our princess is in another castle

mario and luigi.

yoshi.

toad.

lower right: with princess peach and bowser.

thank you so much-a for playing my game!

rise and shout

okay, first of all, i just want to say that i was addressed as "ma'am" twice while we were on byu campus.

twice!! 

(and one of those times, my kids weren't even around.)

um, does this look like the face of a "ma'am" to you?

OR does it *more likely* look like a gal who is much too young and hip and eating ice cream like a boss (ps, that was the best raspberry milkshake i've ever, ever had) to be a "ma'am?"

on the other hand, i did learn how to type on an *actual typewriter* in the seventh grade...

sigh.

am i dwelling on this too much? because bryan thinks i may be dwelling on this too much.

anyhoo, speaking of bryan, here's his selfie in front of a kick-butt poster for cindy's alumni lecture (which was amazing and totally downloadable from youtube, bytheway):

and this is a little something from the mckay building in case you wanted to see for yourself what it looks like chasing caleb around all day:

paying our respects to mr. clyde and his building full of engineers:

and before our lovely luncheon honoring all eleven outstanding alumni of the year: 

we were so impressed with the outstanding alumni and the great things they are doing in their communities and beyond. and super proud to be related to one of them. go cindy!

go cougars!

the wheelers are home from an exciting there and back again trip to BYU in provo, utah for homecoming week.

we went down to celebrate and honor cindy (bryan's sister), the david o. mckay school of education's alumni of the year. 

we had a blast! the kids were great, the weather was great, the events were great, and the ice cream at the creamery on ninth is still phenomenal. 

more to come. but first: laundry.

deja vu

ja vu. ja vu.

and are those not just the juiciest baby thighs in the history of all juicy baby thighs or what? nom nom nom.

up on cripple creek

summer and afton up near cherry creek falls last sunday afternoon.

the fanciest girls in the creek.

not pictured here: caleb, who also had the time of his life and came home a filthy beast.

mom! look!

we made a doll out of jewelry!

bed head

mama edition.

cheetah run

last thursday, the wheeler girls participated once again in their school's largest fundraiser.

here are this year's unofficial stats:
--afton ran seven laps (1.75 miles)
--summer ran nine laps (2.25 miles)

initially, summer's plan was to run sixteen laps (four miles) in thirty minutes. i tried to talk her out of it mathematically, but she wouldn't budge. the night before the cheetah run, however, bryan and i were (phew!) able to coax her down to a more manageable goal of ten laps.

afton's like her mama and doesn't want to box herself in by setting "goals." she just ran until she was done. beast mode.

there is *some* controversy over whether she ran six or seven laps, but you know, when in doubt, say seven.

introducing

elias francisco young

welcomed to the world friday, october 3, 2014

by anna, owen, and big brother, danton

number five in a string of grandbaby boys.

(danton, caleb, luke, dallin, and elias)

schokoladenessen

for the past several weeks, in preparation for our church's general conference, the wheelers have been spending family home evening together learning about the prophet, his counselors, and the twelve apostles. 

starting with president monson, we did a brief life sketch and then a fun activity from the history, experiences, culture, or hobbies of each general authority (i.e, made paper boats for monson, performed physics experiments for eyring, watercolor painting for packer...fifteen easy monday nights for ya'lls right there! plus, if your children have longer attention spans than mine, you can also add in a short synopsis of each apostle's last conference talk.) our kids have loved it!

here is caleb playing a german children's game, schokoladenessen, like a boss on the night we learned about president uchtdorf:

mmm...schokolade...

pull up to stand

please don't start walking.

please, please, please, please, please....