Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving this year was bitter-sweet. Sweet in the fact that my entire family was able to be together. Since we are growing so big, it's been hard to get ALL of us together at one time. But we all did it this year for a special reason. And that reason is what made it slightly bitter. It was the day that marked the last week before Taylor left on his mission. And when I say bitter, I mean a happy-bitter because we are all so proud of him - but just a bit sad because he'll be gone for 2 long years.

Since it was one of the last times (other than his farewell a few days later) that we were all together, we decided to get a big family picture. Well, it's been cold and there was still snow on the ground, but we all tropped up to the local park and took a picture in the snow and all. It was a bit chilly, but well worth it for the result. Here's the finished product - a family picture that will be the last one with all of us for the next 2 years:



I'm so glad we were able to all be together for Thanksgiving and for Taylor's farewell a few days later. It really made the holiday special.

Zach's 1st Grade Thanksgiving Program

Yesterday Zach had his 1st grade Thanksgiving Program. Jeremiah, Hailey, and I went over to see our favorite 1st grader perform!

The whole group was dressed up like pilrims or indians. Here's our little pilgrim boy:


He did great singing - we were so proud of him!


Isn't he the cutest pilgrim you've ever seen?



He had two parts in the program, here he is saying one of his parts:



And here he is singing:



We just love the programs that we get to see at school! Zach was so happy and we were so proud of him - good job Zach, we're so proud of you!

Catching up on some random things ...

I kept thinking that I didn't have much to post the last week or two, but when I downloaded some other pictures from my camera this morning, I realized there were a few I hadn't remembered taking and in order to get caught up on everything, I figured I'd do one big post of all these small random pictures I have.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to do a movie night for family home evening. The kids have been wanting to see UP for quite a while and when it came out on video, Jeremiah hunted it down at a Redbox and we went and rented it. The kids brought their beanbag chairs down from upstairs and we had a fun time watching the movie, eating popcorn, and snuggling under our blankets. What a few family home evening!


I know I recently posted about Hailey's pink obsession and showed her hairstyle that day - a ponytail. Well, a week or so ago she decided she wanted to do pigtails instead. So after a little work getting them in, we just had to take a few pictures to show them off. I couldn't believe how long her hair was getting!


She loved the pigtails and ran around all day swishing them from side to side. It was so funny!


On Saturday we decided to divide up and getting some Christmas/birthday shopping done. Hailey went with her Dad and Zach went with me. While we were already one-on-one with each of them, we decided we'd also find a place to have a little treat. Unknown to us at the time was the fact that there are very few places in Lehi that actually sell donuts! So Jeremiah opted for a small bakery in the center of town, but had to bring their donuts home due to there being no place to sit and eat them in the bakery. He said that watching Hailey eat her donut was one of the cutest things, so he just had to take some pictures of her. After getting her an apron and pulling her hair back, he gave her the donut she chose - a maple bar.


He said she dug into the donut right in the middle (like she does everything else) and started eating it like a piece of corn on the cob.


He said she got about as much frosting on her face as she did in her mouth - too cute! Zach and I ended up at the same bakery, but he wanted to eat his donut in the car before we headed home, so I didn't get any pictures of his donut eating. His didn't have any frosting, but it was still cute to watch him enjoy it.


What a fun time we had with just one of the kids - we've decided to do more of these little "mini-dates" more often.

By the way, you can see we got Hailey's hair cut right before these last pictures were taken - it's so cute and she just loves it! It's cut just to her chin and very fun and bubbly - just like she is.

Pink

Anyone who knew me growing up knows that I did not like the color pink. In fact, that's putting it nicely - you could say I HATED the color pink and didn't want anything to do with it. Thinking back now, I'm not sure why that was - maybe it was a deep subconscious way of not wanting to fit into the typical "girly" norm - which I am anything but. No matter the reason, back then I found myself wanting to be associated with anything but that color.

But I find in life that you grow in and out of things during certain times. And certain things come into your life that make you rethink your opinion on certain things. Well, my adversion to pink has come to an end and it's all because of a little sweetheart named:

HAILEY

From the moment she was born, she has LOVED the color pink and anything girly. Everything she chooses to own is pink - clothes, shoes, books, dolls, crayons, coloring books - you name it she's probably got it in pink. In fact, the only reason she has anything of a different color is my trying to make sure she's got some variety in her life. But. if you ask her what color she wants wants anything to be, her answer will always be pink. If you ask her what color she wants her breakfast to be - she will choose the color pink - whether it's realistic or not. She is by far the biggest fan of pink I know.

Today during lunch, I was having a conversation with my little almost 4 year old and here's how it went (this is typical, although the topic of the conversation could be anything):

Hailey: Mom, what color are your eyes?
Me: Mine are green.
Hailey: Mom, what color are Daddy's eyes?
Me: Daddy's are blue.
Hailey: Mom, what color are Zachary's eyes?
Me: Zachary's are blue, just like Daddy's.
Hailey: Mom, what color are my eyes?
Me: Blue, just like Zachary and Daddy's. Aren't you lucky that you and Zachary have beautiful blue eyes just like your Daddy's? You are such cute kids!
Hailey: Mom, I don't want to have blue eyes.
Me: Why not? They are so beautiful honey!
Hailey: I really wish my eyes were pink!
Me: You want pink eyes - don't you think that would look a little silly to have pink eyes?
Hailey: No, pink is beautiful and it would match my shirt.

Seriously, how can you argue with that logic? Not only is she into pink, but is a wizz at color coordination already. As I looked over at her, I realized she was right - blue eyes definitely did not fit in with the color scheme she had going on today. Just so you understand what I'm talking about, I'm attaching a couple of pictures of her:


As you can see, she's in pink from head to toe. She's also been into ponytails lately too, so can see that's what we ended up with for a hairstyle today. However, you'll notice that it's complete with pink bows!


