This and that

We put our Christmas decor up and the kids weren't as excited as usual. Maybe I pushed the Christmas music a little too early . . .? Nah. It was just the older two that weren't as excited, Logan was more than excited to trim the tree. Caden thinks Christmas music sounds sad and depressing, but I told him that he needs to listen to the words and think about the true meaning of Christmas to feel the joy it brings. I think he has this feeling because I love the Christmas Shoes song, but it makes me cry every time. He doesn't like to see me cry. What a sweetie he is.
Our star just wouldn't stay straight. I don't know why they make them so heavy.


Kelsie and Logan's school is having a Christmas play and had tryouts a couple of weeks ago. Logan tried out for the stuffed lion, but was really shy about it. Last week they posted the cast for the Christmas Wizard of Oz and Logan got a small part as the red color on the rainbow. He is so excited. It's not the stuffed lion, but this will be better for him I think. A small part is just enough to get him excited, but not too much to make him too nervous about being in front of a large crowd. "But suddenly the grumble noticed something she hadn't seen before." That is his line and has it memorized already. They are having practice every day after school this week except Tuesday. Then they have more practices next week and the play is the following week. It will be a good experience for him. I wish Kelsie had tried out, but maybe next time.
Kelsie went to a birthday party for her friend Madeline. They went to a beauty school and got their hair done then went to Madeline's house for presents and cake and ice cream. Kelsie had so much fun and looked gorgeous when she got home (she's always gorgeous though).

Logan and Caden had a late night on Friday with some good friends. They were watching a movie and playing around and I heard the boys coming upstairs. Caden was a little freaked out when he came in my room with Logan. Logan's friend had accidentally elbowed Logan in the eye and a huge bump had formed on his eyelid. The picture doesn't quite show how bad it looked. It even freaked me out a bit. I had never seen an eye so puffy so quickly. It looked like a marble was under his eyelid. We put ice on it for a while and the swelling went way down. He now has a little bit of a black eye and thinks it's pretty cool. Boys . . .

Giving Thanks . . .

Thanksgiving was wonderful!!! We had lots of yummy food. We went to Great-Grandpa Dirk's house (Brandon's grandpa) along with Grandpa and Grandma Harris and Audrey, and Brandon's aunt and uncle and their family. After dinner chess was played by a few along with visiting by others. Then we all watched March of the Penguins. I had never seen the whole movie and I am amazed at what those penguins go through for their little babies. I am THANKFUL not to be a penguin.

Here are some of the things we are thankful for:

Caden - Family and friends because we get to be together and have a good time. Food. Siblings because we have fun.

Kelsie - Food and a home because we have shelter.

Logan - Temple and Jesus because we can be with our families forever. Heavenly Father and my family.

Olivia - Max and Ruby (this was her response when I asked her) ;)

Mom and Dad - Family, health, work, home, extended family, friends, time we have together, eternal families, and the list goes on . . .

Kelsie's program

Last week Kelsie had a Veteran's Day program at school. Olivia and I went to watch and got there early so we could get a good seat.
We went to the morning program (they did one in the afternoon as well) and that was the one where the rest of the school came to watch. We saw Logan bringing his chair in to watch. My sweet boy.
All of the 4th graders. Kelsie had a speaking part and worked hard to memorize it. I didn't get a picture of her actually saying since I was recording it.

The program was a great reminder of what a great country we live in. At the end, they invited all veterans to stand in front of the audience. They were given a little gift and all of the kids (including the other grades) sang a song to them. It was heart-warming and was a wonderful reminder that there are individual people serving our country. They have families that love them and miss them. While I already knew this, seeing the people right there, made it more clear. I'm grateful for all who have, do, and will fight for my freedoms. Thank you to all who make this country so wonderful!!!

Drawings

I love when my kids draw and color so I thought I'd post some of my favs.

Logan did this one at school. I love how he drew about the words hot, hop, dot, and got. (The hop one is my favorite.) Sorry it's a bit blurry.

Logan's cute monster with ears all over him.

This is my all-time favorite drawing that Logan has done. He wanted to show me what the skeleton looked like that he made at school.

And here's the one he told me about.

Caden's haunted house. Love the tree!

I don't know why this one wouldn't go the right way. I even changed it on my computer and it looks right until it's loaded. Anyway, Kelsie drew an animal with many characteristics from a cow, zebra, deer, horse, and it's even got roller skates on.

Her mighty cute clown guy that is balding on top. ;]

Logan's silly guy.

More monsters by Logan. He really tries to use his imagination with arms coming out of the head and ears on the middle of the face and I think one of them even has it's eyes on it's belly.

On facebook, a bunch of people were posting about this little boy named Noah who is dying of cancer. His family didn't know if he would make it to Christmas so they celebrated early. Noah's Christmas wish was to get as many Christmas cards as possible. For family home evening we made some cards. Here's the front of Logan's sweet card.

