Thanksgiving (and of course Football)

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We enjoyed having family around for the holiday. We went to Kevin and Jenna's house for the Thanksgiving dinner. I spent all morning pretty much cooking. Don went to play football with his brothers and people in the ward. I guess they were all on the same team and lost every game. They had one person from the ward on their team and he asked to be switched to another team. HA HA! At least Don has a little bit of motivation to get into shape now. Here is a picture of the Thanksgiving pies we ate. Jenna made the one with the finger swipe in it. Carter decided to take a early taste. I am sure it was just to check to see if everything was ok. ;)
These next pictures are from the aftermath of the dinner.
I just love the contrast between Don and everyone else.
Here Kevin got down and played with the kids. They love uncle Kevin!

You know I don't know why Don put that on his head. HMMM.....maybe I shouldn't claim him.
This picture was taken after we got home. Don enjoyed cuddling Elena. She doesn't always let us anymore. She is way too old for that!
Now on to the BYU vs. Utah game pictures. These first pictures were originally taken to occupy the boys for a little while. They were getting restless and wanted attention so I grabbed them and took some shoots.


At first the game was slow and close, everyone was tense and concentrating on the game.
But as you can see here we ended up winning the game in the last minute and a half.

I just wish my camera took pictures fast. It takes forever to actually take it. I bet it is a 5 second delay. By that time all the good reactions are over with. Sigh. Thanks everyone for reading!

My Little 6 Year Old!

You know everyone always tells you how time goes by fast. That the time you have all the little ones at home is short. But when you are in that time it seems like forever. And to be honest it is hard! It is a great time, but for me having three at home was definitely hard. Now that Elena is in school and my youngest is 2 my life is easier. I feel like now I mourn the younger years of Elena. I love her so much it hurts to know she will not always be that little toddler.
Well enough of the sadness, it was Elena's birthday. And that is something to celebrate not mourn. We did have fun! We were just going to have a little party for her with family and close friends, but everyone was sick or busy. So we had just our family to celebrate with her. She was so excited for her birthday. She got to open her cards from her great grandma Valeri and from her grandma Hausen. We took her to the store and bought her presents from them. She got to pick what was for dinner and the kind of cake. I actually let her pretty much make it this time. Then we got a movie to watch which she picked out. Though Adelyn did help influence her. Dinner, movie, presents, cake, and phone calls was the order of the events for the party. So here are the pictures I ended up taking. Thank you everyone for the presents and the love you give my oldest child. I love her and am happy you all do too!

This is how the cake blowing went. We are singing the happy birthday song to her in this photo.
Now she is making her wish.
Here is the BIG Blow!
She didn't get all of them in the first blow.
This photo is her talking to family members who called and wished her a happy birthday. She really enjoyed this. It added so much to her feeling special so thank you again. :)
This is my little wonderful moment.

Pioneer Homestead

This first picture is of Hyrum with his p.b. and jelly sandwich. Here is the scoop on that picture. In the morning I always help Elena with her lunch. On this morning, Hyrum decided he wanted a little sandwich in a bag also. It was the cutest thing ever.He asked politely and handed me a bag for a sandwich. Then he took his sandwich everywhere with him. Unfortunately, he didn't make it to lunch time with it. :)This is the start of the Pioneer Homestead pictures. You might recognize the place from the haunted homestead. It is the same place. Here they are waiting in line to make candles.
Yea, the candles do look just a little lumpy. I am sure they all burn the same. On second thought, that theory will probably never be tested.


I love this picture. Janet doesn't like petting zoo because of the germs. She has learned all the bad reasons for this to be public health hazard. Yet here is Jaxon in with them and sucking his thumb! The thing you can't see is that there is no hand sanitizer. I didn't have any and neither did Janet. He He!)

Jaxon found a frog while investagating this barn. All the kids just had to see it. It was just too bad the a cockroach was next to the frog. Ugh! I don't think I will ever get used to that.
My little Adelyn recognized this particular place as the really adult haunted house. She wouldn't go in. She waited outside while we went in. Only after we had been in for about 5 minutes did she decide that nobody was going to get her and proceeded to come in.

It Was A BIG Day!

I guess I should call it a long day. The night before Don left to go with his brothers to another state for a football game. I didn't get the kids to bed till 10. I paid in cold hard misery the next day for that. I signed us up for the 5 mile walk for Healthy Hearts. All the kids whined and cried and the walk was forever long. But I really enjoyed the time BETWEEN the crying to be with Daniel and Janet. Daniel helped out a lot with the kids. =) This is my new bike trailer that also transforms into a jogging stroller. I really love it.
Hyrum wanted to ride in another stroller. Janet's brother was kind enough to let him. Jaxon looked so cute! Janet had did his hair differently and he just was adorable.

After the walk they had a lot of fun stuff to sample and do. The kids loved to play in the fountain and ride the ponies.
There are not pictures of Elena because she was not happy for pretty much the whole time at the walk and then she went to a birthday party for Brock. Because just Elena went to Brock's party I took the kids and picked up Ariana to get ice cream. This helped Adelyn feel better and it was good. I haven't had a ice cream cone in a long time.

I love the really ugly pictures of my kids almost as much as the good ones!
Doesn't she look so cute! I think she got the award in the end for being the messiest.
Ariana decided to get a big nice ice cream cone. But it turns out the flavor she picked was sugar free and gross. If you have ever tried sugar free ice cream you know how you have to be very picky about the brand.

Here was the solution to the bad ice cream cone. Too bad it is not as big!
And lastly here is my new bike. I have really enjoyed going on rides with the kids.

House Pictures #2

It is starting to take shape! That is the good news. The bad news (kind of) they ran out of the brick! The superintendent told us that the "big guys with ties" wanted the house to be done at the end of November. He knows we have it in our contract to close in January. So to drag this story on and on, it is not a big deal they ran out of brick. They can take their time and hopefully do a good job. Our inspector was VERY impressed with the workmanship. That gave me a tingling in my tummy.

This is Don's favorite room. The media room is going to be his domain. Let's just call it a hunch. I believe the study and the media room are definitely taken.

I am in the car too much with Hyrum and Adelyn. This is just the typical scenario (notice no shoes). He always takes them off in the car. This just adds more time to get somewhere. I need to buy him strapped shoes and not tie ones. AAAAH! But he is cute!