Thankful

I'm so thankful for my family! I love that we live close enough to see each other often. I'm thankful all the little cousins get to be together. I'm thankful for kind brothers and sisters and wonderful parents. I'm thankful for noisy, crowded houses and delicious food. I'm thankful for my faith and how it sustains me in good times like these and sad times too.

You Mean You Just Knock On Their Door and They Give You CANDY??

So much fun! We love to see all our neighbors dressed up for Halloween with silly grins and bags open in anticipation. Of course, our favorite trick-or-treaters were our nieces and nephews. They came dressed as a lion, a witch, a little spotted cow...

a Ninja, Cookie Monster, a hilarious old man, Dracula, Iron Man and a cute, little duck.

I know, I know, a Viking and a Cowboy just don't go together but that's what we ended up with. I dressed up for work then Trent grabbed his hat really quickly before running over to our Trunk-or-Treat Party.

Let the Games Begin!

It's game day and we all got together for some games of our own. We did Minute to Win It with some of the nieces and nephews. They loved the games I had planned and made up even better ones themselves.

Of course they have to get in a little wrestling with Uncle Trent.

Sometimes you're up....And sometimes you're down.

The Fun In Summer

What a busy, fun-packed summer. Sack races, pictures, pioneer bonnets, sit up contests, dancing, music, a parade, dodgeball, food and fun! Trent's family reunion went off with nary a hitch.

Parades in small towns are the BEST.

Nothing like really big tires and really big holes to entertain a bunch of little kids.

Have I mentioned we all love hanging out in our backyard?

Summer Love

This morning I woke up early and worked out in our back yard. It was cool and peaceful. The birds kept me company and all the vegetables I planted are springing up. I'm loving summer this year in our new home with all of grandma's flowers around me. We've been spending all our time we can swinging and playing in the back yard with nieces and nephews.

We bought Trent's grandparents' home. It has a huge big back yard with fruit trees and a grape arbor. There's a swingset and tons of room for imagination to flourish. The home has a wonderful big front room but there was tons of wallpaper. Trent and I have been busy remodeling and hope to make a great place for our family to grow.

That 70's fireplace has been cut down to size.
The front entryway was a cold white marble. Soon we hope to have hardwood floors.
We tore up the carpets and will be replacing them with a nice plush carpet.

We Don't Care If We Don't Know the Words

What we found out this Christmas is that we don't know the words to "Frosty the Snowman" very well. You'd think we would with as much as James sings it every year but when we went caroling to Jim and Jennifer's house we messed up twice and then quickly tried to recover by jumping to the "Thumpety, thump, thump" part while handing over the cookies. It was good for a chuckle or two on all sides.

We did better at Uncle Ray's house and all the other houses we went to that night. I still goofed up the words here and there (as always) but everyone else sang the carols right. We had 11 of the nieces and nephews to add to the caroling this year. I love having nieces and nephews old enough to jump in and participate. It makes Christmas even better.

We also started our first annual nativity reinactment. Yes, that is me being the donkey above for Mary and Joseph. Here are two adorable angels below.

I would have more pictures but I misplaced my camera and didn't get any pictures from Christmas Day and the great excitement of presents. We all went in to get new tires for Dad. He had actually been driving on them for 2 days but hadn't noticed. Uncle Roger came for Christmas dinner and stayed to play games. Trent and I had to leave to go work on the house but everyone else enjoyed having him there.