Merry Christmas from Our House to Yours!

We hope you had a merry and bright Christmas!

Love, Kyle, Amyanne, Kylene, Spencer and Skyler

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Earlier today I asked Spencer how it got so cute? His answer? "Heavenly Father! Heavenly Father created me!"

Later, I told him how much I loved him and asked him, "What I would do without you?"

"Cry."

Indeed, I would.

O Christmas Tree

We went and got our tree last weekend. We were watching one of Spencer's friends (also named Spencer) for the day, so he got to join in the festivities.

My man, doing the manly work of chopping down the tree!

To me, Skyler looks so grown up in this picture. What is happening?!

Stake Nativity

The Salem Stake Nativity Festival was last weekend and was a huge success. Kyle served on the security/set-up committee and spent every night last week at the Stake Center. But they had over 5,000 people attend, with many from the community, and tons of local musical groups perform. The live nativity was new this year and was a huge hit, too. (The camel was probably the favorite!)

It was cold outside!

We went again with the Richard's and Godfrey's, then went out to ice cream afterward. It was a lot of fun. It's hard to believe our kids have been playing together for over five years now. Kylene, Zach and Kimball have known one another since Kylene was nine months old. Here are five of the nine of our crew at the Nativity. They are growing up!

Thanksgiving

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with Kyle's Ohana. We celebrated with Mom and Dad, Maile and Parvin and family, Logan and Shayla, and Grandpa Allen and his wife, Sally, at mom and dad's home in Gresham. We had yummy food and great company and all I had to make was the rolls and a veggie tray! Many hands make light work, indeed! We had fun talking, hearing some stories from Grandpa, and playing lots of Opeshaa (sp??)---a McCune family favorite.

The day before Thanksgiving the Costco near Alva & Wendy's house in Camas had its grand opening, so we decided to go up and spend the night at their house. It's crazy how excited people get over a grand opening (we had a new McDonald's built near us recently and man, you'd think it was Disneyland or something!). Anyway, I digress; and I have to admit, it was fun! I've never seen so many taste testings! We practically had lunch there:). It is across the main road from their house, so we decided to save ourselves waiting in the traffic (huge line up just to get into the parking lot!), and we walked. Wendy and I went with some of her friends around noon, then later that evening we took the dads and kids. Tee hee! And we had a blast hanging out with the Barneys and spending the night. Kyle played in the Turkey Bowl with Alva's ward before we headed over to his parent's for Thanksgiving.

Following the turkey dinner, Maile and Parvin were gracious enough to let us crash that night at their house so we didn't have to drive all the way home. We had fun talking and laughing until we headed home the next afternoon. That was Kyle's birthday but we had a low-key day, watching football, eating leftovers and playing with the kids. He said that was all he wanted to do but I hope he wasn't too disappointed I didn't have a lavish party planned for him. Sorry, babe! I love you!

Kylene is Six

Kylene woke up to find her new princess pop-up tent in the living room. She decided rather than breakfast in bed, she would have breakfast in her tent. Her choice of breakfast? Sausage and cold cereal; yum! (Actually, she ended up throwing all her sausage away, but it was still fun.)

In the afternoon, Kylene had a "doggie party." The highlights are pictured above; she chose to play "dog, dog bone" (rather than duck, duck, goose), Hide-and-go-seek, and "Pin the bone on the doggy's mouth." She also really wanted face painting so we threw that in there. She had a great time, loved the presents, and all the time with her friends. She even invited one of our babysitters, Margaret, who came and helped:). I think she had a fun birthday.

Fun with Tutu & Grandpa

Kyle's parents came to visit the week before Kylene's birthday. The kids always have a ball when they come. Kylene was especially thrilled to open her new princess snugglie from them for her birthday. Thanks, Tutu and Grandpa!

November Randomness

Dress-up is always a welcome diversion.

Kyle loves, loves, loves it when Spencer dresses up in...dresses! tee hee. Actually, not really! I'm sad to admit I have very few boy dress-up clothes in comparison to girl dress-up items. I need to rectify that, don't I?

