Must Be Santa

Haysie's kindergarten had a little Christmas program. He was so excited for us to all come to his schoool and watch him. And he did such a good job! Doesn't this kind of thing always make you smile? I think I'll be a little sad when the boys are too big for construction paper Santa hats and class programs. Although, sometimes that day seems a very, very, very long time away:)

Nine Years!

Happy Anniversary, Honey. I love you forever.

A Little Backwards, Just Like Me

Ok Julie, I stole this picture from your blog, so thank you. No, this picture is not from Halloween, as the Clone Trooper costume may suggest, it is from Thanksgiving. As I was adding the post about cutting our Christmas tree, I realized that I had skipped right over Thanksgiving. Skipping over Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas is something I don't approve of in general. Don't you hate it when stores start the Christmas season before we've even thought about Thanksgiving? So this is a lame attempt to make up for breaking my own rule.

We had Thanksgiving with Tyler's family on Friday. For the actual day of Thanksgiving, we met Angie and Colby for DINNER OUT. You wouldn't think DINNER OUT on Thanksgiving would be THAT big of a deal. Colby said he drove eight hours just thinking about some good Chinese, so the hunt was on. Let me just say that there are very few places open on Thanksgiving, and this includes Chinese buffets. So we decided to hit good old Chuck-A-Rama for our Thanksgiving dinner. (Plus, LeeAnn gave us coupons ) To our great surprise, Chuck-A-Rama is apparently an extremely popular spot for Thanksgiving. What???? When we arrived, the LINE TO EAT THANKSGIVING DINNER AT CHUCK-A-RAMA WAS OUT THE DOOR AND INTO THE PARKING LOT. Seriously. I repeat: What???? So we went to the Village Inn next door, where there was no line at all and had French Toast. The kids were thrilled.

The next day we celebrated with the rest of the family at Norm and LeeAnn's church, where we had a delicious, normal Thanksgiving dinner with no French Toast. The kids all put the stage to good use and preformed a talent show. What a blessed mother I am to have such talented kids. Hayes did some sort of very serious dance while Ren provided a beat box (is that right?) and Dax dressed up in his Clone Trooper costume and shot a nerf gun at Tyler. I mean the talent was astounding. Then Dax surprised us and sang a version of the Star wars march song in the microphone which can only be appreciated if actually seen and heard. I think I laughed until I cried.

We had such a great time, it makes me realize the thing for which I am the most thankful: My Family. How great it is to have people to love and who love you.

Oh Christmas Tree

Jaci, Callan, Camille, Broc, Emily, Addie, Dax, Grandpa Wiley, Hayes and Austin (Grandma Jo and the twins are sitting in the truck)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving Camille invited us on their annual trip to Fish Lake to cut Christmas trees. What this picture does not show is the hurricane-force wind whipping around, thus the many, many, many layers. The wind made it pretty dang cold, but it did not keep us from our goal. We came home with some beautiful trees and had a lot of fun in the process. And some extra credit goes to Callan, who because Tyler had to work, took really good care of me and the boys. I'm sure the back seat of his pretty truck has never seen so many goobery crumbs, not to mention a very nice jacket we managed to soak in chocolate milk. He, Broc and Austin did all the hard work while I, Camille, Jaci, and the kids mostly did a lot of pointing at possible perfect trees. So thanks for letting us tag along guys, we love you all and we love our tree:)

Disneyland!

Chip or Dale?

Star Tours. The boys favorite this time around-how fitting for Jedi warriors!


Brother Bear

Being silly at Thunder Mt. Railroad
Just getting there

Woody!

Broc, Addie, Grandma Jo and Hayes on the Teacups

Dax and the Mouse

Sea World

Hayes and Grandma Jo petting the stingrays. This was Haysies alltime favorite thing we did. He even brought home a pet stingray he named SkullRay :)

We were lucky enough to go on vacation during an absolutely gorgous week in California. The temp was around 85 degrees and we didn't really have to fight any major crowds. We literally walked right onto all the rides, met a lot of characters and even got picked to be in some of the shows. So if I try and not think about all of the hold-my-hand-hurry-up-watch-where-you're-going-don't-EVER-walk-where-I-can't-see-you-STOP-whining-hold-still-you're-kicking-the-person-in-front-of-you stress of taking kids somewhere like Disneyland, it was the best week ever:) That and I would really like to forget about the fact that after arriving in California first Hayes then Dax developed PINK EYE IN DISNEYLAND for pete's sake and then promptly passed it on to Camille and then Addie Jo. But really, in spite of disease and the occasional attitude, we really did have an awesome time together. (Is 'awesome' still an acceptable adjective? ) Thank you so much to Grandma Jo for getting us all there on a plane, which was waaaay better than driving.

