What Happened to November?

Wow - November flew by! We had our first real snow of the year, just enough for the kids to spend 15 minutes getting out all of the hats, gloves, boots, coats, and scarves, then go outside for 10 minutes, come in side take it all off and say that they are ready for hot chocolate.
Jake completed his Wolf Badge this month in Scouts, we had to do a lot of "home school" scouts because football conflicted with scouts every week, but Jake is enjoying it. Hopefully we can keep his enthusiasm up for 8 more years.

This is Kaylen at her class Thanksgiving program, she was a cute little pilgrim!

The kids ran the annual turkey trot at school and did grea, I only got a good picture of Reagan and her "photo finish." She ended up taking 3rd, she's a little speedster. Kaylen got 6th and Jake got 10th.

Our Spooky Crew!

Halloween was great this year - I think it should be on Saturday every year! The weather was nice, so the kids didn't have to cover up their costumes with big coats and gloves. Reagan, Jake and Kaylen trick-or-treated for 2 1/2 hours - it wore me out. Jordan and Amber came over and had dinner with us too, it is so nice to have them close by. We were all exhausted on Sunday, but it was worth it!

Ryan figured trick-or-treating out very quickly. It was cute to watch him running as fast as he could to keep up with the other kids. He learned how to "growl" which made him all the more cute in his costume.

Jake was Harry Potter, and he looked very convincing with his hair dyed black. He tied for his class contest of best costume. He is pretty in to "Harry Potter" right now as he just finished the 4th book.

Nate and Kaylen were our Star Wars crew, I had suggested that everyone be different Star Wars characters, but these 2 were the only ones who stuck with the theme. Nate wanted to be Mace Windo and Kaylen was Queen Padame (for those of you who don't know who they are "Wookipedia.com" is very informative).

Reagan was a trooper, we had planned on making an "Alien Abduction" costume, and the day of her school party could not get it to work. Since we were 15 minutes late for school already, we gave up and she wore my Grandma's old black cape and black hat to school. On Saturday, she was looking through my closet and found my old black prom dress, which actually made a very good "dead bride" costume. Who knew that dress would come in handy 15 years later!

Reagan's New Look

We finally took Reagan to the eye doctor after she could no longer read the time on the microwave clock for me (because I usually cannot read it). Sure enough she needed glasses. She also decided to get her hair cut short. She looks very cute - and very grown up! She is a huge help to me at our house, and a very good big sister!

September Wrap-Up

Good thing I am wraping up September in the middle of October! September was a fun month - it flew by with all of the kids games and practices and Mike's 4 trips. We had on average 12 games or practices a week! It was hectic at times, and what was the hardest for me was not being able to have decent family dinners, but it was very fun to watch them all. They each love playing and want to play soccer and football again, so I am sure we will do this all over again in the Spring. The silver lining was how beautiful the weather was - it made sitting at all of the games very enjoyable. I am looking forward to a little break in November and December - funny that December can actually be looked at as a "down" month.

Nate and Ryan being silly!

I had a great birthday, Mike was able to get home early from Vermont, and he brought me flowers, balloons, and a yummy cake. The best part was that it rained so hard all of the kids practices were cancelled for the night, so we could just be at home - that was the best gift ever.

Kristin made me a yummy cake the night before my birthday and Jordan and Amber came up to her house. It was fun, Ryan and Adam were little partners in crime as they figured out how to get all of the chocolate chips off the top of the cake!

This was our own little "pumkin patch" we grew in the back yard. Thanks to the gardening class I took at our Stake, we were able to finally kill off the squash bugs - hooray! We got a lot of mini pumpkins and 9 big pumkins. My favorite part of the garden was the strawberries, they were awesome, it was nice to have fresh strawberries every day. Ryan especially loved them.

Reagan had a soccer game in Hyrum one Saturday, so we took the chance to drive around USU, visit Mindy, get some Bluebird chocolates, and of course get some Aggie Ice Cream. I had forgotten how yummy it is, Ryan obviously loved it and couldn't even put his down for the picture. I love Logan! Every time I am there it brings back so many good memories, and the drive through Sardine Canyon is always spectacular to me!

Cascade Springs

For Labor Day we drove up to American Fork Canyon to Cascade Springs with Kristin, Adam and our friends the Hoyals. It was obviously not a very original idea, because it was very crowded, but it was beautiful nonetheless. It is always fun to go up the canyon and enjoy the sights and smells of the mountains. Ryan takes after his Dad and brothers and loves to throw anything he can get his hands on. I love the little tuff of hair that he gets from sitting in his carseat.

This is Nate and his friend Danny being silly. They thought they were pretty funny, they would put their hands on their head and just start giggling.

OK, this picture is pretty randon, I took it at Adam's birthday party, but it is a typical "Ryan Stance" with his hand down his pants and his finger in his mouth. You can also see his little tan line - he got really brown this summer!

Preschool, Here I Come!

Nate's first day of preschool was a couple of weeks ago (I am a little late). He is going to preschool at the "Busy Bee's Preschool" at my friend Mandy's house. He had been anticipating it for so long, when it came time for him to leave he ran out the door and ran down the street before I could even get a picture. He loves feeling like a "big boy" and does his best to keep up with the rest of the kids.

