Birthday Girl

Ellie Mae turned 6 in Nov. It is truly amazing how quickly the time goes and how my sweet little baby girl is turning into a smart, funny, amazing young lady. She had a nice day it was the last day before Thanksgiving break so we did presents at home and then had a family dinner and more presents on Thanksgiving with family. I'm thinking about throwing her a half year birthday in June so she can have a party with friends, and then we can play outside too. We've found it very difficult to do around Thanksgiving.

 Making her birthday dinner

 Awesome cake Miss Cindy made for her

 Big Kids

 Her Loot

 Paint Set

 Outfit from Bella

 New boots

 Braclet that came with her card she thought was cool

 Fun Dress

Her cake became magic and changed color after sitting 

outside while we ate Thanksgiving dinner.

Tiny Dancer

Ellie is taking a beginners Jazz and Ballet class this year and she is really enjoying it. They had their first performance last week, it was controlled chaos but it was cute and I know they will be better for the big Christmas show next month.

Halloweeen and Heritage Festival

The last weekend of Oct is the Livestock and Heritage festival here. We have several roads that run through town that are designated livestock trails and this weekend every year they drive thousands of sheep from the mountains down main street to the lower elevation pastures. They also have a tractor pull and a horse pull. We watched the horse and tractor pulls. The horses were Belgian draft horses and they were INCREDIBLE. The team that won weighed in at 5400lbs and pulled a load of 8350lbs. They were huge.

The kids had a nice an Halloween. We did the Trunk or Treat at Dell and Ellie's school. They had a Chili cook off, cake walk, along with a few other games. They had a raffel in which I won a massage so there are no complaints here.

Family Photos

We had family pictures taken by an amazing photographer/friend when everyone was here and we just them back. They turned out wonderful!

 All the Grandkids

 Kids and Grandkids

 Favorite #1

 Favorite #2

 JD and his sisters

 Mom and her 3 oldest

 JD and I

Goofy Men

*** All photo's copyrighted by PamGibby Photography*****

Vacation Take 2

The second week of Sept was the Carter Family Reunion of sorts. Each year we gather with JD's parents and siblings and enjoy a week together hanging out and going on little adventures. Last year was a week a the beach, but this year we kept it a little(lot) closer to home. We all gathered here in southern UT and had a great week swimming, hikings, 4 wheeling and of course there was somre retail therapy. We were missing 2 members of the family this year as JD's Dad is back East working for the winter and Ammon is serving our country in Afghanistan but they were with us in spirit. Both of JD's sisters have 4 kids as well so it was a full house. The oldest is 12 and then they go 8,7,6,5,5,4,3,2, 11 months, 9 months and 7 months.

Vacation Take 1

Sept. was a super busy month for us. We started the month with a 10 hour drive to Colorado to spend a week with my Mom, go to the wedding of an old family friend, and see one of my oldest childhood friend whom I haven't seen in over 10 years and have her kids play and become friends with my kids. It was a great trip. The kids even got to do some fishing and Ellie caught her first fish.

We enjoyed the Longs Peak Scottish Irish festival that has been taking place in Estes for as long as I can remember. The kids really enjoyed watching the Jousting while JD and I really enjoyed all of the bag pipes playing, we also got to see the US Marine Air Ground Combat Center Band. 

We enjoyed a drive up into Rocky Mountain National park up Trail Ridge Road. It has some of the most beautiful scenery and it's the highest continuous motor way in the US with more than eight miles lying about 11,000'.

The wedding was nice and simple and the reception was really nice. I got a big hug and a huge Thank you from the groom for coming so far to be there.

We finished up our week with a small get together with a few of the people I went to school with. This year was suppose to our 10 yr reunion but no one had made any plans so I tried to throw something together it certainly wasn't successful but it was nice to see the few that came. Maybe something will happen for our 20th if not oh well.

Last but not least some fun picture of my family and my oldest friends and her kids.