Aarron's 7th Birthday

Sunday after church the kids and I hung our stockings up. They were so excited to get the Christmas decorations out. We didn't have a tree yet but everything else was decorated!

 Aarron shares a birthday with his Great-Grandpa Wellman.
(December 3rd)

Our home teacher invited us over to ride horses and it happened to be on Aarron's birthday. The kids were so excited to ride. The weather has been so nice in Round Valley that we had to take advantage of this opportunity. Clayton and Dayson were at basketball practice and not able to go with us.

Aarron

MacKenzie

Carson

Daycee

Harly

Mom

Adam

  

Aarron learning how to rope just like Brother Martin!

Later that night we celebrated Aarron's 7th birthday. We invited Rita and Becky and their families. Aarron picked a strawberry cake with white frosting and Sherbet ice cream!

Opening his presents. He got his very own basketball just like his big brothers. Now he doesn't have to compete with them for a ball.

spiderman

He had a fun birthday!

Sister's Trip & Santa's Lap

Grandpa's Birthday

My Grandpa Wellman celebrated his 90th Birthday on December 3rd. So my sister's and I drove down to Phoenix for a girls weekend. We had a slumber party at my mom's house and went Christmas shopping all day. We had the birthday dinner at Bill Johnson's with the grandkids and their spouses.  My grandpa doesn't remember us much anymore, but he still has his sense of humor.

My dad is the only surviving child in his family. His twin sister Rita passed away at birth.  His brother Bruce died about 8 months after my sister Deanna died. My grandmother passed away when I was only six or seven years old.  

They have the same ears!

This is my dad's side of the family

This is Bruce's side of the family

 Between the two boys my Grandpa has 17 grandkids and 70 something great grandkids! That's pretty good for only having two kids yourself!

Santa

While I was in Phoenix for the party, our ward had a Pajama Breakfast Christmas Party. The kids sat on Santa's lap and told him what they wanted.

Adam wants a dinosaur

Daycee wants a microphone

Aarron wants an X Box

MacKenzie wants an MP3 Player

Harly wants a camera

November...continued

Adam's Surgery

Adam has had a hernia for the last two months.  Trying to find a good day to have the surgery done was complicated. But we finally had his surgery scheduled the Monday before Thanksgiving. We drove down to Phoenix at 5 O' clock in the morning and his surgery was at 10:30.

Here is Adam in preparation for his surgery. He wasn't too sure about the gown, blood pressure and finger pulse device.

But he was a trooper and was very brave. It was hard for me to let him go when it was time for his surgery. I had to say goodbye and go back to the waiting room with Dayson and Aarron.

The surgery went quick and the doctor came out to talk to us. He said Adam did very good and was in the process of waking up. The nurses brought me back to be with him while we has waking up. He complained of a tummy ache, but mostly because he hadn't eaten since the night before. 

As soon as he was ready we took him back up the mountain. Just in time for Harly and Carson's band concert.

Both are in Steel drums at school and they do such a good job! 

Band Concert

Harly on the barrel drums

Carson on the steel drums

Thanksgiving

We stayed home this year for Thanksgiving. We made our own turkey and all the trimmings. Harly, Daycee and MacKenzie made their own apple pies this year. This is MacKenzie with hers. I did not get any pictures of the other girls...dang it!

Thanksgiving was not as fun without our extended family. I wish we could have spent it with mine and Dayson's family. We did go to Rita's house for pie that night and hung out with her family.

November.....so far!

Carson's Birthday

 

Carson celebrated his 14th birthday on November 3rd. He missed his first church dance by one week. He wasn't bummed at all and doesn't want to go to the dances. But I told him he has to go and his first one will be New Year's Eve!

Carson got most of his presents before his birthday. I took him shopping while in the valley and he picked out some new shoes, basketball shorts, jacket and a pair of jeans.

So for the day of his birthday he got some random fun stuff!

Reese's is his favorite candy bar. He was actually grounded from this candy for a while because he wasn't eating healthy and only wanted to eat Reese's!

Of course he got a basketball. With basketball season just right around the corner, Clayton and Carson are ready for their first games. Clayton got an indoor ball for his birthday and Carson got an outdoor ball...all bases are covered for these boys!

Our family went to Rita's house to celebrate Carson's birthday. My oven went out about a month ago and we still haven't purchased a new one. So in order to have a birthday cake we baked it at Rita's house. 

