A weekend in Albuquerque

Towards the beginning of November I had to go to a Shelf Reliance Conference because Jason Budge (co founder) was going to be there and I was asked to help in the Training.  Jesse brought the kids up the next day and we looked forward to just hanging out and having fun with the kids.  We got a hotel and spent our time swimming, shopping, skate park and children's museum.  We've been going to the Children's Museum since Bryce was 3 so it's been fun bringing all the kids throughout their childhood and see what things they're interested in or gravitate to.  

 This large cabin was our kids pride and joy.  It took awhile, but it finally got built. :)

We survived October!

October seems to be in full throttle every year, but this particular year was wild!  We started off with a visit from Connie and her kids.  We always like to have an excuse to go to White Sands so off we went on one beautiful evening.  The little ones were so photogenic, I just had to take their pictures.

 How cute is she!

 Here's Beth and her new baby bump. :)

 Racing to the top!

 We took all of the "Cousins" to the Pumpking Patch her in town.  They do all of the activities, walked the corn maze, rode on a tractor to the pumpkin patch to find a little pumpkin to take home.  We had a great time.

  I decided last year that I would find people who would want to throw a large Halloween Party/Trunk or Treat at our church since we've had a few low turn outs for trunk or treat.  I was able to talk 5 Wards into participating and helping with some of the booths, but I was so nervous about whether everything was going to follow through as planned.  So, among all of that planning and creating the decorations, I had costumes to make, a recipe blog that I was trying to get launched on Nov. 1st, a Gun Show Booth to run for my Shelf Reliance business, a Masterminds presentation and hauling kids to all of their activities.  It was amazing that it all got done.  The Halloween Party was a huge success!  Close to 350 people were there and our Church parking lot was PACKED with Trunk or Treaters.  

 Cameron was Captain Jack Sparrow!  I didn't have time to do his costume exactly the way I wanted it, but I think he pulled it off well.  

 Claire was a cute MUMMY!  She stayed close to the YUMMY cupcake walk booth most of the night. :)

 Abe & Cody plus their kids were all Pirates.  I loved how Abe shaved his head for his costume!!

 One of my good friends showed up with this shower costume and I just had to wash my hair!

 Here's Bryce as Napolian Dynomite.  He's so funny, I couldn't look at him and not laugh.

 Little Bella went as Jessie from Toy Story.  She was so proud of this costume!!  I seriously made her costume at 4pm and I had to get to the Event by 5:45pm!  We spray painted a black hat, made the cuffs from a styrofoam paper with little sequins and just spray painted her hair.  (Jesse did that part).

I was so proud of my "Vintage Moon" that I painted on an old bed sheet.  It's now in the girls room and we're going to put a cow jumping over it. ha ha!  It makes me happy to look at it.  The booths we had that night were pumpkin bowling, cupcake walk, bean bag toss, pin a pumpkin, doughnut on a string, Straw blowing game, face painting, cookie decorating, walk the plank on our pirate ship on stage, pumpkin decorating contest, popcorn and meet a princess (we had 4 girls dressed up like Disney Princesses and they were AMAZING!)  I'm tempted to hire them for my girls birthday parties. :)  Then we ended the night with Trunk or Treating outside.  

 So, after the Halloween party at Church a lot of the kids costumes were either missing or falling a part.  Bryce had asked me in August to buy him an angry bird costume and the thought of buying him a costume just makes me sad since I've created this tradition of making them.  Well, I thought it would be fun is they all were angry birds and on Halloween day I was sewing like a mad woman trying to get them done.  I've concluded that I'm crazy!  What kind of person does this sort of thing?  I must suffer from lack of knowing a good sense of time and my own abilities!  They turned out pretty cute and the cool thing is that my kids can use these costumes as pillows. haha!

Sister Visit

In September I traveled down to Artesia to kill two birds with one stone.  My sister Janet was moving to Louisiana and my Niece Brooke was cheering at her first football game of the season as a big Sophmore.  Janet recently had a little girl and named her June.  So now we have two June's in our family.  We all love that name and the girls who carry it. :)  

Summertime Wrap Up!

The other day Claire asked me in the car if summer was over yet.  After I replied that we have a few weeks left she threw her hands up and said, "Awwww, man I wish summer could be over!  I'm ready for it to be FALL!"  I thought it was funny because just a week before she had asked me the same question, but her reply was "NO I'm going to miss summer!"  Fickle minded little girl.  Well, summer has been over for the kids since July 23rd when they started school again, but they'll soon get a 3 week break here at the end of Sept. that I'm looking forward to.  It's a chance to do things without having to deal with the extreme heat.  This year my niece Brooke was sweet enough to make my birthday cake.  It was her present to me and it was her first time to do a decorative tiered cake this this.  It meant a lot to me and it tasted DELICIOUS!

 That was such a fun trip.  One day we went to Bottomless Lakes near Roswell and June and I swam across the entire lake.  I don't know what we were thinking because who knows what's out there in the middle of the lake.  We were all by ourselves; thank goodness we didn't get a cramp or get a visit from a water snake. :)
Since my birthday is close to July 4th and Artesia always has such an awesome fireworks display we decided to celebrate there this year.  During the day they have a parade and a firemans challenge so we stopped by.

 Bryce lived in the skateboard knee pads that day. HA!

Jesse and David were the best ping pong players that night.  I've never seen anyone work up a sweat playing ping pong, but they were!  Fun times.

 Jesse's Cousin Ginger and her family all came down for a week and we had such a good time with them.  We spent the evening at White Sands and since it was a Full Moon that night we got to stay late and look at the stars.  Here are just a few snap shots of Ginger and Trey's family.  Such cutie pies.

Bella turned 3 this year!! I LOVE this age!! 

For Bella's birthday we went to this new inflatables place at the mall.  All the cousins came, we ate pizza and of course they had a blast.

Sowards Family Reunion

This year Ben & Connie were in charge of planning the reunion and they chose Brekenridge, CO.  That town is so gorgeous!  You can tell that people who live there like it because there are so many outdoor activities you can do in the summertime.  Hiking, Biking, White Water Rafting, fly fishing, gold panning (which we did). :)  That's just to name a few.  We stayed in this amazing cabin (I would call it a mansion) and everyday there was an activity that we could do.  We always have a good time together.

 This was our family picture taken on top of some mountain.  Poor Bella was sooo sick that day.  We couldn't get her normal bright smile out of her. Such a beautiful backdrop though.

 These magnetic tiles really entertained the kids.  They build some amazing buildings together.

 We had a night of playing Bunco, and we all couldn't believe that Greg got three Bunco's in a row!  He should have bought a lottery ticket that night!

 We went to an old mine and panned for gold.  We found some fools gold, but nothing else.  To bad.  Going into the mine was quite the experience.  I can't believe the conditions those guys worked in.

 So one night the guys spent about 2 1/2 hours (I'm not kidding) in the hot tub.  They were all pruned up, but were glad the soreness in their muscles were gone. 

 Here we are all in our Sowards Reunion T-shirts.  (With our big group we need some way to keep track of everyone.  This place transforms into a different place in the summertime.  There are mountain slides, coasters and all sorts of activities to do.  We spent the day there.

 Here they are before their big ride down the mountain slide.....

and here they are after.  Poor guys biffed it going down.  

 They weren't the only ones who took a tumble.  Ben, Jared & Greg also wiped out.  The First Aid Center kept seeing our Sowards Family Reunion shirts coming in and out getting doctored.  Jesse's hand got the worst of it.  It took close to 2 months to fully heal.