Labor Day 2011

So I know I'm behind on blogging and you're all hoping for Halloween pictures, but I just realized that I never blogged about Labor Day, so let's get that out of the way first.

This year we were, as usual, up at our trailer for Labor Day weekend.  Which would have been perfect except for one thing...the opening game of the BSU football season.  We really didn't want to miss it, and thanks to my stud of a husband, no worries...he just rigged up an old dish to work out in the middle of nowhere...and he was pretty proud of himself, to say the least. :)  So was I.  He's pretty much amazing.

We made a lot of instant friends the night of the game.  Tim's brother and his wife, Tim's parents, my niece and her family, our family, and 2 other families that were camping there all sat around the t.v. and watched.  It was pretty fun!  And it was really great that BSU spanked Georgia!!  Go Broncos!

Jake was an awesome fan!  He cheered and cheered.  I had just gotten him this cool new BSU hat, which he wouldn't take off.  And every time someone said "Go...," he would reply, "Broncos."  And if you said, "Boise," he would say, "State."  Everyone was pretty impressed!  He's just so stinkin' cute!

Here's Jake trying out his cousin Hunter's pop gun.  He LOVED it!  He was pretty excited to get one for his birthday a few weeks later!

Our family went with my niece, Brittney's family and Tim's parents up to Dagger Falls.  I had never been before.  It was really pretty.  We all took picnics with us and spent a few hours there.

We found a place to walk down to the river, and let Molly fetch sticks.  She got worked really hard!  There was one time the stick went pretty far and she had to swim back against the current, and I think Tim was a little scared that she might not make it back, but I think she could have done that all day.

The kids had fun just being in nature--especially climbing up the steep hill.  Sydney was determined to make it back up the hard way, and she did.  Jake kept his sunglasses on pretty much the whole day. :)

Discovery Center w/ G-ma and Poppa

While my parents were in town, we went to the Discovery Center. Sydney had gotten a free family pass on her field trip a few months ago, and they let us use it for all of us that day. We had so much fun. Tim even got to come since it was his Friday off. Then afterward, we went to the park for an impromptu picnic of fried chicken. Pretty great day!

I think my dad could have stayed there all day. Right up his alley!

Little Jake. :)

Ryan.

I love this pic of Jake on my mom's lap!

Sydney raising the nails as Ryan is lying on the bed of nails

Brandon and I made an arch!

Ryan's picture from the green screen room.

My pic from the same room...could my tongue be any bigger??

Brandon decided to go headless for his picture.

Sydney blowing bubbles in the giant bubble exhibit.

Silly faces--G-ma is on the other side.

I think she could stare at herself all day long.

Sydney's turn on the pulley chair.

Jake and my mom...you can't have too many grandma pictures!

Sydney's turn on the bed of nails...she thought she was pretty brave!

More Jake and G-ma.

Like I said, this was his kind of place...

Sydney and Brandon making a tornado.

More bubbles...this is to show that, yes, Tim was there. :)

BSU Football Time!

Well, after a long wait, it's finally time for BSU football again! This is our 7th year as season ticket holders...Sydney was just a few months old when we first got them...time sure flies...

Here is a photo of me and my girl all blue and orange and ready for the first home game! She was super-excited for the Bronco tattoos!

I bought her these orange leggings as part of an outfit a month or two ago. I never imagined she would think to wear them with her BSU shirt for the game, but I'm SOOO glad she did! It was sweeeeet!

She had to make sure I got a picture of the side with the face tattoo. :)

The whole fam (minus Jake who was napping) ready to leave for the game. Actually, Ryan stayed home with Jake and Tim's parents, and we took the other two. It was an intense game, but lots of fun. Sydney got bored and whiny after about an hour, so I bought her some kettle corn. Once we got back in our seats with the kettle corn, she gave me a big smile and said, "This is the best football game ever!!!" Amazing what a little (or a lot of...) sugar can do for her. Tim suggested next time we just go by ourselves...he may be on to something...

Grasshoppers make great fish bait!

We went up to Grandjean over Labor Day Weekend for one last visit and to bring the trailer home. We went fishing at Lowman Ponds, but couldn't get any bites. Tim saw a grasshopper, and told one of the boys to catch it. On his hook it went, and grasshopper-baiting was born. Suddenly fish were being caught!

