Thanksgiving

One pretty horse.  Jessie is loving this huge sketch pad Rachel found at DI.

Still working on that science experiment…This is where we discovered that hot glue would in fact not melt the plastic but would hold it onto the syringe…..maybe he should have done his experiment on different kinds of glue. :-)

Spencer got first place for the fastest typer in his class and second place in his grade.  Way to go!

Mowing buddies!

My parents were coming out for Thanksgiving and we so we decided to move all the buckets of old clothes out of the guest room and into the family room.  Plus there were so many bags on clothes just on the floor that half the tubs were empty.  So here’s the half organized mess.  Girls on the left, boys on the right from smallest to biggest.  What a project.

Rachel went though the Provo Temple to receive her endowment.  What a special night to be together.   If I remember correctly we had sick kids so we had to rush home after the session, but it was a great way to kick off my parents stay.

For FHE each month we try to memorize a scripture.  Neil is helping us this week.

A  night of gymnastics with my dad.  This is one of the kids favorites.

Pie night at Brent and Jill’s.  Mark took a horse he had cut out to give to Grandma.  He was happy.  Unfortunately we passed the sickness to Grandpa and he had to stay home at our house and sleep instead of come up for pie.

The kids had fun playing chef with Rachel in the basement and before we left we all got to sign Jill’s tablecloth.

Pie for breakfast is the BEST!

David and Lisa joined us on Thanksgiving too and we played a fair number of games together.

Emma and Ella both took their nap in Emma’s bed.  They were both asleep when we laid them down, but Emma was very surprised to find someone in her bed when she woke up.

Rachel wanted to start a new Thanksgiving tradition.  Silly socks.  It was a bit last minute but it all worked out and I’m  all ready for next year…only we will have to send Rachel’s to her on her mission.  Rachel also brought down these fun sunflowers for the table.

More pie.  Raspberry lime was a fun new flavor we tried – courtesy of Rachel….if you haven’t noticed Rachel loves holidays!

A little swing dancing….Mark is really getting into this!

It’s way past bedtime on Thanksgiving night and what greets Ken at the top of the stairs….Jessie got up way too early with Rachel and Becca to go hit the day-after-Thanksgiving sales.  Rachel ended up with two new geckos…..Sherlock and Watson. (hard to see in the picture but Jessie’s holding one)

More experimenting on hydraulic power.

Jessie got our first “gift of Christmas.”  Her own Christmas tree for her room.  She was VERY excited!

Neil all cozy with his favorite stuffed animals.

Cutting out some snowflakes for the ceiling in the dining room.

A first of December sing-a-long with Ken’s mom and Randy.  The little boys and Randy reverently played with a ball rolling it over each other while we sang.

Family Pics

It’s Mark’s most dreaded day….picture day.  But, even though he dislikes it he is a good sport.  We decided the cherry tree changing colors would be a fun background.  (After doing some more photography reading I want to redo these pictures moving the kids father away from the background to see if they’d be even better.)  So Neil and Spencer both needed a haircut, but we managed to spike the front ok. And Neil was the silliest….he just couldn’t stop making faces.  And Emma was the cutest, but also the wiggliest and the last to go so the light was fading…which made for a bit blurry pictures…but she’s so cute I kept them anyway.

Rachel and Becca made it down in time to make funny faces at the kids for the family picture.  And thank goodness for treats at the end!

So the good ones went on the wall and the family one got mailed out at Christmas.  And if you haven’t been over lately you can check the side of the blog for the kids profile picture.  :-)

Rachel also brought her gecko down for us to play with.  So fun.

And the night ended with an arm wrestling competition.  Becca beat everyone but Ken and me.  And I would have to say my big sister gene was proud that I didn’t loose.  :-)  It was a fun and silly night to be sure.

We took a few extra pictures the next day, just to be sure I got at least one of each kid that I could hang on the wall.  Poor Mark.

After the big kids left for school we made a tent and the little kids LOVED it.  We brought down their blankets so they could take pretend naps.  I love the staticy hair!

Neil loves to write words.  And he is getting so good at his letters.  He is one self motivated boy…just like Spencer was when he was learning to read.

Mark and Spencer and Ken went with our neighbor to cut more firewood.  There is a great story about a truck door getting locked and having to break the window and shimmy Spencer though to unlock it….I’ll try to get Ken to write that up for me.  Luckily it wasn’t our borrowed truck and the truck had extra insurance on it.

Our first tiny snow.  Can you sense the excitement?

And I had to put this one in cause I just love it!

You know what snow means….roasting marshmallows in the wood burning stove.  Jessie and Mark’s favorite afterschool snack.

And after they took pictures of each other eating they took a few extra so I could have some fun surprises when I downloaded the pictures off my camera.

Even Big Bertha enjoyed the first snow.  Thanks Jessie!

Abbie and I finished her butterfly….Yeah!  So fun to do these together.

Mark and Abbie had a late night with each other playing Racko.  Then Spencer, who just couldn’t fall asleep, came down while Mark was using the Racko cards to do a simple domino effect.  That was all Spencer needed to get very excited and he brought down more cards for Mark to add on to his domino trail.  Unfortunately, it couldn’t turn corners at all, and Mark even had to help it through the straight parts a bit because the cards were just to heavy.  But it was fun.  And it inspired much of Spencer’s Saturday play time.  We had real dominos tipping over a lot.

Saturday evening Rachel invited us up for hot chocolate at her place.  We also played some Harry Potter Uno with Neil in the living room and Yam Slam in the kitchen. ( I think this is pumpkin hot chocolate….but I can’t remember…oh to blog sooner.)

Oh and the evening ended with a game of twister.  I can’t even believe that fit in her living room.  Abbie on down were the players.

We were going to run some errands, but the car battery was dead, so we found something fun to do instead.  And since mom’s like to play to Isaac and I made a bunch of fun creations with these silly eyes.

Mark soliciting help for his science fair project.  Nothing would glue the syringes to the plastic pipe.  I think he tried every glue and tape we own.  I think hot glue was the final solution.

A couple games with Rachel before bed.

Emma is starting to love these little baby dolls.  She especially loves it when you play peek-a-boo with their hoods.

I came downstairs after putting Isaac down for his nap and Neil was playing with Emma covering them both up with his blanket and then pulling it off to play peek-a-boo.  (Are you sensing a theme here?)  Anyway, they were having a ball together.