Must Be Santa

Haysie's kindergarten had a little Christmas program. He was so excited for us to all come to his schoool and watch him. And he did such a good job! Doesn't this kind of thing always make you smile? I think I'll be a little sad when the boys are too big for construction paper Santa hats and class programs. Although, sometimes that day seems a very, very, very long time away:)

Nine Years!

Happy Anniversary, Honey. I love you forever.

A Little Backwards, Just Like Me

Ok Julie, I stole this picture from your blog, so thank you. No, this picture is not from Halloween, as the Clone Trooper costume may suggest, it is from Thanksgiving. As I was adding the post about cutting our Christmas tree, I realized that I had skipped right over Thanksgiving. Skipping over Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas is something I don't approve of in general. Don't you hate it when stores start the Christmas season before we've even thought about Thanksgiving? So this is a lame attempt to make up for breaking my own rule.

We had Thanksgiving with Tyler's family on Friday. For the actual day of Thanksgiving, we met Angie and Colby for DINNER OUT. You wouldn't think DINNER OUT on Thanksgiving would be THAT big of a deal. Colby said he drove eight hours just thinking about some good Chinese, so the hunt was on. Let me just say that there are very few places open on Thanksgiving, and this includes Chinese buffets. So we decided to hit good old Chuck-A-Rama for our Thanksgiving dinner. (Plus, LeeAnn gave us coupons ) To our great surprise, Chuck-A-Rama is apparently an extremely popular spot for Thanksgiving. What???? When we arrived, the LINE TO EAT THANKSGIVING DINNER AT CHUCK-A-RAMA WAS OUT THE DOOR AND INTO THE PARKING LOT. Seriously. I repeat: What???? So we went to the Village Inn next door, where there was no line at all and had French Toast. The kids were thrilled.

The next day we celebrated with the rest of the family at Norm and LeeAnn's church, where we had a delicious, normal Thanksgiving dinner with no French Toast. The kids all put the stage to good use and preformed a talent show. What a blessed mother I am to have such talented kids. Hayes did some sort of very serious dance while Ren provided a beat box (is that right?) and Dax dressed up in his Clone Trooper costume and shot a nerf gun at Tyler. I mean the talent was astounding. Then Dax surprised us and sang a version of the Star wars march song in the microphone which can only be appreciated if actually seen and heard. I think I laughed until I cried.

We had such a great time, it makes me realize the thing for which I am the most thankful: My Family. How great it is to have people to love and who love you.

Oh Christmas Tree

Jaci, Callan, Camille, Broc, Emily, Addie, Dax, Grandpa Wiley, Hayes and Austin (Grandma Jo and the twins are sitting in the truck)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving Camille invited us on their annual trip to Fish Lake to cut Christmas trees. What this picture does not show is the hurricane-force wind whipping around, thus the many, many, many layers. The wind made it pretty dang cold, but it did not keep us from our goal. We came home with some beautiful trees and had a lot of fun in the process. And some extra credit goes to Callan, who because Tyler had to work, took really good care of me and the boys. I'm sure the back seat of his pretty truck has never seen so many goobery crumbs, not to mention a very nice jacket we managed to soak in chocolate milk. He, Broc and Austin did all the hard work while I, Camille, Jaci, and the kids mostly did a lot of pointing at possible perfect trees. So thanks for letting us tag along guys, we love you all and we love our tree:)