And a seriously big Thank You to LeeAnn, who not only watched Asher for 6 days and 5 nights- which is a really long time to have someone elses's two-year-old in the first place- but who watched Ash even after he developed pink eye AND a raging case of the flu, which we didn't know about until we got home because LeeAnn is the nicest person on the planet and didn't want to tell us and ruin our vacation. Thank You Thank You Thank You. I can't say it enough. Thank You for taking care of my baby:) And thank you to the rest of the Rupps for watching Kung Fu Panda with Ash approx. 38 times over the course of the week. After about 8 times it gets pretty rough. You guys are the best. Really.

While we were at Sea World, the adorable Addie Jo was asked to participate in the dolphin show, but she really didn't want to. So Camille told the guy we had two more kids with us and he said send down the five-year-old. Hayes refused to go also. So, by process of elimination, Dax and Tyler were in the dolphin show! It was pretty cool. Take a peek:

As you may all remember, we like Star Wars just a little bit at our house. Disneyland now has a Jedi Training Academy, where a lucky few can learn the secrets of the Force. You can imagine the importance of the Geldmachers attending a training session while there. Yay for us, it wasn't a very busy day and both Dax and Hayes got picked for the same session:

And again, a BIG THANKS to everyone who helped watch kids, dogs and work so that we could go. We had a blast:)

Going Private

I admit it: I am a totally naive person who gives everyone (execpt, Tyler would argue, him) the benefit of the doubt and I generally don't like to believe there are "bad guys" with bad intentions out there. But lately, in the interest of protecting my family, I've been considering blocking our blog from the world at large. I know that this is going to cause extreme anxeity to most of you, as you are all dying to read the next thrilling post containing a slice of life as a Geldmacher. I will send out invitations to everyone I think is interested-lucky, lucky you! And if someone accidentally falls through the cracks, well then too bad so sad for you. You are now outside the circle. Just kidding! Send me an email and I will happily invite you back into our super-cool super-exciting life:) Plus, we all know I couldn't really block anyone out- I get all my self-validation from the number of comments I recieve. So who knows, maybe going private will send me into a spiral of depression. I guess I'll have to wait and see:) Now I just need about a month or two to actually do what I just committed to.

Lagoon

Max, Hayes and Dax on the Kontiki at Lagoon. I've been a picture slacker lately, so we don't have many from that day, but I found this still shot from the video camera and thought it was cute. Those boys sure have a good time together. I always love nighttime at places like Lagoon -the dark and the lights make it seem even more fun. Tyler's family always tries to go in October for Frightmares and if the weather is good I highly recommend it. The weather that day was beautiful, although I think everyone in the state (and possibly the surrounding states) realized it was a great Lagoon day because it was pretty busy. But the good company and the rides made up for the crowdedness (is that right?) and we had fun. Thanks everyone for going with us:)

Dax Is No Longer Six-and-Three-Quarters

Friday was Daxon's 7th birthday-he's so big I can't believe it! And of course he had a big friend party of which I have not one picture. Not one. I got so caught up in managing the party that I didn't take any. And it was cute! A non-scary haunted house with everyone in costume. Tyler filmed some video, but it's mostly my VERY loud voice trying to be heard over all those boys and some disturbing shots of my muffin top revealing that my t-shirt was a lot cuter 5 (or 10) lbs ago. Not good for public viewing. Anywhooo, back to Dax. As he likes to say, lately "I'm really into Pokemon and Star Wars". And he received a lot of both, but a whole whole lot of Pokemon. So he's very happy and I have just several thousand more cards to read from and hear about. And thank you to my sister who gave him a hideous Clone Wars poster for above his bed. And now here comes the part where I brag about how amazing Dax is. He is so stinkin' smart I'm a little afraid. I love to hear him as he is learning to read, he's nearly on a second grade level. He spouts random facts that are usually accurate. He loves school. He has always had a great imagination. He's a good friend, a great big brother, and he is (almost) always willing to happily do what he is asked-pick up his stuff, do his homework, put on his seat belt, whatever. And he is blessed with that natural boy ability to make varying gun/fighting noises surprisingly realistically. Oh yeah, and I love that he still has that little kid confidence to draw whatever he wants-usually dinosaurs-and think that his drawing is sooo good. Dax is a happy, good-natured kid who makes me happy to be a mom:) I love you buddy-Happy Birthday!!!

Two Years Old!

Asher turned two yesterday and my sweet baby isn't a baby anymore-although he is still pretty sweet, just with some stinker mixed in. He makes me smile and laugh out loud and I just can't get past the dimples. And I hope that I never forget how he talks right now. Its just so him:)Happy Birthday Ash, we love you so much!

Happy Birthday JoEll!