The dresses Kylene and I are wearing I bought in Bethlehem when I was there as part of BYU's Study Abroad Program. The matching hat I found in a souq in Egypt near King Tut's tomb. I got out my Jerusalem box for something else and Kylene was excited to see them and try them on. I love that I have a little girl who can wear the outfit: that's exactly what I bought it for over 10 years ago.

Flowers Kyle brought home for me when I was having a horrible day. They lasted over three weeks...amazing!

We love boxes...

And falling out of them!

I love no-bake cookies and now, so do my kids! One day I even let them try making some themselves. I definitely wasn't thinking about the mess when I agreed.

Reading

Kyle & I were working in the office on something and we came out to find this on the stairs...

(I tried to crop out the mess at the bottom of the stairs, but alas. Hey, at least it's clean laundry!)

Can I tell you home much I love, love, love that Kylene is a reader?!

The last few weeks she has taken to reading to Spencer nightly after we tuck them into bed. Kyle usually reads a chapter to them together, then Kylene crawls into Spencer's bed (or vice versa) and reads him several books before they read their own books in their own beds. I love that Spencer is being read aloud to, Kylene is getting reading practice, and I get to do something on my own in another room! A triple play; definitely a winning combination!! (Now I just need to spend more time sitting down with books with Skyler.)

A Long Time Ago...

And you thought you were behind on your blogging! I'd spare you the "month ago" details, but if it's going to be in the blog book, it's got to go on the blog! So, here's the finish to our Halloween festivities:).

We had our friend's, The Browns, over for pumpkin carving fun! We made homemade pizzas then moved to the garage for the dirty work. We hope it becomes a tradition!

(Note: we have two good friends named the Browns. Lucky us! These are Wayne & Shauna, and family, who in our ward.)

Here's the finished products, in the light and the dark. Joy!

Our ward held a Halloween carnival/Chili cook-off on Saturday evening. (It seems like every ward did this year!) Here we are before the fun began. I can't decide whether my favorite is the cute giraffe or the pouting bunny! Tee hee.

Birthday Joys

Last Thursday, November 18th, my sweet Kylene turned SIX YEARS OLD! She enjoyed a fun party with several friends, about which I hope to post later.

Today, November 26th, is my wonderful hubby, Kyle's, birthday! Happy birthday, love of my life!! We celebrated yesterday with most of his family after our Thanksgiving festivities. Today his birthday wish was to relax and watch football--thankfully, I was able to grant him this wish! I love you, babe!

Susan and Jacob Visit!

Several weeks ago, my best friend from college--and roommate for my freshman and sophomore years--Susan and I were talking on the phone. We had a great time laughing and catching up on life. (She currently lives in Palmyra, New York, so we don't get to see one another very often). The next day she was telling her mom about talking to me and her mom said her dad had some frequent flier miles and why didn't she hurry and use some to come see me! Woo hoo! I love you, Sister Amsden! Her youngest, Jacob, was turning two in two weeks, so she hurried and booked her flight to fly in Monday night and out on Thursday. (His birthday was that Friday!) (She has two older boys who got to stay home with daddy and Aunt Katie--thanks for helping!)

We had fun just being together and letting the kids play. One evening Kyle watched all the kiddos so we could go out to dinner and then go to the cheap theater to see a movie. Otherwise, we just hung out, talked, and caught up. It was so fun to have her here!

One of the mornings she was here, Skyler fell down the stairs. (Now all my kids have done it once as babies; so sad.) He also managed to give himself a "phrenulectomy" (sp?), so Susan was kind enough to watch the kiddos while I took him to see the Pediatric Dentist. I told her how nice it was of her to come 3,000 miles to babysit my kids. :)

Thanks for coming all this way, Susan and Jacob!

Next time, I want to come to Palmyra! Please, please!!

Fun in the tub!

Please forgive me; I just couldn't resist this "cute toosh" shot!

