Our little nut!

So if any of you know Skylar she is a nut! She is so goofy and has so much personality it's rediculous! She is a busy body too and has been a climber since she could walk before she turned one. Just to give you a glimpse at how silly this kid is here is a pic of her on demand fishy face and a video of her climbing into her bed. We love this kid so much. Seriously, what a nut! Sorry the video is blurry! It's from my sister's phone! But you get the gist!

Long time, I know!

Wow! Where to begin! I know I should totally be reprimanded with how often I don't update my blog, but give me a break. I don't sit at the computer very often and when I do I'm limited on the amount of time I do sit at it. So now to update you all as to what's been going on around the Stapley home. Well for starters I'm glad it's practically Spring now. I just wish mother nature would make up her mind about whether or not it should be warm or sike everyone out and be cold still. I feel like I have to keep pulling out the winter clothes when I am aching to put them completely away. I am glad, though Brad may not be, that there will be no more snowmobile trips this season. Don't get me wrong, I love to go when we go, but as often as Brad likes to go, I'm burned out! We didn't really do much for spring break this year cause Brad and I did our share of vacations now for the next who knows how long with Hawaii and all. So the kids and I hung out here in the rain. Yes, that's right, the whole time. Not so much fun when I have four bored kids who would have rather been outside.
My brothers turned 12 in the middle of March and towards the end of March were ordained as Deacons. That was pretty neat. It definitely makes me feel old even though I'm not. Easter was fun! Some of guys in Brad's family went to Priesthood Sat. evening and the girls went to a cute movie. We decided to go see a chick flick "The Last Song" since those are usually the movies we have to see on our own anyways, if you know what I mean girls! We had a good time cleaning house at the Roberts Ladies' Night. Who says the whole group couldn't win something? Yes that's right, we all go our names drawn! What are the chances? Easter Sunday was full of hunts, food, listening to conference, and more food. It was lots of fun! I think the girls especially enjoyed what the Easter bunny brought.
As you can see, not too much has happened but in a way, we seem to stay busy! Thanks so much for not giving up on me!
(pictures to come)

Hawaii, baby!

So I know I have been out of touch and the time gets longer and longer until I finally post, but I am sorry. I need to make this a little bit bigger priority. But I just thought I'd let you all know that Brad and I just got back from Hawaii! We went there with my sister Brianna and her husband Owen. We had so much fun! Yes we missed the kids but it was so nice not to have to worry about what to do with them and keeping them entertained the whole time. Instead we enjoyed the 10 days with just us. Thank you so much Erika, Mom and Dad (Stapley), Shanell, and my friend Shay. You guys were so awesome to step in and help take care of the girls while we were gone. Thank you, thank you!

To begin our adventure, we caught a plane on Jan. 20th from St. George to SLC @ 10am and met up with Brianna and Owen to fly the remainder of the route straight to Oahu. We stayed in Waikiki for the first 3 days. During those days we visited the North end of the island where we passed right by the Dole Pineapple plantation (which btw has the most tasty Pineapple sherbet ever!), we briefly visited the temple because it's been under complete rennovation and will continue to be until the summer sometime, then continued on to the PCC. We decided to stay for the luau and show and it was worth staying the evening for. It's one of those places you have to go atleast once but then you're good! We also took the opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor and shop at the famous Aloha Stadium Swap Meet.



Then the other part of our adventure began. We flew to Maui on the 23rd and as far as we're concerned, we were a whole lot more impressed by the beauty of this island over Oahu. Between Jan-Mar is Whale season and the whales are so common during this time that was saw them everywhere we went right off the coast. Maui was more like what you envision Hawaii to be, with just enough conveniences yet the right amount of remoteness. We stayed in a town called Lahaina on the west side of Maui. We rented a car and cute two room condo for a week. It was nice to not be too far away from places to eat. If any of you know Brad, no matter where we go, our vacations always revolve around food, so this town was perfect! One of the first things we did was sign up with a bike tour that takes you to the top of the volcano(dormant) Haleakala (means "house of the sun" because they say it looks like to sun comes right out of the volcano) at 4am to watch the sun rise then we hopped on bikes and coasted down the mountain for about 24 miles.
It was beautiful but freezing at the top.
One day we drove on the famous road to Hana. This is a small, winding road that takes you along the back side of Haleakala where there is lush Rainforest. We were in hopes to see some large waterfalls, but the rainy season over there (which was then) is sort of in a drought, but who knew! we did see a couple of waterfalls, at some super good, warm banana bread in a small village, and hiked over lava tubes.



