Snow Fun

We had our Thanksgiving dinner today. Yes, that is right. It is always so much fun to visit family for Thanksgiving, but we really miss out on all the left-overs. So every year we have our own Thanksgiving separate from the family. It was sooooooo good.We go a TON of snow in the last week, which is really strange for this area generally. Today we decided to build the kids a little snow fort/igloo.

What really surprised me was how wide it was on the inside.
We had our ward Christmas party at our church. The kids got to talk to Santa.


Kathleen and some of her cute friends singing Christmas carols.
The boys decided to make a tunnel for our train.
Brandon is a cute little piano player. He is working really hard right now on a Christmas song for his piano recital. it is so cute to hear him and watch him play.
So on Wednesday, when school was cancelled because of the snow, we spent about 5 hours outside in the snow. What does a kids hair look like after all that fun one may ask? Well we have the answer right here:
And here is what Cody did for fun while mom shoveled the driveway (sat on a mound eating snow):
We set up our Christmas trees. Here I am with the "red" tree:
And here the kids are setting up their tree in the playroom:



And here is the first day of our own "Elf on the Shelf." The kids named him Freddie. They LOVE Freddie and even made us put up a stocking for him. That first day was the best behavior I have EVER seen out of my kids, knowing that Freddie was watching them. But don't worry, they are back to normal now.
Setting up the tree:

And since I didn't take a single picture of Cam's wedding, I decided I had better put at least one on my blog that I stole from someone else. I really liked this picture. Although it was hard to choose because they were all so good.

Thanksgiving and a Wedding

Yes, my title of the post says Thanksgiving and a Wedding. But since I am terrible at taking pictures, I don't have any from either of those. In fact, most of the pictures I do have I stole from other blogs. At any rate, we did go to Spokane for both Thanksgiving and the wedding of Ryan's youngest (and one of his coolest) brother.

On the way there the weather was AMAZING! Snow everywhere through the mountains but not a drop on the roads. We stopped at the top of the pass and had a snowball fight with the kids.
Brandon might just be a photographer. Every chance he got, he was taking pictures with Grandma's camera.


Then, of course, Spokane decided that the snow it got two years ago wasn't enough. So the weather got a jump start this year and DUMPED snow on us the entire week we were there.

The kids had fun at the church with cousins while we decorated for the reception.

Me and my sis:
Brandon LOVED playing with Lincoln logs. Especially if grandpa would build with him.




Brandon and Uncle Boo went nuts with some flavored popcorn.



Play dough:
Cody loved Uncle Jon's dogs Gage and Darby.
Aunt Michelle teaches at a dance studio. Kathleen got to go to one of her classes with cousin Katie. But the best part is that Michelle knitted Kathleen some leg warmers. SUPER CUTE!
My one lame-o Thanksgiving picture.
Ryan's sister Emily made these cute crafts with us while we were there. I love them!
Then, we took a few hours longer than normal, but we made it home. The weather was atrocious the ENTIRE way. But we are so glad to be home after a long week in Spokane.
And when we got home, we discovered that one of our kids left the back door open and we heated the entire world for a whole week. I guess no matter how many last checks of the house you do, they will always sneak in something awesome. Sorry thieves, you missed your chance. Can't wait to get that bill...

Principal's Pride

We were watching some friends so we decided to make pilgrim hats with fudge stripe cookies, reeses, and frosting.Kathleen made this really cute family tree for school.
Brandon was nominated for Principal's Pride. He is so cute. He really took it way to seriously (like most things). But you could tell he was excited about it (only if you were his mother).
His Principal:
His Teacher:
We wrote our annual cut-up-toy-magazines letter to Santa.
We tried out this experiment with vinegar and salt to clean pennies. Love that National Geographic magazine for kids.
Brandon and Cody haven't been going to bed well the last week, so one of them is always super, super, super grumpy in the morning. The result is that we have been experiencing a lot of this lately:
Kathleen and Brandon painted some artwork for "Reflections" night at school.

Dog Bite

Cody got bit by a dog last week while we were playing at the park. It was a pretty scary thing for about a minute or less. Cody freaked out at first, but very quickly decided he was okay and was ready to play on the playground some more. So, as traumatized as I was by the experience, I pretended it was all okay because he moved on so quickly and I thought it best to not make it worse. Cody LOVES LOVES LOVES dogs and I worried it would scar him. But no. No effect of any kind. In fact, he loves showing people his dog bite. He wears it with pride.
But, in my efforts to be a responsible parent, I talked to the owners about it. And they were amazing. So kind. They are even building up their fence to make sure it doesn't happen again. And to top it off, they brought Cody by a little stuffed dog that he absolutely LOVES. He even sleeps with it at night. So that brings the total of stuffed dogs in his bed to 3.
He even had some time after he got ready for school before the carpool arrived. So he decided to snuggle his new doggy.
Brandon is going to be playing basketball this winter. He has been waiting for this. I told him when he was in 1st grade he could start, so now it is here. They had an evaluation night to get the kids ready. Brandon was so excited and had so much fun.

And of course, fall:


I have these jars of candy on the counter that the kids are not allowed to touch. They are for decoration only. Surprisingly, the kids have left them completely alone. Until last Monday. Cody got on the counter and started eating them. When I asked him what he thought he was doing, he said, "But mom, October is over." So I guess they are suddenly fair game.
Kathleen has been working really hard on learning the concept of fasting. So to help her out this month we all picked things we were going to do to help distract her. Brandon was going to play games with her. Cody was going to sing her a song. So when it started to get hard they decided to sit on the couch so Cody could sing her a song. Notice that (to make things easier, mind you) the boys had to grab some of the Halloween candy that was left to eat in front of her as they were singing to her.
So Cody decided to make it up to her that he was going to play her a song on the piano too. It was...nice...