The tree is finished!

DECORATING!!!

Christmas is my FAVORITE holiday. You can ask anyone that know me! I love it. The day after Thanksgiving is mine for decorating and my entire family knows that on Friday our home is transformed. I have spent years gathering and working to decorate each room. It is a work in progress but I love it. Kent would like it more if there were less plastic tubs under the house to drag out. However, this year I gave up the icicle lights and he was thrilled... He hates the upkeep of those lights. Last year Kenna and Chip cut us a green tree on their trip to the mountains, it was just as tall as this one, and Kent left before I decorated it. I spent two days putting on the lights and just when I reached the end of and began to plug the lights in I had put them on backwards and had no way of plugging them in. I was sick and cranky! I had to take them off and re-do the entire tree. This year Kent was home to help. We started at 5:30 and finished around 8:40. Putting the lights on a tree this tall takes up the most time. I had a new idea this year and tried it on the tree. The tree turned out beautiful! I love it.

Thanksgiving

Grandma Great's birthday is the day after Thanksgiving so we had a cake for desert. Sayger helped her blow out her candles.She turned 85 this year. We are very lucky and blessed to still have her with us. We all adore her and she means a great deal to us.

Both of my girls love pumpkin pie...or whip cream with a little pumpkin pie ont he side.

Auntie Brooke, Curtis and Uncle Tom. Whew... we just ate!
Every year we celebrate Thanksgiving at Grandma Great's house. She is my grandma Nola. She makes the best turkey stuffing and everyone loves the homemade noodles in the gravy. We all eat, visit, eat some more, sometimes watch the game, eat and visit some more. The kids all play downstairs, cards and various games. This year was a bit quieter than usual. Uncle Dick stayed in Boise and Dakota went to the Matthews. That's okay. It was still yummy, and less people means more left-overs!!! HA! HA!

We love the game! Go SHOCK!

Shandler was invited to be a player on a traveling team. The travel between Burley, Rupert and Twin Falls. Her team will play into the month of February. Tim and Lori Henrickson are the coaches and they do such a great job. We went to Twin Falls last weekend to watch her play back to back games. Three of the girls on her team had other obligations, so there were no subs. Shandler and her team mates had to play their entire game. Their only rests were time outs! They only lost by six points and they were all exhausted. They played hard! After the game we went to Sonic for a small snack, I warned the girls not to eat to much, since they were the only players there, I did not want to see them throwing up on the court. They were great sports and I know after this first set of games they will practice differently this next week. GO SHOCK!

Searching for the perfect tree!

Stormie and I scouting out the perfect tree!

They left me!

We found one and Sayger was eager to help out!

One night we were talking about Christmas and Ryan mentioned going to get our own trees, Jason had just finished an article int he magazine too, so this year we all decided to find our own tree in the mountains that are right in our own backyard. With Ryan, Brandy Nicole,Marty, Jason, Lori and all of our kids we spent the day in the mountains of Almo. We took a huge pot of homemade chili, cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. Jason took family pictures(that is why we all have matching red on) and we had a wonderful day. Stormie, Shandler and Sayger darted all over the mountain searching for the perfect tree. I like a certain kind so I was being picky. Finally we settled on two, I could not choose. In the end the fuller and taller tree won. Brandy was glad I finally picked one because she likes the same kind of tree so she picked the second one I liked. It worked out perfect. Sayger is such a boy too... he was so eager to cut a tree down, he carried the saw and couldn't wait for us to find the tree we wanted. At every tree he would say "How about this one?" -even if the tree was half dead or dried up.It was a great experience and I know it will live in the memories of my children forever. The weather was perfect and there was just enough snow on the ground for it to look like winter. Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday and traditions are an important part, I believe this will now become a family tradition. Thanks to all of our friends for enjoying the day with us we love you all!

Super Hero Ice Cream

While bowling the kids always end the night with ice cream treats. Colton and Sayger chose Super Hero. Can you guess what color it was! THANKS JOHN and BETTY. We always enjoy our time with you!

