Ellie Turns 5...

This beautiful girl of ours is 5. She is such a ray of sunshine in our family and we love her to pieces. Her special day had lots of cousins (we even had a little spontaneous hay ride), an owl cake and lots of giggles!

5 things that we love about Ellie:

1- She loves her brothers so much. Ty lights up when he sees her and she will sit there and play with him and entertain him as long as I need her too.

2- She is so aware of other people. She notices things about people that many...kids and adults would completely overlook.

3- She has the best smile...her whole face lights up and one side of her nose will wrinkle when she smiles really big! I love it!

4- She says really meaningful prayers...she actually thinks about what she is saying and usually blesses "everyone in the world."

5- She is my little shadow. She follows me around and chats with me and stays close as she colors, paints her nails or cooks in her easy bake oven (those are her three favorite activities right now!)

We love you Ellie!

Walker Family Reunion 2015...

Labor Day weekend was our annual Walker Family Reunion...which is basically our excuse to play for an entire weekend. The past couple years we have based from Grandma and Grandpa's house and had most of our activities center around the house (which works well for napping kids and babies).

One of our favorite things to do it go find a secluded sand bar and let the kids dig and splash and play for hours. This year was no exception...despite the chilly wind's best efforts!

 

 

 

The goggles were a pretty big hit with the kids and a pretty great source of entertainment for the adults!

 

 

Ellie did get cold pretty quickly and wanted to snuggle up in her cute new towel (from Grandma) for most of the beach time...so she made her way into a lot of these pictures!!

 

 

 

 

 

I was lucky to get Brig to stop for any pictures at all. You see, the big boys have "The Nature Club" (I need to post more on that soon...it's kind of a big deal!) and that pretty much governs all they do. So while they were at the beach, Brig was super excited to catch some little fish. He was even more excited to take them back to Grandma's and study them...and then dissect them with his beloved pocket knife. The same pocket knife that he used that evening to cute up some pears he found and cook over the campfire.  Oh boy. I tried not to think about it too much. He was in heaven.

 

 

 

 

 

One highlight was when Grandpa surprised all the kids with their own watermelons. Each of the 12 kids had their very own melon to indulge themselves. They loved it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's hard to see in this picture but the theme of the reunion this year was to Be The Good and Believe There Is Good in the World. A great message to remember!

 

 

Another fun thing was taking the boat out- this is the first time that some of the grandkids went on a tube and everyone had fun! It was pretty cold again so a lot of the moms weren't even planning on getting in the water but it just looked like such a great time that we all had to give it a shot...and we all ended up getting pretty wet! It was great!

 

 

There are so many other moments that I just didn't have my phone or camera to take some pictures...

piñata, tin foil dinners, the dad's hike, the kids hike, playing in the sandbox, making skirts for the little girls, lots of food, lots of toys, new towels, laughing, learning a new game, cousin time, grown up "time out" (aka...the giant tote of candy) and lots of fun!

Thanks for the memories Grandma and Grandpa!

 

Line 'Em Up...

Between Cory and his brother there are 7 kids. Ages 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. If you don't know- that adds up to busy. Busy parents and busy kids. 

Neither of us are having another baby anytime soon though, so this pattern is just a 4 month lasting-once in a lifetime kinda thing. 

Christmas 2014...

We spent this Christmas with the Walker side and kept things pretty simple.

I didn't snap very many pictures of everything...mostly because I was constantly trying to console and comfort sick kids. It seemed like everyone was sick...but Ellie was especially feeling rotten. She had a fever that we barely kept under control for the entire week surrounding Christmas.

 

 

One of the highlights was definitely the nativity that we did on Christmas Eve. It was short, not completely scripturely accurate and super entertaining. But most importantly, it did serve as a sweet reminder that the true meaning of Christmas is celebrating the birth and life of our Savior to whom we are all eternally indebted to for His atoning sacrifice.

I am so grateful for Him and for the opportunity I have to teach our children of the true meaning of Christmas.

 

 

Utah Trip {Part 2}...

I am really frustrated with myself for not bringing my real camera for this part of our trip but thank goodness we have iPhones...even if some of the pictures are super blurry.

The main reason we chose this particular weekend to head down to Utah was because it was my Grandma Arlene's 80th Birthday.

This is one special lady to me.  She is my only biological grandma that I know and I don't see her or the Huff side very often so this was a fun treat.

 

 

Some of the Huff cousins...I always admire how close they all are and how much fun they have together!

 

 

We were especially excited when we found out the my biological dad Mark and step mom Dee were going to be at the party. It was really nice to see them and show off our growing kiddos. I just wish we could have seen Carlee, Parker and Hannah.

 

 

I think one of the neatest parts of visiting everyone was to hear how much they said I looked like all of them...I have the Huff eyelashes, or I look just like Aunt Krissy, or that big head of Jase & I comes from the Huffs:) There is definitely something special about seeing who you come from and feeling the connection that comes from more than just genetics.

 

 

We had a great time and I loved seeing my kids interact, play and tease with everyone! I consider myself blessed to part of the Huff family!

Utah Trip {Part 1}...

We recently made a trip down to Utah.  We don't travel very often- Cory drives a ton for work so the last thing he wants to do is road trip! But we decided to make the journey down to the Beehive state and see some of our family.  I feel like we really packed a lot into our short trip so I broke it up into 3 parts.  There are just a lot of pictures too...

So I'll let them do most of the talking...

 

 

Two of our 5 sisters (technically we have 8 between the 2 of us!) live down in Utah and so the majority of our time was spent with them. 

 

Watching Taylor rock the socks off everyone playing flag football...

 

 

PS...Cory may not love Utah (just check our some of his facial expressions.) But it was beUTAHful weather while we were down there. And those mountains...

 

 

We visited a little pumpkin patch and spent lots of time lounging in the corn getting little kernals everywhere.  And I mean everywhere. I felt like I was finding those things for days!

 

 

Our cute crew...

 

 

My hair had gotten really long. Which usually means that I get the itch to chop it off...so on a little bit of a whim, we chopped it off. And when I say we, I mean Krista.  It was pretty late and we were feeling wild;)

 

I do my best to try and reach "favorite status" with our nieces and nephews. It doesn't always happen...but when one of them wants to be my "pink pony" and cuddle all the time (and this boy doesn't sit still!) I will take it and do a little happy dance the entire time!!!

 

We had a great time seeing our sisters and just hanging out! A big thanks to Jordan and Krista for letting us crash on their floor and for Taylor for driving all over to see us even with her busy schedule!

Warm Weather Teaser...

Once again, Spring is playing with our emotions and getting us way too excited for what warm weather means...

 

 

I have a feeling that this summer will have lots of cousins, adventures, family and fun times!

 

Madsens in McCall...

We were lucky enough to go and spend the day in McCall with my parents and some of the Madsen family.

We had a great time with ice cream, sand castles, fishing, food and family!

 

Thanks for the fun Madsens and McCall!