We DO Blue in Arizona! GO BYU~

Rise all Loyal cougars... So... all fellow BYU FANS gathered at the Hoggard household on Saturday (11/22) Eve

to cheer on the cougs against Utah. It was an important game for us when it came to bowl placement, and even though we lost...we certainly were not too BLUE!
well..maybe some of the men (Big Bad John) were bummed!

You certainly could not be wearing enough blue that evening!

Uncle John even had the garb all the way down to the flip flops, pants, shirt and hat...think he is excessive? Dacie was in awe...ha ha

We certainly start em' young!

It was a bring your own beef BBQ--with some sides and desserts--it made the night complete!

While the parents were cheering the kids did their thing(meaning pulling every toy the Hoggards owned out).

Thanks to the Hoggards for being brave and making the game more fun to watch--since we miss the good ol' BYU game days in person.

Our Pumpkins!!!!

We went and got the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch!

It took about forever to get too it (only 2 seconds)--to walk around to the side of our house!

We were pleasantly surprised to have harvested exactly 6 pumpkins this year in our garden.

It is a good thing we did b/c our favorite and ONLY pumpkin patch around the area closed down last year!

We held out as long as we could (Thursday night 10/29) before picking and carving them-so that they would not get old and wilty.

It being an unusually warm Halloween--they still wilted pretty quickly!



Dan has had to work late a couple of nights a week, b/c they are short staffed. So I thought we would gut the things before Daddy got home--AM I CRAZY!!!?
I smelled like pumpkin and felt like slime--not to mention acted like a witch by the time Dan got home to help finish them up!
The garage is getting re-arranged to fit an extra fridge and freezer in--so it was car-less. It turned into the perfect pumpkin carving workshop!
This would be the aftermath of the carving--


THE RESULTS (everyone came up with these entirely on their own):
DAD'S DEVIL
MOM'S MADNESS
( I saw this done in a magazine and thought it was funny!) I still think it is funny!
You cut different eyes, mouth, nose, and eyebrows off of close-up pictures of people in magazines!

COLTON'S CREATION

STERLING'S SMILE

RYLAND'S OGRE

we voted this numero uno!

DACIE'S YELL

(You cannot tell from this picture, but this was a perfect size pumpkin for her-it was small and shrimpy)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving from the....Turkey bowl playin' (Dan is the quarterback)
Pumpkin Mashin' (Dacie at Thanksgiving FHE)
Skunk Livin' (We got him..on film! look closely, we could not get too close!)
House decoratin'
holiday bow wearin'
Pumpkin carvin'
FHE havin'
Eatin' lots BUNCH!!!!
Dan, Alicia, Colton, Sterling, Ryland, & Dacie

S is FOR......

S if for Sterling and his Special day. On Monday (11-19) it was FINALLY his Special day at preschool. He brought in his lunch sack full of letter S items- a Snake, Stickers, and pictures he drew of friends Sahara, Sadie, and Sterling. It was also the Special Thanksgiving feast that mommy and Ryland were able to attend. We made popcorn (oops-we broke away from the S).

S is also for Sterling who gets Slammed with Sickness. Soon as his body recovered from the Stomach flu he came down with a bad case of Strep. After two Sleepless nights he was tested and given antibiotics yesterday(11-20).

S is for Sterling's Sister~ Dacie. She now has 9 teeth (that is 3 new ones) which she managed to get through while she was throwing up. She had her first normal diaper on Saturday BUT went right back to abnormal. We are going on day 10 since she got sick! She is showing off her new outfit from Aunt Kerri and bow made by mommy (while sucking on a battery), and playing with pumpkin seeds for her first time during our Thanksgiving Family Home Evening we had on Monday evening (11-19). She is living on yogurt!


S is for Skunks. Have it old you I hate them? We are working on trapping our second skunk as we entice him closer and closer with apples each evening. We tried to do the full-on trapping the first night and it backfired. We assume he went in the trap to get the apple and triggered the door early. Of course Spooking the Skunk, and so he Sprayed. It was 3:30am, and the only reason I know this is because it woke me up. I thought it was Dan being "stinky" so I told him to roll over or do something (we had a good laugh about that the next morning when I realized what it really was). Dan woke up a short time later to the same Smell and Sprayed our house with Lysol-hoping to damper the poignant smell. The trap is right outside our window! Pee-ewe. I think we may kill this skunk rather than let it free! I hate SKUNKS, whose name should really be SKINKS!

SUPER SATURDAY!

