Our Latest Outing

We went out to Three Peaks for family night last week. It's like a campground/recreation area with a lot of cool rock formations to play on. Jason and I came up with the simplest food possible to bring for dinner -- cup of noodles, hot chocolate and graham crackers -- and we had fun, even though it was kinda cold.

Here's Josh whittling with his very own pocket knife.

Nat and Josh enjoying their noodles in the sunshine.
Missy was really happy once we managed to arrange her so that she could reach her food.

Mandie ate her first graham cracker!

Missy posed for pictures while I nursed the baby and everyone else went on a little hike.

Little did we know, whilst they were away, Dad and the kids had encountered rivers of hot lava! They were sooooo happy to see us when they got back!

Here's mandie all bundled up.

And Jess snuggling with my Jacket for warmth, before she spilled her hot chocolate on it.
And then we went home. The End!

Stellar Girl! (and then just some cute pics)

Natalie was nominated as the Stellar Student of the Month for her class last month! It's an award for the kids who "show exemplary character and make the school a better place to be." I'm so proud! She's not just a genius, she's a good person too!

Nat's doing really great in school this year, and we both really like her teacher. She expects a lot out of the kids, I love that. They have a program at their school called Reading Counts, where they read books with point values (depending on the difficulty of the book) and take quizzes on the computer about the book to earn points. Then they earn prizes as they get points, and they have a poster that shows how many points all the kids have. And whoooo you ask has the most points in the SCHOOL so far?? Our Natalie!

Okay, what else? I picked pictures from my latest uploaded batch and I just realized they're all of Manda! Heh heh.

Anyway, here's my two babies.

This is what Manda does when I try to read while nursing her. I thought this was so cute, trying to read . . . she thinks she's people!

And here she is with her cousin Alyssa, are they cute or what?

And this is Grandpa Anderson. She luuuuuvs him so much!

Random

Look what Josh drew yesterday, isn't it cute? It's a helicopter carrying a dinosaur into the snow-covered mountains.

I got a new potato peeler the other day, and today I used it for the first time. It was a beautiful experience.

Tonight for part of family night we made a little house for Sammy the cat. All the inside walls are carpeted. It's pretty great.

We finally found someone to come fix our pool heater! Woohoo!

Did you guys know that at Denny's on tuesday and saturday nights you get TWO free kids meals with every adult? We are so there!

And we'll finish off with a smile from Mandie.