Snow DayS

Winter is here and it has come with a bang. Tuesday of last week we got about 10 inches of snow and then on Wednesday the winds went crazy and blew the snow all over the place. Thursday continued the craziness with treacherous roads and bitter cold.
The result: not 1, not 2 but 3 Snow Days!
Interestingly, the kids were as excited about not having school on Tuesday as they were about going back to school on Friday.All of the above pictures were actually taken on Monday- before the big blizzard- only this last one was taken after. The kids (esspecially Brayden) did still play outside A LOT durring the snow days but it was just to cold for me to want to go out and take pictures.

Thank goodness for play doh.

In an attempt to curb the encroaching boredom on day 2 at home, I mixed up some play doh which turned out to be a huge hit. Makenna played with it pretty much all day, and as she did she raved over and over about how this was so amazing that we could actually make our own play doh. I guess that means its been a while...

Tis the Season

We bought one of those gingerbread house kits at Costco. It was the greatest thing. I was so happy to open the box to a preassembled gingerbread house. All it needed was some candy slapped on it and that was the perfect project for the kids. They had a great time... and Scott was quite a helper too.Then onto tonight... A family down the street throws a great Christmas party every year with Santa and presents and everything. Its a great chance for us to get our Santa pictures for the year... so here they are.I love her expression in this picture. Brielle was a bit leery of Santa at first... but by the end of the night she was hugging him, following him around, calling his name and climbing on his lap like they were best friends. It was pretty cute.Now some of the older kids at the party were too cool to sit on Santa's lap. I am sure glad Brayden isnt there yet. I dread those days.The Family Shot. I can't believe how old we all are!

And for some comic relief, I am throwing in this picture (below). Isn't this a great hat! She LOVES it because its a Dora hat and it just cracks me up every time she wears it.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

So how was our Thanksgiving weekend you ask? Well it was very lovely. We relaxed and enjoyed our time. We ate good fun, spent time with good friends, and had great weather.

Here is the feast.
Our crew turned out a bit smaller than anticipated as the Thomas' had to go to Utah for a family situation. We missed them and hope all is well. We were joined by the Hammer family and Scott.
The food turned out fabulously. We had an abundance of pies- reflective of our abundance of blessings. We have so much too be thankful for and we know it. I tried a new pie this year- it was called Maple Pear Heaven- it had a crumble topping. It was a nice alternative to the traditional apple. It may even be worth repeating.And then on to Black Friday. Kevin was the brave soul who woke up at 4 am to get to Walmart. He got almost everything on our list, including this basketball hoop. He spent the rest of the day setting it up. It took hmmm lets just say several hours.
And then he was on to the Christmas lights. We asked to borrow our neighbors ladder and because he is a nice guy or maybe didn't trust us on the ladder, proceeded to put up almost all our lights for us. We are blessed with great neighbors.
So if you remember our controversy over the lights last year, you will appreciate that we have lights on the top peaks this year... and since it wasn't Kevin on the ladder it looks like this year we both got what we wanted.

And while Kevin was outside with his projects all day I worked on finishing this cake (click here) for his co workers parents anniversary.

And then onto Saturday... We had a BYU Utah rivalry party to watch the game. We invited 5 families- some hard core Utah fans and some die hard Cougar fans. It was a lot of fun. The kids had a great time too- there were 16 of them total- P.A.R.T.Y. Here's a few cute pictures.

Go Cougars!

And now onto the beginning of Christmas...
I bought the kids a new tree this year so they could have their own to decorate as in years past. They put it up all by themselves and I had a great time watching them having so much fun. It is full of personality, this tree, and I had no stress while they did it-- just knowing that now I could do my tree my way on my own-- I know that's a bad mother attitude but the two tree system seems to work best for this household...
Brielle has thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas decorations. She has broken several ornaments but her favorite "decoration" is this singing Santa.

And it should be noted this went on for at least a good ten minutes.

And one last thing.

And now you may wonder why a picture of meat would round off my post this evening. Well, this is what may happen to you if you move to Nebraska- I never suspected - no not ever that for our Sunday dinner we would eat something my husband had shot the day before- seriously is this my life?

Well this is venison (a.k.a. deer meat). Kevin went hunting with a co worker and well - like I said...when you move your family to Nebraska... what else can you expect. So seriously if I hadn't known what I was eating, I wouldn't have been able to tell that it was anything different. It was actually (dare I say it) pretty good...

If you want to hear the hunting story or see pictures of Kevin with a dead deer- you'll have to talk to him. This is all I could stomach... hahaha.

Speaking of Famous...

My brother Jeff wrote an article that was picked up by the freemen institute. You can check it out at the link below. Its front and center.

http://www.freemeninstitute.com/

Famous

For those of you who subscribe to "The Friend" Magazine, you may want to check out this months section "Our Creative Friends" to see some fabulous artwork by none other than our very own Brayden. We only had to wait about 15 months for it to show up but sure enough- we made it in! Brayden drew this in sacrament meeting on a lined piece of paper and I loved it so much that I told him he should redo it on a blank page and I would send it in to the Friend. We've been anxiously checking each month and finally it appeared. Here is a link in case you don't get the Friend at your house.

http://lds.org/churchmagazines/FR_2009_11_00___04271_000_000.pdf

Basketball Clip

Here's a fun clip from Brayden's game on Saturday. What a superstar!

Happy Halloween 2009

The festivities began this year with our wards annual "Trunk or Treat" This was a good time as usual. Brielle really got it figured out at this event (notice the two lollipops in her mouth at one). She was candy crazy.

For the trunk or treat she was Snow White- which I know makes no sense with her blond hair but she was not having anything to do with the chicken costume we planned on her wearing and she extremely enthused by the princess idea. However, later when I discovered that we had a ladybug costume that fit her, we coerced her into that so that she would be a little bit warmer for the actual Halloween.

And on to Pumpkin Carving... a fun family activity. Brayden was most grossed out by the pumpkin "guts", Makenna was surprisingly effective in cleaning her pumpkin mostly by herself and Brielle was just very intrigued by the whole process.

And then on the big day, we started out by attending the festivities at the library for some fun and games. Then in was off to our local Shadow Lake shopping center for trick or treating, hot chocolate and a hay ride.

And as the excitement of the day continued to build, we had to burn off a little energy.... Brielle was quite good at flapping her wings...

This was our initial crew of kids we went out with. Shortly thereafter our group grew to about 12 kids. As the night progressed each of them began dropping off until one persistent perseverer was left... any guesses on who that might be.

Brayden had very sore feet that night :)