Blanchard family est. 1997

Blanchard's Braces Christmas Deliveries

2010-12-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

My little elf helped me deliver reindeer treats, Chocolate Trifle and bath and body works soap to several dentist offices yesterday. My deliveries are not going to be as impressive or fun when she starts Kindergarten in two years. Maybe I will have to borrow my niece when the time comes!

Here we are in front of dads office after we made a delivery to Dr. Olson, a great general dentist who works in the same building that Steve works in. After we had stopped by 9 of the dental offices, Eliza proclaimed to me..."I am finished, no more mom." However, she hung in with me for 4 more and we took a break for the day!

Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time

2010-12-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

This is one of my most favorite Mormon Messages! The actor in this video, who lost his job, is one of our friends from Iowa. It is fun to see him in this video, but it is not the reason why I love this video. My heart is often touched when I see someone who is having a bad day, be it someone who is disabled, someone who appears to be sad or alone, or most recently, a mother who is struggling to make it through the grocery store with a trying child. I know that everyone has trials. I know that if we can do as President Monson desires; find someone who is having a hard time and do something for them, then our trials will, at the very least, not be the focus of our day! I love President Monson!

Giving our blog another chance:)

2010-12-12T20:30:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have had two great friends, namely, Lindsay and Jen, tell me that I should update our blog. Well, I am going to attempt to do so! I have loved reading their blogs off and on and am glad to know that someone enjoys reading mine! Thanks friends!

I have been thinking a lot today about the last 13 years. Since this Sunday marks 13 years for Steve and I, I have been a little nostalgic. And I am sitting at my scanner trying to scan a picture of us during the dating years, but I can not get my scanner to work. This is one of the reasons I am not a good blogger, because I am not a good computerer! Oh well, the main things that I notice that have changed over the last 13 years are: our dates are fewer, the bags under our eyes are bigger, my make-up is thinner, my hair is flatter, our family size has tripled, our vehicle is bigger, our patience is gone, our testimonies are stronger, our gratitude is greater, our love is deeper and our smiles are bigger!! I sure am LUCKY, but then, that is something I already knew 13 years ago!!!!!!!!!!

Some recent pictures from December on!

2010-02-25T14:24:00.000-08:00

We are getting into our groove here in UT! The kids have adjusted nicely to school, Steve is getting new patients and I'm enjoying living by my sisters, mom and extended family. I will try to do a more detailed blog soon!

Blanchard's Braces is open for business

2010-01-07T15:37:00.000-08:00

We are so excited, exhausted, anxious, nervous and many other adjectives about finally being open for business!! WOW, we have had so much to do since we moved here just a month and a half ago, that we are worn out! We are doing so many things all day long, for Steve's practice, Blanchard's Braces, that we realized that we have not stayed up to watch a movie together the entire time we have been here, which is odd for us! We usually stay up once a week together and often on that evening we will watch a movie. However, we have not felt a distance between us because we have been so connected on our business that we just keep going, however sleep deprived we may be!

I have made a link to our business website (on the far right, top side). Check it out! Also, if you are in the area come and visit his office!!

Farewell Colorado

2009-12-05T21:12:00.001-08:00

We had a very emotional and surreal last week in Colorado as our time wound down. The last Cub Scout meeting we had Thursday before Thanksgiving Joseph earned his arrow of light. Our last Sunday in Colorado, the Towner's hosted an ice cream farewell party where we said goodbye to many of our ward friends and then that night had dinner with some close friends the Meyers whom I home taught and Angie was visiting teaching companions with.

Monday we ate pizza with my good buddy David Zunich and his daughter Taylor. I home taught the Zunich's and we taught the Sunbeams together.

Tuesday was the kids' last day of school at Peakview. Lexi had her school program. Her teacher was Mrs. McDermott who did a wonderful job and whom Lexi really enjoyed.

This is the morning we left Colorado. We stayed the night with Spencer and Hannah Williams family. Probably Lexi's best friend in Colorado was Tommy at the far left. Lyzie loved Lizzie Williams shown in the front middle.

