Fall Leaves

Last week, I received a phone call from a neighbor who lives up the street. Brother Williams is an older gentleman who advised me that the leaves in his yard were raked into a pile and I could bring the boys up anytime to play in them. So the boys and I went up the street and played for a while. Then we got some big bags and cleaned up our mess. The boys had a great time and did a little service too. Way to go boys!


Carter and Cohen playing in the leaves and having a great time.

Mom took this picture laying in a pile of leaves.

See how cute I am! Take my picture!

The 3 Musketeers and some weird kid puckering his lips.

One cute toddler! This was only the second time he's ever played in leaves and he loves it.

Go Big or Go Home!

Cameron has had a few "mishaps" over the last few weeks. Here are a few pictures to explain what happened.
Warning: A few of the pictures are kind of gross!

This is a black eye Cameron received from a friend a school. They were goofing off, slamming each other in the shoulder and the friend's head hit Cameron's eye. Result: very beautiful black eye.

Cameron was running to catch me after swim practice because he thought I didn't see him and was leaving him and he ran into a sign at the fitness center. Ran right into the edge of the sign and sliced his head up nice.

This is a close-up of the cut. The white part in the middle of the cut is his skull!

This is what it looked like after the stitches. The nurse practitioner who put the stitches in did an amazing job. She had a really nice, straight cut to work with also.

Cameron only needed to have the stitches in for 5 days. This is what the cut looked like after the stitches came out. He will definitely have a scar but hopefully with some good after-care (he has to make sure he wears sunscreen on it for a year anytime he's in the sun), it will not be too noticeable.

First Day at Monticello

The boys are attending a new school this year, Monticello Academy. It is a charter school near our home. We have quite a few friends whose children attend and they all say what a great school it is. The boys have a "uniform" they are required to wear. Here are a few pictures of their first day.
Mom likes the uniforms because it makes getting ready in the morning much easier. The boys aren't really that crazy about it. I think they look so handsome!

Too cool for school! Watch out girls, here comes Cameron!

Another sharp looking boy. I think Colby is going to love his new school!

Carter looks so nice in his uniform. He told me on the first day that he was going to make an army of new friends.

For those of you who don't know, I had bunion surgery on both of my feet about 7-8 years ago (Colby was crawling for my left foot and just walking for my right foot). Well, there was a pin in my left foot about halfway down to hold the bone in place where it was supposed to be. Recently, June 26 to be exact, this pin decided it no longer wanted to be part of my foot (the pin was supposed to stay in my foot indefinitely). Here are some pictures of it's journey out of my foot.

This is what my foot looked like with the pin trying to get out. Kind of like a big zit on the side of my foot. The only shoes I could wear were my Teva sandals.

This is my foot all wrapped up after I returned home from having the pin removed. It only took about 30 minutes for them to remove it and I was awake but really numb.

Here are the stitches. There were only three of them. We took the gauze off while I was at Girls Camp. I just had to keep a bandaid on it.

The star of the show! This is the pin they removed from my foot. It's an inch long and has a very sharp point on one end. I'm so glad it's out of my foot and I can wear flip flops again!

Girls Camp 2009: Heber Valley

This post is going to be about the mom and the awesome time she had a Girls Camp last week. We went to Heber Valley camp this year. It's in the mountains east of Heber, Utah and it is run by the LDS church. It is a dedicated area and they call it the "temple without walls". It was gorgeous! The girls left Monday, August 3 and returned on Friday, August 7. I wasn't able to go up until Tuesday because I was having a pin removed from my foot from my bunion surgery 8 years ago. The girls had such a great time and were able to do a lot of fun things that we usually don't do. There was a challenge course and a lake they were able to canoe on. We also stayed in cabins while we were up there which was really nice on Wednesday when it rained on us. Here are a few pictures of the great time we had. Hope you enjoy them!

This is the inside of the scout trailer before they left on Monday morning. It seemed like there was a lot more gear for the girls this year. Probably because we made sure everyone had something soft to sleep on.

Making t-shirts. This was just one of the crafts we brought for the girls to do. We had a lot of ward time.

Beads, beads, and beads! This is the girls' favorite craft to do at camp. They made bracelets and earrings this year.

Their other favorite pasttime at camp is doing each other's hair. There were some interesting hairstyles walking around this year.

The great and spacious building on the hill above the lake. I guess some bishop lives there and it has like 14 bedrooms and 20,000+ sq. ft.

Girls on the lake. No one tipped over which was good because that water was gross. This is Dora Nielson, Serena Woodhouse, and Alyssa Swett.

E'owyn Jorgenson, Kristan Nielson, and Janae Mills. Don't they look good!

Rachel Taylor in the front of the canoe. What a leader!

Chandra Marshall in the pink shirt. She was riding with some friends from another ward.

Mabby Jordan, Samantha, and Cassidy Mills. They are working hard.

Aubree Davis, Alexa Jordan, and Becca Mills. Three of our awesome Laurels.