And here's the back.

Kelsie's card

Caden's card. When I told the kids about Noah, Caden nearly broke down in tears. He is so soft-hearted and sweet. I'm so grateful to have him in our family. (And all my other kids of course.)

Caden got a new video game with money he earned working with Brandon called Mini Ninjas. He has been obsessed with it. Not necessarily playing the game, but being a ninja and drawing them. Here's his favorite drawing so far:

Another ninja

Caden used his protractor to make a design . . . really cool!

While we were waiting for the bus, Livi was looking at leaves and collecting them. When we got home she was drawing a leaf. She even had to tell me about it. She has such control over her pencil/pen/crayon when she draws. I don't remember my other kids being able to draw that well when they were 2. I like how she even added lines. I will have to get some of her other drawings out that she has done recently. She is drawing circles with faces and tries to color in the lines. She's growing up too fast!!!

Halloween and blessing

Halloween has come and gone. :( Caden was the grim reaper, Kelsie and Livi were bumble bees, and Logan was a dead knight. I had to get a pic of Caden before school since he's in the middle school and they don't do parades there. He's only in 6th grade and he didn't really have a Halloween party. Sad.

Olivia and I went to Kelsie and Logan's school for the Halloween parade. Livi had to wave to all the kids as they passed by. Logan's cape wouldn't stay on, but boy he's a cute dead knight. Kelsie took Livi with her for part of the parade. Livi thought she was so big. She wanted to go with Kelsie back to her class.

We went down to Utah on Halloween and had a party at Grandma and Grandpa Bunderson's house. The newest members of the family: Addyson (giraffe) and Gabryella (zebra). They are so stinkin' cute!!!Ready for tricks and treats. Brandon even dressed up.

Brandon and his Mommy.

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to see baby Addy blessed. Her dress was gorgeous!Cherry family. That's a good-looking family. Love you guys!Brandon and Jordan are good buds. Can't you tell? (Goofy boys)

Fall is so cozy!

I love the fall! The only thing I don't like about Fall is that it's so close to winter and snow. Fall brings lots of fun activities to do as a family. Halloween is one of my favorite's. We like to pick pumpkins and carve them as a family (like everyone else). Olivia really got into it this year. Brandon helped her carve her pumpkin which was really sweet. We went to get our pumpkins and didn't have a lot of time so we went to Albertson's. I know, how boring is that? Well, the pumpkins were $4.99 each so we decided we would look at Broulim's, the local grocery store. Now way were we going to spend $20 on pumpkins. Broulim's had a little hay maze and spook alley and tons of pumpkins for only $0.17 a lb. We got each of the kids a nice-sized pumpkin that they picked and for all four of them it came to about $6.00. Albertson's is ripping people off. Unless we misread the sign, but it said "pumpkins $4.99 each" so that leaves little doubt we read it wrong. We had a great weekend together. After pumpkin carving, we had scones with chili (aka navajo tacos). A fall family favorite. We also made caramel apples over the weekend. I had never made them before so I didn't really know what I was doing, but melting caramel and putting it on apples didn't sound too difficult. Which it wouldn't have been if I hadn't cooked the caramel too long and made it really hard. It went on the apples okay, but as it cooled, the caramel hardened. We had to peel the caramel off and eat the apples plain. :( (Sad that I 'm actually admitting this.)We are going to try again tonight, but with homemade caramel. Wish me luck! :)

October BDAYS!!!

Happy Birthday to my brother, Jason who turned 33 on the 7th. He is usually being goofy and teasing. We have a lot of fun with him though and wouldn't have him any other way. He has two cute little boys and has a baby on the way in the spring. Yay! Happy birthday brother, hope you had a super fantastic day! Love ya!
Happy birthday to my father-in-law (wearing the cowboy hat). He celebrated another great year on the 17th. I love this picture since it has four generations. The kids love going to Grandpa Harris' ranch and riding on the ranger or the motorcycle. They have lots to do there and always have a great time. We love you and hope you had a great wonderful birthday!

On the same day, was my brother-in-law Seth's birthday (on the 17th). He's married to my sister Stephie and is so good to her. They just had a little baby girl and she already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger. He is so sweet and cute with his baby girl. She is lucky to have him for a dad. Happy birthday (late) Seth! We hope it was wonderful and we love you!

Pumkins, witches, snow, and moving . . .

October started out great! We were in Salt Lake (which I know I already blogged about so I won't go into lots of detail) which was so fun. We went with Tami and her kids to a pumpkin patch and the boys loved the tractors . . .
Saturday we went to Gardner Village to see the witches. Olivia is such a ham. . .

