William came running into my room this morning saying, "It is snowing outside! That means it is Christmas!!" He ran downstairs, and in a few minutes he ran back up stairs and said, "Santa came last night. He didn't leave any presents under the tree, but he got all of our toys out, (referring to all the toys the kids were playing with yesterday, and didn't put away) and Santa left his bag. It has eyes on it and it was looking at me." I had no idea what he was talking about so I started asking questions. I figured out it was just one of Hannah's bags that had a Santa face on it.
William cracks me up.

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Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we were able to spend in Nevada with my family. Everyone was there this year so we made the most of the weekend and packed it full with fun things to do.

On Wednesday we got into town late afternoon. As we were waiting for dinner to cook, Hannah went around showing everyone her loose tooth. She got to Uncle Micah, and after Micah saw it he decided he wanted to pull it out for her. So amazingly, she just stood there, (which she would have never done for me) and let him play with it, and before the night was over, Hannah had lost her first tooth.

That night we went to the gym and had a great time playing basketball, and gym hockey. The great thing about having a big family is that there is always enough people to have some great games.

Thanksgiving morning we woke up early and had our first annual family Turkey Trot walk/run, and then played some flag football. It was a perfect morning and a great way to start out Thanksgiving day.
Before our Turkey Trot.


We had a great Thanksgiving lunch at my grandma's house filled with great food, fun people, football, movies, and our traditional game of Scrabble.

We also helped out with the butchering this year. Jake is a natural, and I think that this experience made Adam rethinking his career options. Now he is thinking about opening his own butcher shop. Haha. All of the first timers did great. For lunch, after cutting meat, we always take the best cuts of meat and BBQ them up with some hamburgers. Talk about some good food.
I love this picture of Lacy.



Later that afternoon we went Christmas tree hunting. There is not a huge selection were we go hunting, but we always find the perfect ones among all of the cedar trees. All the kids had a great time exploring through the trees and picking cedar berries. This year Lacy and Ben found a great tree. I hope they will be able to fit it into their little apartment.


On Saturday we went caving at Whipple's Cave, which is a about an hours ride out of town. It is a big hole in the ground, about 70 feet deep. You repel down the hole and the cave shoots off from the bottom of the hole. I am always amazed every time I go in a cave at the different rock formations. It is beautiful. Especially when you can find a cave that hasn't been touched by to many people.



It was a great Thanksgiving weekend.

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Family Pictures

We recently had our family pictures taken. Here are a few of my favorites. Erica Holland, Taniel's sister, took our pictures. She does a great job. You should check out her work at ericaholland.com.

Thanks Erica for taking the pictures for us. We love them!!
















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Halloween

We had a great Halloween weekend filled with lots of parties and candy.
We started out at Hannah's Halloween parade at school.


Friday night was our Harvest party (posted below).
Saturday we went to my cousins place for her Halloween party where she had a treasure hunt, peep eating contest, and other games.




Saturday night Jake took the kids trick 'r treating.

After trick 'r treating we went to my sister's and partied. It was a great party, and Jake even won first prize for his costume. If you can't tell what he is dressed like, he is dressed up like a runner. Way to go Jake!! High expectations are going to be set for next year Jake.



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Harvest party Part 2

We had a great second part of our Harvest Party. For dinner we had different types of soup, and for entertainment we had our traditional donut eating contest.

All of the guys...


All the girls...



All the kids...

Great laughs and tummy aches.


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William's birthday

My favorite things about William...
1. His cute little face, big smile, and big brown eye's
2. His laugh
3. He plays so nice with his sisters.
4. I love his jokes.
5. I have discovered how funny he is since I get to spend a few hours with just him each day while Hannah is at school and Brooklyn is napping.
6. He is so careful about hurting my feelings or getting me mad. If he thinks he does, he always comes to me and says, "I love you and I like you mom, lots and lots."
7. I love his excitement for new things.
8. His favorite cartoon is Dinosaur Train and now he gives Brooklyn dinosaur nicknames.
9. He keeps changing his mind about what he wants to be for Halloween. His latest idea... he wants to be an aardvark.
10. When we make up stories at night before bedtime, if Jake or I don't say "all of a sudden" in the story, then we can't end the story.
and I love, love, love his hugs and kisses.

I am so glad that we have this kid in our family.
Another one of my favorite things about William... he got to pick anything he wanted for his birthday breakfast, and he picked oatmeal, his favorite breakfast. I think he would be totally happy if the only things I fed him were oatmeal and pb&j sandwiches.

I wanted to take a picture of him with his cake. I got one cute smile from him, and then he wanted me to take pictures of all of his funny faces.




For William's birthday we had a family party at a lake and had sloppy joes. William got to try out his new Spiderman fishing pole, and he even caught a fish. We had a great time. Thank you everyone for coming.


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Harvest party Part 1

Jake's family loves to party. They always find an excuse to throw a party, and I love it. This time of year comes the annual Harvest Party, and this year there were just to many things that we wanted to do at the party to fit into one night, so we decided to split it up and do it two different nights. On October 17th we met at Jaker's Pumpkin patch,


found the perfect pumpkins,





and played in a straw bale maze.


We then went to Brian and Michelle's, had some great dinner and carved Pumpkins.



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