home from work and we just don't have the "spare" time we used to have. I know that's crazy since our kids are all out on their own now - I totally agree. In fact I probably feel worse about the whole thing simply because of that fact. Anyhow, I've had this frame sitting around waiting for me to finish filling it with pins and other things from our travels. I finally did it. I have pins from our world travels as well as money from all over. There are some Russian Rubels, Danish Krons, Euros, Pesos, Polynesian money, Cayman Island $ and Tahitti $. I thought it made for a cute display in this shaddow box. And better yet it gave me a place to put this little collection, and I felt like I was creating - simple but creating all the same. It actually felt good.

School clothes shopping with Grandma

Every year about this time I take Sydnee shopping for school clothes. It's typically been a one day activity either in Ogden or Logan, sometimes both. Lunch at the Olive Garden and always ends with a fashion show. This is the first year that I've taken both Sydnee and Savannah and the first year we've gone away for a couple of days. Jocelyn and Emma joined us as well so we truly had a girls day out. We stayed in Midway at the Worldmark resort. We had a great time. We had dinner at pizza hut and took the girls swimming at the pool afterwards. Joce and Emma just watched and it didn't take Emma's ears to cry "uncle" from all of the noise and so Joce took her back to the room. Sydnee is turning into quite the fish and she's loving swimming. She and Savannah are both in swim lessons and it shows they are both little water dogs! Savannah wanted to jump off the side of the pool for an hour straight. We shook things up by teaching her to dive. She did it perfectly without a single belly flop! Too bad Savannah swims like a rock! Oh well at least she has no fear. The skill will come as she continues to love the water. Tyler taught kids lessons at the pool so he's an excellent dad coach after lessons. We shopped all day on Wednesday. We hit every store at the outlet mall that had kids clothes. Savannah scored 3 new pairs of shoes, Sydnee got one pair but they are a nice supportive pair of new balance tennis shoes. We didn't find any casual shoes with any kind of arch support but I told her we'd keep looking so the shopping spree isn't quite over. I bought the girls each several new outfits and jeans etc to start school with. I bought little Emma a halloween costume. Not going to give that one away just yet but suffice it to say it's adorable!

Slow down, you move too fast! You've got to make the morning last!....

Nash was in no hurry to get here however with a lot of coaching and sweet talking and a little bit of pitocin he finally arrived safe and sound. Wayne was gone fishing with Bryant but as sooon as he got home and showered and changed we ran down to Karie and Tyler's so Wayne could meet his new grandson. He's such a cutie.