Hyrum's teacher, Mrs. Ekblade (above) had a surprise farewell party for Hyrum. The kids (and their families) pitched in and bought pizza, had desserts and wrote a journal with memories about Hyrum. Hyrum's best friend Tanner's mom made an unbelievable farewell cake starring Super Mouse, a fictional character Hyrum and Tanner made up a series of stories about. It got to be pretty famous and they had it displayed in the school for a while.

Here's the sign Hyrum's class made for him.

Here's Hyrum best friend Tanner Meeks and his favorite teacher (his 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Deutchman). We sure do miss Tanner! I don't know if Hyrum will ever find someone else as much like him as Tanner.

Joseph brought in donuts for his last day (5th grade male teachers aren't quite as sentimental as 3rd grade female ones!) and then went around taking pictures of his friends. This is a picture of his Gifted and Talented class where he did math, reading and writing. Joseph makes friends very easily and Colorado was no different but he is really going to miss Kaden Kluza and Jeffrey Jorgenson.

This is Joseph's GT teacher Mrs. Sauerbreit. Very nice, very intense, and a bit too much homework but it sure stretched Joseph's talents.

This is my orthodontic graduating class. I'll really miss the associations I made there and the fun times with Mladen Zekic, James Thomas, Rozheh Babaan, Brandon Price and others.

Angie and I with my brother Eric holding the piece of paper that proves that I did something for the last 34+ years of my life! Colorado was a wonderful 2 years of our lives and we'll always remember the people and things we did there.

BLANCHARD'S BRACES!!!

2009-12-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

WOW, I can't believe that we are to this point in our lives already! Steve completed his Orthodontic residency on Nov. 24th!!! We then moved to Brigham City, UT on Nov. 25th. We are really enjoying our home, family and Brigham City, but can hardly believe that it is real!

Steve will be purchasing an established Orthodontic practice in January, which will be called "BLANCHARD'S BRACES"!! (the photo above is of us wearing our Blanchard's Braces shirts, that I had made for us as a surprise for Steve) I am so proud of him! He has never complained in the entire 10 years of school, Air Force, moving around, you name it, he has been positive and focused!

I am so impressed with his hard work and dedication to his goal and yet, even more impressed with his hard work, love and focus on his greater goals in life, namely us, his family!! To say that I am so grateful for him is an understatement!!!!!!!!!!!

You know, one good thing about the Air Force is that our boys never minded having short hair because all the other boys on base did! Sure miss those short hair days!:) But love my boys regaurdless!! Liza did NOT want to smile for any of the photos. After our session, she told us that the chair they asked her to sit on in her first photo, scared her. Oh well, these photos prove that she can be beautiful with or without a smile!

Here is our Christmas family photo!

Lexi's 6th Birthday

2009-11-13T15:33:00.000-08:00

This is Lexi's 6th birthday. She's wearing the outfit Grandma sent her and carrying the puppy she got in the same package. She took these cupcakes to kindergarten to share with her class.

Lexi opening up the kangaroos stuffed animal she got for her birthday. She also got a Littlest Pet Shop collection and a Veterinarian Barbie. Needless to say she's an animal lover.

Lexi holding the Bee Pinata we made her. She wanted a Bug Party.

Lexi and her friends posing with the pinata (Julia and Abby, Angelina, Kaitlyn, Lexi, Sarah Anne, Megan, Lindsey and Kara)

Lexi taking a swing at the pinata.

Lexi and mom with the Lady Bug cake.

Beautiful October Sunrise and a Huge Snowstorm

2009-11-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

This is the beauty of Colorado. Hyrum took some of these pictures of the sunrise in mid-October at about 6:30 in the morning.

We will definitely miss the beauty and the weather (most of the time) of Colorado!

Three days before Halloween it started snowing and kept snowing and kept snowing. The snowfall lasted about 36 hours and dumped 17 inches of snow on us. This is a picture of our patio table on our back deck.

