December

<3... Going to see Christmas lights and hearing Noah exclaim "It's so beautiful!" Noah loves the word beautiful and I find that beautiful.

<3... Watching Music and the Spoken Word and Megan getting excited to see pictures of baby Jesus and recognizing him.  When I showed her a picture Santa she didn't know who he was.  Yes, Adam and I gave ourselves a few humble pats on the back.  We had accomplished  one of our goals for the Christmas season.

<3... The first thing Kyle said Christmas morning, "I will remember Jesus first even before all my presents." What a kid.

<3... Gingerbread houses with the kids and Megan eating all the candy off the floor.

<3...Santa accidentally left one of the boys gifts in his sleigh Christmas Eve so it turned up on our door step a couple days after Christmas. I totally wanted to put off getting a Wii but I guess Santa felt it was about time. Kyle was very pleased but Noah on the other hand was pretty indifferent. He just really isn't in to electronics.
Both the kids did say it was the best Christmas ever though. :)

<3...We had a new elf come and visit us this season. What a pest he was! One day he even hung the boys underwear on our chandelier. I promptly forgot about this so when my visiting teachers come by that day I didn't even notice it was all still there until about 20 minutes into our visit. They had a pretty good laugh. I had a pretty good cry. ;) So why is "Elvis" (Kyle chose the name. Get it? As in Elf?) under the things I love? Well because my boys delight comes even before my embarrassment, I guess...sometimes. Elvis did do some cute things too like paint the boys noses red while they were sleeping.

<3...Nerf gun wars.

<3...Noah's preschool Christmas concert. They sang at the assisted living place where Grandma Hind lives. She was able to come down and watch Noah sing which made it more special.

Noah and his friend, James.

<3...New baby!!

This was my in laws Christmas present and also how we announced the new baby.

The fourth frame says, 

Shiflett

Part IV

Coming to a frame near you

August 25, 2012

 <3...We also went to the Candlelight Christmas up at This Is The Place park. It was a really fun Christmas activity. Kyle was convinced that this Santa is the real one (vs. the Valley Fair Mall Santa) because his reinderr were there along with his sled.

Yay for Yosemite Part II

Today was our big day at Yosemite.  With the Schroeder's close behind we made tracks for Yosemite Valley.  This was to be our only day so the valley was the place to be.
I had been to Yosemite before but don't remember much. Adam hadn't been at all. SO we were very excited.
One of my favorite parts was to come through the tunnel and instantly see this amazing vista provided by the Yosemite Valley. (See picture above) Gorgeous. Just to the right of my head you can see Bridal Veil Falls. The big curved slab of rock behind Adam's head is Half Dome, (to be tackled another time when no kids are involved!) and El Capitan to the left.

Bridal Veil Falls

Hike back from Bridal Veil Falls
Easy "hike".

The kids all decided it would be cool to collect sticks- especially Noah. 

Taylor started feeling sick so they left Will with us and went to the medical center. We, on the other hand, went to Yosemite Falls. It was quite the walk to the trail head and then to the falls. 

My little hikers did great though.

Yosemite Falls!

We had to wait our turn to get our picture taken on this special log. It was pretty crowded. I wonder what its like at, say, the end of October.
Will ended up going back to the condo with his family because he was starting to feel sick as well.
Poor Schroeder's.

This was a really cool, SCARY hike.  

The first part of the hike was pretty chilled (except for the part where Noah didn't feel good and then relieved himself and THEN felt good. Poor baby. :/ )

The second half of the hike, the Mist Trail, up to Vernal Falls was super slippery with a cliff to our left down into a raging river. I kinda can't believe I did it with my kids but I didn't want to miss out! It was a spectacular sight for sure.  Only two weeks before we were there three people fell to their deaths off the Vernal Falls.  Knowing this somehow didn't help my nervousness...

After this last hike we were all tired and ready to head back to the condo.  We took the shuttle back to our car and saw a little more of the park we hadn't seen.
We had a really big and long day ahead of us.  9 hours of driving home that I had been dreading from the beginning of the trip.

Yay for Yosemite!

We left Monterey and embarked on another long drive to a very exciting destination.  In fact, it was this place that really motivated my super outdoorsy husband to go on this trip.

YOSEMITE!

Because of the drive (4 hours, I think) we only did a little exploring in Yosemite the first day.  

We parked near the Wawona Hotel {which is a historic land mark being built in 1879} and walked across a cool covered bridge to a cluster of old buildings that originated in the park. There were a few people dressed up and a blacksmith but mostly it was empty.  

 I love this picture for a few reasons. 

Cyd trying to drag Will to pose for the picture 

looking very composed and 

Kyle and Noah holding hands. 

Aww.