I'm not gonna lie, our Saturdays are SUPER busy. We always try to fit in a little bit of everything (I guess we do not want to be outdone by our Fun Fridays-look at our last post) So I thought I would do a picture documentary of this past Saturday. The morning started at 6:30am with a bottle feeding to Dacie (daddy did it, so no picture-zzz's were more important). Ryland cried out not long after that so mommy woke up and could not go back to sleep. I got ready for the LAST soccer games of the season instead. Daddy and Dacie went with Colton to an elementary school in town, and mommy and Ryland went with Sterling to get donuts (for the end of season party), and then to Sedona to get lost trying to find Sterling's field. The trophies are the boys favorite part of the season-Colton (Earthquakes) and Sterling (Supernovas) showing off their grammy's!
We came back to do some work on the house or yard (Daddy had a head start getting back earlier than us). We raked leaves and worked on the 'forgotten' corner of our yard, trying to turn it from a spider haven to a spider heaven!
The boys decided it was such a nice day out that they would bust out one of Sterling's b-day toys from cousin Kayden, and make dinosaur bones in the sandbox.
Saturday afternoon naps are a blessing! I found Sterling asleep like this the other day on my bed. I guess he is trying to block out the world-can you tell what are his knees?
With four heads of hair constantly needing cutting, we could always do a haircut every Saturday-here is 25 dollars worth of hair ($12 a haircut X's 2(Dan and Colton)+ a tip= $25 at least) I cut it in the garage after naps!

After filling our tummies with some dinner-we decided to do something fun as a family to celebrate Sterling's birthday this past week, since he did not have a friend party (we only do parties on the even years). We went to a local ceramic store called serenity ceramics in town and each picked out and painted one item! Here is the birthday boy with his fairy!
Ryland opted for the monkey in shades of yellow and pink! woohoo!
Colton and his dragon! We were so happy to have discovered this place that is reasonably priced-it is going to be a future date night for sure. The boys are anxiously awaiting pick up next week after their ceramics get baked!
Shhh! The kids are in bed, daddy quickly slips to some game time! and mommy.....

to her crafts. This is the two bows I made for Dacie-a Thanksgiving one and one to match a cute outfit (from Aunt Kerri).

There was only one casualty to a day of fun~My finger! My glue gunning techniques have much to be desired (anyone know how to glue ribbon besides a hot hot glue gun?). Check out the blister (which looks allot whiter and puffy today!). Who said mom's aren't tough? Then is was off to bed, and we slept as hard as we played today! Saturdays are SUPER because we get to do allot of things we normally don't get too, and we have Dan the man at our side!

FUN FRIDAY!

A family "tradition" started when Colton started having Friday 4:30-5:30pm practice. I would take all the kids with me to run around at the playground, while Colton practiced. Dan would get off of work at about 5:15pm, and then the eternal question would come-what should we have for dinner? By the time we would get home and prepare something, or finish up something already started, set the table and do the dishes our Friday nights would be shot. So, Dan started getting $5 pizza from Little Caesars on his way home and would meet us at the field. I always had a blanket handy in the car-so we would throw it out and have a makeshift picnic on Fridays. The boys started getting attached to this little tradition, and when other activities would conflict with the Friday evening picnic-we would hear about it!!! Sterling started calling it Fun Friday where "we could do whatever the fun we wanted!" We have kind of caught onto the idea and tried to do something 'out of the norm' for our fun on Fridays. It has been a few weeks since we did the picnic last (with our conflicting schedules) and it was Colton's last practice-so we had to do something! Since we had pizza for Sterling's b-day on Wednesday (we do draw the line for pizza to only once a week-ha ha) I decided to keep the tradition alive and pack some sandwiches, fruit, drink, and chips in our rarely used picnic basket. The boys were in heaven! It is amazing how something as simple as Friday eating at a park is such a big deal to the kids! Dan decided to make it a night of the fun and took Colton and Sterling to the high school football game later that evening. Our high school is in the state playoffs-and won!!! I am not sure the boys were watching the game or filling their mouths with the candy dad bought them! Go Marauders! However it made for an early Saturday morning soccer games! Here's to FUN FRIDAYS!

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY STERLING!

Our sweet, stoic, friend to everyone, imaginative Sterling's b-day started bright an early, around 3:30am (I think). I had just gotten done 'being sick' in the bathroom and Sterling had just gotten done "being sick" in the other when I emerged to check on the family. I climbed into his sleeping quarters in the bathroom and sang to him. Sterling and I had been sick from about 4pm that afternoon- and that 4am trip was our last trips to the bathroom (what a present for both of us!).