Denver doesn't plow its side-streets so we were pretty much snowed in for a day. They cancelled all schools though and we enjoyed the time off together.

Hyrum and Joe playing King of Bunker Hill. We also were able to go sledding together the afternoon of Halloween.

Joe and Hyrum on top of the hill. We were worried about all the snow limiting Halloween (they did have to cancel our ward's Trunk-or-Treat but Colorado being Colorado the roads and sidewalks were almost completely melted 2 days later and temperature on Halloween night was a comfortable high 40s to low 50s. It's been great living in Colorado and we'll truly miss it.

Denver Mint

2009-11-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

We took a tour of the US Mint in Denver here. Disregard the erroneous date. We went on Oct 26. Eliza had H1N1 and thus Angie stayed home with her and I took the other kids. This is a picture of the gate outside. The security is very heavy for obvious reasons and they did not allow any photos inside.

These are the main doors to the building. The Denver Mint makes about 12 coins a second or 750 a minute totaling some astronomical amount that escapes me for now, but it was pretty impressive.

The kids in front of the main doors again. The gift shop right next to the mint is pretty fun. If you ever want to tour the mint though the tickets fill up 2-3 months in advance so plan ahead. The kids really enjoyed this tour and we're definitely glad we made it before we move!

Halloween 2009

2009-11-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

For the first time ever, our kids did not buy costumes this year. Joseph, Hyrum and Lexi are shown here the night of the school carnival. Joseph, unfortunately, was unable to go to the carnival, due to the swine flu. He made the best of it though, by drawing a pig nose on his mask and posed with Lex and Hy for the pictures! Hyrum used pieces from old costumes to be a knight and Lexi dressed up in her Tinker Bell costume she got for Christmas last year. Joseph had the swine flu and so he missed the school carnival but posed in this picture as a kid with swine flu.

Our neighborhood loop is awesome for trick-or-treating. 1-1 1/2 hours around the block and the kids get more candy than they'll ever eat. Lyzie spent more time opening than eating candy. It was like a mini-Christmas for her.

The kids' jack-o-lanterns. Josephs is a rich man, Hyrum's is Super Mouse (a fictional character created by him and his best friend Tanner--they're writing a series of short stories about him) and Lexi's is cotton candy.

Lexi (the lady bug) with her friend Abby (Snow White) and Abby's sisters Olivia and Julia. The ghost in the background I believe looks like Joseph but how he became transparent is a mystery to all of us.

Hyrum went trick-or-treating with his best friend Tanner.

Hyrum dressed like a football player, Joseph like a rich man (he gave every house a fake cash bill after they gave him candy) and Lexi wearing her ladybug costume she wore when she was 2 or 3.

Lexi, Joe and Eliza ready for Trick-or-Treating. The first house we went to no one was there and Lyzie wouldn't leave. I had to carry her away. She eventually got it though and we all had a blast!

Flag Football

2009-11-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

The boys both played flag football this fall. Although the driving distances were a bit crazy the whole family enjoyed being involved and watching them play. Hyrum's team is the purple one and he has the blue superman hat on.

Hyrum was all over on defense and one of the best running backs his team had. Their team as a whole struggled but they won their last game on a touchdown scored with no time remaining so it was a great way to go out. I got to coach the defense on Hyrum's team.

Joseph's team is the black one. He's #12 executing a perfect block in the back, a technique no doubt inherited from his father:).

Here's Joseph lined up on the defensive line. Joseph was one of the biggest kids on his team, but also very fast and always played his assignments perfectly.

Joseph played full-time fullback and either line or linebacker on defense. Here he is with a nice lead block. Joseph's team dominated the second half of the season winning all their second half of the season games by 3-4 touchdowns. I got to be the assistant coach for Joe's team.

Family Home Evening Fun and Haircut time

2009-11-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of our fun family home evening pictures. Hyrum's lesson he dressed up like a prophet and then taught about some of the lessons the prophets teach us.

