Green Lantern

It is homecoming week in Sanford this week. Party on!! The school does a parade for homecoming and this year the theme was Super Heros. The whole school participates in the parade, but I think once you hit junior high, it kind of isn't cool to be in the parade and I think a lot of kids ditch. Anyway, the first grade dressed up as the Green Lantern.

Fall finally hit Colorado this year and today the high for the day was 53. Right before the parade started it started raining and got really windy, not ideal parade conditions. Needless to say the parade was cut short, but was still fun. Hey, who doesn't love a parade. Here is McCray shivering, don't ask me wear his jacket is.
This is before McCray realized it was cold. He makes an awesome Green Lantern.

Mrs. Forester and Mrs. Cindy were awesome and carried this sign in the blustery wind and rain. What some students won't do for their students, amazing!!

Picking the Pumpkins

The grandkids go and help grandma Pixie pick the pumpkins from her garden. This year there were pumpkins o' plenty. It was really fun to have Chera and Marshall this year and McCray has already picked out the perfect one to carve.

Here are all the pumpkins. We wanted to get all the grandkids, but Marshall was done taking pictures.
Maggie was able to carry the little ones with some help from Chera and her dog Maci.

Cahl helped too. Looks like Maci liked to help everyone!!

Marshall supervised the whole operation. He was really cute, from the other side of the pumpkins, you could barely see him. I love his facial expressions!! The pumpkins got pretty big this year.

Here is McCray and all his muscles!! He carried the big ones. He said the best part of picking pumpkins is cutting them off the vine with a knife, go figure!! Can't wait to see them all carved!!

Labor Day Camping

Every year we go camping with the Larsen side for Labor Day weekend. One day everyone takes a four-wheeler ride and goes fishing. I have yet to go because I have either stayed behind with a napping baby or pregnant. I don't know why, but when I am prego, I get super motion sick and riding the four wheeler makes me super sick. So, anyway, here are the pics from this year's fishing. Maggie and I stayed behind and took a much needed nap and awesome hike/walk.

Everyone gearing up for the rain.

The Boys.

Gotta love my handsome fisher men. McCray caught 3 fish and threw them back. He said that they were too little to eat and would be nuttin' but bones!

Visits from mice

In the 5 years that we have lived here, we have NEVER has a mouse in our house. I DO NOT do mice, I hate them. Sometimes I have had nightmares about them crawling on me while I am sleeping. But for some reason or another, they decided to visit us this summer, AWESOME!! We seriously killed like 20 mice, no joke. All in traps and yes, I did have to clean some of them up! We finally figured out that they were coming in through our dryer vent and have taken care of it and in like 3 weeks, no mice!!(knock on wood) This mouse I found in our dryer. I first saw dried blood on the drum of our dryer and thought, Oh great, how did I miss chocolate in the pocket, then I pulled out the rest and found this little guy,

yes, he is dead, still clinging to McCray's pajama pant legs. I dried him in the dryer, that's what they get, don't mess with me!!

First Day of First Grade

The first day of school for McCray was August 22nd. Don't get mad because this is like 8 weeks later, but better late than never. Yes, I did cry and yes Logan did make fun of me. I did cry the first day of Kindergarten, and I did cry the first day of First grade. It just makes me sad to have him gone for 8 hours 4 days a week. He is just growing so fast, I can't believe it. McCray is so smart and loves school, I am so proud of him and all that he has done in school. Parent teacher conferences are super short and easy because of the great boy that he is!! Awesome job Bubba!!

Just for fun, I thought I would post this and to show how much he has grown! Here is the first day of Kindergarten showing off his big Kindergarten muscles!!

First day of First Grade.

Dog Days of Summer

School starts on Monday, I can't believe how fast the summer went! Here is a little of what we did, like taking silly pictures in the kitchen!!
Maggie actually kept this cute hat on for a couple of hours, so I had to get a picture. She likes to wear them for like 2 minutes and then they are gone!!

We got to go swimming a lot this summer. There is something about kids and water, they just attract each other and my kids can't get enough of playing in water!!

