7 Boys... and counting

We spent Thanksgiving with our good friends Scott and Erika Balyo in Cheyenne, WY. They have three little boys Isaac, Ian and Colby - all very similar ages to our three older boys. Also, they are expecting their fourth boy in late January! It's a boy circus when we get together.

Here are Andrew, Brendan, Isaac, Cameron holding Lucas, Colby. Ian is in front.

Our friends Herb and Cara Harjes came up from Denver and although they don't have any kids of their own yet, they dove right in to the romper room and all the boys enjoyed them so much!

Here's Herb doing a puzzle with Ian

Here's Cara reading a bedtime story to 6 of the 7 boys (Andrew got up when he saw me taking a picture and Lucas was sleeping)

Scott and Erika live way out in the country and Kenyon was excited to take a walk and find some deer out in the trees. Little did he know we were going to send four boys along with him! The landscape is beautiful!

We have a reader!!!

Brendan reached a major milestone in his reading and when he reached his goal, he not only got his long-awaited rollerblades, but we made a cake to celebrate! It was also a victory for me, as I never thought I'd be a homeschooling mom, and when I started it, it sent me to tears and I hated it. But now I can say that we've had a successful year so far and I think I'm starting to like it!!! My friends know that I am not a great cook (more like, I CAN cook, but just don't love to), well, I'm even less of a baker. This is why I buy all the birthday cakes in our family. It was late in the evening and Kenyon was still at one of his MBA classes when I decided to do this cake. After it came out of the oven, I didn't take the time to let it cool (I was wanting them in bed pretty badly!), and I tried to dump it out of the pan to a cooling rack (can't believe I even OWN a cooling rack), and yes - it came out into a million pieces! I stuffed it all back into the pan, slapped a bunch of frosting on it! I called it our "Messy Cake" and we ate it from the pan with spoons. By the way, the boys weren't nuts about the pink frosting (we're a very BOY family), but it was all I had on hand. Here are the pictures!

Mixing the batter with their aprons from Hunca Munca

Andrew licking the spatula

Eating the batter

The messy result

These are Brendan's glasses that he bought with his "Sweeney Bucks" (fake money system we have in our house). He says he looks like Arthur in them!

Elfin' good time

I have a Thanksgiving update to do, but I just got this link and wanted to share it - HILARIOUS!!!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9592855507

Anyone have any meat recipes???????

Well, I thought I'd start with a request to all those good cooks out there who have volumes and volumes of treasured recipes... send your meat recipes my way because this is what my EXTRA freezer looks like right now!!! We received the elk and deer meat back from the processer and now we're set to feed an army!!! Are you done laughing? ...because we still have an antelope to hunt, kill and process too!!! I have "Elkburger Helper" on the stove as I type!

Halloween has come and gone and although it is by far my least favorite holiday, the boys had fun trick or treating on Main Street here in Park City where the stores all give out candy.

Here they are in the yard before we left. So fun!

Here we are on Main Street. Now that's a shooter!!!

We're all loaded up to go home and get loaded up on CANDY. You can't see it, but Andrew was already digging in.

Lucas is growing like crazy. I know, I say that every time I post. I tell all my friends that it is not fair that our last baby has to grow so quickly. I LOVE the baby stage. It's hard to describe or put into appropriate words, but I took a picture of him nursing one morning this week and, well... how could you not love this????

He isn't rolling over from back to front yet, but he's very close. When Hunca Munca and Pop Pop came out this summer, they brought a treasure for Lucas from when Kenyon was a baby. It is a cute stuffed yellow sunshine that hangs on the wall and you can wind up to play music. I hung it next to his changing table and now when he gets changed, he grabs it right from the wall.


Here are a couple of other cute shots from this week:





Also, Kenyon has a week-long meeting in Pittsburgh this week, so he flew in early over the weekend to see his family, who lives only two hours away. Andrew was so upset when he heard that Daddy was going to get to see Hunca and Pop Pop and he could not go with! So, he had a plan.