It was seriously the BEST entertainment watching Tim and Brandon trying to catch grasshoppers! Wally had a rake for them to use, which helped. They would stalk the little things, try to get close enough to strike, and hit them with the rake to stun them. They worked like a charm, though, and that reminds me--we still have trout in the freezer that need to be eaten!

Sydney wasn't too interested in fishing. Instead, she wanted to do what every little girl dreams of--catch frogs! I knew she had no chance of being overly-girly with 3 brothers... She caught like 30 or 40. It was crazy! She even shared some of them with her cousin, Hunter. They were pretty cute--for frogs.... They were only about an inch long each.

She needed somewhere to keep her growing collection, so she improvised and used her camp-chair sack. I'm guessing not many girls use their Disney princess camping chair for that use!

What good would a post be without a picture of Little Man?!? And yes, he's really that cute!

Fourth of July

For the Fourth of July, we went to the trailer and spent 5 days there. I'm pretty sure that's the longest I've ever been camping for. Thankfully there was a pool and shower. :)

We had a great time. Lots of other Brysons were there, plus our friends, the Lewises came up with their trailer for the weekend. It was great to have lots of other kids for our kids to play with. We rarely saw Ryan. He was always in the woods with Conner and Cullen shooting his BB gun. That kid has finally decided that maybe it won't be so bad to be a hunter someday. That makes Tim REAL happy. :)

On the 4th, we drove up to Stanley (my first trip there) to see Red Fish Lake and watch fireworks later that night. The lake was beautiful, despite all the mosquitoes, and we vowed to go back later this summer and spend a whole day there. The fireworks show was surprisingly good. They lasted over half an hour. We even convinced Uncle Kippy to come and watch them with us, nothing short of a miracle. Stanley fireworks on July 4th might have to be a new family tradition...

I decided to make a collage of each of the kids rather than post a gajillion pictures on here. These are some of my favs. For those of you who don't know (I'm talking to you, Brittany Nicole, haha), you can click on each collage from Blogger and it will make it full-screen so you can see it better.

First off is Brandon. He's trying to get enough nights in a tent for his camping merit badge, so he set one up and that was his home for the whole time we were there. It sure makes our trailer seem bigger with one less person! He had a Harry Potter book with him on this trip, so he hung out in his tent and read a lot, but he did come out to play occasionally.

And now for Ryan. I realized I didn't have quite as many photos to choose from for him, since he was always back in the woods with his BB gun... He did make three big memories on this trip though.

1: Accidentally falling into Bull Trout Lake while we were fishing--fully clothed (and it was quite chilly that morning...). Oh, that I had had the camera with me then! It was pretty hilarious! I'm glad he's a good swimmer!

2: Shooting his first bird.

3: Losing his first molar.

All in all, a very memorable trip for him!

Now for my girlie.

***Disclaimer: never-mind her hair...I DON"T do it when we're camping!***

She LOVES camping!!! Especially when there are a lot of people there! She especially enjoyed playing with Caylee and the Lewis's dog Bella. Our dog, Molly, is way too hyper to let you lay on her back, but Bella would just let Sydney climb all over her and was cool with that. Syd loved it! She also loved making her patriotic shirt with Desiree. Tim and I had gone on a 4-wheeler ride, and when we came back, Des had all this paint and sponges and shirts out and was being all crafty with all the kids. I sure wish I was a cool mom like that...maybe next year!

And now for Jakey. Tim and I were remembering the other day how hard it was to go camping with him last year. He wasn't walking yet, so you had to hold him like ALL THE TIME. This year he has done awesome, though. He and Hunter, his cousin, get along really well, and he sleeps awesome in his little crib. He wanted to shoot guns like the big boys, so he would find a stick, hold it up in front of his face, and pretend to shoot. It was so cute! He also really did good with the fireworks. I was afraid he would be too scared, but he seemed to like them.

