Faith's Night Out!

this is
me with addie. I learned to teach her how to stand up on two legs.


rachel watsen is puting MY hands in water so they will be clean.

and rachel allen is painting my fingernails red.

This is me, BIG Rachel (Allen), Rachel Watson and Addie, the dog. It was fun because we got to go to McDonalds, and paint fingernails and pet the dog and teach him tricks. That's all!

the rockstar

this is faith with hannah!

"About the Rock Star"

This is a blog entry requested by and written by Faith:


abbie i just wrote a letter to... HANNAH MONTANA!
is that fun or what?

Moving to Utah...on Christmas Day?

Yes, it's true.
We are relocating to Utah. Where? Mimi and Papa's basement for right now.
Andrew's working on the job front, I'm working on the house and baby. We hope our little guy will stay INSIDE until the time is right. Better for us all.

We feel very RIGHT about it, and we know that the Lord will help us work out all the details.

We'll let you know more when we do, but for now we're moving on Christmas Morning to UTAH! Ready or not...here we come!

Thanksgiving Day

Cute John in front of the American History Museum.

My sweetheart, Andrew, washing dishes at the Wixom's home.

Here's the group on ONE end of the table - I was silly and didn't get other side of the table!

Our friend, Candus, made this beautiful Apple Pie. I love the little cutouts of leaves - it was amazing!

Bag Lady, Pilgrim & Indian

Our Stake put on the play "Midsummer Night's Dream" set in modern day. The orchestra was supposed to be a homeless performing group and this was my outfit! I had leaves sticking out of my hat, boots and dress. Everyone loved my bright blue hat!

John and Clark had a Thanksgiving Program at their preschool. John was the cutest pilgrim I've ever seen, and posed like this when he saw I had the camera.

See! The Pilgrims and Indians CAN be friends! Aren't they darling?

Thanksgiving morning, we visited The American History Smithsonian that was recently reopened. We met some friends there and then went home in time to drive to the Wixoms and have a GREAT Thanksgiving dinner!

Pull those babies out!

For weeks and weeks, Faith would tell me that her bottom teeth were hurting. I would feel them, decide they weren't loose, and we'd move on. Until, about a week ago, she said "Mom, I have teeth behind my other teeth!" And, sure enough, her two bottom teeth had grown in BEHIND the baby teeth!

Dr. Griffin (who also works with Andrew on the High Council) took her today and they just pulled them out! Andrew called me later to say that Faith had handled it like a CHAMP! "She couldn't have been more brave!" So, tonight we'll put her two cute little teeth (with big, long roots) under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. Her BIG reward for being brave was this doll who looks just like Faith!

Pumpkin Carving

Daddy went with the kids to pick out pumpkins and they came back with two GIANT ones!

You can tell who likes the goopy stuff inside. She is so adorable!

Clark has some gunk on his hand, and is having fun with it. John didn't really like the gunk.

The kids were playing in their room and called to me "Mom, come take a picture!" This is what I found. I love being a mother!

Late-in-coming Halloween pictures

At Campbell School, the kids don't wear their costumes on Halloween, they have CRAZY SOCKS day. Faith wore her crazy leggings and Grant wore my witch socks with his matching shirt. Aren't they funny?

Clark and John had a preschool party later in the morning, and they are showing you their characters. As hard as John tried to growl, he was just too cute, and decided to be a "nice lion". I found this Peter Pan costume at the Disney Store and bought it for the sole reason of using the boots for Grant's Obi Wan Kenobi costume, but Clark loved it so much, he wore it all day, and the next day, and the next...

Can anyone explain WHY they make cupcakes with food coloring this color? And why do we give it to our children? I don't get it.

In the evening, our ward had our Trunk or Treat party. Daddy was a Lion Hunter (but John decided to be a Power Ranger), Faith was a darling witch, but didn't wear her hat or carry her broom, Clark was Peter Pan, Grant was Obi Wan Kenobi and I was a witch, of sorts. We had a great time and came home with WAY too much candy! Has anyone else heard of the Tooth Fairy trading prizes for candy? I think it's a brilliant idea!

Visit to Glen & Sherie

Ok, this isn't at Glen & Sherie's house. This is at Epcot. We saw an amazing interactive show with all the Nemo characters, where the animated characters on the screen talked to the kids in the audience, personally! Calling them by name! Hard to describe, but very impressive!

On Sunday, we went to visit Uncle Glen & Aunt Sherie in a place called The Villages, FL. They do all their transportation on Golf Carts! In fact, Glen is a Golf Cart Salesman! So, at the end of the night, he let Faith drive! No Disney ride is cooler than this!

John fell right asleep on our little tour of the town. The weather was beautiful and they treated us so kindly! Thank you so much, Ottleys!

I love this picture of Mom with Johnny! The kids just LOVED all the attention from their grandparents, and we can't wait to see them again - hopefully soon!

Family time is PRICELESS!

I just love this picture of John, standing in front of Pluto. Clark must have done something funny, but this is just so typical of our little funny-guy, Johnny! I love you, sweet boy!

Each morning before the parks would open, people would be lined up behind ropes, and...

they'd bring out the characters! They did a little dance and skit which made us all smile, and then OFF YOU GO to your destination within the park!

Mimi and Papa spoiled the kids with YUMMY chocolate ice cream bars almost every DAY! It's crazy, but I guess that's just what Grandparents do, right? We love you so much, and thank you for such a magical week together!

I love my kids, oh yeah, oh yeah!

Daddy and Faith just taking a break! We packed our lunches into our backpacks each day, which was great, because we could stop to eat whenever we got hungry, AND we figured that the whole lunch cost us about $4 instead of $84!

Faith and John in Dino-Rama, a carnival-type section in Animal Kingdom.

John and I waiting for Faith to finish coloring her Dinosaur! John was such a trooper through the whole trip, just napping as we went, and being a happy as can be! Couldn't have been a better trip!

Here we are riding on the Dinosaurs, a ride exactly like Dumbo, minus about a 45 minute wait! Aren't they cute?

Quick, stop for a picture!

Andrew's not a BIG fan of pictures, especially when we're trying to hurry and get to a ride before everyone else does! But, on our way in on the first morning, I said "Turn around for 5 seconds" and this is what I got! Not bad, huh? Those Fast Passes really are brilliant, and we used them to the fullest extent while we were there!

Here's cute Minnie in the Animal Kingdom. This was orange-shirt day, and we even ran into some other families all in orange as well!

While we rested for a minute, the kids got laughing SO hard with their "boingy toys". THIS is what it's all about - siblings laughing and playing together - who needs all that Disney to have our own kind of magic?

Here's Goofy and Pluto just outside the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom. Our kids were all such a perfect age for this trip! John and Clark were about 40 1/2 inches tall, which meant (in Johnny's words) "I'm tall enough! I'm tall enough" to ride almost every ride in every park! Baby inside did just fine, and I kept myself off a few rides. My only mistake was the Everest roller coaster that I shouldn't have ridden a second time - I was this close to losing my cookies!