6th or 7th annual Girls weekend at the Cabin... (I lost count)

Over UEA weekend this year is when we took our girls trip to the Cabin... Here we are at Dicks this fun little hamburger joint in Kamas. From left to right... Audrey holding Annika, my mom (Kathryn),Amber, Jaimie, me and Autumn. It is tradition we come down the canyon to good old Dicks each trip... One year Natalie had us use names she liked for girls, (she was pregnant at the time with Lila) so one of us said Lila and one Reagan so we could hear how it sounded when they called out or order. Every time I go to Dicks I remember that and think how weird it is we now have the cutest Lila ever! Shawna joined us the next day and sadly Natalie did not make it this year... We really missed you Nat!!

We like to take a little walk up above my grandparents cabin to the totem pole.. here is Shawna, Jaimie, Audrey, Annika and Amber sorry to cut you off X-man

Audrey came a day later, and we weren't sure if she were coming so Autumn and I were super excited when this is what we saw in the window....

I know it is really hard to see, but in this tree is a Wood Pecker, I was out side and could hear the sound and looked up and there he was, I was so excited I grabbed my camera to take a picture of him.... I could not get a very good shot with my camera, but I had to blog it anyway because as I was taking the picture I looked at the girls and said I have never seen a wood pecker in real life before, only I left out the word wood.... after a second I realized what I had said and so did the girls we laughed so hard!!! Maybe you had to be there?

Here is my mom with her dads chainsaw equipment and helmet to boot, funny thing is when my Grandpa showed up she says "don't tell my dad I had on his helmet"..... duh that is a difference in generations I guess to be afraid of your parents??? I would've gone out to greet my dad with it on!! Oh well I guess she is a lot more respectful.

Just another totem pole picture this time Xavier is not cut out. We usually take projects to work on .... quilts, Christmas cards, scrapbooks etc..... Autumn and Audrey were busy little bees making Halloween costumes, ( I spent about 1 hr on this) the rest of us just played games, card games who can name the most names starting with a specific letter etc. It was lots of fun. I do have to say that having over 200 hundred dance students with all kinds of names and working in the Primary I kicked some serious butt at the name game! This was Jaimie and Shawna's first year coming on the trip.... I am so glad they came and hope they make it a new tradition as well.

Warning the photo's below may be a little risque...... don't scroll down if your were offended by Calendar girls....



The whole lot of us...Notice Annie sue is completely dressed.... Audrey was afraid she would get in trouble for kiddie porn...

Every so many years we take a trip to the Nudist Ranch just to you know sow a few wild oats, let your hair down etc..... I have to say it has been about 15 years since we ventured down this path, if I can find some old photos I will post them. We laughed so hard taking these pictures... which that is actually all they are is pictures I don't know if the Nudist ranch ever existed or not probably in the 70's but we have a good time pretending..... When we were taking pictures so many people would stare and honk, it WAS opening weekend of the deer hunt, but the funniest was some guy stopped to take photos of us taking pictures here..... somebody got a photo of him but I didn't so if you see these pictures in some magazine or on line somewhere let me know....

My mom with her cast and all...

Me with my supposed to be surprised you caught me at the nudist ranch face... I really do have a shirt on underneath it is just that my boobs have traveled so far south I can really lower the blanket quite low!!

Autumn... notice the sign behind her.... "Closed due to Mosquito's"... funny stuff I don't know when they added that. We did sign our name on the board so if you are ever there check it out we signed "White girls gone wild" and then all of our names.... White at one point is or was or will be our last name it is not a racial comment...

Audrey.... thanks for providing the blankets

Amber, funny thing is Amber's husband really thinks we went to a nudist ranch and just can't believe it because "her sisters are so uptight"

Jaimie trying to pose so serious...

Shawna-tina with her purse. She was soooo funny during this she would say "Oh ya great good, put your leg up a little, etc she really knew how to work it.

Good times I tell ya!!! I sure wish we could do this more than once a year. We all have so much fun. Everyone gets to relax without kids or husbands.

I love all of these women more than words could say too..... Like I said before welcome to the fam Jaimie and Shawna I love you both.... Jaimie my bff for real I love your sense of humor, I love you teaching dance with me and hanging out together on Fridays, I love all your advice and hope I don't drive you crazy needing to check every step I take with you first.

