My friend, Amber, took some great family pictures for us this year, so here are a few of the whole family.
Bump: Bump spent a lot of time working on projects with me this year. We had our front porch redone, we opened up our window over the front door and fixed the tile around our old fireplace. That is besides all the yard stuff that we are continually trying to update.
Here he is working on opening up the front transom. Then my little brother, Jared, came and helped put some nice trim up around the door and window to match the rest of the original trim. It looks amazing!
Bump and I started running this year. We both ran our first 5K on the 4th of July. He committed to run the Ragnar Relay in Las Vegas with some of my siblings and cousins, but ended up getting hurt and couldn't do it. He still wants to do another Ragnar some time.
Every year the 2 combined Grantsville Stakes put on a 24th of July pageant. This year Bump was asked to pay the part of Willard Richards and sang a quartet of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" in the Carthage Jail scene. He did a great job! He also played the part of a pioneer and a farmer.
He decided this spring that we needed to have chickens, so he showed up one day after work with 4 baby chicks, then he got 2 more laying hens for us. I have to admit that I was hesitant at first, but now I love them and would recommend chickens to anyone!
In the early spring we took the kids to Disneyland. I think that Disneyland is still Bump's favorite place in the whole world. He looks forward to going as much as the kids do. We love going to see my brother, Dave, and his family too. The kids don't get to see their California cousins nearly enough.
In September Bump was released from the Bishopric of our ward and made the Young Men's president. This is a terrible picture of Bump, Bishop Killian and Dean Johnson (1st Counselor), but it's the only one I have. He was so sad to be released, but it was the right thing for our ward. Since then we seem to have a lot of extra boys over at our house.
Also in September, Bump went fishing with his dad and brothers on the San Juan River in Colorado and New Mexico. He has always wanted to fish that river and finally had the chance. Of course, I have no pictures to show what an awesome time he had on his trip, but at least he did get to go.In October he came as a support to me for the Ragnar Relay in Las Vegas. Even though he didn't get to run he was a driver and our biggest support. I was so glad that he was there. We had a lot of fun!
For Halloween we did a "How to Host a Murder Party" with my Utah siblings. Here we are dressed as a funky town disco couple. We had a great time and loved dressing up! :)
I love this picture that Amber took of Bump and the kids. Bump is a great dad and the kids love spending any time they can with him.
What a great looking couple! Right? Amber captured the real "us" in this picture. No fake smiles here. I married a very handsome man! Gets better looking every year too!
Erin: I covered a lot of things that we did in Bump's section. Here I am with Corban in the Primary 24th of July Trek. They walk for about 1 mile with handcarts and the option to dress in pioneer clothes. We dressed the part and boy was it a hot day for all of those layers! You can see Corb's red cheeks.
In August I was lucky enough to go and visit my little sister, Tera, who's husband is stationed with the Army in Germany! Talk about an amazing trip! She was unlucky enough to have to have an emergency C-section and really needed some help with her other 3 kids while she recovered. So a few family members got together and sent me over to give her some support. I hadn't seen her for about a year and it was a very sweet reunion for both of us. Her husband and I surprised her and she didn't know that I was coming. You can see the video here. I won't talk a lot about the trip, you can read my post back in August, but it was absolutely amazing and those memories with my sister I will treasure!Here I am holding my new nephew, David, at an old Nazi concentration camp.
Trying some new German food.
Me and Tera at some castle grounds.
Neuschwanstein Castle
In October I ran the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay with some of my nieces, cousins and siblings. It was so much fun and a huge accomplishment for me (a very self proclaimed Non-Runner)! I ran my first 5K this summer and then ran Ragnar. If you know me at all you will be impressed. And I actually liked it and would totally do it again. Amazing!! :) Here's my van with the very best driver (Bump) and support (my sister, Jamie).
My brother, Lee, and sister, Jamie after my first run.
Disco diva for Halloween.
On Valentines Day our dog, Jake, died of old age. We got him a few months after we got married and he had just turned 12 years old. He was such a good dog. Everyone loved Jake. He went fast and we all shed many tears when he died in our arms at home.
I asked Bump to wait at least until the end of summer before getting a new dog. He only lasted until the end of June. One day he again surprised us all by bringing home our new little springer spaniel, Fin. He will be a good dog one day. For now he is still a puppy and is driving me crazy! The kids love him and try to be patient with his jumping and biting. Corb wrestles pretty hard with him. We'll see if he survives until his 2nd birthday. :)
Gabby: Our growing girl turned 6 in April and started first grade this year. She has the funniest personality and definitely takes after her dad as far as joking and laughing at everything. She loves to smile and laugh and play.
She performed in her Kindergarten program at the end of the year. She had to hula hoop, play with the giant parachute and do a few dances including her 50's dance where she got to wear a poodle skirt. She worried so much that she would remember everything just right. She was great and even Grandma Williams was able to come and watch the program.
Gabby has been the most excited about having chickens. She can't leave them alone and it seems like every time I walk outside to check on the kids she has one chicken or another in her arms, or shoved into a basket or bucket that she is holding, or in her bike basket or up in her playhouse. This is Gabby with Twinkles. Twinkles is her chicken that she picked out when they were just baby chicks.
For Gabby's birthday we did a very colorful, rainbow, art party and she invited 10 friends over for it. They had a lot of fun and she is so friendly with everyone that it was hard to narrow the list down to just those people.
Gabby is not without her struggles. One of those struggles are bug bites. Any little mosquito that is out in the world seems to find her and bite her and then she just swells up terribly! This was a "normal" mosquito bite that she got close to her eye and her eye swelled up like this for 3 days!
Bump bought the girls BYU cheerleader outfits for football season this year and Gabby chose to be a BYU cheerleader right from the moment she saw the outfit. Quincy was a princess and Corban was an army man.
