Mckenna's Baptism Day

Today was a very special day for Mckenna and our family. We had our last little baby Baptized by Matt's dad. It was really neat to have Fred be able to do the Baptism and Confirmation since he wasn't feeling well for a long time! What great support Mckenna was given during her special day! We had most of Matt's family there and Diana, Lou and Kira came also! She was spoiled by us with her presents of scriptures, a tote, and a journal. Aunt Netty gave her a Book; "Your are Special," and Terra gave her a CTR Bracelet. Grandpa Fred gave her a CTR necklace and she recieved numereous cards from other family.Mckenna before her Baptism. Mckenna was nervous that Grandpa we going to have really cold water in the Font since Devin had been telling her all about how his was freezing. And she hates cold water,but she said that it wasn't really that bad! We hope that Mckenna continues to make the right choices and we are so blessed to have her in our family.


Mckenna with Grandpa Fred. Mckenna after her Baptism- all soaking wet!


Mckenna in her beautiful Baptism dress. Our family at Grandpa Fred's house.

As Promised: Pictures of the inside of the house!

1st group of pictures, L-r: dining room, downstairs bathroom, kitchen and laundry room.

2nd group of pictures, L-R: Upstairs office area, kids toilet area and sink area, two different views of the family room.

The view from the upstairs breeze way! it is surrounded by molding so it looks like a picture frame cool huh? Another shot of the dining room, the french doors exit out onto the side of the covered front porch. I plan on us eating out there on the wicker table during the warm weather! Fun!

Since Mckenna is now the big 8, it is time for her baptism date! She will be baptized, Saturday, November 27th at Grandpa Fred's ward house. I don't have a time yet, but I will post that later. I hope that everyone can come, but since some of you are in the Southern part of the states, we will have you there in spirit. So this is what I would like you to do: could you send her a letter with your testimony and what it felt like when you were baptized. I think that she would really love that and I can put it in her scrapbook as part of her program and pictures. Thanks so much, oh, the address is: 2792 Canyon View Drive Santa Clara, Utah 84765.

Who is that tall blond in the blue pajamas?

Hey, Wow! I think that it looks like Matt Brower? Could it be? YES, it is!!!!What is he doing on stage?! Has the acting bug bit him too? Matt played "Kiwi" a New Zealander who is hurt the worst. He wears an arm and shoulder cast through the first half of the play but I was not there for that part on the last night to get any pictures. It was such a wonderful experience for Matt to be involved in this play. It contained no musical or dancing ability and was timed at the slowest part of the year for him. We are very proud of him auditioning, making the cast and sticking with it. He did a great job, plus he came up with the best one line ad lib ever!

"Hasty Heart" was a movie that Ronald Reagan starred in. It is about an onery scottish man who is dying but doesn't know it and the men that are suppose to make his last days happy. The man is very hard to get to know and it takes all the men's patience but they all become friends in the end. The following picture was taken during curtain call.

The Cast of HASTY HEART performed at SGMT

11 year old scouts, Here I come!

Kyler and me during his Webelos ceremony. He worked so hard for this. See the apprehension on his face that is because he knows that the next step is the Mother salute,(that is where you have to give your mom a kiss- yuck!) This was our last activity with our old ward, even though we had already moved to our new house. It was a nice finale for Kyler.

Canyon View Drive pictures

Here is part of the inside of the Canyon View House. The mirror over the fire place is not included in the sale as far as we know, since it was not in the house today when we went for our final walk through. The staircase is to the left when you walk into the house. The view from the breeze way(walkway to kids rooms,) is incredible towards the back of the house. Come and see it soon!

Amazing Halloween!

Isn't it amazing that when you think that your child is too old to go trick or treating
THAT is the year that He wants to really, really, really wants to go with his friends? Isn't it also amazing that it also happens that he comes home with the most candy he has ever been given at one time~ 10 lbs?! What I find even more amazing is that each year our wonderful local dentist gives out the biggest candy bars to all the kids just so that he can continue to have a good business at his office. It's okay for him to give our kids the biggest candy bars since we already go to him anyway and I find it lucky for us that he has all the fun toys in the neighborhood for Kyler to play with so onward to the dentist we go for all of Devin's cavities that he might have with that 10 lbs bag of goodies!

Each of the kids really did have a fun time.
Devin went with all his weird teenage friends.
Kyler went with Skyler to Bloomington and Greenvalley. No staying in the neighborhood for them! Skyler's parents like to drive him around to all the rich people's houses so that they can get "better" candy that in the neighborhood. I don't know but it looks to me like Kyler has the same kind of candy as Devin and Mckenna!
Mckenna and I went with Kyleigh and Andrea through the neighborhood and had a lot of fun. (ky can be seen at kenna's party- she is the cute little red devil, Andrea is her mom,) but then again we always have fun with them no matter what we do!
Matt stayed home and handed out the candy to the neighbors and watched the Utes win another football game! So far they are undefeated! How about those UTES?

