October 21st update

I just finished Gerald Lund's new book "The Undaunted" last night. I'm so sad it's over - I loved the book - all 800 pages. Yes, I've been reading it for half of Ashlie's life now. :) The funnest thing about the book is that there are Deckers' mentioned all throughout it, which are from my grandma John's family line. I found a website that has great photos of the significant places on the trail that are mentioned in the book. It is www.thefurtrapper.com. Click on "Bluff Utah" on the left hand side (you have to scroll down a while). The pictures really bring all of those places to life after reading the book. There are so many amazing stories of Heavenly Father's hand helping to assist them on the trail. The pioneers were so amazing and Heavenly Father truly does watch out for us all. I'm so glad I finally know this story!
These are a couple pictures from the website: (Hole in the Rock)and San Juan Hill Road (the animals were so exhausted by this point that one of the horses died as soon as it made it to the top of this hill)

This past month I got to see my sister Julianne again & her baby Paxton for the first time. This is a photo of Paxton and Ashlie side by side after we picked them up from the airport.

Then, we got to see my sister Kim's new baby, Ethan. It was so fun to have the three babies here!! Lucky Ashlie has tons of cousins born the same year as her: Zachary, Lily, Olivia, Paxton, and Ethan. I have yet to meet Zachary & Olivia, but we can't wait until the Woodward babies get to see each other for the first time. Here is Kim with Ethan, me with Ashlie, and Julianne with Paxton.

We had a fun Halloween party with the Memmott family this past weekend. Brad was a graduate, I was a witch, Megan was an indian, Paige was a witch, and Ashlie was a zebra. I felt like everyone dressed up super good this year. Here are some photos of the family:

Who pulls this costume off better you think? I think Brad looks so official! You look great in that Davis High cap sweetheart!

I'm adding this at 10:00pm because Megan just lost her 8th tooth an hour ago! I didn't think her tooth was that loose! She and I were walking up the stairs and she said, "Tooth! Tooth!" and we get to the kitchen and she smiles and shows it to Brad and I. Lucky for us the tooth fairy happened to have something lying around! By the way, Ashlie rolled over for the first time yesterday, from her tummy to her back 3 times!

Holy Cow It's Cold!!!

October sure ushered itself in in a very cold way! It was 36 degrees this morning when I took Megan to school. We got snow at our house in Heber yesterday. Here are some pictures from my view at my house. It's so pretty, but SOOOO cold. I have to remind myself that it's a blessing to live somewhere where we experience all of the seasons. I feel bad that my sister Julianne is visiting me from Arizona this week. It'll be a shock to her system!

September 29th, 2009 Update

I spent a lot of time thinking lately about how I could get my kids to help around the house more. After lots of thinking I came up with something that seems to be working. We started it last week and rewarded the kids on Saturday. Week #2 seems to be going great & I'm loving it. I thought I'd share what Brad and I came up with: Both Megan and Paige have a job chart that I hung on the fridge. I created little cards that I put in the pocket sleeves of baseball card protector sheets. Megan's jobs are the top ones, and Paige's are hung down below. I made some fun magnets, and as soon as they complete a job they get to choose a magnet and place it on that square. At the end of the day they get a "white ticket" (a white piece of paper) in their jar if they completed all of their jobs. I also made them each a "good job jar", with cute Way To Go stickers, etc. Every time I catch them doing something good I write what they did on a white slip of paper and place it in their jar. If they fight, or do something not-so-good, they get a red ticket. Red tickets eat white tickets. So, on Saturdays we're counting up their white tickets and for every 20 tickets they get a prize. I went to Dollar Tree and got princess lip gloss & chapstick, bubblicious bubblegum, Tinkerbell paint sets, coloring books, etc. They can also choose little coupons good for a slurpee, an ice cream cone, a donut, a movie rental, their fingernails / toenails painted, make cookies with mom, family game night (Megan's idea), one-on-one story time in the bean bags at the library, etc. So, knowing my sugar lover, Paige, I wasn't surprised when she chose the bubblegum this last week. Megan chose the Tinkerbell paint set (not surprising either). Anyway, long story short, it's been awesome! Megan's been making her own bed before school, and even has dumped all of the garbages (and has insisted on taking the huge black garbage to the road) the last 2 garbage nights - just to earn a "white ticket". I'm loving life!