Shawna I don't know anyone nicer.... you always are so sweet, and that Mary Poppins purse of yours is the best..... You are so good to all the kids and help us all so much at family functions. It was so fun to have you without the kids so we could get to know you better you really are a funny girl!!

My 3 sisters...... I love you like crazy..... when I was little I wanted a sister so bad..... I am between 2 boys.... my dad told me I prayed too hard because I did not get just one I got 3. This is par for my life I am always blessed far more than I deserve. I love having sisters so much it makes me sad some days that I don't have more kids so that my girls can have lots of sisters.... they really are your best friends (besides Jaimie)

last my mother I love her dearly too, she is an amazing woman, life certainly has not always been easy for her, she has had more than her fair share of trials and it breaks my heart to watch her struggle like she does. She is a fighter though and can pull through anything handed to her!!

Olivia's Birthday Party!

Olivia had a slumber party for her 8th birthday...... She was planning this party spectacular for weeks. We had to cut out a few of her ideas it would have been the party of the century had we done everything she told her friends we were going to do!! I think she had a good time anyway. When Maddie turned 8 she had a slumber party and I made pajama pants for her and all her friends. Somehow Olivia remembered this and that is what she HAD to have..... which is fine I want to be fair, my life however has changed a bit since then and I don't have quite the free time. So we found Hannah Montana fabric of course, the girls went on a treasure hunt to find the pants, and shirts they could paint. (Thanks to Maddie & Hayden for putting this together). They painted shirts, and decorated cookies. She got tons of really fun stuff. Thank you to all of her friends!!

Here is Olivia, Abby Oborn & Megan or Madison Sansom (I can't tell in the picture which one) This is where they started out for the night, all lined up in the living room, I came down around 4:00am and found some like below under the table one in the kitchen (on the hard wood floor go figure) and 2 STILL AWAKE!! Sorry to all you mothers I bet you had really sweet daughters that next afternoon.

Canyon thought decorating cookies was great, especially because they were pumpkins!

Here is the majority of the party... starting left sitting up... Daisy, Abby, Calli, Megan, Emalee & Hannah... laying down..... Halee, Haidyn, Tristyn and Olivia.... Canyon sitting up in the front, in his decorated shirt he was really into this girly party!!

Don't you love the bunny fingers why is that so funny, I still have not figured that out, but kids love to do it!! Front left to right.... Calli, Abby, Emalee, back Olivia, Halee, & Megan

Megan, Halee & Olivia

Good times, I have told myself I only have to do one slumber party for their birthday, so I only have one child left to have his YEAH!! As you get older you learn lots of things "right" one of those things is Birthday parties should not be longer than 2 hours!!! Waah Waah right soon enough I will be sad that I don't have small children around to have slumber parties for!!! The memories for my kids are worth it all anyway!!!

Olivia's Baptism

Shawna & Andrew at Chuck-a-rama after the Baptism

Here are the Baptism photos...... It should go from the bottom up I still am working on how you do this whole blog thing so..... Anyway Olivia was baptized on October 11th 2008. She was Baptized by her Great Grandpa David Hughes and Confirmed by her Dad Tom Christenson...

After the Baptism we all went to Chuck-a-rama to celebrate the baptism and her Birthday! Here are Zane & Rebecca

Sara & Canyon
She got baptized at the same time as two of her friends. Here she is with Emalee Acomb


Everyone Chowing down good ole chucks!!

Check out Emme

Olivia, Lila, Owen, Zarley and of course Shawna tina with all the kids!

My Bff Jaimie and Corbin

Here is Olivia with Great Grandpa Hughes. He joined the church only 7 years ago.... He used to call all his neighbors the Mormon Mafia..... they finally got him!! We asked him to do it because we thought it would make it an extra special day for Olivia to be baptized by her Great Grandpa and because we thought it might be special for him too being that he had never baptized anyone before. He was really nervous, but did just fine. I am so glad he was willing to do it. I have always had great memories with my grandparents, my grandma Marilyn Hughes (his wife) was my very favorite!! I always say she is still helping me out because she did so much while she was alive. We were really good friends. I loved sitting and listening to their stories etc. Thanks Grandpa I love you!!


Here is me and Olivia. She was so excited... she did cartwheels all the way down the hall going to the chapel.
Obviously I haven't gotten the picture turning thing down yet. I will ! Olivia, Canyon & Tom.

