Carameled Apples

On November 21st, 2011 for Family Home Evening we decided to try making our own carameled apples.  It was our first time carameling a whole apple instead of just dipping the slices into the caramel sauce.  We learned a lot like it's easier to dip the slices in the caramel sauce and skip the whole carameled apple!  It was fun to do once though!

Some of us wanted nuts on our apples.

"My teeth are stuck!"

"Grrr!"

Austin wanted nothing to do with the caramel.  He just wanted his apple sliced up.  Yummy!

Another First for our Family

So on Sunday (of course) November 13, 2011 we had another first in our family.  But let me digress a little.  It started out a nice Sunday morning.  I was taking a nice relaxing bath and Curt was watching TV before we had to start getting ready for church.  Then the calm was shattered by Kaylee hysterically knocking on our door and yelling that Austin had cut his head open and I thought she said that he had fallen down the stairs but that's not what had happened.  I hurriedly got out of the tub and got dressed while Curt had already gone out to see what was wrong.  Apparently the kids were playing "horsey" and while crawling on all fours Austin somehow lost is balance and fell forward hitting his head on the corner of our banister making a small but pretty deep cut in his head.  I got a wet cloth and tried to get the bleeding to stop while Curt got dressed so he could take him to the doctor because we both agreed that it needed to be looked at by more experienced eyes than ours.  Kaylee was so freaked out that Austin was going to have brain damage or go into a coma or even die and Austin was freaked out not because of the pain but because he had blood all over his hands and his pajama pants.  He didn't calm down until I got the blood off his hands and changed his pants.  Then he was better.  So Curt took him to the Insta-Care in Syracuse.  I stayed home with the other kids and we all got ready to go to church.  Before we left though I got call from Curt saying that they were not going to put stitches in but they were going to put a staple in his head.  I guess they do that when they don't have to worry about a scar and so they wouldn't have to shave his hair off in that spot which makes sense but it just sounds awful!!!  Curt said that they put some stuff on his head to numb it and he didn't even flinch when they did it.  They even had to do it twice because the first one didn't go in the right way...ugh!  But here are some pictures of our first stitches/stapes for our family.  So this makes a broken bone and stitches/staple all in three months with the same child.  Got to love him!!!

At the doctor's office...look at that cute face!!!

Before 

After

Halloween 2011

So on Monday, October 24th, 2011 since it was the last Monday before Halloween it's our tradition to carve our pumpkins for Family Home Evening.  This year we got out pumpkins from Black Island Farms.  Here they are all ready to go.

This one is Curt's pumpkin.

This one is mine...I wanted goofy and not scary.

This one is Kaylee's.  She did most of it all by herself with the exception of me cleaning it out a little bit better and drawing the stencil on her pumpkin.

This one is Shelby's.  She did everything herself.  Good job, huh?

This is Carson's.  He did some of the cleaning of it and most of the carving.

This one is Austin's.  He did absolutely nothing on it but just get in the way.  Curt did all of his but he still claims it as his pumpkin...which is just fine with us.

This is our big family pumpkin that we got.  Curt carved this the day before Halloween.  He did a great job!

Here it is all lit up.

The day before Halloween of course we had our Nye Family Halloween party.  This is Curt in his costume.  If you can't guess he is Zombie Michael Jackson.  Love the glove!

All the kids dressed up...and of course Curt.  Austin was a Prince, specifically Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty; Carson was a ninja, Kaylee was a vampire (again) and Shelby was a zombie prom queen.

This is what we wished Austin was for Halloween but he would have nothing to do with it.  We had to beg to even get a picture.  We called him "Austin-dog".

Here is Katie and Brad doing the annual "Witches Brew".  They are so good at it.

It was a great Halloween and thanks to everybody who helped to make it so.

Austin's 3rd Birthday

So this year Austin's birthday fell on a Sunday, the 23rd of October, so we just had a small gathering of family and grandparents over to celebrate.  He was so excited because it was finally HIS birthday.

This was his smile for a few of the pictures.  It looks like he's in pain!  This is a Curious George book.  He also got the Chica Chica Boom Boom book.  We love that book at our house.

He's also been really into Phineas and Ferb on Disney and loves to watch it ALL the time.  So we got him a couple of those DVDs so now he can.

Here is a Curious George matching game.  He also loves to play games...but he just plays them by getting the pieces all over and not picking them up.  Fun for him...not for me.

Here are a couple more DVDs.  These ones are Curious George ones.  He would watch Curious George before going to bed and the ones we had were starting to get old.

This is Kaylee's present to him.  It's a pizza guy.  Look at her smiling behind him.  She's so proud!

This is excitement is for the next picture down.  I almost caught him in mid air but was just a nanosecond too late!

This is a new basketball hoop just for him.  We have some outside but some of the older kids have broken the one that's his size.  So this one is for him and so far it's just stayed in the house.  He loves it.

Nice shot!!!

"My birthday cake!"

Make a wish baby! 

I can't believe he's three years old now.  What an adventure he's taken us on so far.  We love you and we are so happy you're in our family.  What a kid!!!

4-wheeling at the Knolls

On Friday, October 14th, 2011 we went 4-wheeling with our really good friends the Schramm's at the Knoll's out in the west desert.  Only Curt had been there but we all had so much fun.

We found this old dry lake bed that went on forever.  It was so much fun because we could just let loose on the machines and see how fast we could go.

WE finally got to where this fence was.  It said something like, "Stay out or you'll regret it," because this was used for missile target practice from the Air Force.  Enough said.  We stayed out!!!

This is Sariah.  Behind her is Carson and his first time really riding a four-wheeler.  He loved it and we had to keep telling him to slow down especially when he was turning.  He has a need for speed!

This is a big hill that Curt and Keith and Jakob all went up.  Once they got to the top they couldn't believe they actually made it up.  I'm glad I wasn't there!!!

At the top of the hill.

Thanks Schramm's!!!  We had a great time with all of you!

Shelby's in the National Junior Honor Society

So this year we got a letter in the mail saying that Shelby was invited to apply for National Junior Honor Society.  She applied and made it in.  It's a big honor since you have to have really good grades and be a leader and give service to others around you.  So on October 13th, 2011 was her induction meeting.  It was so neat to see her up there.  Congratulations!!!

Black Island Farms

On October 8th we went to Black Island Farms to have a little family fun.  They have slides and corn mazes and rides that everyone in our family had fun with.  They also have a hay ride where you get to pick your own pumpkin.

This is a BIG tube slide that you went down on potato bags.  I really didn't think Austin would do it but as you can see he had NO problem with it.  He kept wanting to go again and again and again!

They had three corn mazes and we did all of them (I think).  It got really cloudy and we thought it was going to storm on us but the weather held out and we made it through our day in the corn!

Here the kids would hide in the corn and try to scare someone else.  I don't think it worked once but it was fun to watch!

Hay ride time!

This is Beetle Juice.  He was great!  Also notice the bag of popcorn?  This was Curt's absolute favorite!!!  He told all of our family that if they went there to let him know and he would give them some money to get him some more popcorn.  It was the best kettle corn we've ever had!!!