Another day we went on a snorkel boat which ended up being a whale and dolphin watch as well. We saw whales all over the place and large pods of dolphins. The captain sailed us out to the island of Lana'i to snorkel in a few spots.
>

It was a long boat ride but it was fun. Later we found a hike called the swinging bridges that takes you to a waterfall and a natural pool. That was really neat.


The rest of our time there we pretty much snorkeled, ate, shopped, chilled, and drove around.

The final day we went snorkeling and I finally got to see a turtle up close. I was literally within inches. Loved it!! We had so much fun!

Family pics

So we decided to finally get some long awaited family pictures taken. What a challenge that is to get a family of girls ready. I asked my sister-in-law if she wouldn't mind and she said that she'd be happy to. We ended up getting some pretty cute pics after all the drama and miss-haps! Thanks again so much Lisa for taking the time and being so accomadating. I know it's not easy to get that many little ones to cooperate but it worked out. Some of the pics she took that I love are posted right here. I had a little fun myself doing some photoshoppin'.

Halloween (and the rest in between)

I know I am a total slacker but I guess if I say I'm only making monthly posts than I'm not doing too bad! I know that's a lame excuse but I'll try to do better. So here goes for the Halloween week of events. It all started with Brinly's school carnival the week before Halloween. Brinly had a fun little first grade music performance and I had to sit at and monitor a booth for four hours! yeah!!!
Brad and I were invited to a fun Halloween party by some friends of ours. We dressed up as Padame and Anikan Skywalker from the recent Star Wars Trilogy. This is the first year that Brad has dressed up in the ten years we've known each other. I think he had fun, too! Then the Monday before "H" Brad's parents invited the family over for a spooky surprise dinner party.

We had a ward trunk-or-treat on Tuesday, dance parties on Tues & Thurs, & of course school parties on Friday. We did manage to get our pumpkins carved on Thursday Night just in time for Halloween Night.Brinly's teacher Mrs. Shober was a toothfairy. She has a little boy friend named Chase who dressed up as Luke Skywalker and I just had to take a picture of Luke and Princess Laia. Brinly also had a picture with one of her friends in her class named Olivia the "cowgirl". Here are Brooklin and Madison at their school with their teacher Mrs. Keri. The girls had a little performance and parade but Madi got a little shy.
Finally Halloween Night came and the girls got to go trick or treating. Wow by then they were almost Halloweened out! My sister and her family came into town and we hung with them all night. We had fun but I am glad it's over until next year, right!
And here is my silly sister that wanted to pose for the camera more than the kids would. Hahaha! This is my sister Erika, who lives with us. She was dressing up to co to work. Isn't she cute. She wanted to be a fairy just like all of her nieces! (:<

What's been happenin'

So to start out this month we celebrated our twins' birthday! (And we can't forget Aunt Chantel's birthday either!) Yes that's right, Brooklin and Madison are four! I know! It's a little hard to believe myself. We had a fun party for them. It was their first official friend party and I don't know what I was thinking. We rented a bouncehouse for the back and just let a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds run around in our backyard. It wasn't too bad until I realized we had almost 25 of them in our back yard. Great fun! That's all I have to say. Then of course we had to do a little family party as well so we decided to take the girls to Pirate Island Pizza. We had never been there and what an experience it turned out to be. If you haven't been there it's definitely worth going there atleast once even if it's just for the atmosphere.

For Labor Day, my sister Brianna and her husband Owen invited us to come spend the weekend at Lake Powell. They live there so it makes it convenient to stay at their place and not have to camp with all of our junk. So we took Brad's parents boat out and had a blast (thanks btw, Mom and Dad!) We were a little hesitant at first because of the weather but it all worked out.

The first day we all drove out to the Grand Canyon South Rim to get the "view". If you haven't been there it is breathtaking, but I feel like I need to hike down to the bottom after we had driven all the way down there for just the view then to turn around and drive all the way home again. The expereince though, right? It ended up being pretty chilly and stormy so we were glad we didn't go onto the lake. The next two days we practically lived on the lake and had a ball.
Thanks Owen and Brianna for letting us bombard your house!

Brooklin and Madison had their first day of preschool on September 9th and loved it. They have a ball with Mrs. Keri!


The highlight for the month though will have to be just this last weekend when we had the opportunity to go to California, go to Disneyland, and lounge in the sweetest beach house ever! Brad's parents treated the family to a fun vacation in a beach house in Oceanside. We were literally a rock skipping distance away from the ocean and the beach. We took the kids to Dineyland with Devan and Shanell on the day that the rest of the family were heading down. Then we spent the weekend at the beach. It was so nice to to have to worry about where to be by when. Thanks Mom and Dad for the awesome weekend!