Adam and the boys discovered a path to the river underneath the bridge that had some really shallow spots so because they CANNOT resist a good swimming hole we cooled our heals, literally, and enjoyed a respit from the heat. Cyd and Eric went to check out the hotel.

Being tired from our long drive we decided to head back to our hotel for some eats and a nice swim. I loved those relaxing evenings.  They were a novelty. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

by Noah

by Kyle

by Meggie

Noah: "I wonder what Tommy (dog) wants to grow up to be?
... Maybe he wants to be a cow."

Playing in the Leaves...

...on a freezing cold afternoon. They don't seem to mind. I think I'll go back inside and enjoy the warmth of my home and the obnoxious sweet sounds of happiness and crunching leaves.

Girls Weekend!!

I had the opportunity to hang out with my sisters and my mom this weekend. My oldest sister,Cyd, turned 40 at the beginning of the month which meant only one thing: Time to mourn celebrate! We stayed in Cyd's condo in St. George, we shopped, ate, hiked in Snow Canyon, ate, went to a BYU Young Ambassadors concert at Tuacahn, talked A LOT, hot tubbed, laughed, laughed and laughed some more. We missed our SiL's who couldn't be there though.  Guess that means we better plan another one soon. :)

This is Halloween...

...This is Halloween!

Getting ready to go trick-or-treating.

Kyle and Noah really got into the candy getting this year. Kyle was literally running from house to house. We had a hard time keeping up with him. 

Megan had a great time carrying her bucket all by herself and collecting her loot. It was really cute. 

The kids also got to go Grandma and Grandpa's ward party and do trunk or treating along with trick or treating at Daddy's work. Waaaay to much candy but I'm making good use of it. ;)

 Megan and the Super Market-er.

Dang, I'd be afraid if I were that donut...

 Ward Halloween party.

 I LOVE the picture of Spider-man who is putting some distance between

 the mini Frankenstein and himself.

 Kyle looks nice and mummified with his red eyes but then again, so does everybody else.

Creeeeeeeepy!

Noah had such a great time with Halloween this year. He wanted to decorate everything and make it "scary". He was so excited to wear his costume. Both him and Kyle loathed being called "cute" in their costumes. Especially Kyle. He was all about being in character as you can see in the cousin picture.

This is the pumpkin that Kyle and I carved. Cool, eh?

 I feel bad because I didn't get one of Noah and Daddy's.

Monterey and Manta Ray*

Our first stop in Monterey (other than Taco Bell for dinner the night before) was the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  While I am not a fan of fish I must say that this place made looking at creepy, scaley, smelly creatures quite enjoyable. 

I mean, look at the above picture!

 

Hmmm... at least Taylor seems to be having a good time.

So much to see!

We've been to Sea World before but were always a little disappointed by the displays there. 

Monterey Bay Aqurium does an amazing job showing off their water creatures.

I couldn't even believe these jelly fish tanks were real.  The colors were so vivid I thought I was looking at TV screens made to look like real tanks.

The aquarium had a HUGE "fish tank" the size of a giant wall.  I loved this room and so did Megan.  Every time  the turtle or big ugly sun fish would swim by she would get all excited and squeal (loudly).   The people around us thought she was pretty entertaining.

 Noah and Reagan were pretty cute watching this tide pool tank and then laughing and giggling when the tide would come roaring into the tank.  Noah says he and Reagan "his best friend" were pretending it was hot lava coming out of a volcano.

Wish I knew what I was pointing at...

For lunch we found a nice, empty Mexican restaurant.  Every other place we walked into got that panicky look in their eyes (we got to know so well) when we said we needed to seat 11 people.  

After lunch we rented these family bikes. They were awesome! Cyd and Eric's bike fit 6 or 7 people! Mine and Adam's fit 5.  We had fun riding up and down the coast, trading off passengers and racing each other.  Kyle got a good scrape when he tried to pedal (after being told NOT to a few times).

Ho hum. Waiting for the Schroeders after being in the lead the whole time.
Its not like they had TWO kids more than us and a bigger bike or anything. ;)

 Let's go fly a kite!

We gave kite flying another go since my husband the romantic bought the kites to fly on the beach.

The Shiflett kite was once again temperamental but the Schroeder kite soared.  Looking at the actual kites you'd have thought it would be the other way around.  Kitties don't soar.

Our condo was in  a pretty cool location. More or less on the beach.  Unfortunately, the weather tends to be overcast and cold in Marina Dunes even at the end of July. 

See you in tomorrow in the great valley of Yosemite!

*Note: There are no actual pictures of Manta Ray in this post despite the fact that this was what Adam anticipated seeing.  We did end up seeing them but didn't end up getting pictures.