Halloween

This year we celebrated Halloween with the traditional Whipple get together at our house. The day was extra awesome because Leslie came home from college to visit us. The kids were soooo excited to see her.
Ashlyn was so funny with this wig. It had nothing to do with her costume. But, she liked the reaction she got from people and wouldn't take it off.
Here are the 2010 costumes...

Mickell was a pirate
Hailey was a cowgirl
Ashlyn was Snow White
and Tanner was a vampire
The kids did a great job at choosing costumes this year. I didn't have to buy any of them. We just pieced things that we already had together.
Unfortunately, Halloween night we had a HUGE rainstorm. So, this is how we did our trick or treating...
Here we are trying to get seven restless kids, on a sugar high, to sit still long enough to snap a picture. As you can see, we didn't have much luck. It made for some good laughs, though!

I celebrated my birthday on 10-10-10 this year! I don't have a single picture for the blog. But, it's a cool fact to remember :)

The Patch!

We love the Black Island Farm! Unfortunately, it's insanely expensive unless you go with a preschool group. So, Ashlyn and I were very excited when our preschool group decided to go on a field trip there! It was an awesome day. We were able to go on a hayride to choose a pumpkin...
Ashlyn chose the smallest pumpkin she could find. She was very proud of it!
Then we spent hours on the slides, train, bounce house, watching the pig races, and looking at all the animals. Ashlyn and I ended up staying for several hours longer than anyone else because she was having so much fun.

This next picture was taken at the preschool halloween party. What a good looking group of kids!

One Year Older!

Hailey's birthday fell on a school day this year. This was the first experience I've had with having to send a child to school on their birthday. I felt really bad at first but realized that Hailey LOVES school so it was no big deal for her. She woke up to the traditional breakfast in bed
Hailey had a special treat in that Leslie had been spending the weekend with us and got to hang out with us on Monday, too.

Leslie and I went in to Hailey's class to do a birthday introduction and read the class a book. Then we stole Hailey during lunch and took her to Chili's.
When the kids got home from school, Grandma Sillito came over to bring Hailey's presents. Hailey decided to open all her presents then. She finally got the pillow pet she had been talking about for months!!!
That night she had her favorite dinner (hamburgers) and did her very favorite thing.... we went swimming.

Hailey was super lucky and got to have a family party with Raylee the Saturday before. She went on and on about how excited she was to share a cake with her cousin!
Birthdays are always fun... but especially when you get to share the fun with such a cute cousin. Hailey sure loves Raylee!

A Big Day!

Brinden and Mindy were married on August 27 in the Salt Lake Temple. It was an incredible day. I can't even express in words how amazing it was to see Brinden kneeling across the altar from Mindy in the temple. He had a really rough few years. It's so awesome to see him so happy!
Ashlyn couldn't wait to give Uncle Brinden a big hug!
The original Sillito clan...
I think this picture is hilarious. Poor Breven looks like he's really struggling :)
Here's a picture with the cousins that were at the temple
The reception was at Noah's. They did such an amazing job with the decorations!
Here are a few pics from that night...

Boyd just can't contain himself when there is a dancing floor around!
A quick family shot... since we're matching and all :)
Ashlyn was obsessed with Mindy that night. She wanted to be with her every second. Mindy was sweet to give her a quick hug every once and a while


They wanted a picture with grandma and grandpa and all the kids. As you can see, it wasn't perfect, but we got most of the kids together

Ashlyn keeping herself busy

Back to School

Here are a few cute kids right before their first day of school. Tanner and Mickell are in fourth grade (Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Mrs. Green's class) and Hailey is in first grade (Mrs. Guest's class).




Ashlyn started a little neighborhood preschool this year. She loves it!!! We rotate between six different houses. So, I get to teach her every six weeks. On the other five weeks, I am kid-less for several hours. It is a very strange thing. Something I haven't had in nine years. During that time, I usually run around like a crazy person trying to get as many things crossed off my list as I can. So, I haven't really been lonely yet.

Here is Ashlyn on her first day. If she looks a little tired, it's because I had to wake her up before her usual 11:00 so that she could get to school on time.

The Princess Elite Retreat

I think this year's girls camp takes the prize for the most amazing camp I've ever been to. Our theme was based off of President Uctdorf's talk "Your Happily Ever After." Everything was PRINCESS. My laurels had a blast planning it. It was fun to be in on their plans.

We started the camp out by going to the ropes coarse in Logan. We did different tasks where we had to work together to accomplish something. Here we are doing the spiderweb. Each hole in the web could only be used once. We had to get everyone from one side to the other without touching any of the string. They tried to throw me through the very top hole. It didn't work very well. I'm just grateful they all cushioned my fall. Because, man did I fall!
For our final task we were asked to climb a ladder to a beam suspended up REALLY high. We had to take a rope to the middle, pass it to the person coming from the other side, cross sides with the other person, and take that rope across... all this while the beam shook and wiggled. I wasn't prepared for how scary it would be. The bishop and I did it together. It took us several tries to move past each other on the beam but we finally did it. I about threw up when I got back down and my nerves caught up with the adrenalin.
Some other fun things we did were a human "Life" game
a pj fashion show
an intense hike up to the wind caves in Logan Canyon
leader makeovers
a spiritual spa

a giant slip n slide
and a faith walk (which I didn't get a picture of because I was pretty involved in trying to tempt the girls at the time). But, it was AWESOME!

The leaders I went with were so much fun. There was never a dull moment. I really don't think I've ever laughed so hard. I love this picture because it totally sums up the week...
There were fake spiders, a fart machine, a prank that we did to the tents with fishing line and a wet rag, and never ending laughing. After settling into our tent each night we would stay up talking and laughing until 2 or 3 in the morning. Usually it's the leaders getting mad at the girls for not going to bed. This year it was the girls getting mad at the leaders for keeping them up.

Here is a picture with all my incredible laurels. They did so much work to make this camp amazing.