Every time Sterling would throw up he would ask if we would still have his birthday. We did-in modified form. Here were the pro's and con's of the day:
1. Sterling must be royalty because he got daddy home on his birthday (we cannot even manage to get him home on his own birthday, let alone any one else's). Granted it was the state of affairs Dan came home to the afternoon previous. I was puking in a garbage can, trying to change Dacie's diaper (she still has diahrrea and a SUPER sore bummy rash) since she had just leaked everywhere and Sterling was up in his bed puking, and I was sobbing. Dan called work and told them he would not be in the next day. It was like a holiday or something!
2. We cancelled all other obligations and got to stay in pj's as a cute, cozy family (as cute and cozy as sick gets!) all day. FYI-Sterling still gets his special day at preschool on Monday (we were able to switch).
3. He was well enough in the evening to enjoy ONLY two pieces of pizza (as opposed to the 6 he could down) and some cake, as well as some play time with his new"kitchen" set (mom got at Walmart on some serious clearance), and fake food his siblings gave him!
4. He got his own bedroom for a day (the bathroom) which will probably be the only time in his life! ha ha
He is our little optimist and has such a zest for life (you would have thought we gave him the world by putting up crepe paper and balloons while he was napping). We are glad he is part of our family. We hope you enjoy the pictures of our little soccer boy (#7) he can run, but he can't kick (we are not complaining, considering his history of club foot-we are blessed he can run). Happy birthday little man!

The SuperNova's Fall 2007 (missing 2 players)



Sterling's own bedroom for the day!


Notice Sterling's little blue birthday boy badge he is wearing on his shirt? (that is when he felt his birthday became 'official' when we pinned it on him!). He is our little imaginative boy and LOVES to make believe and play pretend! Can't wait until he can really cook for us!

It's FINISHED!

The Primary program that is! As some of you know there are MANY MANY hours put into the program the children in church put on once a year. Colton with his 2 speaking parts and Sterling with his 1-memorized them and did great! I thought I was in the clear for awhile from doing them as I was released as the president of that auxillary-BUT its not so, I was then put back in as the primary chorister in the summer (so beyond my comfort zone) and I was back in the saddle getting ready for it again. It has then become my responsibility to make a children's choir out of the 40 kids who attend primary weekly. I have to admit-music does touch your heart quickly, and ecspecially children's voices. You always worry about how it will turn out-but then it DOES, and as someone wrote on a comment today after the program, " I heard angels sing today!" It is true, they did great! My heart was full and dry eyes were hard to come by in the last song.

I have to admit that I almost "lost it" as Colton in his best sunday suit stood "dancing" wildly in the front row, as he had to go to the bathroom so bad (that is the LAST thing he EVER wants to do-it is such an inconvenience to him) . So I was standing and conducting all the while trying to motion to him to go to the bathroom NOW! ha ha. We clebrated our success by visiting our sick songs in the hospital (all the songs we sang for the program were admitted to the primary children's hospital 4 weeks ago when they had a panic attack because they heard the program was coming soon-the children had to sing and get each song evaluated by the nurse before being released). We brought balloons (popping them to see what song we were going to sing to them) ending with the happy news that they were all released from the hospital today! Yeah! HOWEVER, the children were all sent home with a prescrition of singing pills for when they felt their songs were starting to get "sick" again! Thus the pictures of our pill popping adventure-the boys and I had fun filling and drawing on all the donated medicine bottles! It was a successful day.

BUT with the good comes the bad, and our sweet Dacie caught the flu that has been going around (I thought we were in the clear, since we do not get out much). She threw up right as we were leaving and Dan missed the majority of the program, he snuck in for the last song and slipped right back out. She has been throwing up and having diarrhea since then. She is not sleeping well.We have been able to get with other friends to get a recipe to make home remedy pedialyte http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm ( which she has kept down for a bit! cross our fingers- 11/12 she did! and that is what she has been living on today) It is suppose to make its rounds through our entire family-so all the boys went to bed with buckets tonight (and a practice drill). Aaah-don't know how much I will be writing this week. I HATE the flu BUT love the primary kids!

To Play or Not to Play, that is the question...

So Colton is just like his dad, they could be "addicted" to video games IF we had the time and did not set guidelines. As many of you know Dan got a new PS2 system from his boss at work for x-mas. Colton absolutely enjoys the benefits of this gift with his dad (specifically the Star Wars lego game-thus his addiction with Star Wars). Well, the other night he broke the controller in his game'ing excitement (this is the 2nd one that has fallen victim to the boys-NOT cheap!). SOOO Colton now has to earn money to contribute to the purchase of another one before he can play games again. He immediately handed over all his tooth fairy money (he worked hard for his last tooth at the dentist-he had to be sedated and had it 'pulled'). So he is trying to make all his half loose teeth-fully loose. I suggested to him that rather than losing that many teeth why doesn't he do some extra chores around the house to earn some money. So yesterday he spent over and hour raking and cleaning up leaves in the back yard (for 25 cents). Of course, Sterling got 'recruited' to help in his plight-but Sterling is our BEST helper and does not seem to mind! I thought it was cute seeing them working so hard-it gave me insight into the future when they will be able to take over allot more of the yard work!

Oh yeah! there is a picture of the Jedi himself on Halloween. Maybe he can use the force to help make more money! ha ha ha