Here is the only picture that I took of Gabby when she and I went to see the Nutcracker in November. It was her first time seeing a ballet and she loved every second of it. She started dance this year for the first time and had her first recital just over a week ago. She did a tap dance and did a great job! It will be interesting to see if she sticks with dance or not. I can't tell if she totally loves it or not.
Gabby and her friend Ellie after the dance recital.
These pictures are not in any kind of order. Sorry! Here is Gabby collecting the very first egg that we got. Like I said, she loves the chickens.
Here is Gabby on the 24th of July riding in a handcart. She got a new pioneer outfit and loved wearing it. She played pioneer games and did some crafts. The whole family was in the pageant and she did a great job playing the part of a pioneer girl and also a cricket.
Gabby and Quincy get along really great. They play so good together and have a lot of fun, especially outside where they can get really dirty!
Here are the chicks when Bump brought them home on the first day. The kids could NOT stop touching them! They were very helpful when it came time to clean out the cage or give them food and water.
We got these cute Easter dresses on the way back from California and Disneyland. The girls asked if they could wear them every week. Quincy called it her California dress.
Gabby was in heaven at Disneyland this year. She loved meeting a few of the fairies and, of course, the princesses. We had a girls lunch at Ariel's Grotto where the princesses came around and met each girl at the table.
I have the cutest kids in the whole wide world.
Corban: Corban turned 5 at the end of August and just missed the cut off for Kindergarten. So, he is going a second year at Bee Bright Preschool with Mrs. Baird which is located conveniently across Main Street from us. He loves it there and is so smart! This year our Primary had a goal for all of the kids to memorize the Articles of Faith. So, we decided to help our kids to do just that. Corban was amazing and has memorized all but number 13. He loved learning them and knew them so well that he was asked to get up and recite various ones by the primary presidency throughout the year. We'll have to get busy again and memorize that last one!
While the girls were eating lunch with the princesses at Ariel's Grotto, the boys were eating giant turkey legs somewhere else in the park. Corb loves spending time with his dad and has become his absolute shadow whenever Bump is around.
Corb was in heaven when his dad took him on the ward father/son camp out. He loved hanging out with all the boys and even brought home this lovely deer skull just for me. Aren't I lucky? Yes, he is wearing Gabby's old snow boots and was calling them his cowboy boots, so sue me. The only one that cared was his dad. :)
The first day of school and boy was he excited and ready to go! I think he would have been a bit more nervous except that he was going back to the same school that he went to last year. It will be interesting to see how he does with Kindergarten. He just loves school though.
I wouldn't call Corban the most athletic boy. I mean, he's coordinated, but he just doesn't have a lot of interest in any particular sport. So, I was really surprised when he asked for a football cake for his birthday this year. For his party we had all of his friends from our babysitting co-op come and play. We centered everything around sports and ran relays and played games and ran and ran. The kids all won medals and trophies. After that he started talking more and more about football and especially BYU football. He wears his BYU t-shirts or new jersey as much as he can and boo's every time he see's a UofU sticker or flag.
Corb on Sports Day.
And here's my army boy. I brought this outfit back from Germany for him. He loved the fact that he looks just like Uncle Erick.
Here's Corb on his birthday with his best bud, Luke. These boys are two peas in a pod, seriously! For better or for worse. He also loves his other buddy, Blake. It's nice that both boys are in our babysitting co-op so the boys get plenty of play time together.
Corb and Quincy in their pioneer clothes on the 24th of July. I just love those rosy cheeks. He gets them so easy when he's hot. Takes after his mom that way.
Quincy: Our little Quincy turned 3 in June but acts just as old as her siblings. She has grown up so much this year it's hard to realize what she was still acting like at this time last year. She is now a little firecracker and loves getting her own way. She is very independent, likes doing things in her own way and in her own time and can turn on the tears in an instant if things aren't going the way she wants them to. Good thing she's so dang cute! She still sucks her thumb and I am trying to convince her to stop carrying her silky around with her everywhere. We'll work on those things this year.
Here's Quincy with my little brother's son, Lewis. Quincy gets along so well with other kids and plays with both younger and older kids.
She loved going to Disneyland and everything was so real to her! She had the biggest smile on her face when meeting all of the princesses and fairies. This picture is the wrong one to show because she isn't smiling, but it is a total fluke.
She is such a character and loves dressing up in whatever is around. She came walking downstairs looking like this one day and I had to take a picture. She is our little actress and was completely in character for this shot.
I took the kids to temple square one day while Bump was gone. They loved to see everything there. It's nice to live so close to amazing places like temple square.
Here is our typical Quincy. She always dresses herself and likes to pick out her own outfits. This day she even did her own hair.
I worried when we scheduled our Disneyland trip about Quincy's potty training. She had been doing so well and I didn't know how she would do on a trip. Luckily Disneyland is AWESOME and had these little toddler potties that Quincy thought were really cool, so she would go. She did well and stayed on track even through our vacation. Yes, Quincy was finally potty trained this year! No more diapers!!! Woo hoo!!
Quincy also loves the chickens, especially our black chicken, Bumblebee. She is also always carrying one around, usually this one. I am just glad that she isn't scared of it or something like that.
We celebrated Quincy's birthday this year on Memorial Day and all of Bump's family came out. Both sets of Bump's grandparents are buried in Tooele and everyone comes out and visits the graves anyway, so we had a BBQ and a birthday party (for Quincy and Conner) at the same time. It was a fun day. This was the cake that Aunt Jen made for her.
Well, the pictures are all over the place and out of order, but these are some great pictures showing the year the we have had. It's been a good one. Nothing serious has happened to any of us and we are continually blessed every single day. We are ready to take 2011 head on! Good bye 2010! Thanks for a great year!
