Emma's Great and Eight!

Happy Birthday Emma! We sure love our sweet Emma.

Daddy and Emma with her cake. On her cake of course she wanted a horse on her cake......and not to mention a big, green shamrock.

We love Emma! Big 8!

Self Timer camera shot. Emma's Birthday Banner.


Emma's special birthday dinner. Yum!
Can't forget Momma Mindy's 29th birthday. Not sure why there is a "34" on the cake.

At Fort Irwin, Mindy was in charge of getting multiple book fairs up and running. She did a great job!

See the Sea World

We hit sea world one last time in February 2011. Things were pretty much the same at San Diego Sea World as they always were, although they did add a new dolphin/people diving/swinging show which kept the kids attention. I'm firmly in the "San Antonio Sea World is the best Sea World there is!" camp, but we still had fun in San Diego. Shamu did some jumpin' and splashin' and what not. Didn't kill anybody.

We did do the "I'm likely to get wet"-ride and weren't disappointed. The boys (max and dad) were on one side, while the girls (Kimbyl, Emma, Tessa) were on the other side. Guess which side got drenched? Let's put it this way, my camera and iphone emerged dry and unscathed. The girls were pretty shocked with an early shower however.

Kids liked the Shamu-mobile.

Anxious downstream looks abound.....

.....rightly so!

Tessa's face says it all.

Kids always love climbing on the rope, jungle gym thingy.

Sea World Feb 2011 - slideshows

Laters Sea World!

"She got 'em both done at the same time!"

Some say she was crazy for doing it, but Gma Larson wanted to say hello to a pair of new knees and say goodbye to pain with every step. She tolerated the procedure well and today is getting around essentially pain-free. Still working on the range of motion, but doing great overall.

She had a birthday while at the rehabilitation facility. We were happy to be in town to offer birthday wishes to "brave" Grandma Gail.

Ode to Frodo, Braces Pioneer and At-home-buddies

We really enjoyed our lil' pup Frodo Baggins Larson during our time at Fort Irwin. With the great Belgium Unknown looming, we decided to let Frodo stay with another loving family to make things a little easier with the transition. Our awesome neighbors, The Coonfield's, were happy to adopt Frodo into their family and reports are that he is doing great, although he keeps sneaking out looking for the fires of Mount Doom.

Emma was the first member of our family to have braces (except momma mindy). She had these put on after having a few teeth "wiggled out"--not pulled. The braces worked well and she already has them removed. Were just waiting for when she'll need round two of braces in a few years.

Ian and Tessa were real homebodies when the other kids went off to school. They got to hang out together with Mommy. It was fun to see how they became really good buddies. They continue to have a special realationship. Most of the time without bloodshed.

The Bright Lights of Temple Square

We went up to SLC to get illuminated at Temple Square. It was cold, but our hearts were warm and the kids were having fun. The lights were beautiful as expected. We also had some hot cocoa, to which the kids are addicted now. We decided to do the carriage ride as it'll be a while before we get back here, not unexpectedly the kids loved it, especially our "horse farmer-ette", Emma.

My brother Kirk helped construct the reflecting pool in front of the Temple.

Brrrrrr, where's the hot chocolate?!

Temple Square Fun - slideshow with music

Christmas in the desert--2010

Its funny that the first time we ever enjoyed a real live Christmas tree of our own was when we were living in the desert. We bought one in Barstow from a tree-peddler from Portland. Real symmetrical and scentsy-er than a car air freshener to boot. The kids had a lot of fun decorating it. The decorating sequence went something like this: 1. Mom or Dad applies ornament 2. Ian takes ornament down...repeated multiple times.

As we are wont to do, we made some gingerbread houses. We had the Morales Family join us this year. It was lotta fun.

Christmas 2010 - slideshows

Halloween at Irwin--2010

There were ghouls, creepies, princesses, indians and lizard monsters a-plenty on the streets of Fort Irwin for Halloween. The kids had a blast dressing up and going around trick or treating. Someone had rigged up a hay ride on a trailer behind his Jeep Wrangler which the kids had a lot of fun on. As usual waaay too much candy was received and consumed in mass quantities.

Cute!
Fairy Princess Tessa with her fierce-some pet dragon Ian.

If you thought Dragon-Ian was fierce-some, just check out our Branch President, Matt Jeppson. He scares the confessions right out of you.

Another year turns for Tessa and Max

Our Tessa Jo Jo Monkey Bird turned 4 years old in October. She is such a character. We love her so! We had a fun princess-themed birthday party. Seems repetitious to say about all of our kids, but its true, they're getting so big, so fast.

Maxwell Ivan turned 6 in October as well. He wanted a knight party. Instead of "pin the tail on the donkey", we did "rescue the princess"/"slay the dragon". The goal was to, instead of placing donkey tails, to use those little h'ordeuvres swords and place them on the poster, attempting to hit the dragon in a vital area. Unfortunately the princess got sliced a few times, but eventually was rescued!

Max is a really sweet kid, of course he has his days, but he is an awesome, independent kid. Love you Max!

All I want for Christmas is my...

This was not the face of a happy kid. Last year Ian woke up with a puffy face one Sunday morning. It turned out to be an abscessed front tooth. He had to have it pulled. We opted to have both front teeth removed for symmetry sake in the future. He tolerated the IV placement and conscious sedation as well as could be expected. We were very thankful for the fine Dentists (Brothers Adam Bushell and Eric Swenson) at Fort Irwin who took care of him.

Front teeth are gone!

Ian got the hang of the O2 mask.
He was even able to give a smile after all of this.
He was making sure that his lion had adequate O2.

more summer stuff

During primary a few months ago at Fort Irwin the Larson kids had the prayer, scripture, talk and song. It was fun to see all 4 of them in primary sitting up there in a row :)

With physical fitness on their minds the Girls dressed up in daddy's PT uniforms. Max displays his gun show and Tessa and Ian were having fun.

Max sports his cotton candy goatee. All the rage nowadays....

South Fork Canyon fun. Beautiful!