Chance got his mission call!

My Brother Chance got his mission call to the Chile Rancagua mission! He reports to the MTC on Feb. 2nd. It used to be called the Chile, Santiago South Mission but they changed the name in 2004. So, this map is a little old, but you can see where he will be.

We are so proud of you Chance! You are a wonderful person and we think you will be an amazing missionary! :D

Liam River Winters

We are so thrilled to be home with our newest sweetie pie!

Welcome to Earth Liam from Gregory Winters on Vimeo.

Another reason to eat ice cream (as if we needed one)

Today Meadow slipped on the kitchen floor in her socks and banged her elbow so I opened the freezer to get out the little ice pack (which just happened to be in the freezer door next to her soy vanilla ice cream) and Meadow said through tears: "Mom, I think that ice cream will make it feel the best." :)

Dear Tooth Fairy

Parker lost his first tooth tonight right before bath time!! He is beyond excited about it and he hopped right into bed this evening so that the tooth fairy could come and find his note:

In case it is too hard to read:

"Dear Tooth Fairy, this is my first tooth. I think it is worth at least two dollars $. Love, Parker"

Look what I made y'all

I'm a little bit pleased with myself! A lady in our ward taught us how to crochet a couple of months ago. It's pretty fun and easy once you get the hang of it. It makes you feel like you are accomplishing something even if you are just watching TV after the kids are in bed. It will be fun to wrap up the baby boy in it! :)

October!

I am almost posting on the correct month again, yippee! We have been crazy busy lately. I'd like to say things would be slowing down soon, but with a baby boy arriving on Nov. 19th (if not sooner) followed by the Holidays it will probably be an exciting busy Winter! :D

Ok! Back to October.

Our children wore fangs most of the month. Parker even wore them to his dentist appointment to trick the dentist. The dentist thought it was pretty funny and played along. "My, your teeth have changed! Are you sure you have been brushing every day?" Parker loved it.






































Parker is currently tracked-out of school and is loving it. He likes to put other things like toys and legos in his back pack now that it isn't full of school papers.


We invited the neighborhood children over to watch some Scooby-Doo on the garage and eat some popcorn. It was a fun time and the weather has been awesome!















We had a family party with the cousins for Meadow's birthday. She is all about rainbows and ponies and sparkles and unicorns...and dragons these days and had fun picking out her own decorations. We love having the cousins near by AND Derek's family is moving to Virginia from Montana so that will be so fun having them closer!




Here we have the Allergy friendly home-made cake and the regular cake for everyone else...


Happy Birthday to our Sweet, fun, 4 year old Meadow! One fun thing lately is that she is getting good at writing many of her letters and she leaves little "notes" around for us. :D






















Parker's school had a trunk or treat this year and it was a lot of fun. We decorated the back of the car a little bit and Greg dressed up like a gorilla to pass out candy. He was a big hit with the kids. The children voted on their favorite car and we (the gorilla) came in second place! :) We won some mums and a gift card to Subway. Parker, Meadow and I went around to a few cars for candy but mostly they wanted to hang out with cool gorilla Dad. :) Parker: "I just want everyone to know that this is my Dad."

























































We played in the leaves.















We tap danced, went to karate, and had a yard sale with a lemonade stand to make room for baby. We can now fit the van back into the garage - hallelujah.









































It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown. 35 Weeks!































































Happy Halloween Everybody!!

Catching up - September Continued

This year instead of an annual September hiking trip, Greg went on a canoe trip. I decided to sit this one out and be a comfortable pregnant lady in my own bed and hold down the fort. He had a great time! The weather, company and scenery were beautiful and they had a bit of excitement too when his canoe tipped over paddling up a rapid and he and Eric had to bail it out. This could have been me. ;)



I did, however, re-paint Meadow's room. She has been wanting a pink room for a long time and I found a Disney stencil pattern online (I think it is called Enchanted Trellis) and printed it on card stock and then stenciled the walls. It took A LOT of measuring and marking before hand to line everything up and a lot of time to stencil but I love how it turned out! Meadow loves it too. :D






















I finally got around to taking a picture of the robot pencil/candy holder that we made Greg for his birthday. The top can holds the pencils and then the head is attached to a lid (I used a non-dairy creamer tub) that unscrews and then you can store candy in the belly. :) The stripes and any color you see is Duct Tape and arms are made from paper towel rolls. It was fun to make and he said it "was the coolest present ever." :)

Catching up - September

Meadow started back at Pre-school. She is in the bears class this year and she is really enjoying it. Her teacher calls her Meadow-bear. :) She loves the projects/art at school and is especially proud of her cutting skills. "I did it by myself!"