Olivia & Calli Sumsion another friend she was baptized with.

"What is that Noise?"

Just a funny thing Canyon said...... So this weekend I was gone to my Grandparents cabin with all the girls and Tom was out of town for work so Canyon slept over with Grandma Kaye and Grandpa Tom, he was sleeping in between them (super nice grandparents right!!!) he sat up looked at both of them and said "WHAT Is That Noise?" So they were both snoring and he wanted to know what the ruckus was!! Kaye told him that they snore and that if he wanted to sleep with them he would have to deal.... So he said ok. He was just curious!!! I hope I got the story right I heard it from Canyon and Kaye. I thought it was funny he told me that their bed was too noisy and I asked him why and he tried to imitate the noise. I wish I could post a video of him doing it. He closes his eyes and tries to do this snoring blowing thing super funny!!

I wish I had a video camera!!!

Ok so I have a funny story I want to remember, I wish desperately I had a picture to go along with it..... So..... As most of you know I just moved my dance studio, Tom had spent the whole month of August doing a lot of the work. Well we finished the studio by the skin of our teeth at 4:00 am the morning before the first class..... Well needless to say we had a lot of garbage left over from putting the floor in and painting etc..... Tom by this point had had enough and would rather die then spend another minute working at the studio. We/they I didn't do too much loaded all the trash into the back of our neighbor John's trailer and just left it at the back of the parking lot for almost a month. One night the landlord was there and I said oh I am going to get rid of that this week. Well they always come on Saturday, so on Friday night I thought to myself I have got to get rid of this tonight they will be here in the morning. Well Tom was out of town, so I had to do it with just the help of my wonderful children..... So John works for a home builder and he told me of a dumpster I could take the stuff to. So I hooked the trailer to my car and pulling out of the parking lot of my studio I lost it, it came off and rolled out into the semi busy street. I got it back thinking I had put it back on better went to get the kids. We headed up to find this neighborhood that had a good empty dumpster like John said.... It is up this huge hill, so as we pull up to unload all the crap, I notice a sign that says you will be fined $500 for dumping.... so I get really scared that I am going to get caught dumping and have to pay this fine. So I decide to turn the car around and angle it to a different dumpster that we can get to easier and get out of there quicker.... so in the process of turning the car around the trailer come off the hitch again, I am trying to fix it and it takes off down the big hill. So I am holding on to it and it is pulling me down the hill with it. Hayden grabs on to it to help me steps in a pile of sand or dirt and his feet slip out from underneath him. He is now sliding down the hill with me but he is parallel with the trailer, like he is hanging on underneath and his back is inches away from the ground I do not know how he was moving like this and not scrapping himself along the ground. Well Maddie comes running down the hill to the rescue and stops the run away trailer. Hayden and I were laughing so hard we were about to pee our pants. So we put it in front of a dumpster and try to unload it quickly as we are unloading it, Canyon starts honking the horn of the car. So hello everyone here we are dumping semi illegally (pretty much totally illegally but we had John tell us we could that is fine right?) So Maddie runs to get him to stop and Hayden and I keep unloading well as we make the trailer lighter for some reason it decides it will take another trip on its own it hauls up and over a curb and is now stuck. So you have me and Maddie and Hayden trying to lift it out and get it unstuck with Canyon in the car honking. So suddenly we get scared because this guy close by comes out in his back yard to see what his dog is barking at so I freak and yell run run to my kids, so we run to the car leaving the trailer at the scene of the crime. As we get to the car instead of Maddie just jumping in she is pounding on the front door window yelling at Olivia that she called the front seat. So I in turn being the great mother that I am start to yell at her the best words of advice you can imagine coming from a mother. " Maddie you don't stop to fight over the front seat when you are running from the cops" Like the cops were even there, but the fact that I am yelling this. Like lets teach our children how to run from the cops??? WE all got in the car safely took off like Bo & Luke Duke (don't forget Daisy). We ended up getting the neighbor to help us get his trailer back to safety, and the 3 of us couldn't stop laughing for days. Mostly about Hayden's Indiana Jonesing it down the street and me giving running from the cops advice!!! Long story but I wanted to journal it. I feel sad a lot that my kids are growing up too fast, but then you get these kind of friendship moments with them that are so funny and make up for missing their littleness. I love my children like crazy!!! I love that we do so much as a team. I could not run my life family and dance studio without my little "team"!! Too bad no one was filming!!

