Random pictures from earlier this year

It's hard to keep up on my blog now, so I'm just putting up some highlights from 2011. And they are in no certain order...

Halloween costumes--Abby is a tiger, Sam a surfer, Augie the Hulk, Jim is Darth Vader.

scary zombie Grammy!

Jim carved this Jack o Lantern

glowing Jack o Lanterns on Halloween Night

Augie's first day of Kindergarten.

Abby with cousin Taylor at Ammon's wedding.

Ammon and Jackie's dance at the reception.

Grammy's wildlife "over the hill" cake.. the bucket says "kick." :)

Family vacation in August... this is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Emerald Springs hot spring... I love Augie's face!

Mammoth Hot springs... very pretty

Family picture at Yellowstone. We loved staying in these cabins at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Abby and Sam's first day of school.

Augie lost his first tooth!

Abby and Augie with the fall foliage at Mesa Falls.

 

Overlooking the brink of the falls. It's an awesome sight!

The video is at Mesa Falls, north of Ashton, Idaho. We took at trip to see the fall leaves and the falls on October 10. 


Well, there are some highlights in pictures. We are just staying busy and plugging along... hope you are too!

Augie's Sixth Birthday

Augie turned six today! It is incredible how fast the years have gone by and how big he has grown.

Augie has been excited for his birthday for months. He let me know several months ago that his cake was to be a scene where Godzilla attacks a city. Since I am no "ace of cakes," I decided to do one building and have Godzilla attack. Well, the cake did NOT look good so I covered it in graham crackers. The cute part was the mini Augie on the roof, with a blaster rifle (donated by Jimmy from his Lego Star Wars minifigure), defending Augie Tower against Godzilla.

The finished product was a bit crooked...

The funny part was, we had dinner then went in the living room to watch Augie open presents. The cake was left on the kitchen table--no one touched it! But when we came back in the kitchen, apparently Godzilla had attacked! The building lay in ruins! I thought it was hilarious but Augie was sad--he had wanted to be victorious against Godzilla.

Before...

and after! total destruction.

I propped up the cake long enough to light the candle, sing happy birthday, then have Augie blow it out. Then it crumbled in front of Godzilla again. :)

Augie was pleased with his presents. He got a gift card from Grandma and Grandpa Droegemueller. He had a blast popping balloons from Grammy and finding a dollar bill in each one. He especially liked his Green Lantern Imaginext set and Sonic remote control car.




What a special day for a special boy!

Here is a video of the cake destruction. 

Long-hair beauty to short-hair cutie

Abby has begged me to let her cut her hair for years. I finally told her when she turned 8, she could decide if she wanted it cut. Well, we were at the salon at 10:00 a.m. for her haircut.

This is her picture from last summer. Now I know every mom says this, but my daughter is SOOO beautiful!

 But this summer her bangs were always hanging in her eyes, and she would throw her hair into a ponytail. (Here she is modeling a shirt Grandma Johnson sent for her birthday).

This morning we cut a 10-inch length and saved it in a braid so we could donate it to Locks of Love. They make wigs for children who can't grow hair or who have lost their hair. Her hair was down to her waist before. And now...

 Here is the view from the back. She wanted the "flip" look. It is adorable (but I still cried at the salon when she cut it).

This shows how long her hair would have been. This braid will be donated.

 She is cute! She looks older. She is wearing a new outfit I made her for her birthday.

 That's my girl! I will post more about her birthday after she opens presents and we have cake, etc. tonight. Love you Abby!

Visit from friends and April Fool's day

 Our wonderful friends (who used to be neighbors, but are now our neighbors up north in Canada), the Deans, came for a visit. They were on their way down to Utah for spring break. We had a wonderful, happy Sunday evening visit. We had dinner and a lot of laughing, talking and games. It was so great to see that the kids picked right where they left off and were instant friends once again.

 Here are the "girls" and Augie... he's the only boy in this age group. Emma and her mom Heather came to visit the Deans as well. So from left, Emma, Abby, Emily, Shelby, and Augie.

 Playing games on the floor. Jimmy, Sammy, Chad and Riley (Emma in background).

 So sweet! I love this picture. Such good friends still! They played dress up and watched a movie.

 The moms: Me, Jessica holding Hailey, and Heather. We had a good chat... just what moms  need!

 Shelby looking like a rock star!

 More talking and having fun.

I miss you! Thanks for the visit, Jessica, and all your family. We'll meet again....sometime!

