Johanna practiced her bow tie skills on Eddy-he looks like Pee Wee Herman!

Halloween-these are the only two that dressed up this year...sad!  Ed was a Western Sherriff and Cam was a robber.  It was a busy day!  Cam and Andrea ran together in the annual 5th grade "mini-marathon"-actually a 5k, Cam and Ed had a Halloween parade and parties at their school.  After school we helped a neighbor with some painting before trick-or treating.  Johanna went to her friend's house and Logan had some friends over for dinner, a bit of trick-or treating, and a movie.  Everyone had a fun time.

Veteran's day and we enjoyed hiking one of the local table rock hills.  It was a foggy day in the valley but clearing at the top-beautiful!  Johanna was shooting a video for school with a group of friends.

Ed still likes to hold hands.....I love it!

This heart of rock was already there-love this pic

Ohhhh this was so good.  I convinced Blake that he wanted this instead of Jell-O cake for his birthday.  Brownie, chocolate, raspberry and vanilla bean mousse topped with raspberry sauce and raspberries!

The kids pointed out that Dad was not 7, but 42 candles would just not be as artistic, and I would probably have burned myself.

a big birthday, a big trip, a big race and a big watermelon! A super busy september.

Last Saturday our whole family completed the Atlas Race.  It was an intense obstacle course of 4+ miles with boot-camp style obstacles including lots of mud, lots of barbed wire, tall walls and a 15 foot jump into cold water.  We are all covered with bruises and one twisted ankle, but it was a fun challenge.  The boys ran their own smaller obstacle course.  I'm still getting the mud out of the clothes we decided not to throw away!

Great-6 more medals to add to the whole pile of Blake's medals in our dress-up box.

Blake grew this!  It was delicious

My sweet 16 year old-she had a great day with lots of wishes from friends and family.  We are still trying to fit in a party! No, no license yet, but we are working on it.

"The Bean" sculpture in Chicago.  Blake had a conference there and let me come along.  I had a marvelous time!  I basically did whatever I wanted!  Mornings started with a run a long Lake Michigan with Blake, then when he went to his conference for the day, I was off!  I loved the Chicago Institute of Art-amazing!  I also visited two cupcake shops-delicious, went shopping on the famed "Magnificent Mile", and rode a  bike along the lake and into the Lincoln Park Zoo.  Evenings found Blake and I enjoying delicious food in fun locales.

 Loved seeing old pianos in the museum

dropped in for a mass at one of the amazing cathedrals downtown-so much beautiful architecture.

 Dinner in Crystal Gardens at the Navy Pier

The Chicago skyline from the zoo area during my bike ride.

Chicago river-Next time it would be fun to take one of the riverboat architecture tours!

Blake and I shared a hot fudge sundae at Ghiradelli's wondering if it would be as good as we remembered from 17 years ago in San Francisco....it was.

Back to school, got the end of summer blues!

Johanna in one of several new Dr. Who shirts-first day of 10th grade

Camden-first day of 5th grade and Ed first day of 2nd grade

Logan first day of 8th grade

We spent our last week of vacation in Salem at Grandma and Grandpa Hoth's house.  It was a great week.  We missed Johanna-who had colorgaurd practice, and Blake, who as a job.

 Had fun at the Children's Museum-especially the outdoor playground

Logan communing with the giant chess set-and preparing to totally stomp me

Big bubbles are so cool

Had fun walking across the river-a big tree fell not far from us-it was so loud-it sounded like thunder.

Ed loved playing with Charlotte-and he loved sharing Charlotte's paleontology set with her

We spent a gorgeous 2 hours at the beach, before some dreary fog rolled in.

Obviously the kids didn't mind the fog at all

Amazing!  No, these munchkin's aren't sand artist prodigies, but it was so cool we had to take a pic

Hooray for Summer!

Camden and Ed celebrating their last day of 1st and 4th grade.

Johanna and Logan look equally excited to be finishing up 9th and 7th grade

Ed and Cam enjoyed a last day of school party at our friend's pool-Ed mosly hung out in the hot tub-with about a dozen other kids.

 Cam did some fancy jumps off the diving board.

Johanna(sporting her new, Emma Watson do) and Logan both have high adventure hikes this weekend.  Neither of their packs really fit them...too skinny! So hopefully their shoulders can handle it and they have an awesome time!

Happy 10th Birthday Camden!

Thank goodness for my extra fridge!  It was all taken up with party food.

Camden had a "Survivor" Party this year.  The kids were divided up into tribes and had to complete challenges for team points.  They all had a great time!

This challenge involved fishing a gumball out of a plate of whip cream without using your hands and then blowing a bubble

Everyone had a smile on their face before the
"Mystery Food Challenge", but later.......

 this poor kid is trying to choke down "crushed ants" i.e. olives.  The kid laughing next to him almost puked up his "pig blood" a minute later.

This is The Grid...

Yeah for four packs of Chewy Spree!  Cam had this on the list of things he wanted for his birthday.  It was the only thing he received from "the list", but he was pretty happy with it.

 Just a fun, summery picture

I think Logan looks really handsome in this picture-it reminds me of Dad.  He is playing guitar at the Spring Concert at school.

More fun stuff this week!

Our toothless boys-both of them lost teeth yesterday!  Cam pulled his tooth out, then Ed, who usually won't touch his until it literally falls out, went to work on his too.  It must have been convenient for the tooth fairy. 

Proud of Logan-our Stake did a Book of Mormon reading challenge for all the youth.  Logan read the entire book in 67 days!  He marked with his red pencil every time the Lord was mentioned as well.  The card he's holding was to keep track of the chapters you'd read.  There was a big dinner last Wednesday celebrating the accomplishments of our stake youth.

My best Mother's Day gifts-I sure do love these kiddos.  They've made every Mother's Day special.  This year was no exception.  I got a lovely breakfast on the deck.  Johanna made popovers, Cam whipped up some honeybutter, Logan picked flowers, and Ed picked strawberrys and Columbine for me to suck the nectar out of (really-I had a little dish of Columbine and strawberries at my place).  I got to attend Relief Society at church where they had a buffet of treats for us to enjoy during the lesson.  We topped it off with a delicious dinner that I slaved over Saturday with our neighbors.  I also loved the gifts Cam and Ed made at school-so cute!

Our family honors continue.....Johanna received her schools President's award for maintaining a 4.0 gpa and also Freshman English student of the year.  Her good friend Zoe copied her acheivements.