A view of September

Canyon & Hayden up little cottonwood canyon during Olivia's "photo shoot"

Canyon in his super cool skeleton pajama's He loves them!!! He wore them for 2 days straight, when I said to him, "you need to get dressed" he would reply, " I'm are dressed". Thanks Aunt Rebecca for the birthday gift he loves them!!

Maddie's happy side.... She is a great girl she helps me out so much with the kids and at dance. I think she is amazing and beautiful, she gets 4.0's every quarter she dances hours on end and works for me when she is not.... so remember that when I choose to have fun with her "13 year old girl" attitude... Because she can throw it. We like to get pictures of her really mad face. My plan is to blow one up and give it to her as a gift on her daughters 13th birthday!!

Olivia's photo shoot..... she was so funny. She was seriously posing for the camera.... all she needs is a twin and watch out Mary Kate & Ashley right? How about Machalle Culkin (however you spell his name) We do not have any singing ability in our family so we can't go for any of the newer young stars!!

Our family at the Armbrust Family Reunion...

Grandma Kaye and her sister Sharon @ the Armbrust family reunion. If you know Kaye you know she has this great laugh and you can tell in this picture this is what she is doing. That is why I picked this picture, her laugh is something I will always remember about her and I love it.

Here she is cute Maddie totally in her you're bugging the crap out of me mood!! and why because her dad was trying to take her picture... Ooohh he is so buggy. So he had fun with it and wanted to be in the picture with her!! One day she will realize she has the best dad ever!!




Andrew and Shawna's wedding...... Here is Owen, Canyon, Lila and Gus. 1 representative from the 1st 4 of my parents children all born within 18 months. One of these kids is not like the other!!

Uncle Josh and Hayden, He loves to hug Hayden and tease him. Hayden acts like he doesn't like it but he loves it!!! "Good Game" Hayden. Josh would tap Hayden in the back and say that to him, Hayden just did not get it!!! He finally got it or just joined in and now we all get slapped in the back at least 3x a day with the same "Good Game announcement". Thanks Josh!!! We do love Uncie Josh though if you need a good laugh he is the guy to have around. Or if you need a good concert, he is the man. (remember we have no singing ability in our family so it is a good show) especially Lake Powell nights!!


The Bride and groom aren't they cute. What a good looking couple.



September also brought us a sad day...... we had to say goodbye to Augustus..... We loved having him but like he said "I know you are going to be sad but I really need to be with my parents" Here is Troy (my brother) walking down the isle with his wife Blanca.... They are amazing!! In their short married life she has had breast cancer with a double mastectomy and he was in a serious car accident. Both leaving them not the same as before. The love they have for each other is very admirable. I look up to them so much!! When Troy was a teenager and we would fight or I would say something rude to him or if he was just teasing me he would say who do you know that is cooler than me? He would want me to really think of someone that could possibly be cooler, and I never could. He was right he was the coolest person I knew. It is still true today I don't know anyone "cooler". Corbin thinks it is funny that I think his dad is so great, but he really is!! I get teary eyed just thinking about how proud I was of him on this day. It was his Son's wedding day, he was still in the neck brace with his eye totally swollen and scars all over his face. Yet he did not flinch he walked with confidence greeted people he knew along with strangers. He has always been very good looking so I am sure this was very hard for him. I am not saying he is not good looking still I just bet it was kind of a hard day. I love my brothers if you couldn't tell. My sisters too we will save that for another blog!

Here is Olivia in cousin Eddies motor home he took to the wedding. Ha ha did I say cousin Eddie I meant uncle Josh!!

Here is Canyon and Lila's first day of Preschool. Aren't they cute together, both Natalie I wish we had them both as twins!! Lila helps him with his back pack etc. We are hoping to get pictures of them every year on their first day of school together ending up with a cap and gown picture. I am so lucky my kids have close cousins! Speaking of which check out Zarley and Owen on Canyon's first day of school. They don't love the idea. Look at their cute little faces. This is the kind of stuff I get to see all the time. If you didn't live next door to your sister you would never get these moments in life!!

Check out the back pack that is my favorite when they are so small it goes from shoulders to knees. I love little people......... Not midgets just little people!