My mom sent me this in an e-mail. Some of you may have seen it already, but I thought I would share with everyone just to remind everyone what this time of year should really be about.

With 4 weeks before Christmas REMEMBER:
Jesus is Better than Santa
Santa lives at the North Pole.
JESUS is everywhere.
Santa rides in a sleigh
JESUS rides on the wind and walks on the water.
Santa comes but once a year
JESUS is an ever present help.
Santa fills your stockings with goodies
JESUS supplies all your needs.
Santa comes down your chimney uninvited
JESUS stands at your door and knocks.. And then enters your heart.
You have to stand in line to see Santa
JESUS is as close as the mention of His name.
Santa lets you sit on his lap
JESUS lets you rest in His arms.
Santa doesn't know your name, all he can say is "Hi little boy or girl, What's your name?"
JESUS knew our name before we did. Not only does He know our name, He knows our address too. He knows our history and future and He even knows how many hairs are on our heads.
Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly
JESUS has a heart full of love.
All Santa can offer is HO HO HO
JESUS offers health, help and hope.
Santa says "You better not cry"
JESUS says "Cast all your cares on me for I care for you.
Santa's little helpers make toys
JESUS makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes and builds mansions.
Santa may make you chuckle but
JESUS gives you joy that is your strength.
While Santa puts gifts under your tree
JESUS became our gift and died on the tree.
It's obvious there is really no comparison.
We need to remember WHO Christmas is all about.
We need to put Christ back in Christmas.
Jesus is still the reason for the season.

First day of Winter Fun!!

Of course I listened to the weather reports, and was expecting snow...but I didn't think we'd get quite as much as we did for the first part of October!!!! I'm SO not ready for winter yet, but since the snow was here, we all went out and played in it!! Canyon was so excited, he couldn't even wait to get dressed, he went outside in his jammies to throw the first snowball of the season!

Here's our first snowman for this winter. The kids had a blast!!!

Ryker's wonderful asthma

Here's one of the MANY reasons why I'm so far behind on blogging. Ryker had yet another great and wonderful asthma attack. Of course these always happen at the most inconvenient times, but we deal with it. This was the day before Chad's body building competition, so instead of being able to help Chad get everything ready, Ryker and I spent the day in the hospital.

This actually happened a few weeks ago, but I think the pics are cute, so I'm posting them a little late. We got to the ER, and they thought he was starting to get pneumonia in his left lung, so they admitted him for observation for the day. He's doing great now, and they've changed his asthma meds again to hopefully prevent our ER visits.

This is when we first go there, so he's still pretty miserable at this point.
They had to take his blood pressure when we finally got to our room.

Of course we had to call Grandpa and ask him to come and visit!!!

What on earth....

Canyon's school is very good at teaching the kids good nutrition and health. Every week during PE, they get some sort of fruit or vegetable, and teach the kids about all the great things the food does for their body. The don't always do the usual fruit and veggies, but often do out of the ordinary things. Last week Canyon decided to bring his fruit home. He was all excited about his "Blood Orange". Just the thought of it kinda grossed me out. I was so interested in what it really looked like inside, I totally spaced taking a pic before I peeled it. Here's what the inside looked like....

....just like the name, it looked like a bloody orange. I had to do some research, just to make sure this was a real fruit, and they weren't sending home rotten fruit with my kid. Sure enough...check this out....bloodoranges. I hesitated tasting it, but it was actually really good. I would recommend picking one up the next time your at the store!!

Field Trip #1......and #2

I'm so far behind on blogging, that Ryker's already had 2 field trips this year.

(Humm.....school had only be in for just over a month, and they'd already taken 2 field trips?? How much is he really learning??? j/k....I like the field trips!!)

Field Trip #1

For his first field trip, they took a trip to the park to feed the ducks. The kids had so much fun. The ducks would come up really close and practically eat the bread right out of your hand. In all the times I've gone to feed ducks at this park, I've NEVER had them come this close. It was almost kinda creepy.

(Note how close the duck with the broken wing is to my foot. One flap of his wing, and he would have hit me....lucky for me he couldn't flap it!)
And of course we had to play on the toys while we were at the park.

Field Trip #2

A Visit to the Fire station!!

Everyone had to hold on to the rope as we walked to the Fire station.

Crazy Ryk!!

Here they are getting ready to listen to the safety speech!

Don't forget to cover your face when you Stop, Drop & Roll!!

Quite the site....45 kids trying to roll down the hill all at the same time.

It was a very fun day!!!

And the Results.....

So there you have it. Chad took first place in his Novice Heavyweight Division. He's put so much time and effort into this, and he really deserved it. The show was a blast to watch, and we were all excited when he won. Here's a couple of pics. These aren't the best pics, I'll try and get some better ones posted if I can.


CONGRATULATIONS CHAD!!!!

"Pump You Up"

My close friend Suzy did a post all about Chad. You can all check it out here. And of course....if anyone is interested, you're all welcome to come!! I'll post all about it afterwards....