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Here is the Spider Sorceress, the Skeletal Baseball Player, and the Rabbit?~ we're not so sure ~ what he is so,whatever!

Update on moving

Hello everyone~
Well, here is your update. We are in the middle of having an apprasial done on the house that we are buying and the house we live in. The lady that is renting the house we are buying is giving us many troubles, such as, not cleaning the house (which, we will have to replace the master bathroom carpet, OR the owner will!,) not working with the various agencies that we have to check the house out (appraiser, the engineer, the inspector, etc...) but today we recieved some good news, she has finally signed a lease for another house and so there is hope in her moving sometime in my lifetime!

The house is as beautiful inside as it is outside. (see previos post,) We are aiming on closing on the Rainbow Road house at the end of the month (yes, this month!) and then closing on the Canyon View house the first week of November since we have to wait for the payoff etc...

The family that is moving into our house have two little girls and are very anxious to get out of their rental. I don't blame them. They love the ward that we live in and so they made full offer on our asking price because we are the only house in the ward boundries for sale. There is also another family in the ward that wants the house in case the sale falls through with the Hornbacks.

Everyone is welcome for THANKSGIVING if you would like to spend time with us, of course, you have always been welcome whether in this house or the new house.

I will send an address when it is official!!

Snowbird "the other Happiest Place on Earth"

The Cliff Club where we stayed


Last weekend we went to Snowbird to spend some time with Keith, Lynette and their kids at their time share. We had so much fun! The weather was nice and crisp. Which for us was great since it was still in the high 80's and didn't really feel like fall. The air smelled wonderful what with the crisp, cool breeze blowing through the Pines and the Quakind Aspens shaking their yellow leaves. We were about a week late to see the various colors that the Aspens can change into, but it didn't matter to me because the yellow was a gorgeous golden color and that is my favorite anyway.


The Beautiful colors of Snowbird

The week that we went was the final week for the Oktober Fest. I remember us going as kids to the Oktober fest and being in awe of the musicians with their tuba's and their really neat costumes. I also remember looking at the various styles of Steins and wondering what they were used for. In high school I learned from Mr. Vreeken that they were used for drinking beer while they sang various wild renditions of beer drinking songs. This time there was still the musicians in their great costumes, Steins for sale and yes, there was beer to drink, (but not for me!) But there was also tons of craft booths. To keep all the kids happy there were activities to do that of course, cost money! For some reason I don't remember any of the craft booths when we went as a kid, but that is probably because as a kid you just don't care about that stuff, or maybe they just didn't have them then.


Tyler and Kyler in Leiderhosen and skirt

The kids were able to climb the climbing wall, go down the Alpine slide and look at some really cheap skis that some were able to talk their parents in to buying. Hey, for $10 or $15 in Kyler's case that isn't a bad deal. My skis cost way more than that when my parents bought them for me whene I was 19! The kids also went swimming in the pool at the Cliff Club and froze when they got out of the 80 degree pool. But since they were with their cousins, they didn't care.
It was really nice to have a break from the crazy every day activities and spend some quality time with cousins!

Kyler climbing the Climbing Wall


Matt riding down the Snowbird Alpine slide


Devin and Trina racing down to the bottom of the slide. Who do you think is winning?


Mckenna hauling down the slide. She is so light that it was going faster than any other rider we saw.


Devin on the Euro Bungy jumper (he and Terra did this courtesy of Devin's generous donation of his lunch money.)

Mckenna's spooky 8 year old Halloween birthday party

Today Mckenna celebrated her 8th Birthday. Her birthday was really last Wednesday, but we celebrated today so that her friends could come and have fun with her. Mckenna's party consisted of 2 crafts. One was painting pumkins and the other was making spooky haunted house pictures out of craft foam. We also played a tame version of "Fear Factor." Each girl had to feel the brains, guts, eyeballs or bones and then dare to eat them. Kyleigh, Mckenna's best friend knew what was going on because Mckenna had told her what we were doing and so she refused to eat the eyeballs because she didn't like grapes. "No, thankyou, I don't like grapes." needless, to say, the other girls loved grapes and so they eat the eyeballs! Mckenna loved her party and can't wait to see what the family present is! Shhhhhh........ don't tell, it's a beautiful, purple and pink Bike!


Mckenna and her friends at her Halloween Birthday party.


Mckenna blowing out her birthday candles



Kyleigh and Mckenna playing "heavy heavy hangover" Mckenna loved this gift. It turned out to be a Strawberry Shortcake Tea Set. (Kyleigh is getting on from Mckenna in December.)



Sorceress Mckenna and her friends playing wicked volleyball. (they are waiting for Kyler to actually servce the ball.)