Angie's family home evening came during flag football season. She baked pizza pockets in the shape of footballs, glass bottles of root beer and other "tailgating food" and talked about being a team family.

Here are the kids holding up their pizza footballs.

Joseph (and Hyrum) hate getting haircuts. It's a major battle every time so we took some before and after pictures of Joe's haircut so that one day he can look back and understand our angst.

Quite the ham, but much sharper look, no?

Hike to Eagle Peak

2009-10-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

Eagle Peak looks right over the Air Force Academy. Its elevation is about 9400 feet. We met some good friends of ours from our Academy days a few years back and took the kids up to the top.

The hike took roughly 2 hours or so to the top. Here's Grace, Emily, Elijah Van Wagoneer and Joseph and Hyrum up the top.

The descent was fairly steep with lots of loose rocks but the kids did well and had a great time.

Joseph, Steve and Hyrum on the peak.

Hyrum, Joe, Emily and Grace at the end of the climb.

Lexi's in Kindergarten!

2009-10-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Joseph, Lexi and Hyrum taking the 1st of many walks for Lexi.

Hyrum, Lexi and Joseph in front of Peakview Elementary.

Lexi in line where the kindergartners meet. We can't believe Lexi is such a big girl now. It was quite an emotional day to send our girl off to start school. She is such a fun, tender-hearted sweet girl and we love her very much! She was really excited for school.

Fun with cousins and grandparents

2009-10-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

My mom would kill me for putting this photo in, but since she doesn't have a computer I want to have a picture of all our kids' grandparents in here. This was a photo that Lexi took that Grandma Blanchard pulled a funny face for.

This is Steve with Lexi and Steve's brother Kevin with his daughter Breanna. The girls are about 5 months apart in age.

Joseph, Eliza, Lexi and Hyrum with Grandpa Blanchard and his wife Grandma Lois.

Okay, what's fair is fair. This is Angie's mom, Grammee Myers after her makeover courtesy of the kids' cousin Calli. Deedee does have a computer and I'm sure we'll hear great things about this photo.

This is Hyrum and his cousin Zach after making one of their trademark creations. This is a cart used to transport groceries, toys, etc.

Larry's (Steve's brother) boy Codie (in front), Tim's (Steve's brother) boy Alex behind and Joe and Hyrum.

Larry's daughter Bailey, Tim's daughter Avery, Eric's daughters Kaitlyn and Mataya around Alexis. The kids love being with all of their cousins!

Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park/Estes Park

2009-09-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

This was the kickoff to our summer vacation 2009. We met Karen (Steve's sister) and her husband Jon and son Walker at Estes Park, CO where we have a cabin/resort timeshare. This picture is at Bear Lake in Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park.

Jon and Karen with baby Walker at Bear Lake. The altitude here is 7-8,000 feet.

These are the beds that Hyrum, Lexi, Eliza and Joe fashioned at the cabin.

Here's a group shot outside of the cabin taken by the camera timer. We had racoons snooping around right on our roof one night.

Blanchard family on our hike around Bear Lake.

Lemonade Stand

2009-09-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

Okay so life has been really busy lately, but I found these pictures from the end of summer and wanted to include them in our blog. I've kind of decided that blogs primarily are a nice way to keep an electornic family history and it makes me much more excited to do it now just to preserve the memories. The lemonade stand is such a childhood classic that I really wanted to put it in. This is Lexi with her two friends Kara and Linsey Price that Angie watches right before we left on our summer vacation.

This photo shows the majority and certainly most faithful clientele of Lexi's Lemonade stand: her brothers Joseph and Hyrum and their friends Danny (glasses) and Josh Price (Kara and Linsey's brother).