Wahooz Pictures

O.K. As promised from an earlier post, here are pictures from our trip to Wahooz during Spring Break. We had a ton of fun on the go-karts. Brandon was the only kid tall enough to drive the fast ones by himself. Jake couldn't go on at all, and Sydney was just big enough to be my passenger. Ryan, his friend Kendrik, and his sister Kaytra were all big enough to drive the mini go-karts by themselves, but they were SO SLOW!!! Ryan kept trying to make a pass, but just couldn't get any speed. He had a good time, though.
My friend Annette bought each of my kids their own bag of cotton candy, and Jake was pretty much in heaven. While the older kids played laser tag with the dads, he was more than happy to have a seat and stuff his face! We also gave him a ride on a Tonka truck, which he wasn't too sure about. I think he would have liked it better if it didn't move.

Spring Break

Sometimes blogging is a good excuse to put off folding the laundry just a little longer...

So the kids' last day of school was last Thursday. Friday I made them do chores during the day a little, then we met Tim at Wahooz after work. He had some free tickets he had gotten that were about to expire, so we thought we'd better use them up. The kids had a blast!! And I actually got to drive a go-kart for probably the first time since high school. We always have a baby with us that I'm sitting on the sidelines with. But this time, some friends met us there and my one friend offered to watch Jake. It was pretty fun, and Sydney loved being my passenger. The kids also did laser tag, mini-golf, and arcades, and we ate crappy pizza there for dinner. But I sort-of like crappy pizza if I didn't have to make it, and I don't have to clean up after it. :) It was a fun night for the kids and a great way to start their Spring Break. I took pictures and will post soon...

This week I told the kids that I would take each one of them on a date during the day--during Jake's nap time. Yesterday was Sydney's day, and she chose to go see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie at the dollar theater. An hour and a half of sqeaky little chipmunk voices--what could be better?!? We had popcorn, Root Beer, and chewy Sweet-Tarts (love them!!!). She thought she was pretty cool and definitely hogged the popcorn. So fun to have a little one-on-one time with her and make her feel special!

Today was Brandon's turn, and he chose to go out to lunch at Olive Garden, which was definitely more than o.k. with me! I took the opportunity to teach him a little about how to treat a lady on a date. When we got there I waited til he opened the door for me--it took him a few minutes to catch on. Haha! But then on the way out, he didn't even need a reminder and grabbed the door for me. So cute! Anyways, we stuffed our faces with as many breadsticks as we could stand, then decided to go even further and order dessert. We tried the little Italian doughnuts with chocolate dipping sauce---HEAVEN!!! The only down-side is that now we feel a little sick.

Tomorrow is Ryan's turn, and he wants to go eat lunch at Golden Corral--his tastes obviously aren't quite as refined as Brandon's yet. He's totally excited, though, and it will be awesome to spend a little personal time with my Ry-Ry.

Chirstmas (better late than never...)

So I know I wrote all about making Christmas cookies with my girlie, but I didn't ever put up the pictures, so here are a few. I can sometimes be anal and bossy about how the cookies look and what type of sprinkles need to be used, but every now and then I remember to be the "fun mom" and I relax (I'm working on it, o.k.!). So Santa got some Christmas cookies AND some Valentine's Day cookies. It was so much fun to just have a little Mommy/Daughter time. I love that girl!See how happy she is to have full control of the sprinkles?!?

Here, you can see some of the fruits of our labors. Not that this is the place to brag, but dang, I make amazing sugar cookies! Those of you that have had the pleasure of tasting them know what I'm talking about! Too bad I ate so many...now I have to be more careful and watch the sweets for a while. :(

All my kiddos in their new Christmas Eve jammies waiting upstairs to start our Christmas eve movie, Home Alone. I just love jammie pictures!

One of the hit toys in their stockings: squishy worm-thingys that have flashing different colored lights that go off and on. They're pretty cool!

Sydney Christmas morning with one of many presents: a magnetic doll set--like paper dolls, but without the ripped paper the next day!

All Ryan wanted was a WII game called Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games. I hope it's as cool as he's been imagining!

Brandon also had video games on the mind. His request: Madden 2010 football.

Jake just wanted to finally be able to rip open some presents without getting in trouble. He was much better at opening Christmas gifts than he was at birthday gifts. Must be all that practice he got in the weeks leading up...let's just say that I had a lot of re-wrapping that took place.

The usual family Christmas morning picture. This year I was smart and put on some make-up first. :) It was a great Christmas. We love to always be in our own house and make our own memories. Tim's parents came over for a nice ham dinner around 1 pm and the kids loved showing off their stuff. They all have plenty to keep themselves busy now!