Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!!

(click HERE for some spooky entertainment)

Duluth

We finally made it up to Duluth to see Lake Superior and some of the sights. The weather was beautiful and the lake felt like the ocean. Here are some of the photos.

The lift bridge-amazing to watch it lift for the various sized ships passing through

The tour boat ride. Notice the sweettarts the kids have--nearly started a riot fighting over them later in the ride, but they sure enjoyed them :)

Grant braving the frigid water

Ty was eventually in up to his thighs--he's a fish

Garrett, too

Shayla playing on the boat in park point

Gooseberry Falls State Park was AMAZING!

Hiking at Gooseberry

The upper falls

Grant throwing rocks into the lake

Tyler teaching Miya how to throw rocks (as opposed to EAT rocks like she wanted to)

Tyler and I wondering why we thought sleeping with 5 kids in 1 hotel room was a good idea...

Lake Superior

Factoids for you: It is so deep you could put the empire state building in the lake it would all be below the surface.

The area of the lake is roughly the size of Indiana.

If you flooded North and South America with the water in Lake Superior it would cover the entire land mass with 1 foot of water.

Miya spent a lot of time in her stroller

Enjoying the view

On the boat tour

FEET! Notice Miya's painted toes :)

Although we had our moments, the kids were troopers and it was a great family-togetherness weekend.

Tyler used his creative-balancing skills to get this photo of all of us together.

Hopefully more posts to come!

kid funnies

Hello, neglected blog. Sometimes I wonder why I have a blog, just so I can feel guilty about not posting most likely :)

Just had to record a few of the funny things being said around here lately.

Grant: I know what "shoo fly" means.

Mom: Really, what does it mean?

Grant: It means you take a shoe and you squish a fly with it.

Garrett was talking about talents he has and said, "pretty much everything is a talent."

Shayla thought that was ridiculous and said, "Yeah, right, Garrett. My nose isn't a talent!"

Garrett shot back, "Well if you could wiggle it it would be."

One of the best things about having young kids is the constant free entertainment. Who needs TV? But if you need more of a laugh, check out this. Tyler and I went to see Brian Regan in Minneapolis lately and laughed so hard our faces hurt.

Hope to post more soon!

Grateful

I've been thinking a lot about gratitude lately. I have so much to be grateful for and sacrament meeting today was all about gratitude. Garrett has had a high fever for 9 days and today was his first without a fever. There is something about being sick (or worse, having someone you love sick) that makes me appreciate good health. On my mission everyone would always wish each other good health and I thought it was kind of funny. The older I get the less funny it is and the more I join in whole-heartedly wishing others good health. Saude!

I am grateful for good friends who have taken such good care of us this week and for family who have prayed to get Garrett better. I believe in the power of prayer. I believe in the power of gratitude, even for our trials. I just read this: "fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in EVERYTHING give thanks;" (d&c 98:1) I think that means we should even be thankful for our trials and sicknesses, for they have a hand in shaping us and teaching us. I'm pretty good at being thankful for trials AFTER they have passed, not in the middle of them :)

So for now I'm thankful that Garrett gets to go to his 1st day of kindergarten tomorrow morning. I thankful for my friend who watched Garrett this morning so I could take the sacrament. I'm thankful for those who gave rides to my kids, brought delicious food and called and gave moral support. I'm thankful for doctors who tried to figure out what was wrong with our little guy. And I'm wishing you all good health to last a lifetime!

1st day of school

Ty and Shayla excited for 4th and 2nd grade to start

Garrett has had a fever for 6 days now--poor guy. We can't figure out what is wrong and he is so sad he is missing the first week of Kindergarten. No fun.

Miya weighed in at 15 lbs. 8 oz. at her 9 month check, putting her at the 4th percentile. So, I'm trying to supplement (but she won't take a bottle). This lovely concoction is applesauce with a scoop of formula. Yum!

I have a whole summers worth of things to post about--we'll see how long it takes me to actually post it. Fun trips to Kansas, visit from the Brimhalls and Mom, Trip to Utah to visit family and the cabin and so much more. Hope you all are getting settled back into the the school year and fall, too.

Dates

Having 5 kids makes it pretty hard to spend one-on-one time with any of them. We've tried in the past to take them out on one-on-one dates but then things would get crazy and we'd stop doing them. This summer we scheduled a date just every other Saturday, Tyler and I trading off. We had to set some parameters so no one broke the bank. They get to pick some (free) activity (park, raquetball, swimming, etc.) followed by their choice of treat.

So far we have played raquetball followed by cheese curds and custard at Culver's with Grant, Garrett and Shayla. Ty decided to mix things up a bit and chose to go running at Willow River State Park followed by cheese curds and custard at Culver's. It has been such a great thing.

Grant and I played raquetball this past Saturday and then chatted over our lunch. I asked him how he liked sharing a room with Shayla, and he confided in me that he liked sharing with Shayla but he didn't like his bed. Who wouldda thought? Yes, it turns out that he really doesn't care for his blue sheets. He wants red, lots of red. And not just the blankets. He wants to paint the whole bed red. Now, would I ever have known this if I hadn't been out on a date with him? Probably not. Now I have to figure out how to break it to him that I'm not going to paint his bunk bed red, but that we could try and get him a red blanket for his bed.

Ask a question...

Driving home from church today I asked the kids what they learned about. All of them piped up with what they learned and I got a kick out of their responses:

Ty: I learned about Elijah
Shayla: I learned about the 5 loaves and 2 fishes
Garrett: I learned about sharing
Grant: I learned about coloring!!!!