Going to the Broncos game for Grandpa Myers

2009-09-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

So we haven't done an entry for a long time with vacation, etc. so we'll have some makeup to do, but first.....We wanted to publish this entry. Five years ago this very month Angie's father passed away. Shortly before his passing we had moved to Colorado Springs. He was a huge Broncos fan and we had invited him to come down and go to a game with us. The hat that Angie's wearing we sent to him that year for his birthday, which is September 10th. He wasn't able to make the game and he passed away unexpectedly a couple weeks after his 59th birthday. This game was very meaningful and memorable for all of us.

Angie and the boys at the game.

Steve and the boys with our view of the field.

This is right before the Broncos scored a touchdown.

This is the fire and fireworks display after each Broncos score. We literally could feel the heat from the fire. Maybe Grandpa Myers was watching that night. The Broncos who had struggled in all of their other games, looked really good tonight and won 19-0.

Lexi's new Haircut and gymnastics fun

2009-07-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

Lexi asked Angie to give her a haircut like Lucy from Chronicle of Narnia. Here she's showing it in her gymnastics outfit.

All of the kids got to go on an open gym experience at Lexi's gymnastics. Joe is suprisingly nimble for as big as he is and can do flips I never could as a kid.

Hyrum's always been our daredevil.

Eliza (although not doing it in this picture) loves to swing from bars and shout "I swingin like a monkey!"

Lexi has loved gymnastics and has done a wonderful job at it.

The Miracle of Life

2009-07-22T07:56:00.001-07:00

We had a dove move into our deserted flower box on our front porch this summer. We were excited to see one day as it moved out 2 eggs laid. For the next couple of weeks we watched the miracle of life unfold from our front window. The picture above shows the dove laying on the eggs.

This picture shows the baby birds about 5 days after hatching, still relatively small and very timid.

Here you can see one of the babies (on the right) with mother just 4 days later, already considerably bigger.

Here's one of the babies that same day feeding from mom. Aren't you glad humans don't feed their babies this way? Although I must admit the way the baby attacked her mother somewhat reminded me of some of our babies eating!

The baby birds much more independent at this stage, starting to venture to the edge of the pot. They would leave the nest the next day, not even 2 full weeks after birth.

Eliza's 2nd birthday and a couple other pics

2009-07-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here's another cake masterpiece from Angie. Eliza loves Barney (better than Teletubies I guess!)

Two whole candles!!! We've stopped counting them on ours! Eliza actually did blow them out this year.

She's a little more skillfull in getting the cake into her mouth this year.

Just a few throw-ins. Hyrum is such a crafty kid. He fills his bedroom with his homemade crafts (as well as our kitchen and living room with the project scraps!). We finally get to the point where we make him weed some of them out but we always take a picture of them first. Here's 3 of the recent casualities.

Joseph and Hyrum both went to Cub Scout camp this year a few days prior to Eliza's birthday.

Jon, Karen and Walker Ficklin visit us in Colorado!

2009-06-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

We had a great time having Steve's sister Karen and her husband Jon Ficklin and their baby Walker come and visit us a few weeks ago. We spent some time at the Denver Zoo. This elephant is a life-size cut-out advertising the new exhibit they're building, but from a distance it looks real. The first time we saw it when we came around the corner it kind of freaked us out.

Our last Denver Zoo trip. (Our membership expired 2 days later and since we're moving soon we decided not to renew it)

We took Jon to the famous BMX dirt bike track. I think this was his favorite part of the whole trip!

Jon and Karen with Walker at the Colorado Rockies baseball game. It was a beautiful night with lots of scoring, home runs and a 2 out bottom of the ninth rally for 2 runs that gave the Rockies the victory. It was a really exciting game....a bit too exciting (and loud) for Walker.

Jon really got into the 47 waves that the Rockies faithful were determined to do! We had a great time having them though and welcome any and all visitors!

Golf ball Hail Storms

2009-06-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

I'd always heard about "golf-size" hailstones, but kind of thought it was just an exagerration. Well we had quite the storm here Sunday, two tornadoes touched down near here and we had a hail storm that produced stones larger than golf balls. The above photo is Angie holding one of them from our yard. Luckily other than some fallen leaves, we had no real damage to any of our belongings. Our neighbors were not quite so lucky.