Pumpkin Patch

We visited EZ Orchards for our pumpkin patch experience this fall. It was a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon. Since most kids were in school, it was empty and free! Yea!

They had several of these picture ops!

By far the favorite activity of the trip was riding the miniature tractors; I think we went back to the area three different times.

Riding out to select our pumpkins.
Petting zoo...the cute curly-tailed piggies were still there, along with a few other animals. I just can't get over their cute piggie-tails:).

My cute man!

Obligatory, and fun, hay ride.

We also enjoyed the corn maze, slides, ropin' the "bulls", the play house, and the delicious homemade apple spice donuts. Yum!

Football Bonding

One Saturday in October, Kyle's Grandpa and Logan & Shayla came down to see one of Kylene's soccer games. We enjoyed lunch and some quality football-watching time together afterward. We love having family over!

I love this one of Skyler coloring with his great-grandpa.

Final Days of Driving...and Home!

Saturday, September 25th, was one of our longest days of driving: Rapid City across boring Wyoming and back to Logan. Kyle also really wanted to stop and see Devils Tower. That added a couple of hours to our day, but we figured that being this close, how could we not stop? And it was cool to see. It was also National Parks Day, so we got in for free. Bonus!

We also saw lots of these:

Then we continued our journey across Wyoming. On this random, two lane highway in the middle of nowhere, we suddenly passed this sign: Kyle and I looked at each other and said, "What was that? We have to turn around." So, we did and lo, and behold, it was Martin's Cove. The site that the rescue team from Salt Lake found and rescued the Martin Handcart Company as they came across the plains and were caught in an early snow storm, miserable conditions, and no food. They rescued them near the site of the museum today and took them about three miles north into a little cove (now called Martin's Cove) to get out of some of the wind and harsher elements, although the temperatures were still about 11 below zero!

Today this is an amazing historical site. The spirit was so strong and the stories the senior missionary couples serving there shared with us were remarkable. They have little ATV/golf carts that take you up into the cove. You cross the Sweetwater River, where the four young men carried most of the survivors across because they were too cold or weak to make it across themselves. This is truly sacred ground. Being able to stop here for just a couple of hours became one of the highlights of our trip.

Clockwise, starting upper left: on the ATV out to the cove, the monuments commemorating the men who carried the people across the Sweetwater all day, the Sweetwater River, looking up into the cove on the south side where the pioneers would have rested for a few days before continuing on to the Salt Lake Valley.

Back at the museum/historical site, they have handcarts for you to try pulling. We all took a turn. The kids loved the mini ones:). There were actually hundreds of these in a field near the museum: 50,000 youth come every summer come to reenact the trek along the same trail as the handcart companies. What an incredible opportunity!

Even though stopping at Martin's Cove delayed us another couple of hours, it was well worth it. Kyle & I had talked about taking a different route home but afterward were so glad we had somehow decided to take that highway. It was a wonderful experience.

We continued the journey on to Christine's house, arriving about 11:30 p.m. and falling in to bed exhausted. Sunday we enjoyed another wonderful Sabbath with Christine and her family and my mom and Grandma Ruby. We had a yummy dinner at my grandma's house and rested...out of the car!

Our final leg was the well known path from Logan to Salem. The kids did well but were oh, so glad when we pulled into our garage Monday night. A fabulous family trip, exhausting and full of good times and wonderful memories. I loved how it had such wonderful elements of U.S. history, church history and valuable time with so much family. I feel so blessed.

Rushmore Trip, Continued...Again!

Day 7 (Friday). Our time in South Dakota was winding down. We relaxed in the morning and let the kids play mini-golf again and play on the playground. Then we headed to Crazy Horse Memorial. I had never heard of it before we started planning this trip, but when it is completed, it will be the largest man made memorial/monument in the world. MUCH larger than Mount Rushmore; even larger than the Great Pyramids in Egypt! The horse's head will be 22-stories high. Needless to say, it is an impressive site. It is about 25 minutes from Mount Rushmore and was begun in 1941, the same year they stopped working on Rushmore. One of the Rushmore sculptors, Korczak Ziolkowski, was invited to sculpt a memorial to the American Indians. The biggest reason the progress on Crazy Horse is so slow is because it accepts no federal funding: only private donations and the profits from visitors is used to help build it. Korczak died in 1982 but his wife and nine kids still work on it today.

