We visit Napa while the Houser girls visit

This past weekend mom and dad took off for a short trip to Napa after getting us comfortable with Dani and Reagen who flew out to watch us. They visited an italian castle (which also happened to be a winery,) went to the beach, played golf, hiked around Jack London State Park, ate great food, saw "007," and missed us a lot. Meanwhile, back at home, we went to the park two times, went to Fun Works, rented Kung Fu Panda and Tinkerbell from Redbox, ate lots of candy, played outside (the weather was SOOOOO WARM,) did gymnastics,and had fun with our cousins.

When mom and dad got home saturday night they took us out to dinner and then to see Madagascar 2 at the movie theater. Dani and Regean had to go home on Sunday, but we sure had a good time with them while they were here. Hopefully they come back out to see us again really soon! We get to see them next week in Utah. We can't wait to see all of our Cousins and our Grandma and Grandpa, and Aunts and Uncles. I think we will have fun!

By Savannah Pace

"Spray butter in my sippy cup, please."

Caulder approached Todd this morning as he was making breakfast with a sippy cup and the spray butter that he had gotten from the fridge. "Please?" was his simple plea. Cute.... My son loves butter, so this wasn't too weird, except when I think of him actually drinking butter from his cup. EEKK!! Life has been full of kids. The girls are off track and Savannah has been keeping us all on a schedule. We had a few days at the beginning of this "vacation" period where I let us be free. No schedules, no hassles, except for the things that were no option activities like Claire's Yes Company rehearsals, Savannah's piano lessons, both the girls dance classes and Caulders naps. I don't give up naps!! Anyway, within those 2 days Savannah was going buggy!! She decided to come up with her own schedule. It went something like this: get up, do math, do PE, do social studies, do reading, do writing, do music, do art, watch TV, and play on the computer. It also included weekly field trips and 2 friend play dates per week. Needless to say, we compromised and came up with a schedule that she and the rest of the family could handle. I kept thinking "Man, this girl loves school!" She has such a great teacher this year who has really given her a new enthusiasm for learning and especiually for reading. She has read several books already since she has been off track. Claire is really enjoying her Yes Company rehearsals. Their performance of the Jungle Book is later this month. Claire was cast as a Bumble Bee. Both of the girls are really enjoying their friends, and Caulder is having a ball!! We spent last monday at Fun Works (for our field trip,) and he was in heaven! He also really loves shoes, popcorn, and eating markers. Saturday night the girls had Jade and Cambrie Stacey over for a "girls night." They put on a whole Hannah Montana concert in the playroom and ate pizza and watched "Fish Tales." They really get along well together. This week we are looking forward of the arrival of Dani and Regan on Wednesday. That's all the girls can talk about!

Happy Birthday Little Curran

Halloween Parties and Our Vacation

We have been keeping busy attending a bunch of parties. The ones we liked most are the ward party and Currans birthday. Jodi made us a super superman cake and we enjoyed it. It was very nice of her to think of us and our boy. We miss our baby Curr-t because he meant a lot of things to us.

For Halloween, Savannah is Mitchie from Camp Rock, Claire is a Silvermist fairy and Caulder is a very cute golfer. We liked the ward party because we had a lot of fun with a lot of friends. At the ward party we went trunk or treating and got a lot of candy and we all enjoyed it.

Savannah and Claire just went off track for five weeks. On our vancation, we are going to Utah to spend some time with our family for Thanksgiving. Dani and Reagen are also coming out to visit us too. We are going to have a vacation filled with fun!

1st post Written by Savannah

his own language...

Caulder's speech has really taken off lately, so I thought I'd post some funny shots of me trying to get this milestone on video....

Story about cereal from a 6 year old

I just had to write this story down. Last sunday Claire and I were making Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches, one of our favorite dessert treats where you have to pour melted butterscotch chips and peanut butter over rice krispy's. At this particular step in the process, Claire looks in the bowl and says, "I wouldn't like being a rice krispy. That sauce looks heavy." I then said, "But Claire, then you could lick all the yummy sauce off of yourself." She paused, and then said, "But then I would get eaten by big people and die! But that actually wouldn't be so bad, 'cause then I would get to see Curr-t!" I love the way her little mind thinks!!

The rest of the week was pretty much a blur. Except today, which was utterly delightful. I sure love our sundays off. It's such relaxing day to not have to do anything! Savannah made her famous and very yummy pancakes all by herself as she does most sunday mornings when this early bird rises and the rest of the family is still sleeping! Then I lounged around listening to the sounds of my happy children playing upstairs before we had to get ready for church. Now, this is a very rare occurance, so I relished in it! Just yesterday I took Claire and Savannah on some one on one time to the new Justice store here, and had to referee from the front seat, a fight that had broken out in the rear seat involving biting and poking and yelling at each other. The rest of the trip was fun, though. The girls are getting so old and are learning to be fantastic shopping buddies to their mom. Yesterday morning Todd and I went and played our first 18 hole golf course together since living in Utah. We had so much fun! And the kids had their favorite babysitter which made it all the more wonderful and relaxing! Caulder is at a new stage that involves lots of shoes, light switches and climbing of anything!! He can now manuever our playground ladder and freaks mom out when she all of a sudden she sees him all the way up in the treehouse when she had only turned around for a second. His vocabulary is also growing. He says many words and is trying to say a whole lot more. I love this age, although he keeps me very busy with his "boy-destructive" mode.

Illness, awards, teething, friends, fun

This week was mostly spent getting back into the swing of having mom and Caulder home. They got back monday night after a ton of fun in Denver playing with the cousins and their families. Thank you Javan and Jamin for a great weekend. You guys are such awesome hosts. Thanks to Jamin, especially, for not sending me home with blue teeth! We had a blast with your beautiful families!

We added preschool, college class, Annie's flu, Caulders tooth, Claire and Savannah's friends and their movie party, and a school assembly to the regular everyday craziness at our house, and it was an eventful week!! We are glad to have our family all together again. It definitely makes us realize that there is no place on earth we would rather be.