Here are the kids holding a few of the hailstones. You can imagine how these could do quite the damage.

This is the collection of hailstones the kids placed in the freezer.

Pinewood Derby time

2009-05-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

So Hyrum got to do his first pinewood derby as a Cub Scout. This was Joseph's 3rd. They also let the family participate so we made a car for Lexi.

Lexi took a close 2nd in the non-Cub Scout division to the 14 year old boy next to her.

Hyrum showing off his Toyota truck.

The whole family after the Pinewood. Joseph's was a black Suburban, Lexi had her orange race car and Hyrum's was a green Toyota truck. We all had a lot of fun making them and racing them.

The Denver Zoo

2009-05-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

We have had a membership to the Denver Zoo which we have really enjoyed. Lexi and Lyzie have especially enjoyed it and our huge animal fans. Lyzie loves zebras especially. All of the kids like seeing the peacocks that wander around the zoo. Lexi's favorite part is probably the cotton candy. It's a great zoo, lots of shade and lots of animals.

Lexi dirt-biking

2009-04-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the pictures of Lexi and the boys riding around at the BMX track at wheel park. Definitely a must-do if you live in this area.

Jazz-Nuggets game

2009-04-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

Not the best time to mention it (since the Jazz's season is soon coming to a disappointing premature end), but we did go to a Jazz game earlier this month against the Nuggets. The seats were great, the game was good (even though the Jazz lost) and the boys had a great time. The game did get a late start and even though Hyrum claims he "was just resting my eyes," we're pretty sure he didn't make it to the end.

Hyrum's baptism

2009-04-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

We went to Utah a few weeks ago for Hyrum's baptism. We can't believe he's already 8! He was really excited to be baptized and asked the bishop during his baptismal interview if he could give him scriptures to write down and study to prepare for his baptism. He's a very good boy and we are very proud of him. The day after Hyrum's baptism, Steve's brother Eric blessed his 3rd little baby girl which is what the top picture is. We had a very fulfilling but short trip. We had a lot of family from both sides as well as some very close friends who came to the baptism. The next baptism we have we hope to not have to travel so far to have our families there!

2009-04-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

Joseph was selected to have his art displayed at the school district building along with some of the other area kids. Joe is quite the artist and loves to do it. This is a picture of him next to his oil horizon painting. It shows the whale's tail as it lifts out of the water.

Last football post

2009-03-24T10:03:00.001-07:00

The last football related post, I promise (probably would be a lot fewer of these if Ange was doing them!) Joseph for his school art class was supposed to make a clay sculpture. He decided he wanted to do a BYU football player. We had a little wood figure that we used as the skeleton and built the player around it. Hyrum liked it so much he made his own with an old black spiderman action figure. Hy's turned out so good he took it to school for show and tell.

Joseph's 10th Birthday

2009-03-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

This first picture shows Joseph in action attempting to break the football pinata which actually may resemble a cocoon with some white stripes!

Here's a picture of Hyrum splitting the seams. With Joseph's size and Hyrum's quickness and agility they make a pretty lethal combination when on the same team.

Here's the crew: front: Josh Price, Hyrum; back: Kaden Kluza, Jeffrey Jorgensen, Joseph, Carson Valentine and Jeffrey Ray. It's obvious that we played until daylight no longer allowed us to continue.

Here's Angie with another one of her signature cakes and her 10 year old who will soon be taller than her.

Here's all the kids doing a fun pose with the pinata.

Joseph decided for his 10th birthday to have a football party. He's become a big football fan. We took him and Hyrum and his friends to the elementary school on a beautiful 50 degree January day and played football for 1 1/2 hrs. We came back and had pizza and a football pinata and a football cake and games. Joseph and everyone had a blast. One of his friend's little brother wants to have a football party like Joseph!