Maybe our new house

2792 Canyon View
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This house is going to be ours if we sell our house before someone else makes a bid on it (kind of like the house in Orem that we never moved into,) I love this house. It is a 4 bedroom, sortof office and obviously a two story. The backyard is fabulous as you can tell and nothing can ever be built behind it because it is greenspace for the city. We had our offer accepted, our house is on the market and we are just waiting to go. The realitor believes that our house could sell within a week or two because of the way the market is here in our area. Las Vegas has totally driven the market to outrageous costs but because of it we are going to do well if we get anywhere close to our asking price.

What do you think?


main part of the back of 2792 Canyon View
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Right view of the backyard from the back deck
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Left view from the back porch of house on 2792 Canyon View
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Fun Family Pictures and the beauty of Fall

Our Family Photo taken at Kolob Reservoir Don't you love the fact that we included the dog?
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Our funny shot that Kyler wanted to take! Kyler bought a play gun at Swiss Days and wanted it in one of our pictures. So we did this on a spur of the moment!
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Look! What is that on I-15?

It's a St.George Musical Theater Billboard featuring, Joseph, Annie, Hasty Heart and South Pacific.
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HEY! Who is that little girl dressed as Annie?
Has anyone seen how adorable this child is? Does anyone know who she is?


"Annie" is none other than the famous Mckenna Marie Brower!
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Swiss Days

Mckenna and her friend Kyleigh waiting for the Swiss Day's Parade to start
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Today was the 2nd day of Swiss Days. This is an very fun community celebration that honors the Swiss Heritage that helped settled Santa Clara. Matt has a very busy schedule leading up to the weekend. The Saturday part of the weekend starts off with a 5K which the boys ran this year and Matt usually runs but it was so crazy for him this year that he didn't participate, not only is it busy for him but it is also very busy for the rest of the family since Devin plays his violin during the Saturday part with his Studio. Kyler climbs the greased pole and he and Mckenna rides all the rides, and dig for coins in the coin toss. Kyler got $10 for climbing part of the grease poll and found $3 in the coin toss. Mckenna found $8 in the coin toss and used it all at the games and the velcro jump. Every year, Matt gets to drive the City Council around on Golf Carts in the Swiss Day Parade, this year they decided to drive him around and let him toss out the candy. It was fun to see him be able to do that. I ran around taking kids here there and everywhere but had fun doing it (except for the time, when I couldn't find devin and he had 5 minutes before his Violin Performance started and he wasn't in his required clothes!) But all in all the day was great and ended with the most awesome fireworks that the city has ever done. (okay, it's not Disney, but it is still cool!)


Matt tossing candy to the kids lining the parade route. (notice Mckenna on the opposite side of the street- right corner of picture.)
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Devin playing the violin with Studio Allegro
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Mckenna looking for coins in the coin toss. $500 dollars worth of gold dollar and 50 cent pieces. She found $8!
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Mckenna and her best friend Kyleigh "velcro-ed" to the wall of the jumping slide. Fun huh?
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Howitzer here we come!

Austin and Kyler watching the beginning of the Lion's Rodeo Parade. Their turn in the parade is coming soon.

Today, Kyler was able to ride on a Howitzer Tank! Kyle Hoskin's (one of the baseball players, AND one of Kyler's best friends,) brother Jeff is a Captain in the National Guard and since the baseball team won the Championship in Lehi. Jeff decided that it would be fun for the boys to ride on the two tanks that they had in the Rodeo Parade. The boys had so much fun! The Parade started at 5 p.m. but the boys had to wait until the end of the parade before they could have their moment of glory. It was a 2 hour parade. It was so hot that one of the other moms bought the boys the only water left that the gas station had, and the boys had to keep standing up because the tank had soaked up so much of the heat. Devin was so jealous because he loves anything to do with the military, construction or just motorized vehicles in general! After the Parade, Kyler and Kyle headed to the Rodeo while I went to Devin's baseball game. All in all it was a great day filled with a lot of activity.


Kyler and his friends, Kyle Hoskins and Austin Ovard on the leading Tank!
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Update on Devin's arm

Some of you might be wondering what happened to Devin's arm during his tournament. So I thought that I would provide you with an update.
When we got to Lynette's house from Alpine everyone thought that he might have Tendonitis. Tendonitis is something that a lot of pitchers get when they have thrown too many curve balls or get lazy in their fundamentals.
We returned to Santa Clara on Monday, September 7th, and his arm still hurt, so, we gave him some ibuprofen as his pitching coach prescribed and decided to wait to see if his arm would stop hurting after a few days of icing it down. Well, it was still hurting on Thursday. So,Matt took Devin to the doctor on Friday, so we could find out for sure what it is and he sent us to the Orthopedic the next Monday. It is not Tendonitis, but he was lazy in throwing his Fast Ball and so he caused swelling to the Growth Plates in his elbow. The good news is that he can still pitch, but was advised not to throw curves, (his favorite,)until he is 14. The Orthopedic also told him to get his coach to get him back into the fundamental mode of throwing correctly. He has to stop pitching for 3 weeks and with games every Saturday he is really bummed about that, but the best news of all is....... The Growth Plate X-ray's told the doctor that Devin has a ton of room to grow and that he will be a lot bigger than he is now and could be as tall as Matt when he is done growing! So this frustrating experience for Devin, ended up helping him to know that he will not always be small like his mother! Darn, I like my little Dynamite the way he is. But now he feels better about himself being smaller than all of his friends.