Here is the memorial as it looks today. The bottom left picture is the sculptor's model. They have a visitor's center and viewing area, which is where the kids played in the teepee.

Kylene and Kyle rode a bus much closer to the memorial: I think they were within one mile of the base or something. The pictures below are from there. Believe it or not, this was Kylene's first time on a bus. At least that she remembers; it's still hard for me to believe and I'm trying to remember when she would have been on a bus previously! Anyway, she was excited about it. I waited in the van with two sleeping boys. We were all very tired by this point in our trip!

After Crazy Horse, we met the Rummlers for lunch in Custer City, then drove out to Jewel Caves. The hills surrounding Rapid City are full of underground caverns. The Jewel Cave that we toured (well, I didn't, but I'll get to that!) is the second largest in the United States but they think they've actually only discovered two percent of the cave. They think that some of the other large caves in this area may actually connect with Jewel Cave and it may become the largest. It's pretty cool to think about all the underground caverns, tunnels, etc., while you're driving around through all the mountains.

Anyway, we all bought tickets and went down the elevator shaft to start the tour. Never mind my claustrophobia: I was going to conquer this one! The tour guide did his introduction to the caves in a large, open room, during which the entire time Skyler wanted down and wanted to crawl through the railings and Spencer was whining about being scared. Skyler was also testing out his vocal skills and enjoying the loud echoing sound effects, all while the tour guide was trying to explain the history and important points to remember during the tour. I decided this wasn't going to work and when he was finished, I asked for a ride back up the elevator. Kyle, Kylene and the Rummler's finished the tour while we waited outside where the boys could run around and scream all they wanted. I was a little disappointed at first, but also okay that I didn't have to worry about the claustrophobia issue.

Kylene loved the tunnels and caves, the narrow passage ways, and the cool "bacon" and other rock formations. Here are a few pictures Kyle was able to snap.

After the caves, we sadly said goodbye to the Rummlers and headed back to our cabin to get packed, cleaned up, and ready for another long day of driving on Saturday.

Mount Rushmore

Thursday afternoon (September 23), we met up with the Rummler family at Mount Rushmore (my sister, Alyson, and her family). They had driven up from Colorado that morning. We had fun touring and hiking around the Memorial, then we went out to dinner and walked around Keystone--a tourist town very close to Rushmore. Then we went on a hike around a great little lake, then back to Mount Rushmore for the evening show and lighting ceremony. So fun to be on a family vacation and get to spend time with extended family as well! Here are my favorite pics:

Best individual shots I got of the presidents: Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, and Washington.

A few shots around Rushmore. The bottom right is the sculptor's original model. Gutzon Borglum died before the sculpting of Mount Rushmore was complete and work on the mountain was stopped, so parts of Lincoln that were originally sculpted were never completed. It had rained that morning before we got there so in some of the pictures you can see the water streaks on their faces.

Fun with the Rummler's around the Memorial.

I guess I'll never be President; I don't look like one at all!

A little closer! Maybe without the sunglasses?

Family portrait. We were there!

Kyle has wanted to see Mount Rushmore as long as I can remember. We almost went last year but decided against it. I personally didn't think it would be all that exciting, but it turned out to be really neat. The mountains are impressive, and it's incredible the detail and likeness they were able to sculpt, primarily with dynamite! It was completed in 1941 and played an important role for our country amidst years of very difficult times. It still carries great symbolism. The evening show and lighting ceremony were very patriotic and did a wonderful job of portraying the greatness of this country. At the end they had all the veterans come to the front of the stage (amphitheater) and help lower the flag. I was amazed how many there were--they filled the stage. It was all a great experience and I'm glad we were able to visit.