It's fall. . .I can't see my husband and boys for the camo

Hunting season again.  Jared chased elk several times with his bow this fall, but they are sneaky little buggars, so he struck out this year.  Parker got a nice buck in our field, so it was not a complete wash.

A nice 5x5 right in our own backyard.

Showing themselves in all their hunting glory.

Hunting in rugged territory is tough work.

With the Push of a Button. . .

The next two year's of Mitchell's life will change drastically with the push of the mouse button.  Here he is pushing the button to submit his paperwork for a mission, yahoo!!!

Where he'll wind up, nobody knows.

His picture that we had to submit showing missionary dress/grooming standards.  He did not want to shave, so we had to do pictures on two different days so he didn't look scruffy!!

Briggs turns the Big 12!!

Brigham turned 12 this year, which carries with it many new adventures.  He received the Priesthood and is now a Deacon and in the Young Men's program at church.  The graduated from Primary not a moment too soon, but was still able to help them with the Sacrament Meeting Program this year. 

He is really into Legos (more on that to follow), so that is what he got for his birthday.  He wanted a cake with the cross country logo on it, but that was a little too boring for mom, so I made it camo on the inside.

We tricked him with a few never-ending candles.  He was very confused as to why some went out and some kept coming back to life.

The camo guts of the cake.

Why yes, we did wrap his gift in newspaper.  Hey, be happy it was wrapped and not still in the shopping bag. . .that is the usual wrapping paper for birthdays.

Parker's Birthday

Of course, Parker wanted a football cake for his birthday this year!  He wanted Skylanders Swap Force (actually he wanted an iPod Touch, but that was way out of the normal birthday budget so, Skylanders was the runner-up choice).  Happy 14th Park!!!

Luckily, the smoke detectors didn't go off!

Yes, he is a bit of a goober when it comes to the faces he pulls for photos.

Football injury?????

Parker made it all the way through the official football season without getting injured too badly (just a few close calls, lots of soreness, swelling and ice).  However, he still managed to get a "football injury".  He and his friends were messing around with a football at one of the high school games after the middle school's season was done.  His friend was throwing a pass to someone behind him while he was tying his shoe.  Yep, you guessed it. . .he stood up just in time to catch the football in the face.  He had blood all over his shirt and pants when he came home and his lovely black eyes showed up the next day. 

We don't know if he actually broke his nose, we didn't take him to the doctor, but the swelling was quite epic.  All we could do was laugh.  His friend thought we would be mad at him for getting Parker with the football, and he could not believe that we just thought it was funny.  Yep, we are "those kind" of parents who laugh when our kids get black eyes because they were screwing around.

Gridiron Madness

It's tough to describe how much Parker LOVES this game.  He is one of the hardest working players out there.  After one of his games the opposing team's coach told him that he could come and play for them anytime.  That is a major compliment--good job Parker!!!  He rarely stepped off the field, he played offense, defense and special teams.  I think he returned all but one of the punts/kick-offs this season.  Here he is in action. . .

Parker getting tackled.  He had some great touchdowns this year.  I never get pictures of those because my photo taking brain shuts off when he heads toward the end zone.

Poised for the take down.

Returning the kick-off.

In the Hollow of Thy Hand

This fall we got the phone call that we dreaded getting one day.  Stockton went off the road on his way to seminary one morning.  He was truly protected by the Lord and we cannot express how blessed we felt that he walked away with only a few scratches (and those he got from crawling out of the broken window).  Hug your kids everyday, you never know when they will be called home, they are only on loan from our Heavenly Father.

These are still hard to look at, but we wanted to share our miracle with you.

The road conditions.
Luckily he went off the road on this side of the bridge, otherwise he would have wound up upside down in the river.

Over the river and through the fence, a rolling we will go.

This is the window Stockton crawled out of to call us.

The passenger side was completely caved in, thank heavens he was the only one in the car.  The driver's side was completely intact. 

When I went to clean out the car, the air filter was sitting in the middle seat because it had literally been shot out of the engine block.   He also hit a tree, which now has a little piece of the Smith's red burb embedded in it forever.  As you can see, he was protected by angels that day!!