Well, I bugged Dad about doing a post so I suppose I better get busy also. I finally realized that Christmas is sneaking up on me and I have at least a thousand projects I had hoped to do so I have been spending as much time as possible in the garage. I really love the time I spend out there so I don't know why I put it off.
I really like Amber's recipe exchange idea and hopefully I will come up with something new to post soon. I decided to try a chocolate peanut butter cheesecake recipe that looked delicious but when it cool it was so hard I couldn't even break it. Cassie managed to cut through the very middle but it didn't even break when I dumped it out in the garbage. I guess I won't share that recipe.
I am again teaching Sunday School ( 15 year olds) and trying to be excited about it. They really are pretty good kids and I am learning alot.
As Dad mentioned our trip was great. It was fantastic to spend time with Nate and Sharolyn and the kids. Grandma seems to be doing pretty well. She did end up in the hospital right after we left there but she is back to Manor Care and seems to be doing ok. She really does love getting emails so please drop her a line as often as you can. Uncle Chickie is doing very well. He continues to have dialysis 3 times a week and says he takes it pretty easy on those days but he gets out and cuts wood and does things around the yard and house with no problem.
I hope you are all doing well. Love You All!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mom

Christmas Exchange?

Am I right that Christmas this year we are all back to one person younger than us, Megan has me, I have Cassie, Cassie has Scott, etc. Anyone know for sure on that one?

Amber

Surprise!!! I do exist. I just have been lazy and not writing. We had a great trip to St Louis and then to visit Grandma. Barbara and I had a lot of fun one day when we were doing some family history digging. Barb and I went to visit our Aunt Evie (my mom's sister). She did not know that we were coming and was very surprised. In fact, maybe a little too excited. We visited her on Wednesday, and on Thursday she had a heart attack! I just talked to her and she is fine. Her speech is a little more slurred than before but is doing well.

Here is a picture of one part of the City Museum in St. Louis. You can see the "tunnel" that people can climb through. It is made of rebar welded together and is up about 30 feet in the air.

The last 2 people are the boys. You will see the school bus that is hanging off the roof. Y

ou can climb in and even open the door to look down. Of course there is a cage areound it so

you can't fall out. The next picture is Nathan and Kaylee climbing through the "tunnel". I am not sure what I did, but it looks like they are climbing through the sky.

There was only one problem on the trip. When we were leaving Grany's Farm, our car got attacked by a grossing arm.. I was waiting to pull out onto the road when it decided to come down on the car. Here is a picture of the result.

Luckily, the guy at Enterprise did not get excited about it, when I returned it.

On a another good note, there are only 791 days left!!!

Love you all,

Dad

Catching up!

I keep meaning to post and then think of all the things that have been going on and feel overwhelmed, but Amber pricked my conscience. So, here are at least a few pictures to update our lives. All continues to go well. All the school kids brought home perfect Straight A report cards Friday, so we are very happy about that. Elijah is playing soccer and loving it- Mark is his coach, enjoying having Saturdays off after 8 years of coaching debate. Christian is loving preschool and loves telling everyone that he is 4 now. We had a fun Space Ranger Party and even had the Burdicks here for the day! This morning we finished reading the Book of Mormon- we took the challenge from our stake president about 3 months ago to finish it by today and we are happy we did it! It has been a great strength to our children and us to do this together. Tonight, we started it again!We had a fun Halloween week. Tonight w

e had a spooky dinner and covered our dining room with spider webs. I won't share the details on our food as I know mother will not appreciate it! We had a girl scout party on Thursday and school parties and trunk or treat on Friday. Everyone had a great time. Much more to share, but here are a few pictures for now and we'll update again soon.

Catching up!

Halloween Fun

So is this another Stewart Family Blog or what? Do any of you read this anymore? Hope to hear updates on all of you soon!

We had a great Halloween! On Tuesday our ward youth hosted an awesome kids carnival, Ayana and Asher had a lot of fun playing the games and seeing their friends. Then on Friday we went to a place called Trick or Treat Street in Idaho Falls. It is an event where some of the local RV dealers loan the use of their RVs for local businesses to decorate and pass out candy from. We went with our friends the Lewises, they have 2 kids close to Ayana's age so they have a lot of fun together. After the trick or treating we all went out for dinner and had a great time. Then on Saturday night our complex had a dinner/Trunk or Treat. I made some peanut butter balls that looked like eye balls and won the award for best presentation, so that was pretty fun. The kids got so much candy at the Trunk or Treat that Asher couldn't even carry his bucket anymore because it was too heavy! All in all it was a great time. Trever and I did decide that we need to dress up next year, we felt lame at all the events in no costume. I made Ayana's with costume, and am pretty pleased with how it turned out. It is the first time I have ever done sleeves or a zipper in clothing. It was far from perfect, but she was the cutest witch ever. We bought Asher a hamburger costume at Old Navy and it was sure a hit, everyone commented on it and thought he was so adorable. Hope all of your Halloween's were as wonderful as ours! Here are some pictures of our little monsters!

New Video of Ayana

So Ayana loves to sing the Five Silly Monkeys song for us, and it always makes us laugh. We love the really loud SNAP and the inflection at the end. Here's a short video of it, hope it makes you smile!