Temple Square in Mesa

Last night for Family Night we ate at Cafe Rio and then went to Temple Square to see the lights. It is slightly easier to walk around the temple grounds for an hour here in AZ than it is in Salt Lake, considering it was 65 degrees last night! It is a fun holiday tradition that I hope I get to do every year of my life (here or in Utah)!
It was kind of hard to capture the whole fam with the camera on my phone, so here are all of my lovies!!

Our trip back east

Spence and I left the kids for 9 whole days last week to go on a trip back east. We left them with my mom for the first 4 days and then had our friends cousins babysit for the rest. They did awesome and didn't even miss us much, which made our vacation fun. (It would've broken my heart to hear them sad we were gone. But they never complained to us!) We went with Danny and Kasey Perkinson and had a BLAST! We flew into New York and saw the sights there for 2 days, then drove to Boston for about 2 days, then Montreal and then Palmyra. We had an incredible time and couldn't have without the help we received from our family and awesome babysitters! We feel so blessed to be able to go on a trip like this and enjoy time together, all the while knowing our kids were safe and happy.

So here are some pictures and I'm not going to comment much and explain everything because I'm totally tired and I'm a lame blogger anyway. So here it is.....
Rockafeller Plaza


At the MET, SO COOL! (To say the least! Just trying to keep it short)


Spence, Danny and Brett Crandall (Danny and Kasey's friends from high school who lives in Manhattan and met us at the museum) at the MET


Me and Kasey in Times Square


Freezing on the Staten Island Ferry at 1a.m. (My blood runs very thin now that I live in HOT AZ!)


And from New York we drove 3 1/2 hours to Boston, possibly the coolest city in our country, in my opinion. Spence grew up in Boston for part of his youth so we love any chance we get to go there!

The four of us in an area now known as "The Big Dig." It used to have a huge double decker highway running basically through the center of the city and in a effort to beautify (and probably more reasons than that) they dug an underground freeway that now runs under the city instead of through it. The area is now a beautiful parkway full of green grass and trees, fountains and places to relax, eat, read, etc. Fun fact: In the Big Dig project they used enough concrete to make a sidewalk from New York to L.A. and back 3 times! Crazy!



Paul Revere's Gravesite


In an old cemetery along The Freedom Trail in Boston


A Boston Landmark


There is SO much beautiful architecture there!!


We had the opportunity to go to the temple for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in each of these four cities (part of the reason we chose each city). The Boston temple is stunning, of course.


And then we were off to Montreal. We planned our trip so we could see the beautiful leaves change colors. So we got to experience a week of fall weather and stunning scenery! IT WAS AMAZING!! Spence served his mission in Montreal and so that was our motivation behind going up there. It was so fun to see a little part of where he was.

Here is the base of a huge statue in a popular tourist area in Montreal. Like most everything we saw....beautiful. (I wonder how many times I use that word in this long post!)


Warming up and getting hot chocolate!




Check out the beard my husband was working on! Well, it was really just lack of shaving for a couple weeks. He doesn't usually have quite this much hair!



Eating at a fun pasta place. Too bad non of us were looking at the camera!


We made fun of Spence's lazy eyes....


....so then he gave us this.


A huge catholic church in Montreal. Again... beautiful architecture.


After enjoying chili Montreal we crossed the border again and arrived in Palmyra, New York. Palmyra is home to a few very sacred places in our churches history and it was an honor to be there. I'll post a few pictures but we have a lot on another camera that we brought and I havent't put them on the computer yet. So I'll post some pictures of the Sacred Grove and some others when I get them. But here are a few.

Inside the Peter Whitmore home.



Does it get more beautiful than this?!


At the Hill Cumorah.


There will be a few more to come when I get them from the other camera.

just catching up.....again!

We'll catch up on the most important first.....kids! They are fun and pretty crazy.

Lincoln made this mask at his "Boys Will Be Boys" preschool class.
Quince is playing the piano and singing "on a mission" over and over again. It is his version of "I Hope They Call Me On A Mission." So cute!

Our Trip to Utah

Here are a few pictures of us on our trip. Thanks to Maggie and Mere for taking some for us!
Me and Linc at the Alpine Slide

Spence and Q at the Alpine Slide

Abe (my wonderful brother) and Lezlee at the Alpine Slide

Lezlee and her cousin Delaney going cowgirl style!

