Brianne get Baptized!

We are so proud of Brianne and her decision to be baptized. She had an exciting baptism because she was baptized on new years eve. She got to have a party after her baptizm with her cousins, so the whole day was really fun and special.

We love Brianne she is a very thoughtful little girl. She is a very good helper and always the first one I go to when I need help with something. She often will do things for her sisters without me even asking. And even will spend her hard earned money on things for her sisters. We hope she will always remember this day and continue to make good choices and think of others.

I took a few pictures of her in her baptism dress a few weeks before her baptism. So I could use them on some baptism announcements I sent out. Here are a few of my favorites.

Here she is looking cute on the day of her baptism:

Here she is with here dad before they went and changed into their baptism clothes:

And here they are in their baptism jumpsuits ready to go to the font:

That night the Thornton cousins stayed for a new years eve party. We had fun playing games, like Bingo, and eating the marshmello off the string:

Family Photos 2011

We finally got out and did some new family photos. We waited until the last part of October so I was worried the weather was going to be bad. But we have had such a mild year the weather was perfect. I went with my friend Tineka and her family, she took photos of my family and I took photos of hers. They all turned out great.

Sydnie age 4 2011

Brianne age 7 2011

Kaylee age 10 2011

Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween my girls had a hard time deciding what to be, all except for Sydnie. She knew she wanted to be Rapunzel months in advance. She has this purple play dress she wears just about everyday anyway. So really all she needed was a wig and a crown. My girls are growing up they all wanted to go trick or treating alone with their friends this year, I barely had time to snap a few photos of them in their costumes before they rushed out the door.

Sydnie was the only one that went trick or treating with me this year. She and her little friend tia went with me to quite a few houses. It was so warm this year that they were able to go to quite a few houses. Here is Sydnie in her Rapunzel outfit.

Brianne just didn't know what to be this year. It took a little convincing but I finally talked her into being a baby like Kaylee was a few years ago. She looked super cute and I was happy because it was an easy inexpensive costume:

Kaylee's first idea was to be the Queen of Hearts from Alice and Wonderland, I just couldn't figure out how to make a costume, well I probably could have but it would have taken a lot of work and money. So I talked her into being Alice instead. She made a really cute Alice:

And we can't forget about Lu Lu. The girls made her tu tu and I made her witches hat, the shirt was furnished by Build a Bear:

The school hold an annual Halloween parade so the parents can come and see the kids costumes. Here is Brianne with an embarrassed look on her face as usual:

And Kaylee as Alice:

Sydnie wasn't in the parade but insisted on putting on her costume for it anyway:

Shaun carved a few masterpieces this year as usual. This one is Chief Butternut Squash:

And here is "The Big Meanie"

A few weeks before Halloween we went to Idaho to visit family we had a fun Halloween party at Grandma Thorntons house. Here is Hayden, Kaylee, Hannah and Sydnie showing off the cake pop eyes they made. Poor Brianne was so sick that she just laid on the couch the whole time and didn't even feel good enough to carve pumpkins.

Kaylee scooping the guts out of her pumpkin:

Sydnie getting her hands a little messy:

The whole crew and their pumpkins lined up ready for pictures:

Happy Birthday Sydnie!!!

Well as usual I am behind on my posts. But this very long post will officially catch me up. Starting with most recent first. My little Sydnie turned 4! I can't believe my little baby is already 4.

Sydnie has been such a fun little girl that I get to call mine. She is so loving and full of smiles and laughter. Even when she gets in trouble, which she does her fair share of the time, she tries to soften things by laughing or smiling, truth is sometimes it works, certainly better than crying and throwing a fit would. She is so generous with her hugs and compliments. Of course I have to laugh when she tells me I look beautiful when I am dressed up in one of my crazy outfits for contest photos, but I'll take it anyway. When I brought the balloons home for her birthday party she ran up to me and said "Thanks Mom! You are the BEST" then she grabs my hand and and yanks on it and says "Mom, I need to give you a hug" It's times like that I wonder where this little girl comes from.

Some fun things about Sydnie at 4 years old is: She loves penguins, she has penguin stuffed animals penguin books, penguin figures, penguin movies and even has a special penguin walk she does. She wants to be a penguin for Halloween but I am trying to talk her out of it because I already bought a Rapunzel outfit. She also loves Rapunzel but not quite as much as penguins so we will see if I can change her mind. Sydnie also loves the color orange, she always has since the time she was little, she even had a special name for the color, wish I could remember it, I think I wrote it down somewhere but I can't find it. Anyway she loves anything orange and if she had her way she would wear the color orange everyday.

We had a family birthday party and went to Artic Circle to celebrate and play on the toys. When we got home we opened presents and she blew the candles out on her Penguin birthday cake.

Sydnie opening her presents

Yay! a Rapunzel doll

And a cute little dog from Grandma:

A few days earlier we had a friends birthday party for her. She invited 3 of her cute friends and we went to a place called Kangaroo Zoo. They have a bunch of blow up slides and bounce houses the girls had a great time running around for an hour.

When we got home we had pizza and blew out the candles on a donut cake made with Orange donuts.


Sydnie with her cute friends and two sisters


Josh and Jenny come to visit

We had a surprise visit from Shaun's brother Josh and his family. And as always we had a great time with them. We drove to Strawberry reservoir to take them cray fishing. The trout were biting that afternoon, each of the girls had a chance to reel one in.

The girls checking out their catch:

Sydnies turn to reel one in:

Thanksgiving Point

We have had some really pleasant weekend and have taken advantage of them by doing some fun things with the girls. One weekend we went to Thanksgiving points petting zoo.

