Labor Day with the Maynes'

Nate's family has a little get-together every Labor day.  This year, it was at Lynn and Ali's, Jen was in charge.  She did a really nice dinner, and then planned a bunch of "Work to Win It" Games.  It was a LOT of fun.  Who doesn't love games that make you look like a fool.... and the competition of it all!  I nominated myself as the camera-girl. 

Nate's even good at shaking ping-pong balls out of a tissue box that's tied to his back.  Fun stuff :) 

Kelly's such a cute little cheerleader for her team

Popping the balloons since the wind was taking off with them!

I can't help but love the pictures that Erika asks me to take of her :)  She must have loved that crown :)

This was actually a reinactment of what she had been doing a few seconds earlier.  Everyone thought it was adorable that she was standing there all poised and ready to go with the cookie game ;).  She did look pretty cute. 

Doesn't this just look cool?!

Erika was trying to hoola-hoop, but wouldn't back up at all for me to get a decent picture :)  She sure was being a cutie that night ;)

Donut Falls

For Labor Day, we went to Donut Falls.  It's a pretty sentimental place to me, and Nate and I have gone enough times together and as a family, that it's almost tradition-like :).  I'm not sure why it seemed so much shorter and easier this year, but who can argue with that!  I was around 6 months pregnant the last time, but anyway.  The kids all did great!  Even Erika!  She walked all the way there herself and then had to be held on the way back down.  Noah did the whole hike himself!  I was pretty proud of both of them really :). 

I miss the old Donut Falls.  It's not quite the same without the cave, and the dangerous waterfall dumping on  your head, but the kids seem to be okay with it still (they don't remember it the old way).  We all crossed the river safely, nothing horrible happened, we didn't even need the bandaids that I accidentally left in the car :).  So, pretty good trip for us this time!  We sat and ate our little snacks (we brought way too many for how short that hike is), played in the water and with the rocks, and then went back down.  It was a very pleasant trip.  I need to remember not to do this on Labor Day again though, there were SO MANY people!  Although, I'll never forget the perfect parking place we were blessed with :).  We had been in a little bit of a hurry since we were trying to get back for a reunion meeting, so the good spot saved us about an hour I would guess.... anyway.... Good times!

Four Square

Saturday morning we decided we needed to get out of the house and while Nate and I wanted to go to Temple Square, the kids all voted for a park, so we grabbed some lunch and headed down to West Bountiful Elementary.  We were looking for a place with Four Square markings specifically, for Brad, he'd been dying to show us how to play.  Brad taught everyone how to play and we actually played some pretty good rounds, even with Erika and Noah present.  There was of course, the usual bickering.  The whining and crying, pouting when you get out, that sort of thing, but that's pretty normal with a bunch of little kids.  Hopefully we can get enough practice with it as a family though, that it's not such a big deal to them later, and they can just enjoy the game.  Our family is just full of competitiveness.  From Nate mostly.  So it does make games slightly overwhelming at times ;).  But we did have a lot of fun.

Dinosaur Museum with the Wardles

Last Tuesday we went down to Thanksgiving Point for the last Two Dollar Tuesday and met up with the Wardles.  Andrea was one of my best friends in High School and then roommate in College.  Unfortunately she moved CLEAR OUT TO SPANISH FORK so we rarely get to see each other!  This was a halfway-ish point.  It wasn't too busy, despite what Andrea thought :), compared to the last time we went in August.  But it was still pretty busy.  Lots of people means lots of chaos, and some kids don't love the chaos.  I think all of our kids did pretty well though.  I think Sam was on his last nerver toward the end, but I thought we really lucked out not losing anyone or anything.  That was Charity's biggest fear the entire time.  She is so funny.  She picks the strangest things to let herself stress out about.  Huh.  She probably thinks the same thing about me :).  But we had a lot of fun.  Didn't get a lot of real great pictures. 

All 9 of them!!! 

And can you believe that out of 9 kids between the two of us, no two of them are the same age right now!  Kinda bizarre!

After we escaped the Dinosaur Museum, we found ourselves a nice park to calm down at.  Andrea and I were wrecks and this was a nice way to be able to talk and enjoy each other's company without losing any children ;).  I think the kids would have had more fun if I'd remembered food or money to get food.  But what can ya do. 

Charity took the camera after a while and got some good ones for me :)

Lots of fun!  We'll have to do it again sometime!

Evan

I had the privilege of taking pictures of my cute nephew for his baptism invitations. 

It was so fun!  I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out, when I would look at the screen after each picture, they just weren't how I wanted them to be, but when I got them on the computer, I was SO pleased with them!  He's sent out his invites now, so I think it's okay if I share some of my favorites.  I'm planning on playing with them a little on my Lightroom, but here they are for now.

This one was Nate's idea, I love it!








He had been playing with the squirt bottle his mom had brought to do his hair, so he had water dripping all over his face :)  I'm sure I could take the drops off, but I like it anyway.