Zack's birthday

So Zack turned six today. This was the first year that his birthday was on Thanksgiving. He was born the day before Thanksgiving six years ago. I got to come home for the holiday though so was very glad. Zack was pretty lucky this year because he got two parties and two birthday cakes. Today I made a dinosaur cake, big surprise, right. I think it turned out really cute. Shon did most of the decorating. He loved it.
Spike JR, which he has wanted for a long time. We have a lot of dinos around our house.
Shark Park car track. All the kids loved this one.
Dino cake. Pretty cute if I do say so myself.
So on Monday, we had a little friends party. For this one he really wanted a lego cake. It was the easiest theme cake I have done.



Buzz wings. The boy loves to dress up.
Oh the anticipation.

Birthday/Thanksgiving Bingo. It was fun for a while, but the kids just wanted to eat the M-n-M's . We had a great time. I think he had a good birthday.

Life for the last few months...

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything. I have been a little anti blog lately, just one more thing I have to do. But I know that my sisters and mom and my in-laws love to see updates, so I am going to get back into it and start enjoying it again. Because there really was a time that I really liked blogging, but lately I have not really done things that I like and I have found life to be a little harder. So I am going to count my blessings everyday and make life a little less monotoneous. (I really don't know how to spell that word.)


So this first picture has a pretty funny story. I had gone shopping on Saturday morning and left Shon to get the boys ready for Football and Soccer games. I kind of lost track of time and knew that I was cutting it a little close when I left the store. When I got home, Shon was really grouchy and we both left in a big hurry, Shon taking Ty to his football game and Cam and I taking Zack to his soccer game (the last few games they had happened to land at the exact same time). I thought Shon was just mad because I had not come home earlier. Well, after the games and lunch, he told me what our little menace had done. Cam had climbed up onto the counter and had dumped the whole canister of cinnamon sugar all over the counter. Then he added left over hot chocolate from breakfast. So when Shon came upstairs to get everyone ready, this mess is what he found. He was less that thrilled, to say the least. We were still finding sugar for days.

One of my favorite things of fall, fresh apple pie. Shon's folks had picked all the apples from their tree and I got the fruit to preserve and use. Yummy!! I make a whole bunch of apple pie filling so I can enjoy it more many months!
One thing that we make very often in our house is smoothies. My kids love them and they are getting fruit in them. Much better for them then milkshakes, right? This is when Emily and her kids stayed with us for a week. So much fun.
Cam really enjoys smoothies too. It just isn't too fun to get them out of his shirts. Dang kid won't wear a bib.
A highlight we had was having my family here for a day or so. Everyone of my siblings were here, which hasn't happened for a really long time. Two brother in laws were missing, Bryce who belongs to Nat, and Jake, Emily's husband. It was great, just a very full house.
Shon's sister, Janae and her family came and visited a while ago. We did some hair, had pizza and make sugar cookies. Ty and Zack love it when Kelsey is here. No one can make them laugh like she can for some reason.
Another day of enjoying a bountiful harvest. Mary and I put up about 45 quarts of tomatoes that day.
Zack played soccer again this fall and loved it. I must admit that it isn't too fun for the parents with kids this age. The kids don't get it and they are mostly concerned with the treat that comes at the end of the game. But they have fun and that is what matters.
Ty played flag football this fall for the first time. He didn't really love soccer when he played in the spring so we decided to try football, which he loved!! He played wide receiver and we had a pretty good coach that taught him a lot. I think he wants to stick with it. It was fun. Shon actually took some video of some games, so when I figure out how to upload with that camera, I will post those.

I found this yummy recipe for zucchini muffins that was soooo good. My kids and husband will eat zucchini if it is disguised with chocolate. I frosted these with cream cheese frosting. Very yummy!! (Cam really loved the cupcakes, and he had that bib on for about 5 more seconds after I took the picture and then it was on the floor).

Halloween

We had a pretty fun Halloween. Ty and Zack wore their costumes for days before the big day so I had to wash them the night before Halloween. We had a party at Grandma and Grandpa Shuldberg's on Tuesday, which was really fun. The boys wore their costumes and Grandma had made a very spooky dinner for us all. I can't believe that I didn't get a picture of it. She had green goblin spaghetti, bat jello, pumpkin guts bread. My kids are a little picky with food and all the weird stuff kind of made them a little uneasy, but it was fun.


Amazing Superman and a partial Ironman.
Natali made these little amazing looking eyeballs. She used mini muffins and white chocolate. They looked cool.

Here are our carved pumpkins all lit up. Nat did the one on the left, I did the one in the middle and Shon did the one on the right, with Tyler's help.
The elementary school had a costume parade after lunch. Zack was already home from school so I took him back to walk with the afternoon kindergarteners. It is always so fun for the kids. Here is mister Ironman who wouldn't wear his coat, of course.
Superman looks a little cold, doesn't he? It was pretty chilly, but sunny.
So I didn't get any pictures of us trick or treating, but here we are at the ward trunk of treats. They did it at 5:00 so it was still light out, which was nice. The kids made a haul in about a half hour, so we headed home to go trick or treating in the neighborhood. Cam was in the stroller with me pushing. He actually got out at most of the houses. He has to do everything that his brothers do. Man they got a lot of candy. We were out for about an hour. They caught up with their friends and then were tired. We came home and started pigging out. Now I have put most of their candy away for rationing sake.