Here is Meadow showing off the backpack she got to bring to Disney World. Grandma and Grandpa Winters wanted her to celebrate her 4th birthday in style and it was every bit as magical as we imagined it would be. Thank you!! Her favorite rides were the haunted mansion, the triceratops ride in animal kingdom (dinoworld) and the Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Parker also loved the Haunted Mansion, Expedition Everest and of course the Jedi Training Academy. :) He rode the rockin' rollercoaster for the first time and liked everything except for the big loop at the beginning. lol. He was brave. After that however, he decided he would wait until he was a little older to ride the Tower of Terror. :)

Meadow got the royal treatment and was gorgeous and most important, sparkly, after a visit to the bibbity boppity boutique. sp? We had dinner with the princesses and that was the highlight her day. :)




Other highlights of the trip were feeding the dolphins at Seaworld, visiting the beluga wales in the Artic Area (very cool!!), and getting soaked by Shamu the Killer Wale. I can't believe how much water he/she can splash with his/her tail! I got to accidentally taste the whale water as the tidal wave hit us. It was very salty and we all smelled awesome at the end of the day. lol. The kids loved it and we all laughed very hard.




Other Favorites: 1. Jedi Training Camp. The kids got to be Padawans in training and earn their Jedi certificate and fight Darth Vader. It was a 2 hour wait to do this so Greg took the kids to do a couple of things while Mamma waited in line. The things we do for our children. It was worth it. :)


2. Eating at the T-Rex Restaurant in downtown Disney and excavating dinosaur bones afterward.


3. Taking a day off in the middle of the week to relax and hang out at the awesome hotel pools. :) :)

Meadow, My Sweet

I work with the activity days girls at church right now (ages 8-11). It is a lot of fun. Tonight I had to bring our children with me because Greg had to work late. They enjoy coming with me although they usually stay home with Greg so that I can focus on the girls.

Tonight, a new girl came to the activity for the first time because she had just turned 8. We went around the room and had all of the other girls in the group introduce themselves and say one thing that they liked. The answers ranged from ice cream to reading to animals etc. Since my kids were also sitting in the circle they got to participate too. Meadow said: "My name is Meadow and I like my Mom." It was the sweetest! All of the girls said "Awww!" Meadow, you are such a treasure to me. :D Parker turned shy and hid under the table instead of sharing what he liked. Sometimes it's tough being the only boy in the room. Parker you are also my treasure! :D

The best homework project ever!

Parker had an assignment to build a model of his bedroom. He chose to use legos and had the most fun ever putting it together. We even printed pictures of the posters that he has in his room and taped them on the walls of the box. He was very proud of his creation. :)

Catching up - August

Hmm...what happened during August? It is mostly a blur. I remember what I have pictures of. This is why you don't want to get behind on your blog folks, lol.

We have a lovely family in our ward that invited us to visit their cabin in the mountains in the town of Seven Devils, NC (just a few minutes from Linville) and stay for a few days in exchange for taking pictures of it so that they could post it on a rental site. We said YES PLEASE! It was just beyond beautiful and lovely and taking pictures of it in no way compensated for the wonderful time we had.

Here are just a few pictures of the cabin. The downstairs had a pool table, large TV, and a cabinet stocked with games to play with the kids. Just awesome.













































Walking down the road from the cabin is a lake where we had a picnic. Again, lovely. I thought about how hard it would be to leave this place if we owned it.




























































About 5 minutes from the cabin there is a catch your own trout fishing pond stocked with trout that swim in from the nearby river. They were huge! The water was so clear and the kids were mesmerized just watching them swim around. They could have stayed there for hours just watching. "Look at that one! Look at his spots!











































Then we had some fun with the classic mining for gemstones. Parker has been talking about rocks in school so this was a perfect opportunity for show and tell once we tracked back into school.













































Greg's parents live just an hour from the the cabin so they drove up on Saturday and we went to an old country store/restaurant for some hard to find candy and good bbq. :D There was a local band made up of three teenage boys playing bluegrass and singing. They were really great!




































Then we took the kids to a local park to play on the playground and swim in the creek. The water was pretty cold but they didn't care. :)
















































































We heard about an alpaca farm so we had to go check that out. It is located on a 40 year old apple orchard. The farm raises the alpaca which are sheared once or twice a year and the fur is shipped to places that manufacture expensive hiking gear and socks. Alpaca is one of the most sought after fibers because it stays dry kind of like wool, but is breathable and warm and lightweight, and soft. What an interesting looking creature. They are in the camel family and are smaller than lamas. These alpaca are recently sheared. The farm was so pretty and also had horses, donkeys, goats, chickens, etc, that the kids had fun looking at.




























































































Next on to Linville Falls. The kids did a great job on the 2 mile hike to the overlooks and back. Meadow was pretending she was a Saltopus dinosaur (Saltopus means "leaping foot") and she would leap over roots and rocks and holler "Saltopus leap!" It was pretty funny. Parker was a velocitaptor that could run really fast in the same picture.
































































Parker is wearing this expression because a bug flew up his nose. He did not like that but he cheered up after a few minutes. :)