Happy Birthday(yesterday) Mom! I know you didn't want any obnoxious "nifty to be fifty" announcements, so I'm making this a "50 and Super Hot" announcement instead:) I just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you for being my mom. You have always, unfailingly been there for me. You are beautiful and smart and kind and fun. Way fun. And I can't remember you ever telling us to get out of your sight:) So Happy Birthday-I love you. And my offer for a REAL 50th Birthday party still stands.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race-Right?

If that's true, then our yard may be in Gold Medal standing. The word "steady" might be a bit of a stretch here, but "slow" definitly applies! It's finally coming along and we keep trying to believe that it's very cool that we have done everything with our own two hands. But in reality lets just face it-digging in the dirt sucks. And other people want to be paid to do it :) Now the sprinklers are in-thanks to Tyler, the top soil is spread-thanks to me, and the million and one rocks are piled in a very cool rock tower -thanks to the kids. In the intrest of saving money, we spread grass seed today so EVERYBODY PLEASE, cross your fingers for our grass to grow! And maybe someday there might actually be plants and trees and sand under the playground. Slowly.

An Important First

NO-thank heavens-this is NOT my butt. It belongs to a fortunately anonymous stranger:)

"Rise and shout the Cougars are out..."

Last week Tyler decided the big boys were ready for their first BYU game, and I think-no I KNOW-that he was more excited about this fact than they were:) It was very fun and a big part of this is because, as you all know, we Geldmacher's love TREATS and PRIZES, both of which we got at the game. The other reason we had such a good time is because Tyler is much, much, much more patient that I am and when the boys were over it by half time he packed us up and we left, no problem, no pressure. I'm sure that it had nothing to do with the fact that for the second game in a row, BYU was killing it one gazillion to ZERO by halftime:)

Legs

Yes. This is what you think it is-a tarantula. At least that's what it looks like to me. Huge, hairy and scary. To put his size in perspective this isn't just a pint mason jar. It's pretty big, like half a gallon. Much to my horror Tyler caught him in the road by our house. I've heard rumors that our neighbors have seen these around, but wasn't sure I believed them until now. Hayes named him Legs and hit the nail on the head when he said, "Whoa! He's freaky but I still like him." Camille hit the nail on the head when she said, "I hope there aren't any in your basement. Or your bed."

Soccer in the Rain

Dax is Goalie

Grandma Jo, Dax, and the umbrella clobbering the camera is Asher

Hayes is extremely excited by all the action around the goal. And check out the double rainbow!

This week it poured rain for Daxon's soccer game and sprinkled on Haysies. I thought they would complain, but they both-especially Dax-loved playing in the rain. PS-maybe calling Pokemon "my own personal Hell" was a slight exageration, but somedays I wonder.

My Own Personal Hell

Untill recently, I thought that no one could possibly be more obbessed with anything that could annoy me like the CONSTANT talk of everything transformers. That was before my children were introduced to the parent-hell that is POKEMON. For those of you who are still blissfully unaware of Pokemon, it is a game of trading cards that no children actually know how to play, but they must obtain gazillions of cards anyway to organize and "trade". Every card has about eight thousand facts about the particular Pokemon on it which my children, especially Hayes, need read aloud. Several times. For every card. There are situations such as the one that happened today: Dax just walked in the door from school. Hayes (with a naughty smile): Dax, guess what I did today while you were at school? Dax: What? Hayes: I secretly traded your cards! Chaos ensues. And of course, Asher never misses anything so he is constantly trying to mess up someone's most important card-But mom! That one's RARE, REALLY RARE(as if they know what rare is)!-or take off with as many cards as possible. And then there's the whole no you may not take them to school, I don't care if (fill in the blank) does. No, you don't need to trade at the bus stop. NO NO NO NO!!! Just to top it all off, did you know that you can rent Pokemon movies and even see the cartoon on tv? JOY! Ok, now I've got that off my chest, I think I can breath through my nose again.

Like a Kid on Christmas

NO, its not really Christmas but according to Tyler it is the most wonderful time of the year-the college football season has offically started. So, in order to really experience the wonderfulness of it all first hand, this year he purchased BYU season tickets-just like his dad did when Tyler was growing up. AND THIS AFTERNOON IS THE FIRST GAME!!!! AND THIS YEAR IS THEIR YEAR! (He says that every year) So here's a great big WOO HOO for Tyler:)

Kindergarten FINALLY Started!

Yay for Hayes! Today was the first day of kindergarten, and let me tell you it was a loooong week between the first day of first grade and the first day of kindergarten-there were a few times there I thought we wouldn't survive the wait. He was very excited and not nervous one bit. Thus the blurry picture-he couldn't hold still for two seconds, the excitement just wiggled out of him:) He also couldn't wait to finally ride the bus with Dax after walking him to and from the bus stop for so long. I realize that I'm biased, but I think that he just may be the cutest kindergartner I've ever seen!