The next day Carson was ordained to the office of a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. Grandma and Grandpa Wellman came for the occasion and they gave Carson his brand new white church shirt. He needed it badly. 

Grandma & Grandpa Merrill also came for the occasion.

They gave Carson this fillet knife for his birthday.

Daycee's 4th Grade Music Progam

Daycee performed in her 4th grade class choir. They sang songs that honored our Veteran's. 

She played 2 songs on the recorder.

She is very entertaining to watch on stage. She gets into the song she is singing and dances to the beat. (I thinks she gets it from me!!) She performed several duets with her classmates and did awesome!

Young Women's In Excellence

Harly had her first YW's in Excellence and was so excited to show off her project that she had been working on. This is her Beehive teacher, Sis. Whiting. She is amazing and so good to the girls! I'm so glad Harly has someone like her in YW's.

Harly displayed her photograhy pictures that she has taken over the last few months. This is her best friend Katie. Katie made pajama pants and a pillow case for her project. You can barely see it on the table. (pink and black zebra print)

The Boy's Deer Hunt

Dayson, Clayton, and Carson purchased left over tags in Unit 30a. This is probably the worst unit to hunt in Arizona. But because it was over a 4 day weekend that meant less school to miss.  The boys left Thursday after school and set up their camp. They woke up Friday morning to wind and rain. They started their hunt around 10 am and saw 1 buck the whole day, but it was over 1000 yards away. They hiked around more on Saturday and didn't see anything. There was no sign of any deer. But they found this old cabin. Pretty cool!

They also found this really old rusted out car. If you look closely at the wheel it has wooden spokes. There was a date on the engine block of 10-14-1925! That's an old car. Who knows how it even got there?

Finally what they were waiting for. The boys almost decided to come home Sunday morning because the hunting and weather was so bad. But they stuck it out till Monday morning. They hunted till noon and were on their way back to the truck when the boys spotted 3 bucks. Dayson and Clayton shot at them wounding one of them. Carson and Dayson hiked down to try and find it while Clayton stayed back on top to guide them to the spot. It jumped out at them and Carson shot it 4 more times! He was proud of his buck and was feeling pretty good at this point. 

Clayton was so excited for his little brother and with team work they were both successful in the hunt!

Dad is so proud of his boys and their new kill. He hasn't stopped talking about it and I'm sure we'll hear stories for weeks to come! Which is fine with me. I love when they are so happy!

Carson carrying his buck down the trail head to the truck just before heading home.

Well November is almost half way over and so much has already passed. 

I can't help but think that these days are few and far between. Soon they will be all grown up and ready to start their own families and my only hope is that I didn't take these moments for granted!

Halloween

This year for Halloween we took the kids to Basha's for their free hot dog and hot chocolate.

Then we headed to a few houses to do some trick or treating!

Harly is always playing with my camera and took a picture of herself with the jack-o-lantern pumpkin!

 This year Carson was the Green Lantern. He just wore a green lantern shirt and shined his green lazer! Harly was Black Widow from the Avengers. Daycee was Kelly Pickler. MacKenzie was a Round Valley cheerleader. Aarron was a scary skeleton with a scary mask. And Adam was Captain America from the Avengers. Clayton went with his friends to the haunted corn maze in Snowflake so we didn't see him until 10:30 that night.

The kids going trick or treating at our next door neighbors, the Pendrod's.

Carson carved out both of these pumpkins just 2 hours before trick or treating. He did a really good job and he's proud of his masterpieces!

 Glow in the dark

After Basha's we went to Becky's house to see our cousins. Jersy was a cat and already had her costume off. Jagger was a power ranger. Becky fed us some pumpkin pie that was to die for! After that we went to Rita's for more trick or treating than headed home for bath and bedtime.

Halloween was a busy day for our family. Dayson, Adam and I drove to Scottsdale at 4:30 am so I could get all four of my wisdom teeth pulled. Dayson was already sick with strep throat. I had a lot of people back in Round Valley helping me with my kids. Clayton got a ride to and from 0 hour from Jaron, one of the football players. Than he got a ride to school from Trayser. Carson got a ride to school with Ginger. Harly got a ride to volleyball practice at 5:30 am with the Poche's. And Daycee, Kenzie, and Aarron spent the night with Becky and got on the bus with her kids. What a long a crazy day Halloween was for our family. Dayson and I got back to town around 2:45 and went straight to the schools to pick up our kids. Finally, it's Thursday and I can sort of relax!!