Trip to Idaho: The Falls

We headed across the street and across the river to a park right by the falls. Right by where we parked was this cool looking car.


We headed into the park and started walking on the trail that ran along the river.


It was sooooo beautiful.


In order to make it over the river, we had to cross this bridge: Taylor Bridge, which Taylor was soooo tickled that it had her name.


The falls were gorgeous, and I can see why they decided to name the city after them.


It was interesting because the birds, mainly ducks and geese, were all sitting along the edge of the topmost fall.


Of course, I had to get a picture of the kiddos.


By this point, we were hungry, and we'd seen a Chili's nearby, so we headed to the car. Again, Payden just had to hold Madison's hand.


Taylor decided I needed to take a picture of her by this fire hydrant. She made up her own pose, too.


As we drove along a one way road by the river, we saw these huge geese.


It really was a gorgeous day, and I'm glad we got to go look at the falls. After a delicious meal at Chili's, we headed back to the hotel, swam, and watched TV while Declan napped and we waited for everyone to return to the hotel.

Trip to Idaho: Idaho Falls Temple

Despite the late night, the kids were up bright and early the next morning. Thank goodness for cartoons!!!


Tom and I tried to snooze a bit more on the other bed in the room. After a bit we got ready, and everyone headed a different direction. Cynthia and Angie headed to the bead party. Tom and Jeremy headed to go help build that family's house, and the kids and I headed out of the house to find something to do since Angie's boys weren't available.

First we decided to head over to the Idaho Falls Temple. It was a beautiful day, and the leaves were changing, so there were lots of beautiful, vibrant colors everywhere.


As we walked from the parking lot to find an entrance onto the grounds, we were able to spot the temple.



Once on the grounds, we walked around enjoying the beauty and trying to find a spot to take a picture. Finally we found a spot not occupied by a wedding party.


Everything was so pretty, so I tried to catch a few pictures of each kid. They didn't all cooperate.


Finally, we decided to head across the street to go look at the falls. Payden was cute and was Madison's little buddy.


Madison and Ryan were super nice about helping with the kids, so for awhile Ryan and Declan were buddies.


With all the leaves on the ground and since my girls haven't really seen much of autumn in their lives, we taught them the fun game of crunching leaves while we walked back to the car.


As the kids loaded into the car, I looked back and saw a beautiful shot of the temple.


I love visiting the temples and taking my kids onto the temple grounds to see the beauty of the temple and to feel the wonderful spirit. What a wonderful day!!

Trip to Idaho: Kris's Game

Thursday and Friday were Fall Break. Cynthia had a bead party up in Idaho Falls that Saturday, and Jeremy and Tom wanted to go help out a former family from our ward here in Utah who live near Idaho Falls and are trying to fix a condemned house to be their home. With the kids out of school, we all headed up to Idaho Falls for a little fun, work, and most importantly to see Angie, Mike, and boys (Tom's sister's family).

We got to the hotel in the afternoon and got ourselves settled. Once we finished with that, we headed over to Angie's house to hang out and eat dinner until it was time to go to Kris's football game down in Pocatello (Kris is Angie's baby boy).


Unfortunately, this was a varsity game, and Kris is a sophomore. Although he does get to play sometimes, we didn't get to see him play. Tom even tried his hardest and kept yelling, "Put Sprenger in!!" Even though Kris didn't play, we did have fun watching the game and hanging out.

Declan, of course, got tons of loves from everybody and was cute as can be!


Shelby and Taylor had fun munching on the snacks we'd brought. Amen to diaper bags to help us bring them in the stadium.


Payden doubly enjoyed the snacks. According to her, she is always starving. In reality, this girl loves to eat . . . preferably snacks and treats and thinks that saying she's STARVING will get her what she wants.


Ryan had fun being dressed up by Dylan, wearing Kris's JV jersey and one of their ghetto hats.


Dylon had fun being Dylon, making interesting poses for the camera. I'm not sure if Travis enjoyed it or not. :)


Cynthia, Jeremy, and Madison had fun watching the game and chatting with Angie.


It was a fun night! Hopefully one of these days the kids will appreciate football like Tom and I do (especially the girls). It ended up being a late night, but we are on vacation and just went with it.

Each and Every Day

I do this each and every day and night whenever my kids sleep. I honestly can't stop doing it . . . I have to check on them. It bothers me if I don't check on them. It's a must at night because I can't go to sleep if I haven't checked on them before I go to bed. Most importantly I love seeing that they are safe and sound, and I need to feel that assurance before I go to sleep. It's also extremely interesting and often funny to see what position they're sleeping in.

Taylor is one of the craziest sleepers. She falls asleep with her head just below her pillow and her blankets pulled up around her so that you can only see her head. She usually ends up sleeping folded in half. Just imagine someone sitting crossed legged and then bending over to lay their head on their legs. I have no idea how she does that without her legs falling asleep, but she does. She also crosses her legs in all sorts of funny ways. She is probably the most interesting sleeper besides Declan.


Payden is pretty funny too. She can never keep her blankets on for long. Many times she sleeps normally, but occasionally we'll find her asleep on the floor by her bed or hanging off her bed in some awkward manner. It makes me worried what she'll do when she's no longer on a mattress on the floor.

Shelby is my most normal sleeper. She rarely, if ever, is in an abnormal sleeping position. She is also my calmest kid . . . I wonder if there is a connection somehow.

Declan, on the other hand, is always in some weird position. I'm always curious to see how I'll find him sleeping.

