Blessed

We had the opportunity to go to my mother's for Thanksgiving. She always makes everything special, and we had such a wonderful time. I have so many blessings in my life, and I am so grateful to my Father in heaven for those. Number one is my testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ. I love this time of year where we get to reflect a bit more on Him and His life. I love to count my blessings for I have many.



Here are a few of the sweetest blessings in my life. I love being a mother and wife. I feel so fulfilled, and couldn't be happier. I love to wake up to these little rascals every morning. I love staying home with them and teaching them in rightoues ways.

My mother always does an "open the season". She made these cute little skirts and hooded (doggy) towel. She is so talented. I am grateful for such a wonderful mother.



My beautiful talented grandmother. This is a woman that has been Mrs. Utah, a pilot, a renowned seamstress, mother of four, and grandmother of many more. She has accomplished much in her life and I am so grateful we were able to spend Thanksgiving with her.

We made these cute little sloppy Joe buns the first night we arrived at my mothers. THe kids had a blast putting these together. This is Cole's.

Mine.

Ambra's.

Sitting down for our feast. I think I gained 7 pounds over the holiday. Gotta love it baby!!!

We made these little turkeys at Colies Preschool Feast.

Cole's Preschool Halloween Party!

I was the lucky teacher that got to host the Halloween Party. If you know me well, you know that I love this. I love to host parties and do fun things with the kids. We have the cutest group of moms this year for preschool, and they all pitched in with fun ideas. One of our games was pumpking bowling.







Mom's and brothers and sisters got to come with the preschoolers. Here is one of our cute moms and her two year old.

I did a witches brew. There is a little poem that goes with this and I gathered "real" ingredients stuffed in mason jars and stirred them in for effect. When I put in the "lions blood" it activated the dry ice and poof - witches brew. When I am done pouring in all the ingredients, the kids move onto another activity while it is brewing and then I can switch it out for the "good stuff". It was so funny when only the extra brave kids would try my brew.

Grandma loves Halloween. She came up to be with us. Doesn't she look great?

...and theres me, black cat and all. Gotta love Halloween.

Barnyard Boo

We went to the Barnyard Boo at Thanksgiving Point with my friend Kamie. Kam is my college roomie from back in the day. The kids had a blast. Here are a few of the activities they have for the kids to do.

They bring in a real cow and let the kids give milking a whirl. Cole thought this was pretty cool. Ariah gave it a try, and Ambra wouldn't get anywhere near it.

The best was when Cole asked, "Mom, do we really drink that cow's pee?"

We got their faces painted. Cole got a skull, and the girls chose rainbows.

We went with these cute little bugs.

Ariah could have spent all day next to the animals. Her and this cow became great friends.

Look at Ariah's legs in this picture. She is really taking some bonding time. I love it.

THey loved doing the pony rides. I thought Ariah would be nervous, but I was wrong...

...very wrong. She totally loved it.

Halloween Loot

Adam's mother loves Halloween time. She usually tries to make a visit to our home this time of year. When she comes, the children get spoiled. Look at all of this loot. She brought a huge garbage bag full of surprises, candy, decorations, coloring books, Halloween shirts, and headbands, snacks, etc. The kids were in heaven.



On Halloween, we went to our wards Truink or Treat and then we got in the back of the van and Daddy drove us around. Yes, yes, I know. This is the cheater way, but the kids LOVED it, and we raked in the sugar. What you see down below, is only about 1/3 of his final stash.

On Halloween night, our tradition is to hollow out a pumpkin and we bake our dinner inside of it. THis year we did that, but we also made potato soup to put inside our cute little pumpkin soup bowls.

Adam's mother made these darling pirate costumes for the children. She really made this pirate for Cole's birthday party, but could see the green envy in Ambra's eyes...

...so Ambra got a pirate costume too. They were beautiful pirates.

Halloween Festival!

I swear I'm going to be better about this posting thing. I am letting everything else get in the way. Oh well, better late than never.

I love Halloween time. Halloween is about the time that I relinquish myself to fall. I can say that I am finally owning up to the fact that it is not summer anymore and I need to prepare myself for colder weather.

It is also a time to break out the pumpkins, sweaters, and traditions. I love this time that I get to decorate pumpkins with the kids (we do candy instead of carving - you can see some of our creations in the above picture). We start doing more craft projects, and we seem to bake alot more too (that must be where those extra pounds start coming in). The kids start the countdown to Halloween and pumpkin patches, hay rides, and corn mazes start to pop up everywhere. Love it.

Our stake put on a carnival for the primary children. Eating a donut with no hands hanging from a string - can it get any better?

Our cute little friends. Right to left is Ambra, Eli, Autumn, Bailey, Nathan and Wyatt. We go every year with friends to the city carnival. It is free in Layton and they do such a great job for the kids. They had a blast.

That Little T;urkey!!!

I went up to see my mom and grandmother a few weeks ago and while Cole and Ambra were at school, Ariah and I packed. After we had packed the girls, we went in to Cole's room where I said, "Ariah! Come help me pack for Colie." Well then the doorbell rang and I had a customer come pick out some framing. This took about 10 minutes. I came back to Ariah "helping" me pack. She had taken all the clothes off the hangars and out of the dresser....





This is where they ended up.

After I had unpacked a shipment of product I had recieved from Suspended In Time, I left all the packing in the box and headed off to make dinner. 15 minutes later, this is where I found Little Miss Mess Maker.

2 HOURS CLEANUP!!! UUUUGHHHGHGHGH

She is famous for getting into my purse. Usually I find her with lipstick and a mouth full of gum. The entire pack of wrappers is wadded up on the floor next to her. Well the last week I have been missing my keys. Could not find them anywhere. After day seven of searching and using my spare or bumming keys off of Adam, Ariah comes in with her little purse and says, "Look mom, YaYa's keys (Ariah's keys). UUUUGHHGHGH.

Ariah is potty training herself. I will find her with no diaper and some little princess underwear on. She will totally go to the bathroom. Everyonce in a while she will have an accident. This is mostly when she is downstairs and totally involved in some activity with the kids. I forget she is in underwear and then oops accident. I have started setting the timer so that I can ask her every 30 minutes or so.

Well timer goes off and I ask Ariah if she has to go potty.

"no mom"

30 seconds later she is peeing all over herself and the floor.

"Ariah! I just asked you. You told me you didn't have to go."

Huge smile on her face, she sings "TRICKED YOU!!!!!"

THAT LITTLE TURKEY!

Pumpkin Patch

Pack's pumpkin patch made a fun free family home evening. Thanks Mich for a great idea. We gave the kids rides through the patch in these wheel barrows.

Theres the cute little crew.

Of course Ariah's blurry. Does that girl ever stop?