Here's my friend Brandee that was one of the cute witches. Olivia was so funny when they painted her face. She had watched Logan get his face painted with his eyes closed since they were doing paint on his eyelids, so she thought she needed to close her eyes. I didn't get a pic fast enough, but it was so funny.

Painted faces

Stephie and baby Addyson came with us

My sweet mother-in-law came too

Stephie and me

After we left Gardner Village, we had to stop at Wal-Mart and we saw Grandma and Grandpa Cranfill there. (There must have been a Utes game that day, Stephie and Grandpa were both showing their spirit.)

We had our first snow fall of the season and the kids waisted no time making a snowman and a snow fort.

We loved Arco and would have stayed their forever if the house we were in didn't have so many issues. We loved having lots of land for the kids to roam around without having to worry so much (except about wild animals taking off with them). :) I wanted to get a few calfs in the spring since we had a place for them. It would have been a good experience for the kids and I think it would have been kinda fun. Baby cows are so cute! We would have sold them in the fall so we wouldn't have to worry about them in the winter. I also wanted to get chickens, but oh well, maybe some day. When we were boxing up (again) Olivia thought the boxes made good beds for her stuffed animals. She had one on each box. I wanted to take a pic so she thought she would do different poses. I took about six pics of her in different spots around the boxes. She is so silly.

We were back in SL for my uncle's funeral and we stayed at Grandma Cranfill's house. Livi loves her grandma.

We brought little Jakey with us so he wouldn't have to be home alone (where would we put him anyway?) and Sawyer (Grandma's dog) didn't really want to put up with Jake's puppy ways. Jake wanted to play with Sawyer, but Sawyer didn't want anything to do with it. Jake followed him all around.

My three little puppies. :)

So . . . now we are back in Rexburg and we love it! We have been back about a week now and the kids love their schools especially since they already know some of the kids. The house doesn't have huge yucky spiders everywhere, but our boxes still do. I was getting our Halloween stuff out and a black widow was right on top of the stuff. I am creeped out again (go figure), but I bought some stuff to kill it and I will be okay. ;) I have had to go to the library to do homework while I waited for my internet to be set-up at home and Livi would come with me and we would spend some time on the little computers playing games. I put the headphones on her and she made this face until I took them off:

She is so funny and keeps us laughing all day.

Spiders, blehcky . . .

Need I say more? As I mentioned in a previous post, we have spiders galore out here. I am terrified of spiders so living here is a bit difficult for me. There are these awful shelves in our bedroom that go around the top of the room and the light hangs on the wall right above our bed. I always thinks that a spider is waiting for me to lay down so it can slowly make its way down a web onto my face from one of those areas. Sounds paranoid, but has happened to me more than once, but it didn't actually make it to my face, just right above it. Creepy!!! So anyway every night I always scoot my pillow down so I'm not right under the light or the shelves. I know, I know, you're probably laughing at my silliness, but like I said, I am terrified of spiders.

So, last night I turned the light off and Brandon said there was something crawling on him. I thought he was just teasing me. He tells me to turn on the light, he had the crawly thing in his hand. So I turn the light on and sure enough there is a huge spider in between his finger and thumb. AAAaaaaaaaa. . . Needless to say, I didn't sleep in there last night. I slept on the couch and was still checking every corner of the room before I went to bed. They are sneaky little things though and I know they hide well so the checking didn't really reassure me. Then, the past few days we have had a cricket in our family room chirping so loud. We could not find it any where. Well, yesterday it stopped. I know a spider has it wound in its web somewhere in that room. (shivers.) I am so creeped out about those stupid bugs that I just can't stand it. Do they really have a purpose here?

Remembering . . .

Sunday morning around 2 AM, my uncle had a heart attack and passed away. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. We will miss Uncle David and will remember him daily. It's moments like this that I am grateful for the knowledge the gospel provides. I know that we will see him again and that he is with my grandpa right now. The gospel also brings peace and comfort in times of grief. I know the family will turn to our Heavenly Father to find that needed peace and comfort. I hope they know of our love for them and for Uncle David.

I have really been thinking about life since this happened. This type of circumstance really makes me think. I see people who behave certain ways and treat people in a way that is less than appealing. I know that I have had those moments as well and I do not want to have any regrets if someone that I treated that way passed. Life is just too short to have ill feelings toward others. I know this sounds cheesy, but really, think about it. Life is a gift and we should treat it as such. I love to see and hear stories about people who try to make life better for everyone they come in contact with and I think about being that way as well. I just need to get out of my comfort zone and really strive for making life a little better in what I do and say to others. Again, I know this sounds like wishful thinking, but with the loss in our family, I can't help but think about how fragile life is. I am giving myself a challenge, you can join if you feel so inclined, I will make someone's life better each day. This is a small goal, but ya gotta start somewhere. :)