One of my Favorites!

I am Thankful for so many things, and food it right there at the top! I love Thanksgiving! It makes me giddy to think about, I think it's fun to help peel 30 pounds of potatoes, and then help to mash all 30 pounds the next day. I love that it takes hours, sometimes days to prepare this feast, and then in 30 minutes everyone is stuffed to the brim, and then it's leftovers...yummy! I love dessert, period! I am grateful for super cool friends who invite us into their home to enjoy the day with them. I am grateful for my family spread all over the world, even though I don't get to see them on holidays. Right now, I am just grateful.
These are All potatoes
Karen's first Turkey! A total success. Don't believe the package for cooking though. This one said 4-5 hours. This bad boy took 7 hours! Good thing she planned for that though.
Check this awesome picture out. I look like I'm sleeping, and nice light...Better luck next time.
Jade, Malia, and Abbsie
My camera has issues. A wicked game of Chess...can't you tell?
There were 35 people in all. We had enough food for about 80 though, no joke.

Monday Night Success Story

So lately we have tried to bring the scriptures to life for our girls, and they are just eating it up! We haven't always been super consistent with Family Home Evening, but this past month has been so much fun, and the girls look forward to Monday nights. We have been in Nephi and this past week we are recreated the discovery of the Liahona...Abbi is holding it between her legs. Reese is being Laman in the picture. It was pretty funny, we were explaining what murmuring was, and it was ALL to easy for them to pick up on that one! Then there is cute Brynny, just happy to be running around in her attire, being apart of everything.

Oh, the girls favorite part of acting out the stories is when we walk around the house, and then one of the girls will pause and say, "Okay Daddy, what do I say now?" And whatever he asks the girls to say they will act it out with all that they have got! Good times I tell ya!

Not Quite, but Close Enough

Reese turns 4 on Tuesday the 24th, but she had her party today and we had a blast. There is nothing quite like 9 little girls (well 13 with the older kids and the babies) squealing and laughing together. I love it! I love birthdays, and I love birthday parties!! Reese has been excited about her party for a week, and today she could hardly sit still because she was so anxious for her friends to come over. The girls played hot potato, musical chairs/(butterflies), a funny game of eating gummy worms with their hands behind their backs (because butterflies can't use their hands), and making candy necklaces. Then there is always cake, ice cream, and presents. There was no breathing room when it was time to open presents. No one wanted to miss a thing so they gradually crowded in more and more until all of their heads were touching to watch Reese open her presents. It was hilarious!

I asked Reese what she wanted for her birthday, and she told me candy, gum, and lip gloss. Her three favorite things in the world, lip gloss winning hands down. She wakes up in the morning and has a lip gloss in her hands within minutes most mornings. Reese is a riot most of the time, she has a great imagination, loves to sing, do ANYTHING with Abbi, and that curly hair bobbing around makes me smile. She is one cute little girl and I am so happy she gets to be apart of our family!

New Moon Girls Night

This picture is supposed to be at the bottom, but oh well. I'm really not rockin' pajama pants. We just didn't want to give up our blankets from being outside.

So this is what we get for buying tickets 2 months in advance and getting in line 6 1/2 hours early, sitting outside bundled up in blankets.

It actually wasn't bad at all. I had so much fun on Thursday! Andy was great and watched the girls and I peaced out at 1:00 for a girls day of shopping, going to lunch, waiting in lines, and seeing not only New Moon, but Twilight also. Score for us to have a girl in our group who knows the management at the theater!

We were so close to the doors, but not quite close enough to get us inside.

Halloween

I love Halloween. It's a great holiday because the girls get to have at least 3, sometimes 4 opportunities to get dressed up and get tons and tons of candy. Both Abbi and Reese had school parties, there was the ward trunk or treat,

( My camera struggles with the indoors at night, so sad),

and of coarse Halloween itself. Oh, and the gym.

Brynn was old enough to care this year, and she was so excited to run around with her sisters to trick-or-treat yelling "treat", and "thank"! Abbi couldn't decide whether to be a good witch or a bad one, so she settled for both. She was a bad witch, with the green face and all that fun stuff for school...no pictures of that of coarse. But then being a good witch won out for her because she was able to wear make-up, and the girl loves her some make-up. Reese was set on being a dog again, like last year, and I was completely fine with that. She was dang cute! Brynn will probably want to be that dog someday also. I had two costumes for Brynn, and I thought she made a funny rat, but I LOVED making her a princess, so that won in the end.

I thought she had some tooth problems for a second, but then realized I just caught an awesome shot of half eaten donut.

Getting her to stand still was, well impossible. So I got an action shot instead.

Reese loved getting her face painted, and Abby Judd did a really good job.

Reese!

These last two are my favorite pictures of the girls. Brynn just started cheesing it when I take pictures of her, funny girl.

Family pictures

  It's amazing how fast a tan can fade when you are not in the sun all day everyday.

  Melissa was so nice and took pictures of every family that went to the family reunion. Here are some pictures from our shoot. Thanks Melissa!

  This is my favorite of Reese and Andy. She had a temp of 103 that whole day, and the only person she would smile for was Andy.

Oh, the beach...

This is how she really felt that day.

 Soo sad!

This is for sure my favorite picture of us together! Look at that smokin' hot guy being devoured by large curly hair...or framed by hair I guess you could say. Ha ha. 

Cute Abbsie. Up close you can see her freckles, and I loves her cute freckles. 

Is Brynn laughing or crying, I don't remember, but getting her to look at the camera was pretty much impossible. I thought this might help...nope, guess not.

The Barron's. I love this family, what a lucky girls I am to be able to kick it with this family for a week on the beach!!

My Reese B

   The many faces of Reese! She a passionate kid, and she is constantly using her face and those eyebrows to describe in detail some story. These pictures are from our camp out in August. They were taken by Melissa, and I LOVE this mini photo shoot of just Reese! 

       She has SO much personality crammed in that tiny body...can you tell?

Preschool

Reese actually started preschool on September 1st, but I'm a slacker. It was pretty funny, I took the pictures of her on her first day, way more than Abbi would let me take of her, and then when I went to drop her off on her second day of preschool she stood by the door and waited there. I asked what she was waiting for and she looked at me like I was slow, and responded, "aren't  you going to take my picture?" Luckily I still had my camera with me so I snapped a quick shot of her. So here is Reese's 1st and 2nd day of preschool.    

Just because

Brynny is such a good helper. Who needs a sponge when you have 2 perfectly good hands.

Any excuse these two jokers have to get a swimsuit on, and they are there. I love it!

I had to capture this hair. Reese inherited my hair, the funny faces are all hers though. 

Big 1st Grader

Abbi has Mrs. Hall for 1st grade this year. She has been so excited about starting ALL day school since before kindergarten, and the time has finally arrived. I so did not expect the wave of emotions that gripped me for most of the day. I was on the brink of tears all day long! But she's the first one gone, ALL DAY LONG...I can only imagine how I'll be with the last. 

It's not always easy to get a picture of Abbs, so here are the precious few that I did get. She was not into smiling because she has a bandaid under her nose from a nasty                                                                                                                   scrap, and it hurt to smile.

When asked about her favorite things of the day she told me the lunch room is awesome, she got 3 recesses, and she made a new friend. Then she added, her words not mine, "It was my lucky underwear. I wore it today and I was brave and made a new friend." I had no idea that she had lucky underwear.( Goes to show how well I know my own kid.)