WOO HOO!!!!

I went to pick Canyon up from the after school program today, and he was DYING to show me something he had in his backpack. It was a letter from
his school stating that he was chosen as....

(cheesy image I know....it's all I could find though....)

He gets to go eat lunch with the principal at the new Chuck E Cheese this week, and he couldn't be more excited!!!

He's such an awesome kid!!! I just had to post about this proud mom moment!!!

Congratulations Canyon!!!!

"Car Crashes"

I've been wanting to take my boys to a Demolition Derby for a few years now. So we finally got tickets this year to go to the one at the Weber County Fair. Ryker was SO excited to go see the "car crashes". I don't really think it was Chad's favorite event, but the boys and I had fun. It makes me laugh to think that people actually put money into these cars that they know they're going to destroy. I guess to them that wasted money is worth the adrenaline rush.

One heck of a week for Ryker!!

So a week or so ago Ryker got several mosquito bites. I didn't think much of it. One of the ones on his leg started to get a kind of scab on it. No big deal I thought. Well....it didn't get better. I finally took him to the doctor last Wednesday, and he said it looks like shingles, but he couldn't have had shingles without getting chicken pox first. This thing on Ryker's leg doesn't hurt or itch him, it just looks scary to me. So the doctor thinks that it was a mosquito bite that he scratched and somehow got a staff infection in. So we get a prescription for an antibiotic, and he also has my rub this steroid lotion on it to help clear it up. By Friday night, it's not looking better at all. In fact it was "blinking" from red to yellow every time his heart beat. Kinda freaked me out, so back to the doctors we went. That last verdict we got was that he has "vaccine induced shingles" from his chicken pox vaccine. Crazy I know, but I have heard that when you get your chicken pox vaccine, it can sometimes cause you to get chicken pox, so the whole vaccine induced theory makes sense. And since it's not actually caused by the virus that's why it's not itching or hurting him. Since we've stopped giving him the antibiotic and the steroid, the swelling has gone down a lot, but it's still really scabby. Hopefully it will get better soon. I took a video of the "blinking" but you can't see it very well. It was seriously the weirdest thing I had ever seen!!!

So Saturday we venture to Burley to visit family and have a great time. Of course Ryker isn't so lucky. He gets a mosquito bite on his fore heard that made his whole head and eyes swell. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the swelling and it's gone down now, so just picture him with an inflated nose, and gigantic bump on his forehead.

The next event was probably the worst. Canyon and Ryker were horsing around, and I'm not really sure what really happened, but in the end, Ryker ended up falling and hitting his head on our dresser, and cutting his head open. He's not got 4 staples in the back of his head.

THESE PICS MAY MAKE SOME PEOPLE SICK!!!!
Here he is all wrapped up like a burrito, so he can't move his arms.
The wonderful wound.
He didn't cry once during the whole thing. I was so proud of him.


So now onto a good note. Ryker started preshool today. He was such a good boy and had a great time!! I'm excited for him to be going, and I can't wait to see all the fun stuff he'll be doing!!

I arrived a few minutes early to pick him up and caught a few pics of him playing outside!!

Guess what's coming???

For those of you that live locally......

.....is coming to Layton!!!! No more driving to 106th South for us!! I'm not sure when they're opening, but they've already started hiring, so it can't be too much longer!!! I told Canyon yesterday that they were building one in Layton, and he already can't wait to have his birthday party there!!! Anyway......just thought I'd give you all the fantastic news......

It's Back!!

Who was I kidding when I thought I'd get a break from sports?? The Tuesday after softball ended, soccer started, and Chad started a new softball league the week school started. So here we area again, living on the sports fields!!! Here's a couple pics of Canyon's first soccer game.

And as if we don't see enough sports, of course we had to go see the Raptors play one more game this season. Here's Ryker cheering them on!!!
It's a good thing I like to watch sports!!!

Finally....1st Grade!!!

I love my kids dearly, but I'm SO very glad that school has started. With working full time, and trying to keep my kids out of full time daycare, it makes for a HARD summer!!! I'm very fortunate that I get to work from home some, and get to take the kids to work with me some, but just ask me if I can get anything done, when the kids are with me??? It doesn't happen!! So....even though I'll miss Canyon tremendously while he's at school, I feel so relieved that I only have to worry about watching one child while I'm trying to work. Canyon was very excited for school to start, so I didn't feel quite so bad about being glad for the summer to end. His teacher is new to his school this year, so I'm anxious to see how the year goes.

Of course since he knows how to ride a bike now, he HAD to ride his bike to school the first day (at least attempt to anyway...we realized his tire was flat just was we were leaving the house...maybe next time buddy!!).
His class room is a portable. I'm not sure if I'm excited about that or not.

(You like my shadow??)
Don't mind the cheesy smile!!
And here's Ryker's "take a picture of me too" pose!!

Watch for pics of Ryk's first day of preschool next week....he can't wait!!!!