Their Job Charts - Megan has had fun setting the table for dinner each night, & she does so good! She chooses the dishes, so it's been funny seeing what she chooses for our cups. We've used china, our little tea cups, etc. It's always a surprise! By the way McKenzie - she still remembers that you taught her that the knife hugs the spoon!

Their "Good Job Jars"

Paige thinks it is so funny to balance on one leg while she puts away the silverware. She's done it every time all week long!

She does a really good job, and she's quite proud of herself!


This last weekend we hiked Battlecreek Falls in Pleasant Grove, stumbled across a really neat park, and drove the Alpine Loop starting at Timpanogas, and ending near Heber City. It's a good thing we went since there's supposed to be possibly 20 inches of snow tomorrow night in the mountains. Crazy!


And of course, I have to post some of the latest pictures of my little Ashlie:

It's Off To Grandma's We Go!

Our Labor Day Weekend got off to a rough start with Megan having to miss school Friday because she woke up sick. All seemed well Saturday morning, so we left for Idaho to spend the weekend at Brad's parent's house. Saturday we were at the park to celebrate Brad's grandmother's 88th birthday. Brad's aunt Phyllis has a cotton candy machine, and she made a large bag of cotton candy for each child (while they watched!). The kids thought that was pretty cool - as well as the piñatas & the merry-go-round. Brad of course LOVED watching the BYU game. I went down and visited with Jen (his cousin's wife that lives down the road from his parents). I enjoyed the BYU game in my own way! :) One of the highlights was definitely feeding the llamas at Rex & Betty's house. The kids loved it. They haven't had the llamas for very long, and it was our first time to go out and feed & pet them. Betty was excited because "Cusco the llama" was born just a few days before we came up. Here's some photos from the weekend:

"Hey mom & dad - I'm ready to go to grandma & grandpa's!"


Megan feeding the llamas apples


Paige's turn!




This is the baby llama that was just born this week. Now Brad's parents have 5 llamas!

This morning was Paige's first day of preschool! She was excited & she seemed to have a good time. Being the sugar lover that she is, all I really got out of her was that she made a rainbow picture with glitter, and she had a doughnut. As I'm typing this she is letting me know that "her tummy needs cookies". I don't know about that, but her tummy seems to rule around here... Love you all!

Megan's A First Grader!

Today (September 1st) was Megan's first day of school. She started first grade (I can't believe it!). So, last night I was feeling good that we had gotten her to bed by 8:30. Ashlie was up until midnight, then awake 3 times during the night for some reason. When I got up around 5am with Ashlie I noticed that Megan was in our room. She was so excited for school that she couldn't sleep any longer! Luckily by 6 she had fallen back asleep in our bed. Last night was back to school night and Megan was skipping everywhere we went at the school. She just has been SOOOO excited. I think it's so cute because I know she won't always feel this way.

When I got her home from school today she told me this (in her most excited voice), "...and did you know that the PE room walls move and that the whole PE room turns into a RESTAURANT! IT WAS A RESTAURANT! (giggling) People ate on picnic tables and there were people cooking behind the walls!" I thought this was hilarious! Now you know what a little six year old is thinking during their first lunch in a lunchroom! :)

This is her first day photo: (I took photos this morning but the shadows were terrible, so this is right when she got home)

Ashlie is growing so fast that I want to share some recent photos of her too:

Since I haven’t blogged FOREVER, I thought I’d catch you all up on what we’ve been doing lately:

We had our third daughter, Ashlie July 11th. We LOVE her!! She is healthy and beautiful, and we feel so blessed to have her here.

Brad and I are proud of her baby room. Here’s a peek. I did some sewing (the curtain and the crib skirt), and Brad refinished the dresser. We couldn’t find a matching dresser to go with our espresso colored crib so we bought a solid wood dresser that was a light oak color and Brad stripped, re-stained & varnished it. I think it matches perfectly.

