CHICAGO!!!

Well, we went on our first weekend road trip since being back in Ohio. Grandma Rayburn kept Henry with her, which we were so grateful for. He would not have enjoyed very much of the trip. Poor Henry was sick for Grandma though, and I should say, "poor Grandma" because she didn't get much sleep. Henry gets terrible URIs. He is on the mend now, and I think Grandma caught up on some sleep. He was well cared for though, so I tried not to worry too much...good luck with that, right?

So, Tom and I took Meg and Charlie to the Windy City. We stayed in a nice suburb and ate some good deep dish pizza. We took Meg out of school before lunch on Friday and we were back home in time for bed on Saturday, so it was a quick trip, but we had tons of fun!

We hit up the Disney Store, American Girl Doll store and a little toy store all on the Magnificent Mile! The weather was great except for a stint of rain while we were going from one store to the next. We did the most damage at American Girl, of course. That place was out of control. Just packed with people! Buy stock now! Meg had her doll, Rebecca's hair done and ear's pierced. She really enjoyed it there. It was very fun. Charlie was a very good sport, I must say. On our way home, we were driving through Indiana and I saw a car with Ohio plates and a bunch of red American Girl bags in the back of it. They must have had a similar weekend trip!

I love the picture of Meg and Charlie with the Hancock building behind them. While it was raining you couldn't even see the top of the building because it was in the clouds!

We had such a great time and, again, I was so glad that Grandma had Henry. Tom and I took a moment in the middle of the crazy American Girl Doll store to imagine if Henry had been there as well. It would not have gone well, to say the least.

Our Trip, cont.

Our hotel had a pool! I think that was definitely Charlie's favorite part of the trip. We also got a shot of the kids in front of the Disney store on Michigan Ave. and Meg's damage at the American Girl Doll Store. Whew!

Random cute pics

The kids were having a concert one night, if that's what you could call it. Henry and Charlie banging on the piano and Meg strumming whatever that thing is called. They were just having so much fun, it was very cute. It is seldom that they all three are having fun together, without us orchestrating it in some way. I think there may have been some singing going on too.

Check out everyone's new haircuts...thank you Grandma Rayburn! She took them all to Cookie Cutters, that is quite a feat!

Also, notice Meg's jack-o-lantern smile. The tooth fairy has been very busy at our house!

Halloween, Cont.

I wanted to mention, that we finally have a candy fiend on our hands. Meg and Charlie like to get candy, but they don't actually eat very much of it. I don't get it. Henry, though, he was loving it! So, between Tom, Henry and me, we've done a pretty good job and polishing it all off!

Halloween 2010

I always do these backwards...sorry. Anyway, this year Charlie decided to repeat the Great White Shark outfit from last year. I think because we have a shark trick-or-treat bag for him he thinks he has to be a shark every time. I gave him lots of other options, but he was set on it. Check out the shark hair. And if anyone looks at Marci's kids outfits from previous years, you may see a pattern. We always are wearing at least one hand-me-down costume from Sam and Marci's kids. Luckily they lived in Minneapolis at one point, so the Dalmatian outfit is super warm, so our little puppy dog did fine. Charlie looks huge because we layered him so much with other clothes. Meg was a cheerleader (Alli's from last year). She didn't care about the cold, she was determined to hit up as many houses as possible!

Meg's Halloween Party

Meg's class had their annual "fall festival" where everyone in the school dressed up and they paraded around the school. It was so cold outside that day, I felt bad for so many of the little girls in their princess dresses. All of the teachers and the principal dressed up like construction workers. The city is building a huge barn next to the school, so their has been a lot of construction going on around the school and the kids have been studying the building process.

We had our first blood gushing experience two days before this, on Tom's birthday. Henry fell (or was pushed...) against the slate ledge in front of our fireplace. It was very scary for me! Luckily after I had Tom rush home and we cleared off all the blood, the cut looked pretty good. We called Dr. Joe and Dr. Grandpa for reassurance and had Grandpa check it out, but all thought he would be fine without stitches, thank goodness. Our poor little Henry.