Updating Blog

2009-03-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

We went to a BYU-Air Force football game in November. The Air Force Academy is a wonderful place to watch a football game. There are fly-overs with jets and parachuters dropping in. There are all the cadets marching out on the field in formation. You're right up in the mountains with nothing around the stadium but the forest. It's awesome and we'd highly recommend it to anyone who has a chance to go.

2009-03-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

This crash picture Joseph claims is authentic but I have my doubts!

Alright, so due to the woes of the dial-up I have agreed to use some of my "free-time" at school to update this blog for the family from time to time. I'm going to go ahead and go backwards a bit to post some of the fun photos we've taken the past 3-4 months. This first series shows "Wheel Park" in Aurora here. It's a big skate park that has a BMX dirt bike track. It's one of our favorite places in Denver. The boys and I have a blast there. We went there on President's Day and took Lexi and Angie too. Lexi was peddling around on her tiny 12" pink Disney Princess bike and going up and down the hills. She had a blast but I think we had even more fun watching her. Unfortunately we didn't take the camera that day so we'll have to get pics the next time. I did bring it this day with Joe and Hy. We had so much fun I even dusted off my old free-style Redline bike that I bought when I was 12 years old and we've been riding that around.

2009-03-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know that I haven't written in our family blog for months now!!!!! BUT, anyone who has had or does have dial up will hopefully be a little sympathetic with me! We have soooo much to share but so little patience to give!

Hopefully we will have a little faster connection in 8 1/2 months. A little bit of a catch up, Joseph turned 10 in Jan., Steve turned 34!!! in Feb. and Hyrum turned 8 yesterday!!! We have also had my mom here for a month and have had a great, busy last few months.

I am hoping to post some pictures in the next few weeks, but for now, if you would like to stay in touch, you can send us an email @ blanchardfamily@netscape.com ! Thanks for checking out our site.

Happy 5th Birthday Lexi!

2008-11-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

Wow, we can't believe that our Alexis is 5 years old!!! So crazy how fast she has grown! We had a fun little Tinker Bell party with her and her friends. I made a mushroom with Tinker Bell sitting ontop of it for her cake and then a few little green grass cup cakes beside it. We were; however, worried that she would not be able to have her party since a few days before the pary, on her actual birthday, she, Joseph and Hyrum had a "puke fest". They did recover nicely and still had a great day on Saturday! A few of our favorite things about Lexi are : Lexi loves people! She is so friendly and loves to be around anyone, especially if they are willing to play barbies or stuffed animals with her. Alexis has such a fun, funny personality. She often makes us laugh by the things she says. ie. After receiving a shirt from Grandma B. that said "Treat me like a Princess" on it, Lexi came to me and Steve with tears in her eyes and said, "Hyrum said that he won't treat me like a princess." I love how much Lexi loves her sister! Eliza loves to be with Lexi as well!! We love Lexi and are so thankful for 5 fabulous years so far!

Halloween!!

2008-11-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I have not added to our blog since mid September. We had so much fun with Halloween this year that I really want to share a few pictures. Doesn't Steve make an awesome Super Man?? I found his costume at Goodwill the day before. I decided to look through the kids' costumes to find something for me... CAT WOMAN! It worked. Lexi chose her costume and I just thought it was so cool that I found that costume for Steve this year. The boys both bought their own costumes. They each chose to be Anakin, from Star Wars, but they were different Anakins. We had such great weather, that we stayed out late and just had a great time!

We have dibbs on the next Planters commercial

2008-09-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

While Eric and Andrea were here, we went to a Rockies game and had a great time! Thanks again for coming to visit us guys!

Here we are at the Smoky Hill Family 5K. Steve and I have been running early most mornings together and have really enjoyed it. When we heard about the 5K we wanted to run it, mostly me since I knew I could whoop Steve:) Just kidding. However, being a family 5K, we decided to walk it. Well, next year we will do the run!! You may be able to tell by our kids face, if you zoom in, that they were not as thrilled about it as we were. At the end, we all celebrated by having watermelon, Eliza LOVED that part!

