snow bunny

jason and i took gracie for a long walk one night after we'd gotten a bunch of snow and about 3/4 of the way through her feet froze up and the baby rolled over on her back and put her feet in the air until we picked her up and packed her home so her feet could warm up!! Needless to say - she loves her snow boots!!

This is just a cute cute face!!

LEAF FIGHT....LEAF FIGHT....LEAF FIGHT

fall fun in boise requires at least one wicked leaf fight...i'm not sure who won, but it was great fun for both of them!!!

run doodle...run!

gracie and i had fun running the Barber to Boise 5k fun run a couple weekends ago. Jason came and took pictures and gracie was so excited to see him at the end of the bridge... i think she thought that was the end!

When we didn't stop at jason she wasn't sure that she wanted to keep running and fell a full leash length behind....thankfully the finish line isn't far ahead and there is a lady just out of the camera shot that is cheering, "come on puppy, you're doing so good... you can do it!"





gracie did great but really she liked the bananas and oranges at the finish line the best!!
Good Job Snicker Doodle!

Happy Birthday Bailey!!

I know we are seriously late in updating the blog but we had to share the big #11!!

bailey had this fantastic idea to have her & 3 of her friends go to the Haunted Woods cornfield for her birthday party...long story short, it didn't happen! Oh, we drove the 15 miles out to the haunted woods and we got in line to buy tickets.... but when the haunted woods characters came out of their staging area to head to their post in the woods... 4 girls went SCREAMING and running out to the parking lot, one of the girls tried to get in the wrong car, one tried to climb under the car...they all finally piled into the right car & quickly locked the door. I think the people parked next to us never laughed as hard!!!
After that we drove 20 miles in the opposite direction to go out to the Un-haunted corn maze where the girls ended up having the best time!!







The Maze was a good opportunity for me to buy my cornstalks for the season, which also made a splendid backdrop for bailey to show off her cute Roxy jacket from Grandma & Grandpa Kearns!!

Cujo Doodle...

the new favorite past time in the kearns house is seeing just how mad we can make the doodle... jason is the winner!! He discovered that gracie is NOT a fan of zerberts which of course means that he finds it necessary to wrestler with her and zerbert her belly whenever he can.
Ahhhh.... what a pretty smile!

5th grade....

It is hard for me to believe it was the 1st day of 5th grade...next year is middle school, YIKES! Since we couldn't take pictures this morning i made her pose for me tonight and just pretend she was getting ready to leave for school...however you'll notice the grass stain on the knee which i am sure wasn't there this morning!

I asked bailey last night if she was super excited for school to start & her answer was classic... "Yeah, i'm ready for it to start, just not tomorrow".... Apparently it dawned on her that she would have to be out of bed before 11am!

That reminds me of a funny story from one day this summer: jason was mowing the lawn about 10 o'clock one morning and kept looking in the windows checking for any signs of life (from bailey or gracie!) since bailey had a hair appointment at 11:30. Finally he went in about 10:30 to wake the little sleeping beauty (bailey...it was still way to early for the doodle to be out of bed) and in a beautifully crabby 10 year old voice she growled back to her dad "IS THAT YOU OUT THERE MOWING THE LAWN THIS EARLY"...

Anywho...enjoy bailey's first day of school!!

kearns camping....

We headed out this weekend with the Dunn's for our first camping trip of the summer and had a great time. We went to Owyhee Resevoir which we were told was the "Lake Powell" of our area. I don't know about that, but it was beautiful and offered fantastic water skiing! Of course i forgot the camera on the first day and missed some great shots of both jason & bailey skiing, the entire group - including the doodle swimming, and robbie dunn's Olympic Medal winning flip from the boat!!! I did however catch some fun shots on the boat this morning... a couple of them were so cute i just couldn't mix them in with all the others!! Gracie wore her life jacket like a champ and I of course couldn't pass on the opportunity to take her picture.

boating...

Last Friday we headed out boating with the Soper's and had a great time! Once bailey figured it out we couldn't get her out of the water!! She did great and we all had fun... Thanks Tricia & Billy!!!

Bailey finally figured out how to cross the wake...she just hasn't mastered what to do once she gets across.

doggy day care

i can't believe i almost forgot....
i had suggested gracie's doggy day care to a lady looking to board her dog for the 4th of july weekend. She researched the facility online and found gracie the model on their website!! Sadly, the picture doesn't make her look like the smartest dog around, but still cute!! Click on the link under our fave's off to the right to see our lil superstar!!

I added a picture below in case you forgot how cute she really is!!!

The winner of the Boise Kid Idol!!

I am so excited to share this...it has only taken 10 BILLION hours to get it to upload but, totally worth the wait! A few weekends ago my family participated in the annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life. It is a 24 hour relay designed to raise money for cancer awareness. We raised 85 thousand dollars so it was a great success!! In addition to the fund raising efforts there are all kinds of activities to participate in. This year, bailey and her friend tiffany competed in the Boise Kid Idol contest. With 4 prizes available - grand prize, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd..... I am pleased to share with you the 1st prize Boise Kid Idol winners.


I can asure you I was more nervous than she was....and never in a million years did i think they would make it through the entire song...but, they were awesome!!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTPl2xK2X4





















My family has participated in this event for years....somewhere around 12 years now & each year it brings back memories of family members lost to cancer, as well as a reminder to cherish the survivors. The track is lined with luminaries in honor of these loved ones. It is quite a site, i wish i would have thought to take a picture of the entire track all lit up. bailey and tiffany decorated all of our luminaries...aunts, grandmas, grandpas....and bailey made a special one for her mom celebrating 6 years in remission!!!!

We're baaack.....

I know... we are losers and fully aware of it. Jason left for his guys golf trip...watch out Tucson... which left some free time on my hands to figure out why our computer wouldn't upload pictures. Come to find out it was the operator... who knew??? Anywho... Jason missed one of bailey's dance performances Friday night (he did see her big end of the year hoorah a couple of weekends ago) but did (lucky for him) miss 52 performances Friday night. Don't get me wrong, bailey's 2 dances were SPECTACULAR but the other 50 performances, mainly solo's, many of which were very dramatic ballets performed by some VERY dramatic teenage girls (hard to imagine i know!) was a bit much!

I did try to get some video footage... (kim be jealous of my mad skills... and be ready to give me a lesson on my camera next time we see you guys....which by the way will hopefully be soooooon because we are all homesick for Utah!!!)

So... the video clip that i took Friday night is way to big to upload so i went ahead an attached a clip from a previous performance. It isn't as good as the clip from Friday night because there was another girl in the way, but look close and you'll see our kiddo. The second clip is the grand finale!

nature calls....

since jason and i haven't mastered the slopes yet, we thought snow shoeing might be a safer option! If only i'd had the camera when jason headed down the first big hill, Comical! Finally we've got some snow and it was beautiful at Bogus.

Someone thought they were all Ansel Adams....

Capturing "when nature calls nature"...

thankfully i had many layers on!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year...maybe even Happy Valentines Day by now!! I know, i'm a little slow!! Enjoy anyways!

Ron.... you and jason will be able to put those cut outs in my wall now!! jason got his drill!!

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Believing in the "magic" appears to pay off...

the Snicker Doodle is forever a believer! She has seriously mastered opening her gifts! Ripping the paper off is great fun!