Fun With Cousins

In November, Darrell's cousin Krista was married.  Darrell's mom rented a beautiful huge house for everyone to stay in.  The kids loved it and so did we.  Here is a picture of some of the cousins enjoying each others company.  There was a huge pool, but it was too cold to swim...we had to tell the kids this at least a million times.  

Garden

My husband is very much a farmer at heart.  He stuffs as much food growing plants in our backyard as possible.  Every fall we plant snap peas because the kids love them.  The only vegetable Emily will eat is snap peas, so she gets her vegetables once a year when the peas come in.  She doesn't eat them if we buy them at the store.  So this is Darrell's latest brilliant idea for our little garden.  

Last year our peas got sooooo tall that they began to fall over.  Darrell constructed this trellis that will allow the peas to grow up and over the trellis to make a tunnel of peas.  It is very useful and beautiful.

Of course this time of year is wonderful because Darrell plants winter grass and it looks gorgeous.

Derek Creation

My sweet boy is always coming up with new

Lego creations.  This was a pair of glasses.

They could even fold up like real glasses

Sea Life Aquarium

There is an aquarium at the Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe.  They were having a homeschool week and so we went and checked it out.  They had a little class at the beginning.  The kids learned about camouflage and then made pictures of an animal camouflaging itself in the sea.  It was quite amazing how many different sea animals they had in the aquarium.  Fish of all different colors, sharks, sting rays, turtles, jellyfish, star fish and more.  

There was one display in which the kids could touch a few different sea creatures.  Small crabs, snails, starfish etc.  Scattered throughout the aquarium they had these little areas the kids could climb into and put their head up into a plastic bubble inside the tanks.  It was so neat.

This is Emily inside one of the bubbles.

Emily and Derek in a shark mouth

My kids called this tank (below) the Nemo tank.  They had the fish from the movie Little Nemo all in one tank.  The kids loved it.

For anyone that lives in Arizona, I highly recommend this aquarium.  I want to go again with Darrell so I can actually enjoy going through slowly and reading about the fish.  The kids of course are so excited they jump from thing to thing to thing. 

Yummy Yummy...Fruit Salad

Emily really, really, really wants to learn to cook.  I am not very patient when it comes to cooking with kids, but I have decided I really need to help her learn because she wants to so bad.  The other day she said she wanted to make fruit salad, so here she is making her first fruit salad.

She picked out the fruit: apples, oranges, blueberries, mangos, and grapes. 

Sarah watching Emily make fruit salad.

I did all the peeling, and she did all the cutting...she wanted to do as much by herself as she could.  Something funny about her request to make fruit salad, is that she won't even eat it.  She only likes certain fruits and certainly not mixed together.

The finished product...I think it looks delicious, and my little princess is beautiful.  I'm sure there will be many more cooking experiences soon.  After it was done she put it in the fridge and covered it with a dish cloth.  Katie and Matt are coming over for dinner tonight, and she doesn't want Katie to see it until she is ready to unveil her creation.

October Fun in Snowflake

Darrell had some time off from work in October...so of course we went to Snowflake.  The kids had a lot of fun and I enjoyed getting away from the regular routine of the day.  My sister Stephanie and her family came to visit for a couple days and then my brother Brett and his family came to visit.  

My goofy Sarah relaxing with her funny tongue hanging out.

My beautiful Emily.

Dog pile on Uncle James.

This is my sister Stephanie's sweet baby Kaitlin.

We went to a little creek in Show Low and hunted for crawdads.  Darrell mad little fishing poles out of dowels and string with hooks.  The used hot dogs to lure the crawdads out from under the rocks.  Everyone had a blast, including me.  It was fun trying to get them out of their rocks.  

Nick and Courtney Lamb Wedding

My younger brother Nick was married in October to a wonderful woman...Courtney.  I'm so excited to have her as part of our family.  They are so happy and fun together!  

They were married on a warm day in the Mesa Arizona Temple followed by an evening reception.  It was a busy hectic day, but worth it.

After the ceremony we had pictures outside.  The picture on the left shows how tired Sarah was feeling.  The picture on the right is my adorable niece Kaitlin.  She is so alert in this picture.  So cute!

This is another one of my beautiful nieces...aren't those blue eyes and her blonde hair just gorgeous.  Her wonderful mother Hailie did such an awesome job with her hair.  Emily was very envious of her girls, and so in between the wedding and reception Hailie curled Emily's hair....she loved it.

All the cute Lamb cousins (minus the two babies)...Derek the lonely boy:) But at least he's a hansom boy.

I love my niece Payton's face in the above picture:)

This is my brother Brett holding his adorable baby girl...Ella.  Aren't they cute together:)  She is such a tiny little girl, but very active...just like her dad.

Ella and Kaitlin...believe it or not, these two are about 3 months apart and are only a pound difference in weight!

Kaitlin getting tired of posing for picture.

Derek holding his cousin Ella.

All the lamb cousins...including the babies.

Gorgeous Emily and tired, grumpy Sarah.

My sweet boy Derek...missing one tooth.  Someone from Courtney's family made the cute bow ties.

Nick and Courtney outside the temple, and group picture with the Brimhall family.

Nick and Courtney greeting guests at their reception.

My brother Brandon with niece Ella.

My Grandma and Grandpa Ford along with my Uncle Aaron, Aunt Denise, and Uncle Craig came from Sacramento, California to attend the celebrations.  I feel so blessed to have seen my Grandpa one last time.  He passed away suddenly late last week.  I can hardly believe it.  I'm so blessed to have known him.  We had them over for dinner the night they arrived, and it was a wonderful time.  We will all miss him.  I wish I had gotten pictures of him with my kids, but I didn't...at least we have the wonderful memories:)

Last but not least, Derek boy with his Great-Grandpa Lamb.  I was so happy to see him also.  He struggles with many health problems including deficits of speech from a stroke several years ago.  It was wonderful to see him and for my kids to see him.