Our Little Girl...

is not so little any more. She turned 11 today. Where has the time gone. The last couple of days she has been saying,"I can't believe I'm going to be 11." Join the club, we are all in shock at how quickly she has grown up.

We celebrated her birthday last night since Aaron, Hunter and I won't be home tonight. Gretchen was so great about excepting that we won't be there on her birthday.

Hunter always wants to help light the candles.

Gretch requested a DQ cake. She picked Mint Oreo this year. It was delicious.

So excited to get an iPod touch. Gretch has been saving up for awhile for one. Our gift was helping to pay for the rest. She had a perma-grin on the rest of the night.

Happy Birthday!!!

He Passed!

Hunter had his blood drawn again today in preparation for tomorrow's chemo. He passed with flying colors, ANC 2.5, needs to be .75 or higher, platelets 121, needs to be 75 or higher. We re all glad to still be moving forward.

I will be taking Hunter up to Doernbecher tomorrow. Aaron will meet us there in the evening and I'll headed home when he gets there. Grandma Hale will be holding down the fort here at home with the other kids.

Front Page

Lincoln Elementary School kindergarten students Harrison Hale and Shyanne Hughes paint paper that will be cut into leaves to decorate their papie-mache tree, with a little help from Shyanne's mother Jennifer Hughes. (Scobel Wiggins/Gazette-Times)

As he painted fruit for the tree, Harrison Hale rattled off some of the benefits of trees. High on his list: cherries. Oh, and oxygen.

“(Trees) help us breathe,” Harrison said. And “they provide us wood to make things and, of course, food.”

Harrison came home yesterday so excited about maybe having his picture in the paper. I had total forgotten about it until I opened up the paper and there he was. I didn't even have a chance to tell him he was quoted in the paper too. This is his second time on the front page. Pretty exciting stuff.

You can read more about it here.

Bouncin' Around

Friday afternoon after the games were played and lunch was eaten, we headed to the bounce house for some much needed and wanted running around time. The kids were all so excited to get there. Especially Kimball, he screamed the whole way there. He was going up until the time to leave and lasted longer than all of the kids.

Graham gettin' some air.

The kids played tag the whole time and found different places to take breaks and still be on the look out.

Shaely.

McKaylee wasn't too old to have fun there. She and Kimball went all over together.

Harrison and Kambry are constantly together.

Natalie trying to avoid getting tagged.

They were almost eaten by a tiger.

It's too bad Gavin wasn't having any fun.

Taking a break.

The mom standing were we can see most of what is going on.

Do you think Shaely was playin' hard?

Takin' a break while still keeping an eye on the game.

And we were done.

We quickly got the kids home just in time for the adults to head to the Temple. McKaylee and Hunter held down the fort with the kids. There were 10 total. They did a fabulous job.

Game Play

Friday morning the ids were found playing games.

There was a card game going on upstairs.

And a competitive game of Sorry downstairs.

It was really fun to see the kids finding things to do by themselves. They were having a great time.

Splash!

We headed to Splash! in Springfield today. It was a raining so we headed to where it's fun to be wet.

Graham enjoying the warm kid pool. He actually was putting his face in the water. That is an improvement from the summer when he didn't like getting face wet. I guess Gavin and Harrison have been telling him in the bath tub that it was okay to put his face in.

Gavin warming up in the kid pool after the wave pool.

Aaron and Hunter warming up too.

Hunter showing how nice it is.

Gavin hangin' with Kimball.

Some of the family enjoying the wave pool.

Gretch.

Harrison finally making an appearance. He spent most of his time in the wave pool and going down the slide.

Kambry joining everyone else.

Shaely, Gretchen and Natalie on top of the wave.

We had a great time. Although I didn't get in. I don't have a maternity suit anymore. It was a great time. The kids were sufficiently worn out and a good time had by all. Mission accomplished.