Little Bear River Bottoms

On Thurs. night our ward went to a corn maze called the Little Bear River Bottoms. Mike was sick so he stayed home with Little Man. I went with Bugs and Peanut. We met my friends Heather and her little girl, Shannon and her family, and Crystal and her family, along with many other friends in the ward. They have a ton of fun things for kids to do. We started off by doing a string maze. The reward when we finished was a donut. Yum.
They also have two different corn mazes, one large and one small. We opted for the smaller maze. This is a picture of my friend Crystal and her family. The boy on the left is one of Bugs friends. She has told me several times that they are going to get married when they are older (she has been saying this for aver a year).

My cute girls with their little friend (Heather's daughter).

There was also this giant mountain of hay bales. They were stacked to make a pyramid with tunnels and everything. The older kids loved climbing on it. That is Bugs in the blue coat on top. Peanut was mad that she couldn't play on it. The bales went almost up to her armpits.

Happy Birthday (a little late)

Happy birthday sis! I know it is a little late, sorry.

About a week ago we suprised my sister for her birthday. The whole family went to Gardner Village for dinner. It was so fun to see everyone. I hope you had a great birthday!!!
After we finished dinner, we walked around all of the little shops. The kids had so much fun looking at all of the different witches.

Bugs got cold, and her sweet aunt was kind enough to sacrafice her coat for Bugs.

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Sporting a new look!

Bug came home from school Thurs. sporting a new look. Her teacher sent home a note with a short explanation. The note said that she bumped heads with a boy at recess. She was pretty upset, I think that she had a very good reason to be upset. The first three pictures were taken the day of the incident.

The next two pictures were taken the following day. The poor kid. I can only imagine how much it must have hurt. I promise that there is no eye shadow involved, it is all natural. Don't worry the boy she ran into is shorter than her, so he only got a little bonk on the head. Bugs said he didn't even cry, just said ouch. She made an "I am sorry" note for him. I am sure it was an accident, but it was good for her to learn to always apologize.

Don't you love the face? She was trying to keep her eyes closed for the picture. Apparently you have to pucker up your lips in order to close your eyes.

Happy birthday Peanut!!!

My little Peanut just turned 3. She is such a sweetheart. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, the only thing she wanted was a flower cake. Se didn't even care if she got any presents as long as there was a flower cake.Peanut finally decided that it would be okay if we gave her a toy. We had a little family party for her. The girls played at the fun park (a big McDonald's playland) and played arcade games. We then went home and had cake and ice cream. Peanut didn't even open any of her presents until about 8 pm.
Her cake was my first attempt at using fondant. Don't worry, the pink blob is only for this picture. I attempted to edit out her name, and that was as good as I could get it. I think the cake turned out pretty cute. She loved it! She kept on telling me thank you for making me a flower cake. Everywhere we went she had to tell everyone about it.

Here are my two princesses. Peanut fell in the driveway, a few days before, and scraped up her nose. Poor kid.

She is almost potty trained, but we are still in Pull-ups. The other day we were almost out, so she decided they would be a good present and then she would have more pull-ups. What a cutie!

1 year pictures---finally

So it has taken quite some time, and yes he is now 13 months old, but I finally got Little Man's pictures taken! Grandma Kris gave him the cute suit. It is still a little big, especially the pants. Members of our family are cursed with a long torso and short legs. Little Man is one of those members. All three of the kids were so well behaved, they did an excellent job. As a reward they got smarties (at least they thought it was a great reward)! Bugs is having school pictures this week, so we didn't have any individual pictures of her taken. Enjoy!

He is so much fun. Little Man is starting to take a few steps now. He loves to "talk", sing, and mimic whatever you say. He can say mom, dad, papa (grandpa), football, hi, hello, bye-bye, more, both of his sisters names (in his own little way), touchdown, Heather (our neighbor), ball, binki, cracker, thank you, love you, uh-oh, ba-ba (bottle), milk. I think there are more but I can't think of them right now. He also signs milk, more, eat, thank you. He will also tell you what a car says, what a dog says, and will also howl at the moon.

I love this picture!

Peanut will be 3 in a week. We took her pictures as well. She is so much fun, and such a stinker. She is full of personality. I love the things she comes up with. My dad was watching her last week. He called her a turkey. She looked at him and then turned around, pointed at her bum and said, "no I'm not, see look at my butt."

Suzanne Consford Mendoza

On July 31, 2009, Mike's sister Suzanne was admitted to the hospital. At first they were running some test to find out why she was so jaundice. The doctors discovered that her liver was failing. She was put on some medication, hoping that it would slow the damage to her liver, unfortunately it didn't help. In order to get a liver transplant she would have to wait 6 months before she would even be put on the transplant list, then there is about a 4 year wait. Her body couldn't take the trauma, and her liver completely failed. On Aug 26, Suzanne passed away, she was only 39. Mike and I were able to travel to Washington, with little man. The girls stayed with my parents while we went to help with all of the arrangements. Suzanne left behind 4 children ranging in age from 20 to 9. I am so grateful that we were able to go to Washington this summer and see Suzanne. What a blessing it was to be able to see her and create those great memories before all of this happened.
Mike was able to dedicate the grave, and say a few words at the funeral. How grateful I am to be married to such a wonderful and strong man. I am amazed at how well the family is coping with such a tragedy. Here are a few pictures from the funeral.

We wanted to let some balloons go after the funeral, unfortunately the cemetery is located in a flight zone. They told us that we could let one go if we cut the strings off, but we wouldn't be able to let them all go. So we opted to take the balloons to a park and let them go there. We also had a nice family barbecue afterwards.

Suzanne, we love you and will help watch over those you left behind.

The following is a link to her obituary. You can also click on memories on the left side of the link to view a slide show of Suzanne.
http://heritagememorialchapel.frontrunnerpro.com/runtime/33783/runtime.php?SiteId=33783&NavigatorId=164288&op=tributeObituary&viewOpt=dpaneOnly&ItemId=332761