Devin throwing his last warm-up pitch before his first game in Alpine. Little did we know that he was three Innings away from not pitching for awhile.
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Lehi Tourney

Our sweet Angels on our way to Devin and Kyler's Baseball Tourney
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This past weekend the boys were able to play in a Tournament in Lehi. Actually, neither one of them played in Lehi. Devin played 3 games in Alpine and the 2 games in Spanish Fork and Kyler played 6 games in Spanish Fork, but it was called the Lehi Tourney.

Devin was having a great time, until his 2nd game, 3rd inning, when his elbow produced a shooting pain every time he threw and he couldn't pitch or throw anymore. He ended up batting each of the 3 other games and a few scattered innings at 1st base were he had to granny throw the ball or it would hurt too much so he ended up having to sit on the bench most games. His team played an awesome game against one of the hardest teams and ended up winning in double overtime and so The Crush (devin's team,) made it to the Semi-finals and as is always the case with baseball, they ended up playing their arch nemesis Taylorsville. The Crush had no pitching staff left (specially, since they couldn't rotate Devin in,) and so they lost the game by the 10 run rule: You don't score and they score Ten runs YOU LOSE. That game was really hard for Devin to sit on the bench, but he did okay. I know that he was so frustrated with himself, but his coach had the patience to explain to Devin that it isn't worth pitching today to ruin his arm for tomorrow. That his physical health is more important in the future than with this one game that would be over in a matter of a few hours. I really appreciated his coach talking to him about that and being such a positive mentor to him and the other boys.


Devin Playing 2nd base during his Tourney games
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Listening to his coach's "atta boy" comments after winning 2 games
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Kyler had the best time of all! His team went in to the semi-championship with an undefeated record of 4-0. No other team had won that many and so the kids were so excited when they went into the Championship game. They ended up winning that game too and ended up with a 6-0 record. They played so smoothly together, they had great fun, hit fantastic and fielded the same. 2 kids hit 2 home runs a piece in 2 games!! There were hardly any errors and Kyler got to pitch a few innings too! It was so neat to see Kyler and Matt standing there winning these gold trophy's that were given. There has been so much craziness with some of the parents on Devin's old team that had trickled down into Kyler's team that is was so refreshing to have everyone working together and having fun and getting along that it to me is the most important thing that happened in the whole tourney.


Kyler and Zack playing ball. They go one to play in the championship with a 4-0 lead over all other teams in the tourney!
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Kyler running a victory lap around the infield bases after winning the 10 year old Tourney championship game!
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10 year old Snow Canyon Warriors Tourney Champs
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A Coach and his Player OR A Dad and his Son
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Lagoon ~ Day #5 of our summer vacation

Lagoon is always so much fun, but this year is was especially fun for Mckenna! 1st, she was able to take Terra and Tyler and her family with her on the rides, Wednesday. 2nd, she got to dance at the Davis Pavillion on Thursday in front of a lot of people with 2 dance teams. Plus, she came in 2nd at Drill Down out of 10 girls her age! Lagoon was a nice ending to our fun 4 day weekend trip. Everyone hopes that they can do it again soon.
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Devin, Kyler and Tyler having fun on the Space Rambler
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Mckenna's performance with Jumpstart
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Mckenna after her performance in the Davis Pavillion
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Thanks to Rich and Sharon for introducting us to Blog!

Thanks to my sister and her cute husband, we have found such an easy way to keep everyone informed on what is going on in our lives. The kids will get to "Star" in their own private family production. and I get to show off how cute the "Stars" are!

Enjoy

Snow Canyon Middle ~ Back To School Night for Devin

Today was a great day for Devin. I got to meet all of his teachers. He has some really neat classes. All his core classes are GATE leveled ( Gifted And Talented Education.) His Drama class presented a really neat Island inspired version of a tribal dance. It was all black boxed, flourescent lights, tribal clothing and a really authentic looking Witch Doctor. It was awesome. I really wanted to video tape it but it was so dark in the room and the glow in the dark stuff so bright that it just didn't show up on the camera. Bummer.

He is going to be learning so much in Tech (shop,) Science, History and Algebra that I am really jealous of the knowledge that he is going to have. I told him that he needs to come home and teach me the info too.