Funny Asher Quote

"I know how to say 'peanut butter and jelly' in Spanish... PB&J!"

Changin' Things Up a Bit

Well, since it isn't technically summer anymore I thought I would take down the Summer Movie List from the side bar. You can still refer to it here: Kick Back & Enjoy the Show or you can just click on the link on the right under my new handy dandy "Great Posts You Might Have Missed" widget on the sidebar! After moving to New City, I (believe it or not) have new friends! And these sweet people have missed out on so much of my crazy, fun antics!!! And for those of you old timers to my blog... now you can revisit the days that made you laugh (or cry)!!! Unfortunately, I have over 350 posts so it's hard to remember all of the funny ones but I picked out some that I chuckle at when I think about them! Of course, I have the whole mousecapades listed as well as the 'crappy' times in Branson. Let me know if there is one that stands out to you and I'll add it!

2008 McClain Family Reunion

In September we had a family reunion on my dad's side of the family. It's always a lot of fun! I really enjoy seeing some of my cousins, aunts & uncles that I don't normally see. As you can see in the following pictures, there is a lot of fun stuff to do for the kids. I think this is where some family reunions fail. I also like that while I was chatting with family members there were ladies there that were perfectly happy helping my kiddos figure out some of the games and toys! There is a lot of love at this place! But then again, that's really how my dad's family is... really loving.

Did you notice the picture of my nephew Preston? He's a teenager. He's actually a very good teenager but at some point he got bored and took his electric guitar behind one of the buildings and got away from it all!

Of course, no family reunion would be complete without some sort of drama:

Asher totally biffed it on the gravel driveway and was pretty inconsolable. Call me a mean mommy but I yelled at my sister to grab the camera! He's pretty cute.

Cousins and BFF

Emma and Andyn = BFF! It is SO stinkin' fun that my sister and I have girls that are the same age! They love each other so much! They generally play well together, aside from the typical two-year old stuff. Just so cute!

2 For 1!

Can you tell that I'm trying to make up for lost time?! This post is about Geoff and Andyn's birthday.... Sept 29th!!! I'm such a loser! Check out these great cake designs!!!

Geoff's cake

Andyn's cake

Geoff with his greatest joy... his kids. (and Syd)

So I didn't make grandiose beautiful cakes this time. So what? At least I didn't forget their birthdays. I just didn't have the time to make a cute cake. I'll make it up to them next year.

Freak of Nature

My friend Bree just posted this on her blog and I thought it was hilarious!! It's a real thing! At Sam's club for 200 bucks!

A Walk in the Park

Back ages ago, when my friend Amber came for a visit, she and Geoff took our kids to a local park. I was actually on my way there when Andyn had the nastiest poop diaper ever that leaked all over her car seat! Needless to say, I had to go home and take care of the dirty work! So, while they were there they took a few good photos.

1st up: Tuffy Duck. Cute, but strange.

Then it was a photo op of Amber and her kiddos. Super cute!

And no park in Arkansas would be complete without a statue of a hillbilly plumber-butt wrangling a rattlesnake with a rabid dog nearby. Really. Who thought this would be a good idea?

Mozilla vs IE {update}

I don't take back what I said about IE but I will tell you that the first four pictures on the Halloween post disappeared for some reason! So... I fixed them. Scroll down and check out the kids' costumes!

First Annual ATV Rally

We've been camping three times as a family.

The first time was when we lived in Michigan and our ward had a Ward Family Campout. For the most part it was a lot of fun. But, it was June and it was still pretty dang cold at night so we kind of froze our booties off. Not to mention that in the middle of the night Aspen had an allergic reaction to... nature (I guess) and started barking like a seal and wheezing. It was pretty frightening! We had a resident doctor in the tent next to us and he suggested that we take her to the hospital for a breathing treatment. The closest hospital was in our home city - 45 minutes away! So, Geoff loaded her up and took her back home but decided to stop by our house and give her some Benadryl to see if that would help. It did! They both stayed there and slept and then came back out to the campsite to finish out the fun weekend. This was before we had cell phones and I had no idea what was going on but when he showed up the next morning back at camp I was greatly relieved.

Here's Geoff and the girls enjoying some pancakes for breakfast.

Craig Dahle and his daughter Syd.

And of course, Amber (Craig's wife). Still crazy after all these years! My friend Kim Humphreys is behind her.

The second time we went camping was in Oklahoma with my sister Terra, her husband Jeff, and their daughter Emma. I'll spare you the details and let you read all about it by clicking here. Needless to say, it wasn't that great of an experience! I swore then I would never go camping again.

Enter: New Friends in New City...

