Tonsils and Traditons

After years of sore throats and missing over 4 weeks of school, the stars aligned and yesterday Coleyboy finally got his pork chop sized tonsils removed. We know, what a bummer, missing days of Christmas break recovering, but it was that or re-do 4th grade!
He is recovering well and the anticipation of Christmas is helping to ease the pain.

One of our family traditions going all the way back to Coley's 2nd Christmas is to brave the crowds at the mall and let the kids sit on Santa's lap to tell him a few of the things they want and get their picture taken. Below is the picture I took of the kids talking with Santa, Cole was giving his list which includes a Butterfly knife, as you can see, Santa was quite concerned!
Here is a picture of the picture of the kids all smiling with SantaChristmas Eve brings another tradition of opening one gift, to our kids frusteration the present is always the one containing pajamas, here they are infront of the tree!This year the kids all got robes along with their P.J.'s, here Ysabel is showing off the Tinkerbell robe and pajama's she got

Taggert got Iron Man pajama's and robe, not sure why, but robes= karate when your 6 year old?

Coleyboy doing his best to smile through the pain, Hef would be proud son!

This year due to snowy weather and schedules we got to spend Christmas Eve with just our family. In keeping with the spirit of "A Christmas Story" we went out for Chineese food, to our disapointment, we weren't able to get the waiters to sing Deck the Halls for us no matter how hard the kids begged, or sang Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra, Ra Ra, Ra, Ra loudly! The duck however was amazing!
After we came home we decorated a ginger bread house as a family, (a first for all of us if you can believe it!) by the way, you have to glue the house together prior to decorating? Who would have thought? After rebuilding the roof, it looks pretty good we thought, just watch out for the toothpicks!

The kids are now tucked in bed, next to the warm glow of the TV showing Polar Express!
Santa is on his way, get to bed and stop playing with your lap...
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CHECK OUT THEM PEEPERS!

Taggert got new glasses, check em out, he really diggs em!

1st grade friendship play

Taggert had his 1st Grade Friendship play. He has been practicing his songs and choreography since school started and he did great! The 1st grade put on a program focusing on being friends, finding new friends, being ok with yourself and stopping bullies, it was a fun night and Taggert did great!

Tagg informed us the morning of that he had to wear "a tie". He was one of the few that did, but man did he look good!

So nice we had to see it twice!

(Somebody happy to be wearing a tie? Not a common sight at the Watts house!)
Taggert on stage with his classmates
6 shooters!

Walk like and egyptian?

Grandma Starla even came, thanks for coming it made it an even more special night!

GOOD JOB TAGGERT WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!

Costume Parade

Halloween was alot of fun for us, we had plenty to do, with trips to the pumpkin patch, parties and school parades, the weather was perfect this year, we really had fun in our new neighborhood, school and pre-school!

Yzzy got to go to the boys parade and then one at her school, she was a ballerina and was very cute!
Mrs. Jill and Ysabel's pre-school class getting ready for their costume parade, they went trick or treating to one "funny house" and one "scary house". Thanks Mrs. Jill she had a blast!

Yzzy the ballerina with a very sticky blue ring pop!

Pre-school costume parade



Cole wore his blow up suit and was an "obese ballerina"
Always a favorite!

Taggert was a fireman, that is his best friend Mason on the left

Trick or Treating was fun, the kids only lasted 3 streets and their buckets were full and they were done with it, they wanted to go home, such a long day? What happened to the days of trick or treating all night and filling pillow cases?

They've got it way to good!

Pumpkin patch and Gutting gourds

Better late than never, here are some pictures of the kids trip to the pumpkin patch with Grandma Starla, the Hoopes and the Merbacks! They had a blast, picked some great pumpkins and nobody froze!

Perfect trip!

What a family picture!
Taggert picking a winner!

Cole as always following the Watts family credo, size does matter!

Princess Ysabel says carrying pumpkins is for fools, she directed traffic from her royal coach!

Here they are with some of their favorite cousins

Coley boy's

"Pukin' pumkin"

(Cole won Rocky Mtn Elementary's pumkin carving contest!)

Taggerts beat up pumpkin

(it has a black eye)

Bella colored hers with markers, it turned out wonderful!

They had alot of fun, thanks Grandma!

Every things better when the necks are redder!

It's the 3rd weekend of October in Utah, that means only one thing, schools out, (who has ever heard of "fall break"?) , BYU football is re-scheduled for Thursday night, Church attendence is optional, temperatures have dropped, trucks are lifted, facial hair is respected and every lotion hating, non-purse holding, Toby Keith lovin, sunflower seed spittin, flanel shirt wearin, male heads to the hills for opening weekend of the Deer Hunt, and the question of the day is.....