Lynsay Carter, our camp director and fearless leader, and her niece Samantha. We did this a lot at camp this year. We were always laughing!

There was a sandbox by the lake. Becca and Aubree were building a giant sandcastle.

Brother Hess and Brother Lems on visitors night.

The whole gang right before we left to come home. What a great bunch of girls and leaders!

Family Vacation 2009- Waldport, Oregon

Well, here are some pictures from our recent vacation to Oregon. We had a great time and were able to see lots of fun and interesting things while we were there. We also had a wonderful time visiting with my mom and dad, a.k.a. Grandma and Grandpa Mallen. They spoiled us while we were there. The boys have been asking when we are going back to visit again. We will have to see when the mom and dad are ready to drive that far with 4 boys again.

Packed and ready to head out from the house in Hermiston.

The whole gang at Seal Rock, right before we got to Waldport.

Cameron and Colby playing on the beach on a very foggy 4th of July.

Don't they look handsome all dressed up for church at the Waldport Branch.

The boys at Smelt Sands in Yachats. There were a bunch of huge rocks and cool blowholes.

We put them in the tank at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Carnage at the crab place in South Beach. It was so yummy, Cohen even ate some!

This is how we kept Cohen entertained during the trip!

Staircase and the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. 114 steps to the top.

Lighthouse as seen from the Sea Lion Caves.

Tillamook Cheese Factory. Wall-to-wall people!

This truck was in the parking lot at Tillamook.
Swiss license plate...do you think they drove here?

Smallest harbor in the world; Depot Bay, Oregon.

Beautiful Mt. Shasta on our way home from Oregon.

The view from our hotel room in Reno.

Well, we've been home from vacation for about 5 days now. I haven't been able to put any pictures on here because Cameron took the camera with him to scout camp this week. We arrived home from Oregon on Friday night at about 10:00 p.m. It was a long drive across Nevada from Reno where we stayed on Thursday night. Driving to and from Oregon is too long a drive for the boys without stopping somewhere in between. We had to hurry and get laundry done so that Cameron could pack and be ready to go to camp Monday morning. He will be back on Saturday. As soon as he gets back with the camera, I will get the pictures and have them posted with more details about our trip.

Summer is here! Finally! It was really hard to find things for the boys to do while it was raining for so many days, but now the sun is out and it is HOT! Too hot for me! The boys love going to the park for lunch each day and seeing friends. Cameron turned 12 on May 22. I can't believe I have a son with the priesthood. It is so much fun to watch him pass the sacrament each week. He does such a good job. Carter celebrated his 6th birthday a couple of days ago. Cameron and Carter both got a new bike for their birthdays. Carter is learning haw to ride his without training wheels. He is getting so big.
We are all so excited. We leave for our trip to Oregon in 2 days. We will be visiting Grandma and Grandpa Mallen for the 4th of July weekend. The boys are excited to play in the ocean and go to the aquarium. Mom is just happy it will be at least 20 degrees cooler on the coast! We will take lots of pictures and hopefully I can get them posted soon after we get home.
Hope everyone is having a fun and safe summer!

Happy April Fools' Day! Played a couple of good pranks on the boys today. I told Cameron after school that he was grounded. He looked at me like I was crazy and I said, "Don't you remember when I grounded you this morning?" He said, "What are you talking about?" I said "April Fools!" He totally believed me! It was pretty fun. The boys called Gary this morning and told him that school had been cancelled because of the snow. Then they said April Fools. They got a kick out of that.

The boys are doing great. We are all really excited because Cameron was accepted to Monticello Academy for next school year. I'm glad he doesn't have to go to Hunter Junior High School next year. Colby and Carter are on the waiting list but they should get moved up since Cameron will be enrolled.

Cohen has 4 molars now. We don't put anything in his mouth that we don't want him to bite. His teeth are like little razors. He is getting so big. He runs around the house now. He doesn't walk, he runs. I'm hoping the pigeon-toed bowlegs go away as he gets bigger.

Finally, some new pictures. It's been a while since I've written anything on here. Everyone is doing great. Cohen is getting so big. We had to take him to the doctor the other day because he had green snot oozing out everywhere, and he weighs...24+ lbs. Pretty big kid. He has cut 3 new teeth since Valentines Day. What a joy! The older boys just received their report cards and did pretty well. Carter is going to be going to a special math class after school for about 6 weeks starting on the 24th. Cameron has been going to a fencing class on Tuesday nights after scouts and he loves it. Colby is becoming quite the reader and he recently received one of only two 100% scores on a math accuity test in his class. We are very proud of all of our boys. Enjoy the new pics!

Reading a book with Cameron.

I really love this book

First, you dump out the toys and climb in...

And then you just sit in the box and have fun.

Does anybody else see anything wrong with this picture? Cameron and Colby sharing space and no one got hurt!

Cohen found a new place to play and he's sharing it with Carter.

Sharing the new place with Colby, too.

Sytrofoam tower of DOOM!