Bowling Party

John Charles and Betty Jane were here for their annual visit. We always go bowling with John Charles. He makes it so fun! The kids eat pizza, pop and ice cream. They bowl until they wear John out! It is something they look forward to and the countdown is on as soon as we tell the kids they are coming.

Stormies #1 Fan!

John Charles and the sign!

Each year we have family come to visit from Missouri. They love to do things with our kids. For the last two years John Charles has come to support Stormie while playing basketball. He even makes a sign and cheers and claps for her. At first she was embarassed but this year I think she was looking forward to it. GOOO Hornets!

Out of the mouth of babes...

Sometimes Sayger says the craziest things. He is always so honest, as most children are. The other night we were driving home from the Declo playoff game. Stormie was talking about hanging out with her friends, a few of them boys. Shandler commented, she didn't see what the big deal was with Stormie, why do all the boys hang around with her, I don't think she's that cute! Sayger pipes up and says "Stormie I think you are beautiful, even when you have a zit!" And was as sincere as could be. We all laughed while Stormie thanked her little brother for loving her.

On another note, I don't want to forget this one. Stormie loves the movie Enchanted. We watched it most of the summer. One night I told the kids it was bedtime... all the kids were upstairs in Shandler's room, I hear Sayger jump onto Shandler's bed and in a very commanding voice announces to Stormie "Take me to my bed foul beast!" I have never laughed so hard. Stormie and Shandler both collapsed to the floor in laughter and Sayger stood there in amazement. He had given a command and no one was jumping to attention. He was quite serious!

I hope to blog more comments my children make in their innocence!

Halloween-2008

My children love Halloween! They always have. Sayger was a Star Wars action figure, but the school would not allow masks this year so he paraded with out it. He really didn't like it much anyway, he said it made things blurry. However, the gunwas big hit and I was wishing by the end of the night his dad would have never found batteries for it. Shandler was a little devil, which is sometimes closer than we would like. She was very cute and the costume was darling. Stormie was a Cosmic Fairy, but she was at the Declo play off game and was not about to miss it, she had a Halloween party the next night with her friends and looked adorable. We love trick or treating at Grandma Greats, she has wonderful treats. We also like Grandma and Grandpa Kidd's they treat us well!! We had a very fun packed late night-thank goodness the clocks were set back.

Basketball-8th Grade

Stormie is playing 8th grade basketball! She is definitely not the girl that started basketball in grade school. She used to be afraid of the other players and the ball too, but not now... She is very aggressive and plays hard. We are proud of her and love to watch her play. Go Declo!!!

Fall-One of our favorites!

One of Kent's new hobbies is photography. He has a new camera is learning the ins and outs from Jason. I loved these pictures of the fall leaves he took in Oregon when he was there for a Dealer Review. Kent"s job has afforded us many things but it is not always easy being a single mom week after week. I am very impressed and have a great admiration for those mothers that do this daily. My hat is off to you! I know at the end of each week my husband will return and family life will continue. I am very proud of Kent and his ability to succeed at everything he does. I am lucky to have a strong personality and the ability to be independent or this would be far harder than it is. There are often days I shed a tear or two or huff in anger as I take care of something I know he would do if he was here. I do owe a great big THANK YOU to my mother who has been my saving grace on a number of occasions. She helps me transport children, get after school snacks and listens to my complaints.
This is one of Kent and I's favorite seasons and we are so thankful for so many things. We love the area we live in. We have such great friends and family. The mountains in front of us and the beauty of the river directly behind us. We love our children, all five, and feel fortunate to be given the opportunity to have raised them and still be raising them. We are thankful for our good health. A very dear family member has been diagnosed with cancer and is facing the battle of a lifetime. This has flooded my mind with memories and fear for the past and future. We are thankful for our good jobs and especially at this time with what the economy is faced with. I think most of all we are thankful for the gospel, for the knowledge we have and can share with our family. We are thankful for our membership in the church, the ability we have to raise our children with the love of Christ in their daily lives and in our homes.
Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! It means you have taken a few minutes of your day to check on us. It is my way of keeping up with my family as I watch them change before my eyes.