Crazy September

So September came and went and Clark liked to joke that I was gone more days than I was home....while that is stretching the truth a little, I was gone most of the month.  I started the month by taking a trip to Boston/Maine/New Hampshire for my sister's 40th birthday:

 

Enjoying the ocean in Maine:



Navigating the Freedom Trail:

In Boston

Touring a light house in New Hampshire:

 Then the next week I headed to Denver to celebrate my mom's 65th birthday.  It was a great trip!

 Happy birthday Mom!

 After that trip to Denver, we took Jared into get surgery done on his face...He had to be put under since his incision was right by his eye, he did great and everything looks really good.

 The next week to celebrate our birthdays we took a trip to Canada for a few days.  It was a nice getaway.  Glacier National Park:

Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park

It has been a busy and really fun month....now I am ready for autumn and Halloween and Ryan's birthday!

Summer Wrap Up

The week before school started we were busy.  We decided to go to Rapid City one day.  It was a lot of fun.  Here is Ryan at Reptile Gardens:

 The kids at bear country:

Jared watching a fish at the fish hatchery in Spearfish:

 The next day we decided to take the kids backpacking.  Sarah was really good about helping Jared.  He looked so cute carrying his little backpack.  We didn't hike in too far, but it was still over a mile and Jared did really good and insisted on carrying his own clothes and bowl and spoon, and water.

 The next morning we hiked to this lake. The view was beautiful:

 Then it was back to school time.  Sarah on her first day of 2nd grade:

 Ryan on his first day of kindergarten.  He was so excited to go:

Denver

We were able to go to denver for two days last week.  We had so much fun playing with cousins. Here are all the kids together:

 Here is Jared going down the "super slide" as he calls it.

 Playing firefighter at the Children's museum

 Jared and the trains....his shirt is really wet because it was pouring rain outside and we had to run it, and everyone got soaked

 The next day we went to a fun park that had water fountains too.  Ryan loved running through these:

 Sarah with her brother and her cousin:

 Jared and Lauren basking in the sun..trying to dry off and get warm:

Brandon and Sarah climbing the spider web...just a little while after this picture was taken, they were playing and Sarah fell flat on her face and her two front teeth both popped out (they were a little loose), anyway we couldn't find either one of them, but she still got a visit from the tooth fairy.

Ryan holding Rosy the tarantula at the Butterfly pavillion

My one picture of Laramie:  Sarah found these out by the dog pen, and we had fun searching for them. We found about 4 of them:

When we left Denver we headed to Laramie for the rest of the week....I didn't get many pictures there, but we had a lot of fun going to the pool, flying kites, walking the dog, fishing and going to the carnival and parade. 

Jared's birthday trip

Jared turns three this week, and since he loves trains, we decided to go ride the 1880 train in S. Dakota and then take our bikes and ride part of the mickelson trail. What a fun day!

 Leaving Keystone, SD

 Our little train lover, Jared

 Watching them get the train ready to head back. 

 Jared riding his little bike on the Mickelson trail.  He did really well and rode about 2 miles and then he rode in the back of Clark's bike for the rest of the time.  The other kids rode about 9 miles.  They did a really good job.

 A tunnel along the way.  This trail was awesome.  Not too steep, nice and wide, and beautiful. 

Stopped in Spearfish Canyon on the way home.

Miss Sarah in Spearfish Canyon.

Sarah is 7!!!

My sweet girl turned seven yesterday. It is hard to believe that she is that old. She got some matching outfits for her and her american girll doll:

Here is the birthday girl. She was so excited this year:

This is a doll cradle that my grandpa made for me when I was little...well it got refinished and now it is Sarah's...Jared thinks otherwise :)

Here are a few more pictures of 2012 so far:

Ryan playing in the snow:

Jared ready to go and play....i think he is just at such a cute age:

We went cross country skiing a couple of weeks ago, we tried to put Jared in our backpack to ski, but he wanted to ski like the big kids and he did so good.

This last weekend we were able to go to Laramie and spent some time with my parents. On a sad note, we also found out that my mom's cancer is back. We should know more about her treatment this week. But we are so glad that we were able to visit:

Walking with Grammy:

and the kids with Grammy before church:

The end of the year

Here are a few Christmas/end of the year pictures in no particular order:

Sarah and her new American Girl doll:

Our impromptu navitity with thrown together costumes: Ryan is Joseph, Madison is Mary, Sarah is the angel, luke and jared are shepards not sure what grandma and eli are:

Ryan playing with his marble run:

Sarah and Ryan in front of the Christmas tree. #3 was being uncooperative.

Clark and Jared borrowed the neighbors tractor to move some snow:

Sarah and her grandma ice skating:

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we headed to Utah for a Stewart reunion. It was a lot of fun. My parents rented a big house for us all to stay it. The weather was great, we traveled like 1200 miles and we had maybe 1/4 mile of bad roads. All 21 of us were there, and we had so much fun playing games, hot tubbing, doing a ping pong tournament, and watching movies in the theater room. My sister was nice enough to watch the kids while we went to the temple, and again the next day she took them to the children't museum. We took hundreds of pictures, but here are just a few:

Here is Ryan at the park:

The lights at temple square: The kids first time to see them

Sarah and Jared having fun:

The view from the house (you can't tell from this picture, but you could see 3 temples for the house)