But when that didn't work, he was not happy (understatement). This video is for my friend Karen Zeigler who, after reading my last post said, "Life always looks so perfect at the Sweeney house." Karen, picture this - about eight times a day.

Cameron chose to play basketball this season and is having a blast on his team "The Kings". He is a super passer this year and assists more than he shoots. Here he is helping his team score.

KA-CHOW!!! Andrew is 3!!

Well, we had quite a birthday this weekend when Andrew turned three! Aunt Louie came out from Atlanta for the weekend to help us celebrate. After all the months of Andrew saying he wanted a "Ka-Chow Birthday" (Lightning McQueen's saying from the "Cars" movie) - boy did he ever get one! Here are a few highlights.

Here's Andrew opening his first present... a nerf dart gun from Aunt Amy. Oh, we've had loads of fun (and crying) with this gun!

He got "Mack" from Cars and he was thrilled!

Thomas made an appearance too. He's wearing his new Thomas hat from Hunca Munca and Pop Pop Joe. It came with matching overalls - and he's holding a Thomas train case from Mom and Dad.

Here's a video of the birthday boy blowing out his candles

Here are a couple of other shots from the weekend. Aunt Louie with my big 4 month old, who at his last check up measured up to the size of an average 7 month old! Also, Cameron received some new frog stickers from Aunt Louie and decided to decorate his baby brother.

To Disneyland we went!!!!

A lot has happened since my last post. We took a trip down to the hunting camp that Kenyon's friend Al graciously allows him to use every year and the boys got to go fishing with real minnows before we left for home. Here are a couple cute shots from that time:

Notice the minnow in Andrew's hands, he just wanted to hold the fishies!

The next day my dad "Poppy Bob" came to meet his newest grandson and we had beautiful weather and after a few minor fix-it projects that always seem to be waiting for his visits, we took some walks, went to the boys' soccer games and out to dinner. Here are a couple highlights from his visit:

This was on our walk. Every year Park City holds a scarecrow decorating contest, so all the scarecrows were up and we put one "Bob" next to another!

Lucas gets his first good look at his Poppy Bob.

He's not sure of what he thinks of this big hat on his head.

Where did you come from???

After my dad left, we got geared up for our long-awaited trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. I wasn't so sure about taking four YOUNG boys to Disney, but Kenyon was insistent that we go while it is still magical for the older boys and it turned out to be a great trip. We had lots of fun and the little ones were able to go on most of the rides with us, so we made lots of memories and had a great time overall. Here are a few highlights:

Here we are on day one. We just got off Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - we have some crazy drivers in our family!!!

We ran into Goofy in Disney's California Adventure Park.

Waiting for the 3-D film based on the movie "A Bug's Life." It was hilarious to watch the boys take off their glasses and put them back on during the film to try to figure out what was happening. Cameron actually got up from his seat to try to grab the 3-D objects in front of us!

Here are Andrew and Lucas waiting for their big brothers!

Lightning McQueen and Mater were hanging out in California Adventure just waiting for kids to come and give them a good polishing! Anyone who knows our Andrew well, knows that he is OBSESSED with Lightning McQueen and calls him "KA-Chow" (what McQueen says in the movie). This was definitely the highlight of the trip for Drew and he hung out with his automobile buddies as much as he possibly could.

Rufus giving Ka-Chow a nice rub down. I could barely get him to look away for a picture!

Disneyland has a Star Wars exhibit where a Jedi picks kids from the audience to come up and be trained with light sabers and at the end, each child gets to fight Darth Vader. Cameron got picked and did a great job. He said he wasn't scared at all!

Here's our little squirt with his Jedi robe on.

He was so brave!

The force is strong with this little youngling!

Andrew was SCREAMING in the stroller when Sulley walked up. He wouldn't even look at him and was really the only character that he was afraid of during the entire trip.

On our last night, we had tickets to eat at Goofy's Kitchen and had a delicious meal while many of the Disney characters came over to hang out with the kids. It was a lot of fun - the boys loved it!