"Did ya get yer deer?"

Of course, we were so there!

We found this cool water fall just below Dutch Flats in American Fork Canyon, it was so cool, the water literally comes out of the rock!

Coley boy still has a sore throat, he is the best big brother and a perfect hunting buddy! The kind who will go with you no matter what, even if he's sick and cant legaly shoot a deer, he is still there helping and making it fun.
Bella by the falls
This was the view on the way up to Silver lake, that is the back side of Mt. Timpanogos in the background, what a great state! Way better than Texas!

Pistol Packin Mama! You have been warned!
The fastest trigger in the family, seriously scary! Throws, bats and kicks left handed, shoots right? Explain this to me please?

He is one heck of a shot, soda cans and milk jugs beware!

Did you really ask me to press 1 for English?

If you ask them they will tell you,

"We are NOT friends!"

The answer is, no, not yet, but....

THERE WILL BE BLOOD!

Thats my boy!

Taggert was sitting at the table tonight, he lifted up his shirt and told me he didn't have any fat, I said your right, you are one of the leanest guys I know, (he loves to show off his 6 pack). THEN..... after he thought about it, he said with a spark in his eye and in his gravely voice... "well, maybe I do have just a little fat, weiner fat, yeah, I have a fat weiner!"

BRILLIANT!

In our world......

What color is the sky in your world? Cause in our world its perfectly normal to ride scooters on a wood deck 10 feet off the gound, in our underwear, at 6:30 on a Tuesday night when its only about 50 degrees outside. By the way, when is dinner?

Weekend pics

Horse Wrangler

If you know Yzzy, you know she LOVES animals, in her 4 year old eyes, Doggies are king, Horses would be #2 and her family would come in a close 3rd! She has adopted a horse by the boys school, she has named it CupCake, it shares the fence with the school playground. When Jami picks up the boys if she has time she lets Yzz take a few carrotts or apples with them and they will go and feed this horse. Sometimes Bella will just get out of the suburban and runs on her own picking grass as she goes to feed to "her horsey, CupCake!" She loves horses but for various reasons she has never gotten to go with the boys when we have gone to see and ride Uncle Todd's horses. Friday Todd needed help moving some of his horses from a pasture in Lehi up to Heber, so Yzzy and I went to help him move 4 of them, Bella was actually very helpfull getting them into his horse trailer, Cole had gotten out of school while we were doing this, so we picked him up and headed up the canyon. Here are some pics of the adventure!

Bella riding Uncle Todd's reigning horse Bill, she was nervous at first but then in heaven!

A real smile starting to show through, she had the time of her life!

After turning Bill out in the pasture, she decided she should be the horse, Uncle Todd put the halter on her and Coley decided he should be the one to lead her around!
As you can tell she is having a blast!


She started off pretty tame but when Uncle Todd took the lead she turned into a BUCKIN' BRONC! At the end I think she was even trying to bite?

Uncle Todd finally got the wild horse settled down and loaded into the trailer, this may look odd but she has not stopped talking about this trip yet!

Coley boy being cool on some sprinklersAt some point I think she turned into a goat?

Thanks again Uncle Todd for the fun afternoon, whenever you need help Yzzy the horse wrangler is only a phone call away!

Canyon bike ride

Monday night was perfect weather, we wanted to do something fun as a family outside so Jami told the kids to grab their helmets we were going for a bike ride! We went up Provo Canyon to ride the Bridal Veil Falls trail. It was awesome, I thought it would be crowded with as perfect as the weather was but there were suprisingly few zoobies up the canyon which made it all the more fun!

Jami and the kids at the base of the falls (just after Yzzy taking a header off the rock, her pink princess helmet is floating just out of the picture)

As close to a full shot of the falls as I could get, with Jami and the kids at the base
Stopping for a drink and to pose for pics
The leaves were starting to change, I thought we had better pics of the colors, we will have to go back again for better fall color pictures
Bella found out why we call this crash corner! This same corner was whereTagg crashed his bike last year, when we came up to it this year, he jumped off of his bike, threw it on the ground and started yelling, "I'm not riding down that hill!!!!" He was right in front of Yzzy and Jami, this caused Bella to skid, slide, wobble, barely miss a pole and then fall off of her bike and onto her hands and side. Luckily for her she has a Mom that has raised boys and never goes anywhere without bandaids and wipes! Jami had her all cleaned up and the tears dried, I had to tell her to make a sad face for this picture.
Amazing how good an $8 bag of grocery store chicken, a piece of string cheese and a can of root beer tastes when your having fun with the ones you love the most!