So, as I mentioned, Tom turned 31 on the 26th of October. We have no pictures to document it...we got him a new camera for his birthday. :) Tom is such a great dad! He is their personal tutor and personal trainer. He will have all the kids doing advanced calculus and able to hit a golf ball and baseball at least 400 ft by the age of 10. Or at least, that is his goal. :) I am so grateful that Tom works so close to home. If Henry would have been hurt in the middle of the day while we lived in Texas I would have been in the ER, for sure. Tom worked so far away then and took the bus, which only runs at certain times. We are very blessed!

This August we took a wonderful family trip to Draper, Utah. All of the Kiehl's were able to make it...there were 35 of us in total...all in one house! It was so much fun. Unfortunately, on our flight home, we had so many bags and children to carry that our camera (full of wonderful photos) got left behind...never to be seen again (at least by us...I'm sure someone is enjoying it somewhere!). This is why I haven't posted in so long! So, Marnie was kind enough to email me some pictures to document the fun that we had.

The girl cousins just can't get enough of each other. Tom and I both said that we hardly saw Meg the entire trip because she was having such a good time with the girls. Our little family did take time out to do a few things on our own though...one thing we did was "hike the Y". The campus of BYU has a mountain behind it, well, actually lots of mountains...a whole mountain range, actually. But, this particular mountain has a huge Y on it that people like to hike up to. Tom and I had done this when we were young and in shape at 18 and thought it would not be hard and we could do it with the kids...well, it wasn't quite what we remembered and I'm quite sure we didn't do it with three little kids. As we started our hike we noticed several people coming down the mountain, finishing their hike with all kinds of professional gear. Camel bags on their backs for water, big hiking backpacks to put their children in, etc. We had a 6 year old and 4 year old on foot and a 17 month old in an umbrella stroller with a couple of water bottles in it. It was an adventure, to say the least! The kids did great, but Tom and I ended up carrying them a lot of the way while also pushing Henry in our little stroller. We had to ration the water and food, but we did it! It was quite an accomplishment. There is a picture above of Meg, Chloe and Maddie on the mountain with the BYU campus below. What a memory!

We had a great vacation and countless pictures not here that makes me very sad. I took Henry and Meg and most of the rest of the crew up to Temple Square one night and we had such a wonderful experience there. I'm so glad we went. We are grateful to Tom's parents for doing this for us each year. Otherwise it would be very hard to see everyone; we are so spread out over the country.

The house had an inground trampoline, which the kids loved, as well as a fire pit that we used to roast marshmellows. Meg is displaying her's on fire! I don't think she actually ate one...she just liked to burn them!

The Girls at the Temple

The Draper Temple was very close the the house that we stayed in. It was beautiful, especially at night, all lit up. All the girls went over one day to see it. The picture of them in age order are: Maddie, Makena, Chloe, Meg (Alli must not have been there at the time), Dylan and Maggie. (Charlotte and Holland were absent also...:)

Family Vacation

This year my side of the family went on vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We had a wonderful time! My parents went, my Aunt Becky, Uncle Paul, their two kids, Melissa and Matt, Matt's friend, Eros, my cousin Emily from California and her cousin Bridgette and my Grandpa as well. We had a great 7 bedroom house on the sound side and got an amazing deal on it. The Outer Banks is such a perfect spot for a family gathering. Fun for all ages! You are either on the beach, in the pool or at the sound. Very few distractions. We got to know each other so much more, it was a very good time! Everyone there was such a great help with our kids. I think Henry prefers Grandma and Aunt Becky over me now!

We tried to get a family photo out by the sound. It is very difficult to get 5 people to look the right way and smile at the same time! I also included a picture of a jelly fish we saved off the beach. We thought he was dead, but when we put him in the bucket he miraculously came back to life! I thought it looked very cool though.

More fun!

I had to include that first picture. It is a rare shot to catch the kids having fun, together, on their own! Worth it! The whole crew went put-putting and the kids loved it. The bottom picture from left to right: Matt (my cousin), his friend Eros (Greek, super nice kid), Bridgette (my cousin's cousin, does that make since? She was a super helper with the kids...can she come on all vacations?), Melissa (my cousin, Matt's sister), Tom, Meg, Charlie, me, Emily (my cousin). The girls are all 16/17 and were great to have around, I must say. They were all great with the kids and Meg was just loving every second she had with them. Matt and Eros were all time wrestle buddies for Charlie as well. Plus, Tom liked playing pool and Catan with them...beating them mostly, the man takes no prisoners.