Riding the horse drawn wagon:

Feeding the goats:

And of course riding the horses, here is Kaylee she chose the largest horse:

And Brianne, she might have chosen this one because his bridal matches her shirt:

And Sydnie chose the littlest horse and had a great time!

State Fair

The weekend before that we went to Utah's state fair. The girls had fun riding a ride and looking at the animals. One of the highlights was a mother pig that had just had babies. There is nothing cuter than a baby pig, and nothing uglier than a mother pig:

The girls at the fair they each got to chose one ride Sydnie chose the merry go round.

A Fun Summer

I have been a slacker and I have not been updating this blog like I should. I think part of the problem is I take all of my Photos in RAW format now and they have to be converted to JPEG before I can put them on here. It's just one more step I have to do before posting so it slows me down a bit. I forced myself to sit down today and get everything since the last time I posted. Get ready for a whole bunch of photos. I decided to start with the most recent first and work my way backwards.

Granite (Thornton Family Reunion 2011)

We had a lot of fun this year at Granite. Greg and his family came and we haven't seen them for a couple years so it was good to catch up with them and for the cousins to get reacquainted. These first pictures are of some of the younger cousins, we walked down to Granite Creek so the kids could look for snail shells and to find branches for Grandpa to make willow whistles. Usually you can wade in the creek some but this year the water was so high the kids just had fun throwing rocks in.

Hannah, Haden, Kaylee, Brianne, Sydnie, Izzy, and Trinity. At Granite Creek posing in front of the open door rock structure.

One more in front of the creek

Busy at work collecting rocks

On the last day some of us had the great idea to go on a hike. I must say most of us were ill prepared for the type of hike this was. It was a bit of a mix of mountain climbing and the rest was very steep and slippery with no trail to follow. At one point I thought, "I really don't want to go any further, but at the same time I don't want to go back the way I came either." So I pressed on hoping that we would find an easier way down. Luckily we did, but it wasn't without its hazards, between loose rocks and branches I managed to scrape and bruise my legs up pretty well.

We finally managed to make it to the top. I have to say the view was pretty amazing and there is nothing quite like accomplishing something like that.

Here is the whole hiking group minus myself, from left to right: C.J. , Mike, Sean, Whitney, Brad, Nick, and if you look in the upper right corner of the picture you will see Shaun risking his life trying to get back to a more safe spot on the mountain.

I took this one right after we reached the top, my nephew Sean and I were the first ones up.

This is of Whitney and Nick on our way down from the Arch

We always have a lot of fun at the pool "Granite Hot Springs" This year we got to swim two of the days we were there.
Sydnie with her cousin Katie:

Kaylee doing back flips in the pool:

Brianne just chilin' in the pool:

Sydnie with her Grandma and Grandpa Thornton:

About a week before we went to Granite Shaun and I took the girls up to strawberry reservoir to do some cray fishing. Shaun always tries to catch a few trout while we are there too. Here is Kaylee holding his catch:

Kaylee found a big hook and decided to see if she could snag any crayfish with out any bait. She actually managed to catch quite a few with it. She was pretty proud of herself:

We also took the girls one night to the lake by our house, we don't really have any areas with sandy beaches but they still had fun throwing rocks in the water and swimming a bit.

Brianne and Lu lu:

Sydnie carefully walking through the rocks:

I am the activity day leader for Kaylees age. We took a Field trip to the temple. I took pictures of all the girls. Here is me and Kaylee:

For the fourth we went to Idaho Falls for the first time in several years. We had fun seeing family and going to the parade. We were sad not to be able to stay for the fireworks but Shaun had to work early the next morning so we went and watched fireworks near our home instead.

We sat with the Jacksons and My mom and dad at the parade:

I had to throw these in. Kaylee gets pretty creative sometimes and she decided to make costumes out of construction paper for everyone. Sydnies favorite animal is a penguin so of course she made a penguin costume for sydnie:

Here is all three of them Kaylee is an elephant, and Brianne made her own. I think she was a dog.

For the Huls family reunion we decided to visit Shauns sister Katie in San Diego. The whole family(minus Shaun's two Brothers) Rented a beach house just a couple blocks from the beach in La Jolla. The kids had fun playing in the Ocean, going to San Diego Zoo, Sea World, a Padres Baseball Game and swimming in the pool at Katies apartment. We also stopped at some friends house who live near L.A. and it was fun to see their house and have a swimming and BBQ party.

On the way to San Fransisco we stopped in Las Vegas to spend a night and break up the drive. The girls had fun touring Las Vegas and riding a few rides:

I had to include this one:

We had fun at the M&M factory:

One of the first days we were there we went to San Diego zoo. It was fun it was just our family plus Natalies little boy Kegan. My girls were happy to have one of their cousins come along with them. We were amazed at this peacock who was more than happy to show off his feathers and let everyone come up really close to him.

More goofy photos at the zoo:

while we were in San Diego we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. Katie insisted on taking some photos of us before we left. We had a good time eating at a local Italian restaurant and getting some cheesecake to go at the cheesecake factory.

And finally Way back in May Sydnie had her first dance recital. Here is the whole class:

Sydnie was rotten at the dance recital she just laid on the floor during the whole dance and wouldn't do anything. I was worried she would do the same at the recital. But just before the dance started I figured out why she was acting so silly. She wanted to be under the orange light on the stage (it's her favorite color) so I switched some girls around and let her be under the orange light. It worked! She danced her little heart out and even started laughing in the middle of the dance.

Sydnie positioned herself front and center and I couldn't help laughing a little bit at my little show off:

The end hopefully I won't let myself get so far behind again.