McCray loved the slip n slide this summer. Cahl, not so much. By the end of the summer, Cahl did get to where he would run down the slide. McCray was a natural and thanks to the slip n slide, our grass got watered this summer!

In June we got to go to Bear Lake with our Utah cousins. There wasn't a beach, so we just go to stand and throw rocks in the water. It was a fun Sole Sister weekend! I ran a half-marathon and Mere, Beth and Camille ran the 5K. It was a blast and I think it should become a tradition!

Maggie was taking a nap when we went down to the lake, here is my niece Morgan. She is super sassy and I am sure she and Maggie are going to get into lots of trouble together!

Cahl and Noah are a year apart, and I can already tell Mere and I are going to have our hands full with those two. They are trying to find the biggest rocks to throw into the lake, never mind that Morgan was standing right there and they can't throw that far yet!!

This was McCray's last year in t-ball and I was his coach and Cahl was my assistant. He loved it, but said that he is ready for coach pitch next year. It was really fun coaching and I am sure that I will coach Cahl's them next year.

We went on a hike to Zappate falls with Logan's Mom and sister Chera and her family. It was fun and whenever someone comes and visits, (hint-hint) we will definitely have to take them there. The kids loved it!

Here are the boys and our cousin Cash in their "hot tub." Really it is our sand box full of water. I loved the summer putting the hose in our sand box and making chocolate milk rivers and little cities, so the boys get to do this a lot.

Relaxing in the hot tub!!

Maggie grew like 4 inches this summer, I think it was all the sleeping she did. Having both her brothers at home was exhausting!! I love watching my kids sleep, they look like little angels to me!!

All in all, it was a pretty good summer and we got to spend a lot of time together, which I loved!! Onto school and more adventures!!

Happy Pioneer Day from Sanford

On Thursday, July 21st we Sanfordians celebrated Pioneer day. This is one of my favorite holidays, it is a super fun day. It starts off with a breakfast at 6am, but we are usually sleeping so we skip that part. Every year we get the boys matching cowboy shirts, so here are this years. This year it is awesome because we found one for Logan as well, so I am sure that picture will make the next post on the blog. My cowboys are handsome!!
The parade starts at 10 am. Maggie and Cahl are waiting for the parade to start. Maggie really loves little chairs lately, so she loved sitting in her chair.




Each auxilary gets to pair up with another one and they get to do a float. I am in the primary presidency and one of the perks of my calling is working on the float. The primary was paired up with the Elders quorom and this is our float. The theme this year was " Put your shoulder to the wheel." We took a line from the song, "The church has need of helping hands" and used this for our theme. I know the picture isn't that great, it is supposed to be a garden with the watering can watering it. We cut out all the primary kids hands and put them on the fence. There are some flowers and kids in our garden.

McCray had his choice of riding on the float or riding his bike, guess which one he chose??

Porter wanted to join in the festivities, so he followed us to the parade .

After the parade, the town has a BBQ at noon, primary games at the church at 1:30. Our ward was in charge of the games this year, so no pictures, sorry, it was raining and I was busy helping kids. The games were fun, we had potatoe sack races, stick pull, watermelon eating contest, water baloon baseball and a tug of war. After the primary games, there are the foot races. They have age group races. This year Cahl actually participated and came in a really close second. He was happy because he got a sucker, YEAH!!

Last year McCray took first place and defended his title this year and won!! If you win first place you get a pop, he chose Mtn. Dew, his dad was so proud! After the foot races there was a pie eating contest, egg toss and then a greased pig chase. They grease up two pigs and let them loose on the softball field. Whoever catches the pigs wins them!! It is really fun to watch the kids chase them. No pigs for us this year, but maybe next. After the races is a break and then a family dance at the church. We usually skip the dance because we have tired kids, so I am sure we have that to look forward to in our future. This year was really fun because it was the first one in like 5 years that Logan was able to attend. Manassa is tomorrow to continue the pioneer celebration, we need a day to recooperate, so onto more festivities tomorrow!!