Recently he's discovered how to take apart the pack n play where he sleeps, so instead of going to sleep like a good boy, he takes apart his pack n play and then eventually falls asleep or cries and cries and cries until Mom comes in. This adds for an even greater variety of sleeping positions when I come to check on him. On this particular day, he had folded up the bottom mattress and was sleeping on the thin canvas floor (that is not meant to support any weight). We find him like this a lot - with his bed partly taken apart and him conked out.

He's also decided that he'd rather use his pillow as a blanket, so we often find it covering him.

My least favorite is when it's covering his head. (This picture reminds me of The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy's house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East or whatever her name was.)


We also find him with his knees tucked under his chest and bum sticking up in the air. He also does what Taylor does, and we'll find him cross legged and sleeping folded in half.

Although I am slightly obsessive about having to check on them each and every time they're sleeping, it does has it rewards as we often get a good laugh about how they are sleeping.

I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

We have this book by Dr. Seuss:


It's been awhile since we've read it; I'm not even sure if Taylor remembers me reading it to her. While I was sick, Taylor told me to watch because she could read with her eyes shut.


She then preceded to "read" the book to me. She actually kept her eyes shut for along time, but it was a book we'd read many times, so she knew the words. She is such a funny girl!

SOOOOOOOO SICK!!!!

I have worked really hard with my kids about going to and STAYING in bed. They know that once they're tucked in that they're not supposed to come out of bed because we have already gone potty, read books, brushed teeth, given hugs and kisses, and tucked a water bottle in their beds with them. Because of all our hard work, they are really, really, REALLY good about staying in bed. Well we tucked Taylor and Payden in bed and about 15 minutes later Taylor comes out. You could tell she was a bit nervouse about being out of bed, but she told me that she thought she should come tell me that Payden had thrown up. I assured her that she had made the right choice and was being a good big sister.



We got Payden and everything cleaned up and tucked her back in bed. At about 10:30, I started not feeling right. By the time I went to bed an hour later, I was just feeling wrong. For the next little bit I felt like throwing up, but was able to work to prevent it from happening. As 1:00 neared, I finally decided I'd rather have my sleep than fight throwing up, so off I went to the bathroom and threw up and threw up and was sick and miserable. I was finally able to sleep, but the morning didn't bring any relief to either me or Payden.

Over the next few days Payden and I couldn't eat, could only stand up if absolutely necessary, sleep FREQUENTLY, and were absolutely miserable.

We pulled down an extra mattress on the floor, so she and I could share a bed, and I could help her throw up in a bucket during the middle of the night. Taylor of course decided that those mattresses made wonderful trampolines during the day.

Thankfully, Tom wasn't working at the time because we would have never made it without him. He took care of all the other kids as well as Payden and I while we were sick. It took 3 or 4 days before I was somewhat back to normal. We have yet to figure out what happened. If it had been food poisoning, we ate what everyone else ate at the dinner table, so it didn't make sense that just Payden and I got sick. If it was a stomach virus, I couldn't figure out why no one else got sick because we always pass everything around . . . we share food and drinks and give way too many hugs and kisses for our germs not to spread around. I'm still curious what it was, but it was the most miserable few days I have ever had. It still shocks me that I took 2 or 3 naps each day and still went to bed at a normal hour. Hopefully whatever it was doesn't ever come back again because I have never felt so weak and horrible in my life.

Sunday Afternoon: Birthday BBQ at the Park

After driving through the canyon, we found a park to go have dinner that would allow dogs. Unfortunately, the only site available was about a mile away, which meant A LOT of stuff had to be hauled from the cars. In the end, it worked out nicely because we were at the end of the park and pretty much by ourselves.

Once everything was hauled, the BBQing and food prepping began.


While the food cooked, the kiddos played.



I tried to get Declan to practice walking . . .


he didn't care much for that. Of course. No surprise there!


We had some frisbees and some footballs that we played with for awhile. The kids had so much fun running after them.


With Francie around and balls and frisbees to fetch, it was no surprise that the girls decided to act like dogs.


Declan had fun crawling around, but of course couldn't stay and play on the HUGE grassy area, but instead always tried to escape and go places he shouldn't. Naughty boy.




After awhile, the kids decided to play "Red Light, Green Light." Everyone took turns. After a bit, Taylor got upset because she kept getting caught moving. Tom told her had an idea. If she stood right behind him, then no one would be able to catch her moving. She liked that and so they continued playing with her standing right behind Tom. Well, all of a sudden we hear her yelling at Tom. "That was NOT a good idea, " and she was upset and crying. Apparently, he had tooted; well, with her right behind him, she caught it full force. She was SOOOOOO upset. Of course we couldn't help but laugh.


For the rest of the night, she was not happy. We had to do a lot of convincing just to get her to come back and sit down and eat. I did feel bad for her, but it was FUNNY!


For dinner we got to enjoy seasoned tri-cut steaks from Costco. They were DELICIOUS!!! I think we had potato salad and rolls to and other things, but the steaks were sooooo yummy that I can't remember much else.

Tom got Declan to mimic him. It was cute!


This was Francie as soon as the eating began . . . beggin'.


Here's the birthday boy grilling away.


Tom put Declan under his shirt and they just giggled away. This is a game they play at home, but with blankets. They both go under, and Declan just LOVES it.


After playing and STUFFING ourselves, it was time to clean up and head home. What a perfect Sunday afternoon!