School pics 2013

We never buy school pics. I kind of refuse.  Here is Spencer and Aubrey this year. 
 

 

Veteran's day!

So the night before Veteran's day...I was like "Hey...let's get out of the city and do something fun!" This was around 9 o'clock.  I think in the past my last minute lack of planning would have been shot down.  But my AMAZING husband jumped on board and we decided on a fishing trip...Payson AZ to be exact.  Jake got up early and packed the car and planned the food and made my idea a reality!!! 

We really had a magical day.  The drive was scenic and beautiful.  The creek or river was perfect.  Lucy kind of slept and all in all we had a wonderful day together as a family. 

The kids went exploring and found a huge rock. 

Lucy likes to feel big like the older kids! 

The kids were shocked to find big leaves.  We don't have any at our house.

 

We moved location 3 times on our trip.  We went to a canal type bridge and actually Jake threw the line in and within just a few minutes he felt a bite.  Weston caught the fish...but I didn't snap a pic until we were letting it go.  We thought for sure we would catch plenty of fish.  We could literally see 3 or 4 swimming around...never to bite on our line again.  Boo 

We went and got lunch...then ended up at a park/lake that was going to be stocked soon.  I guess it wasn't stocked yet...cause we never got a fish here.  Although...like before, we got our one and only bite within minutes of casting in the rod; only to never have another bite in the following hours.  We came home empty handed.

If you look really far....far in the background there was a flag flying in the breeze.  I just sat on this park bench and felt so much gratitude for our wonderful Country that we live in. I also felt a little bit of sadness. I don't talk politics much...hardly ever.  I just felt humbled and concern for freedoms.  At this point in time I don't think America is the America that our founding fathers and great grandpa's and grandpa's fought for. We have freedoms...we do... and I am grateful for them...but we are losing so many things that make America great.  We are losing MORALITY...We are giving up freedoms because of this. I pray that our children will have the same freedoms we have...and we won't continue to give them up. 

I want this kiddos to ALWAYS have the right to live their religion...raise their families how they want...and to be Happy!!! I want them to be truly free.

Halloween part one.

Honestly there are probably too many parties for Halloween/Harvest...but we are having fun at them this year.  It started way early this year with school parties Friday.  Here is Aubrey and her silly teacher at Mercado.  Montessori does this awesome thing where the 3rd grade and up are in charge of the Mercado and plan their separate booths...they spend the money and have business plans and get ready for the whole thing during school. Then they earn "fake money" and the younger kids are all given 20 fake dollars and Friday at the Mercado everyone gets to spend their money and enjoy.  I loved seeing Aubrey take her job seriously and the creativity and fun was impressive. I also loved seeing kids running the booths instead of Moms and Dads being in charge and then paying up the wazoo to go and have their kids get spoiled.  I just loved the whole thing.  Anyway, here is a pic of Spencer and Noah enjoying the Mercado.

 

 

Weston goes to GAA still and here he is in the parade at school. 

He sure makes a great cop!Friday night we went GAA's Harvest Social.  Jake was the DJ and so we all look forward to going. I was running late but got there just in time to enter Lucy in the Costume Contest with the other kids.  She and our family won "The Cutest" costume.  I actually said...Lucy and fam. I think she is the cutest little wonder woman you have ever seen.   These pics are a bit out of order...but here us girls are.  There was a raffle at GAA and we decided to enter ALOT of tickets this year.  Our neighbors won the BIG prize last year...so we figured it was our turn.  I was also feeling lucky.  Our twenty dollars paid off and I won the grand prize....a new MINI IPOD!!! I was so excited.  I will probably never see it between Jake and the kids...but excited non-the-less.

 

 

 Here is a picture of all most of the ladies in our ward who dressed up for Halloween at the ward "Trunk or Treat." There are such fun and amazing women in this ward.  I am so lucky.  Pretty cool costumes too!

My bestie...Shelly was adorbs and HOT as a pirate this year! 

Ok...so Sat afternoon was the big Watkins party.  There is always amazing food and games for the kids.  One of our favorite traditions is the donut on a string.  This was Lucy's first time participating. 

Spencer and Max thought it was a blast. 

Here is a pic of the kids checking out the new Ipad. Weston was absolutely stoked and kept reminding me that it wasn't only mine and I HAVE to share it!

More donuts. 

I have to admit...I loved my costume this year.  Who doesn't want to feel like Wonder Woman once in a while?

Oct Birthday's and Lucy celebrates: take two

So this past Sunday we invited all the family over to celebrate not only Aubrey and Lucy, but also Jake and Grandma Sue who also have birthday's this month.  Aubrey was extra excited and did most of the party planning and helped me a lot with dessert and decorations. Lucy was feeling a lot better by now and we were psyched.  Then five thirty came and went and we only had Grandpa Watkins there...Aubrey and I were starting to worry.  Grandma came and announced that Mari wasn't coming cause Tess was super sick and in urgent care and Chris and Janalyn had sickies too!!  We were super bummed and had tons of food and games prepared.  So we decided to call some fun friends last minute.  Luckily they were able to come and the party was still SUPER fun!! 


These beautiful sisters celebrate birthday's one day apart...nine years apart. 

We played "ring on a string" which we learned from the Brown family.  Love it! 

 

 

You sit in a circle and pass a wedding ring around the string secretly ...while someone in the middle tries to catch who has it.   

Thanks Morris family for coming.

Here is the birthday boy and his wonderful Mom Sue!

We had Hawaiian Haystacks, Caesar salad, cheesecake blueberry salad and brownie's and ice-cream.  

 

 

Happy Birthday Watkins Crew!!!

Lucy's Birthday: Take one

Poor Lucy woke up with the worst fever and sickies on her birthday morning.  Luckily I had a well check scheduled for Weston...so it made it simple to get Lucy in to see the Dr. and get her on antibiotics right away.  The other children were so anxious to give her presents, but I made everyone wait till afternoon so she could nap and feel a little better.  We cleaned her up and had a little photo shoot.
 

 

 

She was very tedious and smart about opening her presents.  It drove the kiddos crazy to watch...but Lucy loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice she is still opening the same present in most pics.

Here she is moments after opening all her presents.  Most of which were hand me downs and gifts the kids bought. 

 

Lucy felt mostly miserable on her birthday... but we had big plans for a  Sunday celebration, so we weren't too sad about it.   Other than the fact it is her second ear infection in 3 weeks.  grrrr

Oct break...farm day.

So we didn't "plan" a lot of this Oct break.  We have had lots of fun...but mostly at home.  Partly because Lucy has been super sick...and we've had two birthdays too.  I'll blog about that later.  Anyway, today we just HAD to get out of the house...so we did.  We went to some farm on Gilbert...I can't even remember the name. I kept thinking that we could do most of this for FREE in Idaho...but oh well.  The kids had fun.  We tasted yummy milk (12 flavors) and rode a hayride.  We petted animals and saw a bonafide dairy. I wish I would have got a pic of Lucy with the Bunny Rabbit.  She was in heaven with that little angel.  Oh well. Later we went to Chick-fil-a and ended the day with pizza at the park.  We had fun and the kids got sent to bed at 7:30 cause I was tired. 

This is on the hayride.

Lucy chewed on the carrots...that were for the horse. haha

This horse was a little hyper...so we needed help petting him.

Donkey was great.

I love me a good farm!  Cow manure and all!