Linc, Q and their cousin Marc jumping on the trampoline at Grandma and Grandpa Critt's cabin. That's the back of Timpanogos and the Heber valley below. Very beautiful view from the ridge!

Some of the Crittenden grandkids climbing on the pro-hauler. We were taking family pictures that do so they were all dressed in white.

Four and Half Months. Seriousely, I'm Pathetic!!

I keep thinking that I'm going to give a recap of what's been going on in our family since the last time I blogged. However, I have let four and a half months slip by without blogging so there is NO WAY that I am going to do that! We'll just pick up where we left off.

We were in Utah on vacation for the last two weeks! It was SO MUCH FUN spending time with our family. We swam at the Fishes, played at Grandma and Grandpa Hux's, jumped on the trampoline around the clock, celebrated Lincoln's 3rd birthday, went to the Alpine Slide and Coaster (the kids kept yelling "Faster, faster!!), played at Grandma and Grandpa Critt's cabin, swam, rode horses, rode 4-wheelers, and had the company of amazing family and sweet friends the entire time! We are so blessed!!

All the while on this fun summer adventure our camera battery died and we left the charger and proper chords at home in AZ. So, here is one of the only pictures that we took. It is one of Lincoln blowing out his candles at his birthday party. It was the first day we arrived. We went to the Fishes and had dinner and swam. SO fun! Thanks Mags and Ryan for opening up your home, again and again!


Another fun time was the day we left. Lezlee had come down with the flu the night before. I slept with her that night to comfort her, knowing that I would likely get it. So the next morning I woke up very nauseous, of course. We left to the airport praying that no one else would throw up. I had felt okay for a while until I got up to take Lezlee to the bathroom. I came back to my seat feeling like I needed to find the little bag in the seatback pocket in front of me quickly! Spence and the boys were in the row next to us and so Lezlee went and sat with them while I laid down on our row. Yes, that's right..... I was laying there napping while my husband was crammed across the aisle with our three young kids! When we stood up at the end of the flight an older, very kind man, patted Spence on the shoulder and said, "You are such a great dad!" Which he is, of course! But I think that the other thought running through this gentleman's mind was, "Why did you marry her?!" I'm so grateful that Spence is so kind and that he is such a great dad! About one minute into standing waiting to de-board the plane Lincoln (with NO WARNING) threw up all over the aisle. He managed to not get a drop on himself, just the floor. Spence and I hurried to clean it up with as many wipe-ups as we had left but the stewardess was kind enough to bring newspaper to put on the floor to cover it up so everyone could walk by. It made me laugh thinking about the movie Big Daddy when Adam Sandler covers up his kids pee with newspaper. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

We made it home safely and with no one else getting sick, thank heaven! And to the older gentleman sitting behind us on the plane, you are right, Spence is the Father of the Year!

I'm hoping now that I have posted once that I will get in the habit again. Sorry to whomever checks our blog wondering how we are doing on not getting jack from us!

More Head Trauma

Last Thursday we took Quince to the emergency room and left with 3 staples in the back of his head. Kind of a crazy night..... He was in a booster seat that was buckled into a regular chair and he pushed himself away from the table and the chair tipped over backwards. So he went with the chair and hit his head on the back of the chair and split his head. It could have been so much worse, though. He got back to his normal self very quickly and doesn't seem to notice them now. Poor little guy! No signs of any serious head trauma, so we are grateful for that.

One Smart Girl!

Last night Spence was putting Lezlee to bed and she started to tell him about a boy in her Preschool class. Here's how the conversation went.....

Lez: Daddy guess what! Yesterday, my friend Preston left his blankie in the mailbox for the "Blankie Fairy" and in the morning he went to the mailbox and there was a baseball glove!!

Spence: Really?!

Lez: I want to put my blankie in the mailbox and then the Fairy will leave me something cool!

Spence: But honey, if you leave your blankie then you will never see it again. The fairy will bring you something cool, but you won't get your blankie back.

Lez: Oh..... (thinking...) Well maybe I could just put in a blankie that I don't like very much and still get something cool.

Spence: (Totally trying not to laugh at our conniving 3 year old) Well sweetie, the "Blankie Fairy" knows if you don't leave your favorite.

Lez: Oh man!

Seriously! Maybe all other 3 year olds are this smart and I'm the clueless one! But really, she can find a way around ANYTHING!!