Spokane Thanksgiving Trip Part 1

 The week before Thanksgiving we loaded up our van and took off on a 10 day trip to Washington! We were invited to Chet & Mindys new house and so was all of Chad's family. 4 of the 7 siblings were there and their families.

Friday night we took off and stayed the night in Idaho at my parents house

Saturday we spent the day in Twin Falls with some great friends the Sorensons & Browns and took care of some rental business.

Sunday we drove! And drove....and drove....and drove!!!! I was really worried about a lot of the ride but the kids did great and Brielle especially did great. I don't want to do the drive again any time soon, but it wasn't too bad! We arrived in Spokane around 5pm and the cousins went crazy!

 Monday we went into Cour'delaine for a Santa cruise! It was so fun! W hopped on a big pontoon and headed across the river to the North Pole. On the ride over the kids could write a letter to santa and give it to an elf to deliver to Santa.

 Along the way there were tons of lights to look at!

 When we reached the north pole Santa read the names of all the kids on the nice list! The look on my kids faces when their names were read was priceless and worth every penny spent on the ride!

 We were afraid the weather would be awful and get rained out but we went anyway and it was perfect! It started to sprinkle just as we left.

Afterward we walked around a cute mall with all the cousins. Here they are!
 On Tuesday we received some surprise dental work from Chad's brother. His office is really nice and Mindy insisted that we both head in to get our teeth cleaned. Chad got a crown and some cavities filled. We also did some shopping since we forgot carters bag at home with a weeks worth of clothes in it!

 Brielle liked looking at their cat from inside the house.

 TUESDAY night we went to a fun trampoline place while we waited for G&G Hymas and Chelsey and her family to arrive.

 The kids were in heaven and we got some energy out!

 Even Brielle had a good time!

 When 4 more cousins where there, there was not a quiet spot in the house! It was pure pandemonium and it was fun...for a little bit! Then we tackled them and put them in bed.

Stay tuned for part 2! We did so much it was hard to fit it all in one post!

Chad's 32nd

 Wow blurry pictures! But these were the only ones I captured for the whole day! He actually got called into work a few hours after breakfast so we had doughnuts and some fruit and opened presents. He got a candle in his doughnut since there was no time for cake.

 I was babysitting for a friend the day of his birthday too so we had a few extra kids to help us celebrate!

He was gone the whole day until about 9 pm. He brought us home some take out food and we watched the BSU game to finish off the night. Luckily we were able to have cake and do a little more celebrating on sunday. Sure glad for this man in my life and all his hard work! Love you Chad!

11 months!

 This little smiley girl is almost a year old! She is so happy and loves to crawl around and recently started pulling herself up to standing.

 She loves all and any attention she can get!

AND 2 new teeth have popped through and she is loving trying some new food with her new teeth! She loves real food more than baby food! She is growing and changing so much and learning so much too. She is well on her way to not being a baby anymore! But I'm hanging on to it as much as possible!

In other news...Brielle is going to be a big sister! She will have a new sibling that is 18 months apart from her. We are all hoping for a boy!

Haircuts

 I really didn't want to do it but Mollies hair needed a cut really bad! A week before this she got a wad of gum in her hair. I tried to be patient but ended up grabbing the scisors and cutting a chunk of hair off. So it was time. AND she has NEVER EVER had a hair cut, not even a trim.

 She was pretty nervous about it as you can see

 I just had the lady trim about 4 inches off and it is so much healthier and easier to comb. Here's the finished product. So cute!

 Carter also had a hair cut and his was a different story as you can see....It was AWFUL!!! I ended up taking him back and the manager fixed it for free. It looks much better now!

The best parts of Halloween

 Every year I feel like I get a bit more frustrated with Halloween. There's so many parties to attend and pressure to trick or treat like 10 times! Whatever happened to only getting candy halloween night?! And it just always seems so busy! But my favorite parts are the memories I get to make with my kids.

 Of course we went to a pumpkin patch and let the kids pick their pumpkins. This little pumpkin was still in my belly last year when we visited the pumpkin patch!

 As always, me and the kids scoop the guts out and Chad is the master artist.

 Heres my little pumpkins with their pumpkins
 And the final products! A transformer, Olaf, and a 2 toothed smiley pumpkin just like Brielle!

 Mollie had her Joy School party too which I always enjoy. She sure makes a cute little witch (for the second year in a row!)

 The kids having story time.

 And making a witches brew.

 Mollie and Braelyn...both witches and best buddies.

 On Halloween night we got to meet up with cousins for trick or treating! It was so fun to go with a big group of people we love!

 And here is Uncle Chuck dressed up as cousin Eddy....

 My little trick or treaters were so excited and did great walking the neighborhoods.

 The highlight of the night was getting a soda, a king size candy bar and one house even had dollar bills mixed in with their bowl of candy!

 And although Brielle didn't get any candy, she was a little trooper and was happy the whole time despite forgetting to feed her dinner! (whoops!)

And what was this boy most excite about? The apple he got! He grabbed it right away and started eating it before any candy!

 And you know it was a good night when the evening ends looking like this!
Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

Cornbellys!

One of my favorite places we have discovered since moving to Utah is Cornbellys in the fall! Its basically a giant playland for kids. This year I was in charge of booking our preschool group for the day. I talked Chad into going and we gathered the 20+ kids and 14 adults who were in our group and took off to have fun! (Carter thought that waiting for everyone to show up was torture!

I talked Chad into working half a day and coming to play with us! He got picked to be a part of the pig races.

And the favorite of the day...the corn beach! Even Brielle and her little buddie Evie got to play!

And she thought it was wonderful!

Chad had as much fun as the kids did burrying them.

I think my kids could have played on this slide all day. Carter is in the middle in the black.

Mol and her little buddies loved this "hamster wheel"

This is Sheridan with her 2 girls and me with mine! Sure glad we found these ladies to be friends with!

The weather was perfect and we had such a fun wonderful day.

And we tried to capture a picture in the giant rocking chair but everyone was ready to go home so this is the best we could get.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE CORNBELLYS! Can't wait until next year!

Turning the hearts

I've caught the fire! For geneology that is. My dad's side has always been non existent because we never knew my dad's dad and he died before we ever knew much about his past. I attended an enrichment on how to do family history and I learned how to search out my ancestors through ancestry.com and I was able to trace my dad's generation back 4 lines. It was so exciting and we now have so much temple work to do!

My patriarchal blessing says something about being diligent in family history work and its so neat to see those promises and blessings come to pass. I hope I can continue finding names and getting my family's work complete!