Dax is a Grader

Daxon started first grade today! As he puts it, this offically makes him a "grader" (you know, a first grader, second grader, etc.) and no longer a little kid. This is a bittersweet day for me. I always thougt I would jump for joy the day even one of the boys got into all day school, but I have to admit this is almost harder for me than it was to let him go to kindergarten. He really wanted to ride the bus with his friends, but I insisted that I should take him the first day and make sure he was ok. When we got out of the car, he started speed walking in front of me and when I called for him to wait, he told me that it would be weird if I followed him the whole way. Excuse me! I didn't think he would be embarrassed of me until at least second grade! I guess he really is growing up.

Payson Lakes

Dax made friends with this dragon fly

All my boys:)

Saturday evening we REALLY needed to get out of the house before some member of the family ended up with some form of bodily injury-either by accident(them wrestling until I wanted to scream) or purposeful(them wrestling until I wanted to scream). We decided to drive up Santaquin canyon and ended up at Payson Lakes. It was absolutely beautiful there and totally worth the gas money it took get everyone away from the tv and video games and outside. We had a great time exploring together and it reminded me how much I love my little family. Yes, sometimes I do need reminding:)

I can already tell, Asher is going to be the ONE...

In the ER-no I'm not crazy enough to bring my camera here, this is from Tyler's phone:)
About one week later

Almost two weeks later

After three boys and almost seven years of major accident-free living, a trip to the emergency room was bound to happen. And of course, we made the trip for Ash. I have a sneaking suspicion that he is going to be the child that really gives us a run for our money-or our lives. He has absolutely no fear and is constantly trying to keep up with his brothers. About two weeks ago he fell off his scooter and sliced around his eye in an almost perfect circle. Of course, because I'm such a wonderful parent, I wasn't watching and I'm not sure exactly what happened. He was already on the ground bleeding when I got to him. It looks like he somehow fell on the end of the handlebars. It turned out not so bad. By the time we got to the emergency room and actually saw a doctor, the worst cut had stopped bleeding and was staying shut, so they just glued him up-no stitches. Now I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope this is as bad as it gets. Knock on wood:)

The Grotto

Taking a break 30 seconds in-this is the point where I thought, oh boy, this might be a loooong hikeCrossing the bridge-and I think Dax has to go
We made it to the waterfall!
Ash spent the whole time throwing every rock he could pick up

Last Friday we hiked up to the Grotto in Payson canyon with my friend Jimi and her adorable boys, Hayden and Rylan. It was so much fun! It's a pretty short hike but with a lot of fun adventure-y stuff for the boys. The found several "short cuts" from the trail which were really long cuts up a steep hill and back to the path again, and they had to cross the raging river on a log twice. They definitely felt like Indiana Jones. At 21 months, Asher thinks he is at least 6 years old. There were some pretty steep up and downs on the trail, but he WOULD NOT hold my hand or let me help him. He fell flat about 26 times but was very tough and now has some scars to impress the girls. The waterfall was perfect to splash around in and the boys even found some dinosaur bones to bring home. Literally, Hayes carried an entire backpack full or rocks all the way back to the car without once say he was so tired he couldn't take it anymore, which is what he usually says. And I have to thank Jimi for inviting us because my mom and Tyler both told me what a good mom I am for doing fun things with the boys. I had no idea I had them so fooled-especially Tyler! He's around to witness all the meaness. Secretly my reason for taking the boys anywhere is usually totally selfish-its because at home THEY DRIVE ME CRAZY!!! So thank you, Jimi, for helping me keep up the act:) Plus, we had a blast.

Remember when...

		I will marry batman.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in the beach in our fabulous House.
		We will have 7 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a peach mini coop.
		I will spend my days as a magician, and live happily ever after.

I stole this from Jennifer Rawlings because I loved MASH! And I have to say, things haven't changed that much. It was still fun and I still did it about nine times in a row trying to get it to come out perfect (not quite-I mean batman is pretty hot, but didn't he just beat him mom and sister or something? Honey, you are way better than batman:) Does anyone else remember folding the paper into that thing and how much fun it was? It also made me remember how we used to make our "futures" by cutting pictures out of magazines of what we would look like grown up, our husbands, our wedding, our house, etc, etc, etc. Boy, had I only known back then how close I would really come! I mean, my life could totally be cut from a magazine and idealized by young girls! Seriously. One other thing this made me remember is that we also used to love movie trivia and made up our own game called-get ready, we really flexed our creative muscles here: "The Movie Guessing Game". So here's a really good one from one our our all time favorite movies: "Oh why-o why-o why-o did I ever leave Ohio?" Let me know if you remeber!