Thankful

I am so thankful for this time of year that we get to spend time with our families and reflecting on the past year.  We are so blessed and I am so thankful for everyone and everything that helps us through our crazy lives.

November was great!  We kept busy as always and had a great Thanksgiving!

We had our first big snowfall and the kids have been wanting snow for a long time.  We woke up to the snow and I knew it would all melt before we got home so the kids went out to play in the snow at 7am!!!  They played for an hour!  I love that they play together so well:)

One monday for family night we went to the BYU Bean Museum (Life Science) with all the animals.  It is so much better and bigger since I went there when I was going to BYU.  We went with our neighbor friends. We made it in time for the live animal show and yes, my kids started screaming and crying and ran out of the auditorium cause they were scared of some of the animals.  Don't know why they were so scared.  After we had to stop by the BYU creamery for their ice cream!!!  YUM

We still like to go on dates with our kids.  Danny took Memphis bowling one night.

The kids got free kids meals at our favorite pizza restaurant Brick Oven.  It was a crazy night.  From when we ordered our food to when they actually brought it to our table took 2 hours!  The computers crashed and our waiter was trying to reenter all his tables orders and he forgot us.  We didn't realize until everyone around us who had been seated and ordered after us all got their food and ate and left.  We had to beg a different waiter to bring us some food cause Memphis and Kayzee were starving.  I finally found a manager and they paid for our entire meal and gave us $20 to go back!  Crazy night!

We decided to go down to Blanding for Thanksgiving to spend time with Danny's family.  Here are the beautiful sunsets we saw when we left for our drive down.

Danny's grandparents from Brigham City hitched a ride down with Danny's oldest sister and her family of 5 from Ogden.  And Danny's 3 youngest sisters were in Blanding too with his parents.  Danny sure missed having his brothers there!

Memphis and Kayzee have cousins around the same age as them so they were entertained the entire week!  It was so nice to send them out to play all day.  Danny helped his dad all day so I got to sit and relax the whole time.  It was so nice.  I read 4 books in 4 days!  My reading goal was 52 books (about 1 a week) and I surpassed that by reading 54 this year and it wasn't even December yet!  December is even more busy so maybe I will take a break from reading until after Christmas cause I know I have a ton of books under the tree!

We also had fun playing games (lots of hand and foot card games) enjoyed hanging out with Danny's family and eating yummy food.  Especially the pies!!!

Kayzee and her Auntie Mary (twinners!!!)

 Me and my Kayzee

 Me and my Memphis

 Auntie Nita got my phone...

 Me and Mary

 Kid table!  Cousins having fun

 Me and Danny...biggest beard he has ever had!

 Our little family!  LOVE THEM!

 Danny's sister Emily had fun playing with Danny's hair and beard.  What a nice older brother:)

 Kayzee helping Grandma bake!

 Grandma!

 PIES

Danny's sister Nita also had her birthday while we were there so we had to party

 I had fun playing with her hair

Of course I have to give an update on Baby Max!  My sister Alicia's baby is doing AWESOME!  He is growing well and his check-ups are going great with no problems.  We are so thankful for the blessing of this little boy!  At the end of November he turned 3 months!  He wasn't even supposed to be due until Thanksgiving.  Such a miracle!

My sister Annalyn (Alicia's twin) crocheted this for Alicia who collects Turtles.  So cute!

Hope you all had a thankful Thanksgiving!

OCTOBER!

OCTOBER has been a crazy busy fun month!  At the beginning of the month we hung out with the Royer's.  Danny's sister Mary was playing in the state tennis tournament in Salt Lake.  It was on a Friday so I asked Memphis and Kayzee if they wanted to miss school and go watch.  I certainly did so I got a sub but they didn't want to!  They are crazy;)  Both Kayzee and Memphis LOVE school and their friends (which is the opposite of last year so I am so happy for them) so we took them to school and then Danny and I got to enjoy watching his sister play without having to chase kids around.  It was actually nice.  Mary did amazing as always!  She took 2nd and we are so proud of her.

In between the two last games Danny ran home to pick up the kids and came back for the last game.  After, everyone was heading up to Brigham City for the weekend and we were going to head home because we didn't pack any clothes or anything to stay the night but everyone convinced us to just go up so it was an interesting weekend with nothing but what we were wearing.  We did have fun hanging out with Danny's family though.  