We’re enjoying night after night of firework shows. When we first moved to Heber we thought the random fireworks were so funny. Just wondering if we have any of you beat: Fireworks on the 4th of July, then again July 10th (to kick off a race), July 24th (pioneer day), July 25th (demolition derby), and we'll have more July 31st and August 1st at the end of the rodeo. If you didn't get your fill on the 4th, you know where to come! ☺

We’re eating A LOT of zucchini. The question each night is no longer “What’s for dinner?” but rather “How should we cook the zucchini tonight?”

Megan has been working hard on a popsicle stick house for the past two weeks. It all started with her bringing me the craft popsicle sticks and wanting to make a house. I then suggested that she could possibly enter it into our county fair. She entered it Monday, and it'll be fun to go see the exhibits on Friday. Other than the hot glue she pretty much did everything. She's very proud of it. It was worth it just to see how excited she was when she entered it. She also entered this drawing of flowers.

We have two tiny fruit trees that we planted this spring, and between the two trees we grew one piece of fruit – a plum. I think Brad and I both knew it would be a miracle if our plum actually lasted until it was fully ripe before one of the girls picked it. Anyway, a couple of days ago Paige brought me the half green plum and said Megan picked it. Megan then explained how she didn’t pick it - it just fell off while she was touching it. ☺ Even if we get only 2 pieces of unripe fruit next summer we'll be up from this year!

Tooth Fairy Letter

I wrote yesterday about Megan losing her 6th tooth, but I had to add this this morning because it's just too cute. So Megan was worried last night before bed because she couldn't find her tooth anywhere. She and Paige had taken it out of the bag and played with it I guess. (Such a fun thing to touch!) j/k Anyway, she wouldn't let Brad or I read this letter last night because it was just meant for the tooth fairy. Here's what she wrote:

Teeth!

So yesterday (May 12th), Megan came home from school wearing this giant tooth necklace. The first thing out of my mouth was "Wow - it must be dinosaur week!" :) It's a good thing I got a photo of it as soon as she got home, because Paige destroyed it not too long after this.

So, keeping with the tooth theme, this is the tooth Megan came home with today (May 13th). She lost her 6th tooth at school today! She thought it was so cool. Her class regularly earns rewards for being quiet, etc., and today their reward was that they got to see a "secret room" in the school, where they got to eat a treat. So, while Megan was eating her fruit roll-up in the teacher's lounge (the "secret room"), she lost her tooth.

Brad's Getting So Old!! :)

So, my cute husband is now 31. I can't believe it! It was a fun day. The girls helped me decorate this fish cake for Brad with Swedish fish & sprinkles & we made him a little fishing pole (bamboo skewer) with a dangling gummy worm. Paige definetely favored the left side of the cake when putting on candles, and now I know why it's good to put candles in a straight row - Brad and I were having to reach over lit candles to light the ones in the middle! Megan hated what I wrote on the cake. She said I should've just written "We hope you like your fish cake". It's really hard to please 5 year olds I'm learning!
Here's a happy dad on his birthday!
This was when I said, "So, who likes cake?!" The girls waited forever to have cake & ice cream. We were too full after dinner, then Brad wanted to work on the fence together, then he had birthday phone calls, and then we had cake. They were definetely ready by the time it came around.
So, his birthday pictures wouldn't be complete without showing you what he was dying to work on once again. Our fence is coming along so great & it is soooooo exciting! It totally changes how I feel about being in my backyard. He has done so great with the fence & we have probably 10 more panels (and our gate) to do. It has been fun to be out there working with him although I'm not good for much. The girls and I had fun in the yard in between supplying him with the pieces that he needed. To finish off the night I rented Seven Pounds (Will Smith) for he & I. The ending completely made me sad, freaked out & fearing jellyfish and bathtubs. Don't watch this movie - especially on birthdays. I felt so bad I'd gotten such a depressing show on his happy day. :) Oh well! Love you all!