Yellowstone and the Cabin

We had so much fun at the cabin this year! We went with my parents, and my sister Karissa and her kids. We spent Friday at the cabin, Saturday in Yellowstone, and Sunday drove up to Sawtelle Peak, stopped at Mesa Falls and fed the fish at Sweet Water. SO fun!! As an added bonus, it was cool, but there was no snow, the van didn't get stuck while driving up Sawtelle Peak, AND the food tasted good this time!

While we were at the cabin, there were a few changes announced.  First there was this:

Tyler Murphy is a returned missionary.  We kind of all had ideas how long Kristen would wait for Kayden (three years is a long time), but no one guessed she wouldn't even make it through the first quarter of school.  Oh well, I guess it's better to get that out of the way before Kayden leaves on his mission (the other night Kayden told me the whole thing sucks.  He's hurt, mad, and misses her like crazy all at the same time.  *sniff*)  Speaking of missions though, with the change in missionary ages, Kayden started his paperwork.  His papers will be done November 4th (after his wisdom teeth get pulled that weekend), and he's ready to go as soon as this semester is over.  He spoke in church today, and he and his roommates and FHE sisters did the musical number.  He was recently called as the Elder's Quorum 1st counselor.  He's still running too.  He did his first 1/2 marathon a few weeks ago, and is running his first full marathon next weekend in Orem.  I'm excited to have him home for the following weekend and spoil him a bit (except for that whole wisdom teeth part.)  We've missed him around here!

Homecoming 2012

Here's a few highlights from Malia's first dance.

Colton asked her with some really lively goldfish.  They are still alive, and are some of the funniest fish I have ever seen (they kind of remind me of puppies, if that makes any sense!)

This is Malia's dress that we got for $15 in Utah.  She LOVES the dress. Because a few members of her group had things going on the day of the dance, the decided to do the day date later (it was last weekend.)  That, along with the fact that Malia didn't want to have her hair or makeup professionally done, meant we had a really relaxing day and could take lots of pictures.  

Room Re-do's

When Kayden moved out, we did a little bit of bedroom changes. I think they turned out great!  Anaya moved into Taisha's room.  We added this art display cable from IKEA so Anaya can hang whatever art she wants, and it she doesn't want to hang anything, you can barely see it.  We also added a custom closet (that we should have done when Taisha was in the room.)

We have got lots and lots of bows, flowers, feathers, headbands and other hair accessories.  When I was trying to figure out how and where to store them, I came up with this idea.  I took the door off the hinges, stapled some grosgrain ribbon to the top and bottom, and side to side, and then clipped all the hair things to it.  For the headbands, I got the Command hooks that are made for extension cords. The best part is that it is on the back of the door, so you can't even see it when the door is open.

McKay's room had a huge transformation.  We took the bunk beds down, painted the walls grey, moved some of Kayden's furniture up, printed up and framed some of his favorite fictional characters and added some new bedding (McKay's favorite color is red, this was the only bedding I could find that incorporated the furniture colors and red.)  The pictures are Harry Potter, Batman, Link, the Legend of Korra characters, some of the Marvel heroes, and Will from the Ranger's Apprentice books.

And then Rik made him this fancy sword/bow/wand/air-bending-staff holder thing. I love it!  McKay's room is very "McKay," and most importantly, he loves it!

Taisha moved into Kayden's room.  I painted it orange, hated it, primed it and painted it this pretty blue color (thanks for helping mom!), and then we did everything else in black and white (Taisha's favorite colors.)  We got this picture ledge from IKEA.

Memory boxes from Micheal's and the thing above her bed was from Ross.

Rik and I made her a padded bulletin board to go above her desk (it's covered in Young Women hand-outs now.)

Rik also re-purposed an old mirror frame into another magnet board for Malia's room.  The rooms all turned out so good (better in person than in my pictures.)

School Pictures 2012

Love, love, love the school pictures this year!

Anaya-3rd grade

McKay 4th grade

Taisha-8th grade

Malia-11th grade

Earlier this year Malia auditioned for Miss Hillcrest, and was one of 12 girls chosen.  This is her picture for the program:

Malia has been busy getting everything ready for Miss Hillcrest (I think it has been more work than she had anticipated... it's a pretty big deal I guess!)  The big night will be Wednesday, November 9th at 7:00.  Let me know if you want tickets.

I don't have a school picture for Kayden, but he texts me a  pretty steady stream of pictures of some of the fun things he's doing at BYU.