My birthday & Thanksgiving

I couldn't be more thankful this Thankgiving season for the good friends that I've made since moving to Colorado.  They were sweet and invited me out for my birthday.

Todd and the kids took me to Red Robin the night before, since my birthday falls on Thankgiving this year.

 My friend Tawny came over to get our pie making on.

Thanksgiving day...getting our food ready to go.  Todd is pretty handy in the kitchen and I'm grateful for that too.

Heather's sister graciously invited us to her house for Thanksgiving dinner.  I don't mind blowing my candles out on this chocolate pie...yum. 

I even had a little helper.

Jason and Todd and cute cute cute little guy Andrew.

I am also grateful for my awesome in-laws including Heather.  We have a girls trip planned with just the girls this April, which I'm looking forward too.

A few days later out came the Christmas decorations.

I love how excited the kids get to set everything up.

We were lucky enough to have Jason's family stop by on their way home to Logan for some visiting and dinner.  It was a perfect day to be ouside and get a crocket game in.

Ms. Sara and Cali.

I was sad to see how sad the kids were to say goodbye to each other, but also grateful that they love being with each other that much that it is hard.  Todd, Jason, Tanner, Ellie and Sara all got to go skiing a few days before and had so much fun.

It was a very fun 5 days and I am just feeling so grateful.

Tanner Turns 10!

Tanner enters the double digits.  We can't believe our boy is 10!  He is such a great boy and a really good person, which makes me happy because he's a great babysitter to his siblings.  Ka-ching!  There was a new family that just moved into our ward and we invited them over for cake and they also have a 10 year old boy.  They live a block away so Tanner is thrilled.

He woke up to balloons and gifts wrapped and ready for opening. 

We celebrated with some Martinelli apple juice...mormon style.

The party had everyone a little tuckered out by the end of the night.

2011 Halloween

Todd and I got invited to an adult Halloween party and had a blast.  As in years previous we always dress up and Todd was a good sport to wear the vampire robe, fangs and all.

The ward Trunk or Treat.  This is a little embarrassing, not only do I not have photos of the real Halloween night I didn't take any of Cali or Carter.  Carter wore the same costume as Tanner and Cali wore a dress a lot like mine.  We were a family of vampires.

Pumpkin carving ... a long cherished tradition.

Here's Carter waiting on the side lines for his pumpkin to be gutted he was too grossed out to put his own hand inside to get gooey.

Todd's is the scary face to the the left, mine is the happy face on the ground and the dragon is Carter's.

I carved the Cinderella for Cali and Tanner's is the monster alien. 

Is that SNOW in October?

It seems like forever since we've experienced fall.  A great day to get things cleaned up and cleared away to prepare for winter.

I don't think I've seen Todd clean out his vehicle since he owned his Suzuki Swift like 10 years ago.  He bought a pressure washer and did both cars...love it.

The boys pulled out their bikes and did them too.

And, then the very next day this is what we woke up to.  Seriously people here said it snowed like twice last year.  It doesn't look like it's going to be a dry winter...it's only OCTOBER!

My boys were in heaven.

A few days later they went sledding with some friends.

Todd got off work and we headed on over.

The kids were on this hill, so Todd big and bad with his new Jeep thought he would surprise them and cut through the field.  Oh yeah we got stuck good.  It took 15 minutes just to get back out.

Here is what the road looked like after we got out coming around again.  You could say that we got a little mud on the tires.

Ah Sports!

Cali started dance and loved it.  She got stickers on her shoes after each class.  She likes the ballet shoes and dancing part fine, but she loves when she gets to do the tap shoes.  I speak in past tense because after 6 weeks of class she is not quite ready to not want to do her own thing yet.  So, we'll try again in another year or so.  It was super cute watching her try it out though and she still likes to put these shoes on and tap.

 Soccer season is winding down and Carter has improved so much this season and had a lot of fun.

Tanner played a bit more competetive this year, which was a lot of fun to watch.

We are taking a break after soccer season ends and our family is gearing up to sign up for ski passes, mom included in that.  It should be fun though!

The Carters come to Denver

The Carter girls came to Denver.

Candice hard at work making Cali's cake.  I made the cake part and that is where we probably went wrong.  The darn thing wouldn't stay together.  So, the professional that Candice is made the necessary adjustments to the cake.

The boys had 2 days off of school so it turned out good.  We went to the Denver Museum of Natural History. That place is gigantic.

Carter is learning about mummies in school and so we sent this picture to his teacher.

Okay I probably shouldn't put this but Carter had a good quiet giggle telling Tanner what he thought this dinosaur's tailbone was.  He mistakenly thought it was a HUGE other body part.  I think he was disappointed when I told him what it really was.

The girls came and cheered the boys on at their Saturday morning soccer games.  I can't believe that is all the pictures I took.  Candice and I did some shopping.  We took the kids to Monkey Business to play one morning.  We did lunch and best of all we got to drive Todd's Jeep around every time we left the kids with him.