Ahh thanksgiving weekend

waiting for rob to get off early on wednesday. what did we do??? Cabellas of course. animals and fish galore = heaven for little boys. oh, and trying on the merchandise.

Yes, that is a wolf chasing a caribou. Ever since i went to yellowstone national park with Utah State College of Natural Resources looking for wolves i am sorta in love with the fearsome creatures. Truly, they are majestic. I am sure farmers would disagree with me but since i am a city girl, i enjoy the beauty they possess.

My mother is a master chef and created a wonderful thanksgiving for us all!!

The food was as amazing as everything looked. We missed my brother jake and his wife katie but we are looking forward to Jared and Maddie's wedding coming up in a week and a half!!

As i do every year, the day after thanksgiving we put up christmas. Caleb is getting into the magic of christmas and it is so fun to help create that magic here at home. 

This is my latest foray into creativity. My fireplace is not usable as a fireplace. It just fills our house up with smoke and does little in the way of warming. So i cleaned it out, nicely wadded up the extra Christmas lights we have, bought the cinnamon smelling pine cones, dug wood out of our fire pit in the backyard and whala my newest Christmas masterpiece. It is homey and festive looking. i might even keep the white ones year-round.

Wannabees

Rob's flag football team name is the wannabees. I suggested it because i thought the irony was hilarious. A bunch of guys wanting to play football. The team is made up of nine or ten guys i think. Five of those are family members. I can say for them, they just want to play football. They had nothing to prove. The season went OK. Mid-season they were losing a lot but as soon as the weather turned bad they started killing their opponents. This past Saturday was the semi-finals. They were so excited they made it and of all things, they won so they went to the final game. They played a team that killed them during the regular season. It was  fun to watch them play their hearts out. The last play, my newest brother in law (red hat) saved the game by jumping up in a pack of three opponents to bat the ball away and preserve the one point lead.

The wannabees won the championship for their division.

My sister in law (wife to the game-saving bat down player) was so proud and said it was like a movie or something.
Especially with the name: Wannabees.

Good job guys

Good Times

I feel like i spend a lot of time on this blog whining. Sure my sons are a challenge but i am positive everyone's kids give them a run for their money. Mischief is our middle name here so that is why it gets included so much. Besides, it makes it funnier if i try to blog about it. Sometimes it takes too much energy to be mad.

The month of november tends to get overlooked so last year i started a new tradition.
I do a thanks box.
I text everyone who we are doing thanksgiving dinner with every day of the month and ask what they are thankful for--no explanations needed. Then i write all the individual answers on paper, put in a book and bring it to thanksgiving dinner. I love it last year and looked forward to it all year.

I think it is so helpful to work on being thankful. I find at the beginning of the month sometimes it is hard to come up with things i am grateful for but at this point in the month i have so many things-specific things i am thankful for that it makes me smile and leads into celebrating the gift and birth of the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly.

I love thanksgiving.

What is that???!!

We went to gygi's to get some stuff (love that store by the way) and caleb had been chewing gum. Caleb is a great gum chewer so it has never been an issue what to do with it.  Early in our shopping trip he told me "get the gum" i had no idea what he was talking about and was distracted by shopping so i ignored him. Apparently to colton's peril.As I was loading colton when i saw gum in his hair. Of course i don't carry scissors so i went inside and asked some nice guy if i could borrow some scissors. He gave me some dull kids safety scissors. I proceeded to try to hold my little mover still while i took scissors to his head. The guy graciously held coltons head (while i could feel the eyes of multiple customers and workers wondering what was going on.) And out came this blob. Ironically, i didn't get that mad at Caleb. I wanted to be mad but their was no anger in me. I told him i was dissappointed in this and as i was forumilating a brilliant punishment I realized then i am being worn down. And it probably was an accident.

This mess happened during a peaceful dinner. And i didn't freak out like i thought i would have. I just moved a few things around and sighed. Rob cleaned it up-thankfully it was washable.

Yes, i am being worn down.

Family Gathering

Sunday was my cousins farewell. He will be serving an lds mission in Hondouras. We are all so excited for him. We drove up to pocatello to listen to him speak and have fabulous food. I was terrified how my boys would do but they did great! It helped we could go 80 mph most of the way.

 Grandma Loland, Aunt Tanna, Aunt Toni

 Grandma Roma, Shane, Brooke, Brittannia

doesn't brooke look so feminine and graceful?! Brittania is 5 months pregnant. i swear. talk about unfair!

i have always envied and compared myself to these to women.i had no sisters-they were the next closest thing i had growing up.  I love them and think they are beautiful!

 My man and Braxton, the future missionary

 Uncle Mark has his hand in front of his face.

 Me, sleeping colton, and my mom who looks fabulously skinny!

Braxton and I

crud, i remember when this kid was a baby! 

time flies people. we better cherish what we have.