So in thinking about my previous adversion to pink, it's easy to see that not only am I not as opposed to pink as I used to be, but I actually like the color now. It's definitely not my favorite by any stretch, but I find that I actually love it in certain situations - especially on my daughter.

Of course, how could someone this cute in pink not change your mind???

Halloween Fun with Nana

I'm still way behind on my posts, so forgive how late I am at getting these on here. Last week our Nana came down to spend a few days and do some fun Halloween projects with the kids. They had so much fun with her here.

Their first project was to make a skeleton out of pvc pipe. Zach felt very important because it was his job to color in the face, so he set to the side coloring it in - a look of concentration on his face. Hailey helped Nana put the skeleton together.


Isn't it fun? We wanted to set it outside, but with all the wind we get here, we would have lost our treasure for sure, so he had to stay inside. The kids just love it and look at it every day.


The next project was making some foam masks we found at the dollar store. Zach is really into pirates right now, so finding a pirate mask was so much fun. Hailey wanted to be a pirate just like her brother, so we convinced her that her mask was a pumpkin pirate. She seemed happy with that and ran around the house for the next few days saying "arrr, pirates!" It was so funny.


After the masks were done and played with for a bit, they moved on to the next project, which was making some spiders. The kids thought these were so neat and loved sticking the pipe cleaners into the foam balls to make the legs. We have a mama and 3 babies since we didn't quite have enough pipe cleaners to make 4 large spiders. The kids pick these up and play with them everyday, against my wishes and I'm always having to straighten out their legs and get them looking like spiders again.


We also found these fun Halloween clings at Walmart, so the kids next moved on to decorating our back sliding glass door with their window clings. I've decided that clings are so much fun! They are fairly cheap and if you keep the backing, you can reuse them year after year.


Lastly, Nana and the kids moved on to decorating some cupcakes. Nana asked what fun halloween colors the kids wanted the frosting and the replies were: pink and blue! Not exactly traditional halloween colors, but they were insistent, so that's what they got. Thank goodness for the halloween themed cupcake holders and toppers we had to remind us they were for halloween!


Don't they look yummy???


After all of those projects, the kids were more than happy. They ran around checking out their projects and playing with their masks. Thanks Nana for such a fun time - we had a blast!

Our Annual Trip to the Pumpkin Patch!

I'm a bit late in posting this, but wanted to share some pictures from our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch over a week ago. Our kids look forward to this day every year when Grandma takes them to the pumpkin patch where they get to pick out their very own pumpkin to take home.

One of the favorites at the pumpkin patch we usually head to is the little kids hay maze (they have a corn maze for the older kids and adults) - the kids absolutely love running around in the little maze. This year the popular game was the two younger kids (Hailey and Branson) trying to catch and keep up with the two older kids (Zachary and Ashton).

Despite not being able to keep up with the older boys, Hailey and Branson rarely lost track of each other - most of the time that was done by holding hands.


The older boys loved to climb up and over the bridge and point out where the younger kids were and climb down and take off before they reached them.


This was one of my favorite pictures this year - they had some huge pumpkins and it was so cute to see Hailey and Branson sit on one for a quick picture.


Out looking for pumpkins in the patch - good thing Uncle Taylor was there to help them choose a good one!


And of course a quick picture with Nana before running off to play in the hay maze again!


One of the funniest experiences this year was Hailey being determined to find a purple pumpkin out in the fields. Despite how many times I explained to her that the pumpkins grow to be orange, she was determined she would find a purple one. After looking and looking and looking, she picked out an orange pumpkin and was only ok when Nana told her she could head home and paint her orange pumpkin any color she wanted.

When we made it back to Nana's house, Hailey decided that not only did she want to paint it purple, but pink and red as well. So with her paint brush and paints all ready, she tackled her painting project.


Zach wasn't nearly as picky and decided to paint his blue with white vampire teeth.


After the pumpkins were painted and set aside to dry, it was time to decorate some cookies. With some orange frosting and chocolate chips, off they went decorating their pumpkin cookies.


Zach was very meticulous at getting the right amount of frosting and arranging the chocolate chips just so. He's definitely a perfectionist and take after his mom is that respect!


Later after dinner, it was time for trick-or-treating. Now that Nana and Papa have grandkids all over that can't make it to their house to trick-or-treat every year, they have started up a tradition of trick-or-treating early inside the house. Every adult gets a bag of candy and goes into one of the rooms of the house. The kids get dressed up and go around trick-or-treating to every door.

Zach was a firefighter again this year and Hailey decided on Sleeping Beauty as her Halloween costume. They were so cute, I had to take a picture of them both before the trick-or-treating began.


Here's a picture I caught of them after Jeremiah opened the door as they knocked. They were so cute saying Trick-or-Treat!


And here's the gang in their halloween costumes. They are all so cute and they were darling all dressed up!



We had a great day - thanks Nana and Papa for making the day so much fun and creating such a fun tradition!

Columbus Day

Isn't it sad to realize that normal life is so uneventful that you don't take many pictures? I'm realizing it's been a while since I posted anything and really, there hasn't been much to post. So I'm trying to make a concerted effort to take more pictures when something out of the ordinary is going on.

I had my first chance on Monday (although it's taken me until today to get it posted) when Zach came home from school. As you know, it was Columbus Day and they spent all day at school talking about Columbus, who he was, and what he did. Zach could hardly wait to get home to show me some of the fun things he made. His favorite was the Columbus Hat that he was just certain made him look just like Christopher Columbus.

What do you think????




Looks just like him if you ask me.

Hope you all had a Happy Columbus Day!