Oh yeah, the black eye is a result of a "bowling" injury inflicted by himself while playing the Wii. He threw the ball (the remote) so hard he hit himself in the eye - it was kind of funny.

Who's That Boy???

Nate officially has a "buzzed" hair cut, not by my choosing. While driving around in the car last Friday (which we seem to do a lot of) he got bored and happened to find some scissors. He cut a big chunk right out of the front of his hair. When I asked him why in the world he would do that, he told me he just wanted to know what it would feel like - fair enough. I think Mike was secretly elated, because he has wanted to chop his hair off for years, and I would never let him. Nate's sticky-up crazy hair is just a part of him, it has been that way since he was a baby. He does look cute and it has been nice not to have to gel it and blow dry it down, (not like I did that all that often).

Nate did have his first soccer game on Saturday, he scored 3 goals and was absolutely loving it! This was my favorite goal- his shoe was flying off and everything. His team won by a lot, mainly because the other team had several girls that seemed more interested in playing with each other's hair, and 2 boys who thought it was fun to leave the playing field and go climb the chain link fence. It was cute.

Jake also had his first football game. He had a great time, and his team beat their big rivals "Lone Peak" so I guess that is a good start to the season, now if only the Aggies could beat Utah to start off their season:)

First Day of School

Here we are back in the swing of things. The kids were all so excited for school!

Yes, Kaylen has a broken arm!! She was playing on some monkeybars last week and they were wet, she slid right off. It didn't look broken so I waited a whole day before deciding to take her in to the doctor. She has a buckle break in both bones and will have to wear a cast for 4 weeks, it hasn't slowed her down, she is still playing soccer and running around and I think she actually loves the extra attention. It does make eating and writing a bit hard, however. We did go bowling the day after she broke it, before I took her to the doctor. She actually had the highest score in her group, even with a broken arm!

Here we are back in the swing of things. The kids were all so excited for school!

Bye-Bye Summer

To round up the end of summer, Reagan and her 2 friends decided to have a "Little League Soccer Camp." I was really impressed at their initiative. They made fliers and took them around their nieghborhoods and bought Otter Pops and planned fun drills. They had about 17 kids show up, and they charged $2 a child. They are already making plans for next years camp!

I think Reagan's 4 year old group wanted to play football more than soccer.

Ryan is so observant, he just likes to jump in and do whatever he sees the older kids doing.

Last Saturday we went and watched Jordan and Amber participate in the Half Iron Man race, it was a 1.5 mile swim, 56 mile Bike ride and 13 mile run - torture I would think, but they loved it and did awesome despite the horrible wind and weather.

I think Adam won this wrestling match!

Also, on that Saturday Jake had his first official football scrimmage, he is loving it despite practices every night, he is playing "bear crawler" which is a defensive postion that tries to get through the line and take down the quarterback.

Kaylen's Soccer Debut

We have just been busy wrapping up summer, we are trying to cram in all the things that we still have left to do on the kids summer "BINGO" charts. They have done some fun things this summer. Kaylen had her first soccer game yesterday and it was a riot. She is really into this, more than I ever thought she would be. I couldn't find her before her game and I looked outside and she was running up and down the backyard practicing kicking. She was pretty aggressive and tough at her game as well. One funny saying for the week, Nate fell and scraped his arm and a few minutes later Jake fell really hard and got pretty scraped up on his leg. Nate said "I wish Jesus made us tough so we never got hurt." It was cute.

I love the intensityKaylen had on her face - I wish she was that motivated when she is asked to clean her room!

The Shepherd Family Reunion

The end of July we had the annual Shepherd family reunion thanks to Rick, Paula, and Dan. We went up to Crystal Hot Springs and got to enjoy swimming in the Hot Springs, relaxing and watching Rick and Paula do all of the delicious cooking. Paula did such a good job she might have to be the official dutch oven chef every year. Our favorite part (or maybe Jim's) was camping only feet away from a railroad track - we were awakened several times during the night by a train whistle and the ground shaking. Fun stuff. We were also awakened in the middle of the night by Nate throwing up. There are a few "sure things" in our lives and one of those is that one of our children will throw up in the night while we camp - lucky us. It was so dark, we just kind of scooted everyone out of the way and went back to sleep. In the morning Nate woke up with his hair straight up, throw up on his shirt, and dried blood from a bloody nose in the night (that is another sure thing in our family), he looked over at the throw up and yelled "Eww Kaylen, that's gross!" He didn't even remember throwing up - he thought it was Kaylen. It was pretty funny.

This was my favorite picture - it is our neice Baylie

Another funy story from the month - Mike and I were just about to go to bed when we heard what we thought was running water coming from the kitchen. I jumped out of bed flipped on the light to find Nate standing at the top of the stairs going to the bathroom through the railing!! I have to admit we were a little in awe at thenice waterfall we had coming from the second floor. We yelled at Nate, who was kind of startled, and asked him what he was doing. He said "just going to the bathroom" pulled up his pants and went back to bed. It made for a good laugh, but not a fun cleanup.