SNOWMEN & Happy Birthday Tanner!!!

Look at these cute snowmen the kids built today!!

And today Tanner turns 20 years old.  Wow!!  No longer a teenager.  We love you, Tanner, and hope you have a great birthday!!

Tanner

I'm Dreaming of A White Christmas

We are dreaming of (praying for) a white Christmas in this house.  Our prayers were answered (as long as all the snow doesn't melt before Christmas)!  Along with snow comes skiing which we seemed to be able to fit into our busy schedule this week.  Rebecca and Rachel couldn't miss the same day of school so Adam and I had to go twice... once with Rebecca and once with Rachel.  Oh the sacrifices we make for them.  Hahahaha.  We also ventured out in the snow to see the lights on Temple Square.  They were beautiful as usual and the snow added a certain beauty that I love.

 My hands were too cold to take a picture outside so this is Adam and Rebecca in the lodge at lunchtime.  No pics of skiing with Rachel this time... but don't worry, we will go again.  :-)

You Must Experience the Sorrow to Appreciate the Joy

I have been putting off writing on my blog because I just have too many things to say and not the talent to put it into writing.  Since I last wrote my dear father passed away.  I have so many thoughts and feelings and just can't seem to get them into words.  As the days have passed, I keep writing in my head the blog post I want to do all about my Dad.  It's going to take a little time and pondering and writing and rewriting.  So in the meantime, I don't want to let too much time slip away without posting.

Here are just a few pictures from the funeral ... I felt Sorrow for the loss but Joy for having such a great dad.

A wonderful thing about funerals is that it does bring all the family together.  It was a joy to have so much of our family together and I was especially thrilled that Jared, Tori and Boston came as well.  They got to stay all the way through Thanksgiving so I had some nice bonding time with Boston who finally allowed me to babysit for a while.  Miracles do happen.  :-)

This is a picture of Boston watching Rebecca play indoor soccer

He thought olives on the finger was a great idea!!

I felt great joy as I spent time with my family and reflected on the fact that we can be together forever.   I'm so thankful for that knowledge.  Otherwise, the sorrow and grief at losing my father would be unbearable but the gospel teaches us that there is more and that brings me joy.

It SNOWED!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I hope you all had a fun Halloween.  This year was a little different for us.  We only had one child go Trick-or-Treating and this year he didn't need mom or dad to go with him.  It was just Adam and his friends and they were off.  David stayed home and wasn't sure quite what to do since he is always out with the kids on Halloween.  He got to watch the World Series though which was pretty fun!!

It's Adam's last year at Elementary school and his last year having a Halloween Parade.  Here's a picture (Adam is the ref)   :-)

Another strange thing about this year was that Rebecca and Adam didn't want to carve pumpkins.  I asked Rachel if she would carve a small one for Grandma and Grandpa and this is what she carved.

CUTE HUH?

While she was carving that, David asked her if she wanted to carve one for his pumpkin carving contest at work.  If she won, it would be $25.  This is what she carved.

Can you tell it's Trump?  She came in 2nd place.

At this point I decided to do Adam's since he didn't want to so I carved this....

Rachel decided that she really likes carving pumpkins so she did Rebecca's and then headed to the store to buy some more pumpkins.  I think she did 6 in all.

If you are familiar with The Avatar, The Last Airbender, you will recognize the middle two.  The top one is from Star Wars as is this last one.... Yoda.  I think the Yoda is the best one!!  David said she would have definitely won his contest if she had done that one first.

I like to fix a fun Halloween dinner so this year we had Bat Wings (Chicken Wings), Pirate's Gold (carrot slices), Spider Web walking taco dip, and Swamp Juice.  It was delicious.  

Here is a picture of Adam and his friends after they were done Trick-or-Treating.  They were gone for about 3 hours and came home with sooooooo much candy.  Oh dear!!

Mini Trip to California

Last weekend, Rebecca and I hopped on an airplane and headed to California.

We decided that since David and Adam went in September to see Jared, Tori and Boston, that we should go in October.  :-)

We also got to see Grandma Ginia (and have a delicious dinner at Outback) and we saw Jeff for a few minutes.  (Hopefully we'll get to visit with Shawna next time).

We went to the Pumpkin Patch and even went through the Corn Maze.  It was just getting dark so that made it even more fun to go through the maze.  It was fun to visit the same Pumpkin Patch we used to take Jared and the other kids to when they were little.

On Saturday, after we stopped at Sputnik's Doughnuts for the best doughnuts in the world, we headed over to Santa Cruz.  It was a gorgeous day there.

Of course, we had to go to the Boardwalk so Rebecca and I could ride the Fireball and then Jared and Boston rode a few rides.

After an hour or two at the Boardwalk, we headed north (along with some Togo's sandwiches) to a little-known place that Jared discovered.  It's called Shark Fin Cove, named for the big rock that looks like a Shark Fin.

Boston loved the sand! 

We all had a great time watching the huge waves crash into the rocks.  It was definitely the perfect day.

 

 We headed back home on Sunday morning.  It was a short visit but tons of fun!!

Autumn Has Arrived

The weather finally cooled down and we had several days of rain.  I always like rain because then I can't work out in the yard and usually end up with some time to sew.  Since it's October, I made some Halloween pillow cases and a Halloween table runner.  I just couldn't resist the cute Peanuts materials for the pillow cases.

 

 

 

The fun thing about these pillow cases is that I used a new technique and made French seams which means there are no raw edges visible inside.  It worked pretty well and was super fast.

Another fun thing we did (while it was raining outside), Adam built a hand crank flashlight using the Tinker Crate he got this month. If you haven't tried the anything from Kiwi Crate, you should go to their website and see what they have to offer.....   www.kiwicrate.com   Adam loves it.  He has built little robot dudes with light up eyes using circuits.  He's made rockets that blast off using chemical reactions.  He built an awesome catapult.  And then, like I said, this month he made a hand crank flash light using resistors and diodes, etc.  He learns a lot (and so do I).  Like, did you know that Edison did invent Direct Current electricity (DC) but Tesla actually invented Alternating Current electricity (AC)?  The electricity gets to our house using AC and then there are converters in our various electrical appliances and electronics to change it to DC so the things work. 

Here is a picture of Adam with his flashlight. It looks way better in the dark but I couldn't really get a good picture of it.