I have not yet had Eliza's one year photo's taken, so I decided to take some shots of her in our backyard. The first picture is of her and Lexi. I love this picture! The rest are just fun shots of Eliza.

Liza is growing, getting busier, doing so good with communicating with sign language, it just makes us smile each time she signs to us! We like this much better then when she grunts or screams to get what she wants!!

Lastly, Alexis was sick a couple of days ago with the flu, so we laid low and just hung around the house. Lexi loves peanuts and left a can of Planters out on our deck. The can only had a handful left, so we sat and watched to see if a squirrel would come for a snack. Well, not 5 minutes went by and we watched as a squirrel smelt it from a distance, he crept (I mean she crept, Lexi said it was a girl because her tail looked soft and puffy) close and carefully to make sure things were safe and then she began to plow into the can of nuts and eat it like winter were tomorrow! That is when I knew the squirrel had to be a girl! We had such fun watching her. I am going to get on Planters website, surely there has to be $$$ in this for us!

Look real close at this picture

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Joseph and Hyrum found this leaf bug infront of our house. I circled it with red so you can see it better, but I have also attached a picture of the bug on Joseph's shoulder. It is pretty cool as far
as bugs go!

AM I A GREAT BLOGGER OR WHAT??

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Before I add to our blog, I have to say a BIG sorry to everyone who has blogged me, I guess that is how you word it, I am not use to this and I stink at this! However, I am going to take some time and learn how to respond to comments and try to remember my passwords so that I can!!! I have loved receiving comments from each of you and am thrilled to have comments from those whose email addresses I do not have!! ie. Jen and Melanie!! Thanks so much!!! I am not sure how this works, if I am suppose to invite you each time I add or what! I will get it someday, but by then their will be a new form of Internet communication! It will be nice when we get high speed, but we aren't looking to do that for 14 more months either!

ANYHOW!!! We had a great summer!! It went too quickly, but we loved it! You may notice that we are all a little tan, I had all the kids in swim lessons for six weeks, 4 days each week,so we got a little sun.

We went to Utah for two weeks and spent time with both of our families. We also got to see some good friends, Scott and LindaSue and NICKY and her crew! Our boys are still having withdrawals from them!! We got home two days before school started and then at the end of the week, Steve's brother Eric and his family came to see us! WE ARE LUCKY!! We have already had some many family members visit us in the year we have been here. We can not figure out; however, why only TWO of our family members came to see us in Oklahoma!! :) Thanks again, Kami and Malynda!!! And thank you Nicky for coming TWO TIMES!! Kami and Jeremy, you have made it out to each of the places we have lived, THANKS!!!

I am posting a few of the photos we took on vacation this summer. Karen had her baby shower the first night we drove into Utah and here is a picture of me sniffing a candy bar diaper!

Here are some pictures of me and my boys with the Henstrom's, Steve and Liza with Kevin and Brianna, Andrea and I with our girls at the Ogden Museum and my kids with Aubrey at the Dinosaur Park

Here is a picture of my Mom with the kids and the sand art they did with her, Steve's Mom with Lexi, Steve and the boys with his Dad. We are enjoying Colorado and have enjoyed taking family to the museum, zoo, Rockies games, etc.

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Karen and Jon

Kami and her kids. Keeli and Scott and kids.

Thanks so much to our sisters and their families for coming to visit us this year!! All of these photo's were taken at the Denver Nature and Science museum!

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Richard and Ashley at the Rockies game. Thanks Rick for taking Hy and Lexi to the zoo and thanks Ashley for playing soooooo much with Lexi!!

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Steven's brother, Richard and his daughter, Ashley, came for a visit and they all went to a Rockies game! We had a great time with our visit with them!

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Joseph has braces, Hyrum with his creations, Alexis and her broken arm and Eliza shaken the maraca's!!

We have the BLOG BUG too!

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We have decided to give in and join the blog world! We have enjoyed viewing family and friend blogs and hope you enjoy viewing ours!! We will update this shorlty!