Michael the Mountain Man

Oh, how innocent and cute.

A little tired after living off the land and wrestling bear.

Always ready to defend himself.

A mountian man came to his school. Michael loved it. They then had a day when they could dress up as a native American or a mountain man.

Putting a new toy together.

A remote R2-D2. It is alot of fun to play with.

Michael Is Ten

Actually, he has been ten for over a month. For his birthday, he had some friends over for donuts, ice cream sandwiches, and pizza. He loved picking out his dounuts, all 12 of them for 4 kids.

London was Awesome

Our trip to London was fabulous!

We were able to visit all the major sites via bus the first day.

The second day the kids and Kirk went ice skating in the moat at the Tower of London! We saw the crown jewels and did the tour of the Tower. We took a quick trip to Harrods and saw ridiculous items like a $800,000 watch!

We visited several museums while we were there (Art museums) - we spent an entire day at The British National Gallery, and then another day at both the Tate and the Tate Modern. We saw some amazing things! Too bad they won't let you take pictures so we can't really share.

We took a trip out of town and toured Windsor Castle, Stone Henge and Bath, where the ancient roman baths are located. It was super cool!

On New Years it just all got ridiculously awesome. A guy Kirk knew on his mission set us up at the best seats to the best fireworks show in the world. We were on the Thames, right across from Big Ben (on the 150th anniversary of Big Ben as well!) standing almost right underneath the London Eye while crazy fireworks (millions of dollars of fireworks) were being shot off left and right all around us. It was almost insane that they let anyone stand there at all. It was just awesome!

We took the tube everywhere - one day we took it to Camden Lock, shopped around in the little stalls and on the streets and then Kirk went looking for a Banksy and found one. That was a highlight of the trip for us all!

One day we spent going to both Wicked and Les Miserable and eating in London's China Town.

We also spent some time eating street food, at a chip shop, pubs and managed to even catch some rides at a London Street Carnival.

We could not have had a better trip if we had planned it all out in advance!

Ashley's 12th Birthday Party

Her birthday tree. We have never had a birthday tree, but the girls thought it was a fun idea. It was upatairs by their rooms.

Her friends decorated her cake. Cute.

But they weren't finished....

The finished product. Yes, there is cake under there. Actually, it didn't taste too bad, until you bit into the fruit snacks that were on top.

Ashley loves being 12, especially because she is out of primary and into Young Women. I think there are 15 beehives in our ward. She said that their classroom was too small on Sunday, so they moved them into a bigger room, and they still bearly fit. She is enjoying the violin, even when she goes at 7:70am on Mondays.

Jessica is now 14!!!

Jessica's bithday party. I baked the cake , but let her friends decorate it. It was a lot of fun. Her friends got a kick putting anything on it they wanted to.

Ashley and Jessica had their party together. They each took turns with their friends to decorate their birthday tree.

I finally downloaded pictures from my camera, all 556 of them. So hopefully over the next week or two I will be putting some of them on the blog. Some of these pictures I took, a lot of them the kids took.

We had a fantastic Christmas. Overall, it was relaxing and we had a lot of mornings we slept in. Eric was off work the whole time the kids were home and that was a lot of fun. I didn't make too many chocolates this year. Which meant we didn't gain as much weight this year as last year.

Our family goal this year is to be healthier as a family. I should say that this is not the kids goal, just Eric and mine. So we are having everyone get up at 5:30 each moning to excercise. We are also getting rid of a lot of the treats and snacks and actually I am cooking much smaller dishes for dinner. Instead of making dinner in a 9 by 13 pan I am making it in a 9 by 9 and adding fruits and vegtables. We are hoping that this last longer than a few weeks. If we could keep it up for a whole year, we would be in such great shape.