Winter Woodland

To make a long story short, for Jeff's mom's Christmas present this year she asked her kids and their spouses if we would do a tree for Festival of Trees. Of course the decorating aspect fell to the girls and the technical side of setting up and securing the tree to the Festivals specifications was placed on Mike & Jeff. Niki, Melanie and I went shopping when Mel was in town from Virginia and Heather took care of figuring out the tree skirt when she was in town from New Mexico. After months of prep work, November 28th was decorating day at the Expo Center. Jeff, Niki, Mike, and Emily were all able to come help me.  We were able to get the tree up, decorations all wired on, and accessories arranged in a few hours. It was a lot of fun to do and just a fun atmosphere to be in.

I think the biggest stressors were arranging babysitters the day of, worrying about how I was going to do it by myself, and whether or not the tree would sell. I hated the idea of Dave & Arline putting forth so much money and PCMC not getting very much. But I had a wonderful neighbor offer to help, a great brother who volunteered for a couple hours and my amazing mom finish up watching my kids (as well as sweep my house, empty my dishwasher, make beds, and vacuum. Thanks Mom! You're the best!). Two days before we were supposed to go decorate Jeff was able to secure getting the day off work easing my mind A LOT,  Mike & Niki called the day of and said they'd be there shortly after lunch, then Jeff's cousin Emily texted and volunteered her services. I was so grateful for all the help! And my final worry - our tree did sell and it went for 3x what we had put out on it!

Thanks for the great opportunity Dave & Arline and Merry Christmas!!!

Day of Thanks

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with the Newmans. Since the family has gotten so big my uncle reserved his clubhouse. Thankfully we had enough room and chairs for all 45 of us and we had plenty of delicious food. After dinner I took a few pictures of my parents and their 10 grandkids.

Then we had dessert, relaxed, played wallyball, and had some crafts and games for the kids. It was an enjoyable night and so fun to spend it with family.

We are so grateful for so many things and we've truly been blessed. We're grateful we have such wonderful family - most of which live really close. We're grateful for a warm and comfortable home, Jeff's work, healthy, smart and beautiful kids, the gospel and so many other wonderful things.

Leaves

On the 12th and then again on the 26th Jeff headed out to clean up leaves in the yard. Of course as soon as it was noticed that dad was outside, both kids raced to join the 'fun'. They had fun stomping down the leaves to make room in the garbage can and also running, jumping and throwing leaves all over. It took awhile, but Jeff finally got our yard raked up.

Snow!

We had our first big snowfall of the season and our first snowfall when dad could come out play. Last year was our first year with a yard to play in and it never snowed on a weekend when Jeff was home during daylight. I think we were all excited to finally have it all work out. Dad definitely plays different than mom ... snowballs were flying almost as soon as we were out there. Both kids enjoyed sledding, throwing snowballs, making a snowman, and of course the favorite - eating snow.