Memphis had his parent teacher conferences.  Memphis has just took off this year and has loved school.  Last year it was a fight everyday to get him to go to school and this year he is the first one ready to go.  He loves his teacher and he is making friends.  He is also doing really well in every subject.  He is ahead of where he should be right now in 1st grade so we don't have to worry to much about him.  

This is all Memphis could write at the beginning of the school year.  

 A month later he could write his numbers to 120 and got an award!  GO MEMPHIS!  His reading is also more fluent and he has more expression.  I love seeing him learn and grow.

It was silly hair day at school so Memphis used Kayzee's butterfly clips in his hair.

Have to throw in some pictures of our silly Kayzee too:)

My hip fracture and hip problems were finally not bothering me until I decided to race Memphis one day.  I only ran maybe 100 feet and then I couldn't walk the next day.  My hip bothered me for about a month and I am finally feeling better again.  SO ANNOYING!  I also got to have a girl's night with some of my old roommates from BYU.  We planned a bonfire with s'mores but it got rained out so we lit some candles and sat on her porch and talked for hours.  It was so fun!  Love my BYU roomies.

Danny plays softball on a city league team with some friends and this year their team won the season and the tournament.  So proud of him!

My PE office has been leaking for a couple years now from the roof and they haven't been able to find where the actual leak was.  Well one day it started pouring into my room.  Muddy water pouring down the walls and from the middle of my ceiling.  Good news they found the leak but bad news my room was flooded, carpet ruined, and some equipment ruined.  I was really mad and upset cause I had to deal with it while teaching and no one cleaned it up for a week until I complained about it.

Luckily that night I got to go out with my friend and her family for witch's night out at Gardner Village.  I new tradition and I have fun.  I needed a night of shopping and yummy food:)

Memphis was diagnosed with severe acid reflux.  Big debate with my dentist and pediatrician but the backs of Memphis' teeth are eroding away and he throws up a lot and spits a lot so we decided to try anything.  It is so rare for this to happen in 6 year old boys so of course the only medicine available in child form was not covered by our insurance.  The pediatrician gave us another option to try so we will be giving him this medicine everyday for 2 months and then go back in to reevaluate and see if we need to try something else.  NOT FUN!

We did a lot of Halloween activities at home to celebrate and the kids went to so many Halloween parties it was crazy.  But they had fun!  At the beginning of October they kept asking if it was Halloween yet so we made a paper countdown chain so they would know how far away Halloween was.

We went to the Evan's family farm by our house with our friends and the kids had fun going through the mazes and playing in the corn and on the hay.

One day we bought some tiny pumpkins for the kids to paint.

We made ghost pancakes

We bought some big pumpkins to carve.  Danny's dad brought us a pumpkin he grew from home, a 57 pound pumpkin!!!  Danny had to use an electric saw to carve it!

My mom and dad came to celebrate Halloween with their grandkids!  It was a fun weekend.  My mom had on black lipstick and gave Memphis a kiss...

Memphis and Kayzee had their Halloween costume parades and parties on Friday at school.  I had to dress up too of course...

For the past 3 years I have made Kayzee be a witch because that costume still fit her every year.  This year I let her pick.  It just worked out that she already had an Elsa dress-up!

 Captain America!  Hopefully he still wants to be this again next year cause it will still fit!

Saturday night we went trick or treating.  My mom offered to stay home and pass out candy so Danny and I took the kids out with my dad and Danny's sister Nita came too!  Super Aunt!

My mom and I decided to get some Christmas shopping done so we wouldn't have to mail anything.  We also got them wrapped!

Chillin' with grandpa...

And of course the dreaded time changed.  I use to love the fall and getting that extra hour of sleep but with kids it's awful!  I have not slept since Sunday...

And last but not least I need to update you on BABY MAX and my sister and her husband.  October was a big month for Max.  He just grew like crazy and progressed so quickly to everyone's amazement.  He actually went home weeks sooner than they thought.  His due date wasn't until Thanksgiving, born the end of August, and on October 22 they let him go home!  He is doing amazing and we know prayers have been answered and that he is being watched over.  I am so excited for my sister and their new adventure at home.  

 Here he is at 4 pounds!

 Feeding tube out!

 Going home!

 Happy family!

 Max at Halloween...

 Dimples!

 Such a cutie!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!