For April Fool's Day I had this "great" idea. I was looking up St. Patrick's day dinners (we had corned beef and cabbage and irish soda bread) when I saw this "cake." It's two meatloaves, cooked in layer cake pans, and frosted with mashed potatoes. I had leftover potatoes so I added them as scoops of "ice cream". So we had dessert for dinner...the potatoes look slightly purple because my comedic kids decided to color the milk blue, then another one decided to color it red. So we had purple milk that day.

Our "layer cake" from the side. It tasted okay, but the potatoes got cold quickly and needed some gravy.

And then we had dinner for dessert. I made a "pizza" out of a sugar cookie, some cream cheese frosting, and strawberries. My kids thought this was quite the treat. I hardly ever make homemade cookies, so they thought this was out of the norm. And to turn a cookie into their favorite food, pizza, well that was the bomb. I had lots of leftover dough so we cutout the letters of their names with alphabet cookie cutters. 

The next day the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile came to town. Abby and Augie went to see it. It is about 11 feet high. The people who drive it work for a year taking it all across the country. The next Monday we saw it pulling up to a red light, just like a normal car... hilarious looking car, of course.

Another look at the weinermobile. The sign in front shows there are several still in service.

 

I haven't posted a blog update for a very long time... so I apologize to the one person who actually checks my blog... anyway, here are a few pictures from March. We had a Mardi Gras party where Grammy made a cajun meal, a king cake, and provided masks and beads. It was a lot of fun! I have never celebrated Mardi Gras before, so this was a new tradition for us.

The bottom 3 pictures are from our "anniversary" weekend, or couples trip, whatever you want to call it since our anniversary isn't till June. We went down to Salt Lake, got a hotel, visited a zoo, went to a comedy show, then visited my parents. We forgot to take the camera to the zoo, so we had to buy a disposable camera and have yet to develop the pictures.... got to admit, I like digital cameras! Then a picture of me in our hotel (I hardly even include pictures of me, and I don't really like these, but thought I'd put them in anyway). Then the bottom picture is me and my parents and two brothers. We got to meet my brother Ammon's girlfriend, Jackie, and we really liked her. She was a lot of fun. We highly recommend keeping her, Ammon. She took this picture for us. Then we hopped in our van and went back to Idaho. It was a short trip but provided well-needed respite from the daily grind. Wish we could do it more often!

Autumn in Idaho

I have loved the weather this fall! We have had a good 3 week stretch of warm, sunny, Indian summer weather. It makes it worth getting up for the day! We've been busy with school, church, scouts, Augie's preschool, etc. but we've also had fun.

A couple of highlights from the past month were visiting my folks in Utah and a quick trip for Daddy, Augie, and Grammy to Yellowstone. Then we went to Boise to see my sister during the kids' fall break, and then Grandpa and Grandma Droegemueller came to visit us--yay! First time we've seen them in almost seven years. I'll blog about that later... still haven't gotten the pictures off the camera.

Anyway, here's a few pics from visiting my parents:

Abby has lost her front teeth... she has a lot of gaps in her smile!

My parents have built two greenhouses in their yard and sell the produce at the farmer's market. The greenhouse is 7 feet tall in the center... and yes, those tomato plants are about 6 feet tall!

It was almost 90 degrees there so we went to a park called Jensen's Grove to play and stayed near the water. This is a duck/fish pond.

Jimmy and Augie

They have this huge carousel swing. It was supposed to have 12 swings but only had 3 left. Originally it was made by a ingenious pioneer who had a pony to pull it around... thus it was tough for one mom to spin this rebuilt-of-steel model.

Two fountains offered cooling relief!

Abby in front of the beautiful flower gardens.

At the playground.

Grandma Jane had an old friend who's daughter got married, thus the reason for the timing of the trip on Labor Day weekend. The Kellys are a nice family... I last met Marissa when she was 10! (She's the bride)

One Monday that Daddy had off, he and his mom and Augie went to Yellowstone. Here are a few highlights.

Augie sees a buffalo! It's his first trip to Yellowstone.

A hot spring.

A hot pool that's a pretty shade of blue.

Daddy and Augie by Old Faithful.

Augie with Grammy.

This elk was right off the road, maybe 10 feet away. Augie was a very good wildlife spotter and he had a little sheet to track his animals. He also saw a fox, crow, squirrel, deer, but no moose, bear or eagle.

That's all for now... till I get more pictures and will tell about Boise trip and our visit from Grandma and Grandpa.