When we moved here we quickly became friends with this great little family that had also just moved here from out of state. One of the first things we learned about them was that they love to camp. Great. They invited us to go camping with them. I really like these guys so I told them that I would give it one more try. So follows our adventure:

We made arrangements to go camping a few weeks ago and Chrissy (mother/wife of this family) began to make arrangements. Unfortunately, all of the state parks that were relatively close to where we live were booked up. So, she asked if we wanted to go to this one in Oklahoma. At first I said "great!". But truthfully, I did not want to go camping in Oklahoma. Been there, done that. So I looked online and found this campsite that was not a state park but appeared to be really nice. It was called Byrd's Adventure Center. Go ahead, take a look. Sounds great. Right? So, I convinced Chrissy that camping in the Ozark mountains would be way more enjoyable than camping in the plains of Oklahoma and we were set! Except I missed one minor detail... this was listed on their calendar of events for that same weekend:

"Fall ATV Rally: Bring your ATVs and enjoy scenic trail rides, good food, and lots of fun. There will be beginner, intermediate and advanced trails. Special trails and games will be available for kids. Several dealerships will be on hand for demos. There will be a poker run for fun prizes."

Actually, I think I remember reading this but did give it much thought.

For the next 18 hours we were lulled to sleep and woken from semi-fitfull sleep by the sound of ATV motors. Instead of singing around the campfire we shouted over the humming of these great machines. Great, huh? It actually wasn't that bad and it was a good source of jokes for us. We were THE ONLY people there who did not have any ATVs. It was crazy! I think Chrissy learned her lesson: don't let the camping impaired decide where we camp!

All-in-all, it was a great time. By far the best camping experience for us. Chrissy, Mike and their 3 girls are fun and sweet as can be! Here are some pics of the very eventful weekend:

(click on collage to see these photos bigger)

Mozilla vs IE

If you are having trouble seeing the first 4 pictures on my blog it's because you're probably using Internet Explorer. Get with the program and use Mozilla Firefox. IE is crap.

Happy Halloweeny!

Things were pretty eventful around here for Halloween!

The festivities started on Wednesday and everything has been a blur since then!!

Our ward (church) had a Fall Festival. Kids trick-or-treated at different doors around the building, there were lots of fun games, a chili cook-off and bake-off, and of course a contest for best costume.

Asher: a pirate. Andyn: a gorilla.

Ainsley: a spider. Aspen: a snow skier.

Geoff and I went as a disco couple!

You may not notice but if you look closely in the first 2 photos our fros are curly and full. But, in the last one they are a little matted and flat! They accidentally made it into the dryer! Oops. This is particularly sad for us because Geoff and I bought those wigs our first Halloween together and have used them for various events throughout the years. They'll never be the same!

So, at this particular ward event I was in charge of the mummy wrapping game. Here is Aspen getting wrapped up by her sisters:

Here are a couple of other costumes that caught my eye: Then there was this big huge coloring page. Chrissy's girls were dressed up as the cutest little lady bugs you've ever seen!! The little one (Zella) and Andyn have become best buds and they spent most of the evening coloring on this page!

So, all this took place before it was even Halloween! Friday night we took our kids trick-or-treating just around the neighborhood where we live. This was one of the guys in our complex:

I thought he did a great job on his costume! Asher really liked it! I think we went a little too early. We wanted to get home by dark but when you trick or treat during daylight hours it's hard to know who's giving out candy. No porch lights on! I tried to strike a deal with the kids.... I would give them each a bag of their favorite candy next year for Halloween if we didn't have to go trick or treating again!!! I'm not sure if they went for it. We'll have to bring it up again next year! After the trick or treating fiasco, I took Asher, Ainsley, and Aspen downtown to this really cool little place where they have a feris wheel and carousel and were giving out free rides to kids in costumes. I paid $2 and rode the feris wheel with Aspen and then all three of them rode the carousel. We got sno cones and then headed back home.

Asher and Ainsley on the carousel and Aspen up high on the feris wheel.

I took this to show how high up we were. Now that I look at it I'm thinking how very little was holding us up!

Last but not least: last night Chrissy and Mike had us over for a little Halloween get together. It was a lot of fun! They made homemade root beer and white chili. There were nachos, little smokies, mummy pizzas, vanilla popcorn, cupcakes, cake balls.... lots of fun stuff to eat and do. We played games and the kids made "Haunted" gingerbread houses. With all of the fun going on you'd think that I would have taken a ton of pictures. Nope. I was so tired and just enjoying the entertainment! Geoff however did snap this picture of me:

Happy Halloween!!!