Baker Family Redneck Reunion

Last weekend was Shon's Baker Family Reunion. The Baker's are Shon's moms family. They have a camping reunion every year. These last two years we have borrowed a nice trailer from a wonderfully generous fellow, my friend Emily's dad, and it has made the camping sooo much more enjoyable.

This year the theme was Redneck. I must say I didn't embrace the idea as some of SHon's relatives did, but we tried. Shon's cousin Chad did amazing at being a Redneck.

This is the welcome rocks the boys and I made for our camp. We actually won for the best redneck welcome sign. It was fun.



There is always a lot of card playing at these reunions. The Baker's love to play and are very good!!
Cam snuggled right up on Grandma's lap by the fire one night and fell right to sleep. Doesn't she look to be in heaven. What is better than that?
Zack with cousin McKinlee. These two played a ton together. They share a mutual love of catching bugs of all sorts. Here they had made a little grasshopper "corral". They played with these bugs for hours.
Our attempt at looking like rednecks. I know not too great. Shon did a pretty good Larry the Cable Guy impression!!
Ty giving the pinata a whack!! THat is the trailer we borrowed right behind the pole. Soo nice.
Cameron even gave it a try and thought it was fun!!
Poor Ty got some battle wounds from our trip. Sunday while everyone was packing up and getting ready to go, the kids were riding there bikes. The place we stayed had a paved road in and a whole big parking lot for trailers and such. Lots of asphalt to ride on!!! The kids really loved it. Well, Tyler and one of his cousins crashed into eachother and both hit the pavement very hard. Tyler got mostly road rash, but Braxton just hit hard. He is only two, and he good a black eye and a big goose egg. He is okay, though, just looks really bad. It took a while to get Ty calmed down so we could doctor him up, but this is right after we got the bandaids on.
This is the next day when I took the band aids off. Pretty yucky. It is looking pretty good today though, no more oozing. He felt so bad about Braxton, just kept worrying about him. But when we told him he would be okay, he felt better. Kind of a scary ending to the fun weekend, but it was a great reunion!!

A fun summer...

We have had a pretty fun summer. It has actually kind of flown by. It has been stress full with Shon job change and things, but we have done some fun things. We have attended a few family reunions, actually less than we usually do. Made a few long trips, which were fun.

Shon had a conference for his work the third week in July in Boise. We stayed with Shon's sister Janae and it was so fun. They had just moved into a new house and it was fun to see. We went swimming while we were there in a really nice outside pool. It was over 100 degrees there so it was perfect to swim. The kids loved it!! They were so brave and jumped in a ton. Cameron even loved it.







We spent some time the next weekend with our friends Tom and Emily at her dad's cabin in Island Park. Man, it was fun. We rode 4-wheelers a ton. Some how I didn't get any pictures of us doing that. It was so incredibly nice and generous of Emily's dad to let us play with his toys and stay in his great cabin. It was a great weekend away.

We rode the 4-wheelers to Big Springs, which I have not been to since we were married 12 years ago. It is the start of a natural spring coming out of the mountain. There is a cabin there that a man built and a water wheel that he used for energy. Right under this bridge that we are on are HUGE fish. It is amazing how big these guys are. The kids loved seeing them. We fed them and some birds bread and it was so fun.

Checking out the huge fish. This is a much better view.

Hello...to all who might have missed me

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. Sorry to my sisters who are about the only ones who check this anyway. I just haven't felt like doing it lately. And somehow Cam has changes some setting so when I am on the internet, some pages are tiny and I can't even read them. That is why I haven't been commenting on peoples blogs because I can't see anything. I finally figured out how to tweek it a little, but it still isn't right. So here is our summer at a glance. (the pictures are chronologically backwards, sorry) This top picture is at the zoo. The boys love the zoo!!

Shon had a birthday. It was a fun one. He is now 34!!! WOW
Tyler played real baseball this summer. He was so excited. It was pitching machine. I have never watched one of those things working. Those balls come pretty darn fast at those kids, but Ty did so good. He loved it. I think that baseball is his favorite sport. Just wish that the season lasted more than a month in the summer.
Tyler had a birthday!! Big 7!! I can't believe how much he has grown up and matured. He is definitely amazing to me everyday. Man, the kid is smart and such a big helper. Cameron loves him and Ty helps me so much with him. Don't get me wrong, he still whines and complains and sometimes makes me want to strangle him. But he is kind and sweet most of the time!!


Ben and Heidi cam to visit in June when Bryan and Mary blessed Payton. It sure was fun. The boys had a blast all together. We did a lot of outside things. This is at a park where there is a pretty stream that goes through it. This tree limb goes all the way across to the other side. The boys where scared at first to climb on it, but soon lost their fear and loved it.
This is 7 of my parents 10 grand boys. Very cute, I think.

Our summer has been very busy. But we have had fun. It started out really stressfull because of a job change opportunity for Shon. It all turned out just fine. His job now is really good. I am so incredibly proud of him. I can't really explain in words my feeling of how grateful I am to have married such a hard working, dedicated man. He has worked his tail off for as long has I have known him, in school and work. And it has payed off. His new job is a very much deserved promotion and I know he will excell at it, as he has in all that he has done.