It's beginning to look alot like Chirstmas

Tonight we put up are Christmas tree. The kids had alot of fun digging out there own ornaments from previous years. They got them all out and put them in order. It was cute to see how much they appreciated it. This was really Sawyer's first time to really understand what was happening and he loves the Christmas tree. He just kept pointing to it and saying "Christmas tree"! The kids loved putting the ornaments on the tree and I must say that they are getting really good at it, because I looked at it when they were done and I did not feel like I needed to rearrange once they were asleep. Maybe I am getting better at them decorating the tree also

Generations

I remeber very little of my great grandparents, but the few things that I remember are good. I remember tea parties with my great grandma Berrier, some sort of farming with my great grandpa Gross, the kitchen table and stove at my great grandma Gross's house, and stories from my great grandma Bird. I hope that my children will remember the great times that they are able to have with their great grandparents. i hope just hearing their names will bring back grand memories. I hope that when they think of Thanksgiving, they will remember their great grandpa Updike playing the harmonica for them to dance to and their great grandma Updike's delicious food.

Thanksgiving

I was reading a blog post from Thanksgiving of one of my friends and she wrote about the tradition of the five kernals of corn. You tell five things that you are thankful for. I am not sure if this is her family tradition or a traditional tradition, if you know what I mean, but I think that I am going to start this tradition myself. Feel free to steal the idea with me. Hopefully next year I will remember and I can have my kids and hubby participate also.
Any how here goes
1-The one thing that I am most thankful for is my Savior. When I was thinking about what I was most grateful for I realized that without Him and the Gospel, I would not have anything else to be grateful for. I am truly blessed that I know who my Savior is and that He loves me.
2- Dennis=I truly believe that I have the most wonderful husband in the whole world. (sorry everyone) I truly mean it. It takes an incredibel person to be my husband and Dennis does an outstanding job. I am so grateful that he is mine and that i get to be with him forever.
3-My kids!!! Ryan, Julia and Sawyer. Some days it might feel as though I was crazy to have kids, but as I always say everything is equal in opposites. For all the hard times that my kids give me there is always something that is so great that weighs it out. And to be completely honest there is way more great then hard. My kids bring me the most joy.
4- The holiday season. there is nothing greater then a time of year when I believe that everyone thinks about others. Admist the wants and sometimes greediness, I really think that everyone, at least once, thinks about someone else. What a great time of year.
5-temporal blessing- my home, Dennis's job, all those things that some people do not have. Sometimes, well maybe more then sometimes, I have more then I need, but I am truly grateful that I do not have to go hungry, cold or lonely.

I had a great Thanksgiving, with my extended family. It was a great kickoff for the whole holiday season.

Reading

I love to read to my kids, but I even love it more when I catch them reading, (or looking) at books. I am a lover of books, in fact i cannot even get a book if there is something that I have to get done, because once i pick up a book everything gets ignored. If there is one thing that i can say that I have taught my kids, it is to love books. There is nothing that makes them more happy then to read books and the best part, they are always the best behaved when they have a book.

Ryan Basketball

Ryan did the mini wolf basketball camp again this year and I must say he is becoming quite the little b-ball player. He is so cute. he really loves it and the best part is he is always so willing to put alot of work into it. Every night that he came home he wanted to go shoot hoops to get better. Nothing better then a hard worker. He really liked to play in the games and was even able to score in each game that he played, the best part- the smile he tried to hide so "cooly" after he made a shot and was trying hard not to let us all know how awesome it was.

Halloween

Nothing is funner then getting dressed up and getting free candy. Sawyer wanted to be batman, but we had a hard time finding a batman costume that was his size. So we talked him into being a skeleton. He loved it and when ever he saw someone he would growl at them, thinking that he was scaring them. Totally in character. Julia informed me early in the month that she wanted to be a girl vampire. I wondered why not a princess and then we settled on a witch. What has happened to my little girl? She was a cute witch though, not a scary one and then when someone accidentally took her black dress at school, she became a pumpkin princess. I was very happy, maybe she is not as grown up as I thought. Ryan was the sole designer of his mountain man costume. He saved up money and went to the mountain man rendezvous and purchased his own leather and then had me sew his costume. He hot glued the extras on there himself. He was very proud of his costume. I was very proud of him also.

Carving pumpkins

We had a lot of fun this year carving pumpkins. We let the kids design their own pumpkins and we did the cutting. It went alot faster than it has in the past because Dennis was a carver and not a designer. Also we waited until the night before halloween to carve and jsut cut the top off and did not gut the pumpkins. I would really recommend this, no mess and a lot faster. and you do not have to worry about them rotting because you are going to throw them away the next day. The kids love halloween and this was a great night before activity.