forgotten camera

in the last week i've forgotten to bring my camera to

• Becca and Cleave's wedding,
• that means i never got pictures of rayna in her pretty dress before it ripped
• it also means i don't have any good pictures of my family dressed up together at the temple
• the last day we saw our Chicago cousins, who were great fun to play with at Grandma's house,
• 2 class christmas parties (including having rayna and malachi partying with afton's class)
• a great park/playground day, complete with a giant leaf pile and friends and Seattle cousins
• dinner with the Seattle cousins
• Christmas caroling

i really need to keep better track of the fun things we do! i'm pretty sure for me that means i need to take more pictures, cause that's what i can remember to blog about...

camping

so a very long time ago (october 12-13) we went to a ward campout with some of our friends from church (there were actually quite a few people there, i was impressed with how many showed up! though i didn't get pictures of everyone). we were fortunate in our ability to take off pretty early friday afternoon right after school, so we were the first people there --you know, the ones that get to help everyone else set up ;)

clearly we're prepared to have a great time! (ps, note all that sand--there's a sand volleyball court right by the campsite, so the kids played in the sand for about 28 hours that evening)

officially dinner was bring your own, but it was really more of a pot-luck. we were happy to share our soup, and rayna (aka crusher--as in, bone crusher) was happy to share this joint of venison! (she LOVES 'chicken bones') and another shout-out to bro. kim palmer, the great hunter, who regularly supplies church events with meat!

roasting marshmallows



afton and her friend found this little fellow, and let him climb all over them. it also made a great hair accessory:

ps, none of the boys would play with it! but afton and her friend amelia (below) had it crawling all over them!

and i just love this one, why the boys are showing off their abs is anyone's guess!

happy camping! i wish we could go more often, we always have such a fun time, and we love having so many friends with us too!
ps, i think there are more pictures on FB, if anyone didn't see enough here :)

odds and ends

green masks--baby soft skin ;)

Rayna's class field trip to the arboretum/pumpkin patch

one day when i was out, one of the children captured a photo of my living room... no it's not always that bad, yes that is a mattrress in the stairwell... see why i don't often go running when my children are awake? (paul was home, but he was busy fixing the bed the mattress came from)

rayna and malachi could easily fit into this box, thanks again maggie! we did fold the lid down too, but they you couldn't see that they were in it

afton had 'plant a pretty pansy' day at her school --i love this school! they have so many fun things for the children, and everything is geared around learning.

rayna with her class, it was awards day, so i was there to watch her get her second 6-weeks perfect attendance award. she's the only blonde in her class ;)

one random day, blowing bubbles --just cause they're cute :)

and i think i may have posted this one before, but it still makes me smile, cause really, why would anyone sit on just one chair when he could sit on a tower of 6?! and just sit up there waiting for something to happen... cause it's not easy to get down once you've climbed in...