I Am Thankful For...

As much as I love to take pictures, for some reason I didn’t even get my camera out at our Thanksgiving celebration this year...so I missed out on getting pictures with the Moshers. Maybe the reason I didn’t even attempt to take pictures is because a lot of them are like Rod...and they hate me to take pictures! Whatever it was, we still had a wonderful Thanksgiving day and ate lots of good food...I just don’t have any pictures to share! This year I was responsible for making the pies and it was lots of work, but they turned out yummy! I ended up making 3 pumpkin pies, 2 pecan pies, 2 chocolate pies and a banana cream pie...and as weird as it may sound, I did get a picture of some of those!

Fun in the LEAVES!

Every year when it comes time to rake up leaves, you can find me and whichever boys I can convince to come help me, raking them into HUGE piles! It’s a lot of work to rake them up, but even more work to gather them all up and put them into bags. I don’t know that I like that part so much, so I put it off as long as I can...and enjoy the leaves as much as possible in the meantime!

We usually make the boys a leaf house out of the leaves under the walnut tree, just like the leaf houses that I used to make when I was a little girl. The boys like that, but they really like it when we rake as many leaves as we possibly can into a pile at the bottom of the slippery slide...so they can slide down into them and disappear! That’s always lots of fun to watch! My favorite part though is taking pictures of the boys in the leaves, which I’m sure no one would have ever guessed. I started when Hayden was just a baby and I’ve done it every year since...and I’ll probably be doing it for as many years as they’ll continue to let me!

This year Hayden was a huge help raking the leaves and he even raked them up into designated piles…one for the slide, one for pictures and one for their leaf house! We never did get around to making the leaf house this year because the leaves fell later than usual because it was so unusually warm for so long and with the threat of snow, I wasn’t about to leave them on the ground to get wet. We also didn’t have as many leaves for pictures as we usually do because our neighbor decided to cut off most of the limbs on the trees that usually drop all the leaves. You’d think we would have been excited not to have as many leaves to rake, and I kind of was, but it made it harder to get good pictures...but we did our best!

Announcement! Announcement! Announcement!

I know you’d never be able to tell from this picture…but Jon and Brittney are engaged!

Tonight Rod and I had to go to a youth devotional for Laurels Conference and AP Camp called “A Night To Remember” and so we invited Jon and Brittney to come “sit with the kids” while we were gone. We also invited them to dinner afterwards, so their “visit” wasn’t without a reward. What we didn’t know was that they were going to make their big announcement tonight!

Jon and Brittney showed up after Rod had left for his meeting and I was already at meetings, so neither of us saw them until we got home from our devotional. As soon as they got here, they told the little boys that they were going to get married and you know what their reaction was? Hayden just laughed! He didn’t believe them and no matter what they said, he was still pretty skeptical.

I guess Jon and Brittney must have told the boys not to say anything because normally with news like that, they would have spilled the beans as soon as we walked in the door. Instead, all during dinner, Hayden kept looking at Brittney and laughing. I thought it was a little strange but as long as Hayden wasn’t disrupting dinner or annoying us any more than he usually does, I didn’t feel inclined to ask questions. I guess I should have though!

Finally when we got done eating, Jon sat back and said “well, you know Brittney and I have been dating for a whole year now…” and then he went ahead and told us that they had decided to get married. I guess I should have expected it would happen sooner or later, but it definitely wasn’t something I was expecting tonight. We’re all excited though…and especially the two of them! They have set their date for March 18^th and they’re going to get married in the Ogden Temple. I’ve always wanted a daughter and it looks like I’m finally going to get one!

Aargh Mateys!

"All Pirates Beware and Be Warned…if your mom makes your costume one year and it still fits the next year…that’s what you’ll be for Halloween AGAIN!”

Even with that warning, the boys didn’t seem to mind being pirates for the second year in a row...and they were just as cute the second time as they were the first! In fact, they obviously know how the “costume rotation” works in this house because they didn’t even entertain the thought of being anything other than pirates...and I was glad! I guess I could have tried to talk them into being Earthworm Jim or Freakazoid, both of which we had costumes for because those were the things that Chris requested to be (and I had made) when he was 9 and 10 years old. It just probably wouldn’t have been any fun for them to be someone that they don’t even know...nor would anyone else (but Chris) for that matter!

With Halloween being on a Sunday this year, that meant we had to celebrate beforehand...so it turned into a weekend of celebrating! On Thursday, both kids had their class Halloween parties, on Friday night we had our ward party, which included a carnival, a hay ride (which Rod was giving with his 4 wheeler hauling the wagon) and trunk or treating, then on Saturday night, we did our normal trick or treating. I really hoped the boys would get enough candy at the trunk or treat so that we wouldn’t have to go out on Saturday night too, but they ended up having to share a bag and so they only got enough candy for one person. Needless to say, we ended up going out on Saturday night too!Hayden at his class party

Connor and his "matey", Zachary Gates

Our normal trick or treating tradition that we’ve done for probably 9 years now is to start at the Chatelains for a picture of the boys with Millie. Then we trick or treat in their neighborhood, which is the subdivision behind where we live and then come home. Of course, Rod doesn’t like to go out at all, so he opts to stay home and give out candy while we’re gone....but as soon as we leave he turns out all of the lights and goes into our room to watch TV, so how many trick or treaters do you think he really gets?

This year we decided to break tradition...much to Rod’s chagrin! To begin with, it rained most of the afternoon, so we weren’t even sure that we’d get to go at all. Then when it stopped raining just before 6:00, the Hedins called and wanted us to come go with them…and pull the trailer (that we used for the party last night) for the kids to ride on as we went! We’d already had to unload the hay earlier in the day because of the rain, so all we had was the trailer and Rod really didn’t want to go, but he came anyway!

The Hedins took their 17 year old special needs son, Mason trick or treating with us and he added a whole new dimension to trick or treating. First of all, we had a hard time getting him to go to the door with the kids, then once we got him there, we had a hard time getting him to move on. Eventually, the kids got on the trailer to get a ride around the corner to the next house...and then we couldn’t get Mason to leave the trailer alone. He either wanted to ride on it or when he wasn’t riding, he’d run behind it with his bucket of candy banging at his side as he ran. It was an interesting way to trick or treat!

We went all the way around their block and when we got back to the Hedin’s, we left them and went to trick or treat in another subdivision in our ward where we heard you could get “big candybars” at one of the houses. We weren’t sure exactly which house though, so we had Rod drop us off and we went up and down the whole neighborhood and never did find the house that gave out big candybars...but we lost Rod!

Eventually we dropped off Rod and went back to get our picture at the Chatelains, but we almost didn’t even get that because they weren’t answering their door. However, when they didn’t answer the first time, we decided to go trick or treating along their street and found someone that was giving out “big candybars”, so maybe it was a good thing the Chatelains hadn’t answered their door?! We stopped at their house one last time before we went home and this time we could hear them inside so we weren’t going away until they answered the door...and they finally did!

The boys and all of their "loot"

While I wouldn’t want to drag out Halloween like that every year, we sure had a good time this year!