family pictures- november 2010

as you can see some of them are touched up, others still need it. but we are oh so happy with how they turned out. if you want to see more of John's work visit his website: www.fromallwalks.com

the newest member of our family

Meet Nolan! He is our family Elf! He came from the North Pole to check up on us. We need to be good everyday because every night Nolan goes back to Santa to tell him if we have been good or bad that day! We love Nolan and we love to look for him every morning when we wake up!

thanksgiving weekend

i have the hottest husband

feeding the birds

on ride at Christmas town

the kids on a ride

"Oh Tannenbaum"

we really had the most magical thanksgiving weekend EVER! on friday we took the kids out black friday shopping to a couple stores and then to see "Tangled" which they loved (thanks grandma bingham)! after the movie they came home and acted out all the parts of the movie. on saturday we got up and got ready and decided to head to Williamsburg and Busch Gardens. we went the scenic route again and took the ferry over to Jamestown. the kids love feeding the birds and i think josh likes it too. we ate lunch at our favorite place in Williamsburg, the cheese shop. then my wonderful husband took me shopping at the insanely busy outlets. the deals were pretty dang good though. after shopping we headed to Christmas Town. This is only the second year they have done this at Busch Gardens and I have to say it was amazing. It was like Disney World. There were so many lights to see. We rode rides, drank tons of hot chocolate to stay warm, saw Santa and his workshop, got toys, went to shows. IT WAS MAGICAL! I so wish we were going to be here next year to go again. we loved it and loved it some more. brooklyn was hysterically laughing and clapping during the sesame street show. she adored ELMO. she was laughing so much that all the people around us were laughing too. she was too cute for words. Brody loved the rides. he even got to go on the big kids ride with his dad! what a glorious fun day we had. we got home late and put the kids to bed with dreams of candy canes and hot chocolate dancing in their heads.

our first family thanksgiving

josh cooking thanksgiving dinner for me

cuteness!

mom and brookie on thanksgiving

our table

josh relaxing after the meal!
this year for thanksgiving we had some unexpected news wednesday night that josh would have to work thanksgiving morning. i was pretty sad about the whole thing wednesday but to my surprise he was home early thursday morning. that morning we got ready and in a whirlwind we decided to get our family pictures done (something that had been stressing me out for awhile). john and patti's son is a photographer and he was home from DC for thanksgiving. we begged him to take our pictures. he was so nice to do it for our family! we owe him big time because they are AMAZING!!! anyways we got our family pictures done and spent the rest of the day at home. josh being the amazing man he is cooked dinner for me. i didnt do a single thing. i truly married the most loving man. he takes care of my every need and know what i need, before i even know what i need. he gave me the best gift ever when he married me. thank you honey again for cooking and cleaning thanksgiving day. i am a lucky girl!

brody can write his name

i wish you could have seen brody's excitement when he showed me and himself that he could write his own name! he is learning so much and he loves to show me all he learns. in the pictures he drew a giraffe, turtle, zebra, snake, crab, jellyfish and turkey. he loves LOVES to color with markers, something we do at our house on a daily basis because he loves it so much. he draws people too which is pretty cute since the arms come out of the head! i think he is becoming quite the artist! brody is four and i absolutely love the age he is at right now. he is too funny. he tries to come up with his own jokes like...what does a daddy eat when he eats a gorilla?....a gorilla. this is where he starts cracking up which makes us laugh as well. he plays with his sister so well and when he wants to can be so sweet. he still continues to make his bed everyday and would rather have all the toys in his room cleaned up than be playing with them. silly boy! i love his to pieces though.

a new calling

josh has been in his surgery rotation for five weeks now and that is probably why we are catching up now with our blog posts. his lack of time at home means my lack of time to update on the computer. also i received a new calling at church, i am the ward activities chair (that was just announced in the church leadership meeting, my calling no longer exists). anyways, my ward is still keeping me. they called me three weeks ago and our ward christmas party is on the third. that has got me hard at work as well. despite all our business we have been doing a little craft that reminds us of the things we are thankful for this thanksgiving season. each day we write/color a leaf of the thing that we are thankful for that day and we talk about why we are thankful for that thing. this has been a truly wonderful experience for our family as i know i am thinking each day for the thing that i am thankful for that day. i hope this thanksgiving season fills your heart with gratitude for the many blessings Heavenly Father has given to all of us. Happy Thanksgiving to all our dear family and friends. know that we are thinking of you and we are grateful for each one of you.

volleyball 2010

as most of you know, i coached volleyball again this year. i coached our first year out here and was asked to be the assistant coach this year again. the girls ranged in age from 12-14, it was so much fun. i love the game and i had a lot of fun coaching. it was sometimes hard to work our schedule but we made it all work. thank you to josh for being so supportive and loving. i know there were many nights when you didnt want me to go to practice, but you still let me. i love you. our season is now done. we finished third and went to the playoffs where we lost. i loved coaching the girls and getting my own hands on the ball again.

brody's school thanksgiving lunch

standing in line with his class as cute as can be

they all made necklaces and indian feather hats...he attends a baptist school, can you tell!

mama and her chick

brody with his teachers

brody made this cute placemat that said the things he was thankful for. i had so much fun going to school with brody and having lunch with him. this was truly special for me. i had aunt patti watch brookie so i could have all my attention on brody. i loved watching him with his classmates and listening to the conversations they were having. brody you are such a great student and you are such a good little boy. your teachers love you and i love you too! thank you for letting me come share in this special day with you.

halloween craft number four

so this is sad but true...this cute craft didnt get finished till after halloween but hey we will have it for the years to come! things have just been so busy with our schedules. so here is our halloween advent calendar. found the idea at howdoesshe.com

hallow's eve

on halloween, since it was on sunday i still wanted the kids to have fun without the trick or treating, we had a little get together with john and patti and the wangsgards that night. we cooked pizzas and i planned a few games for the kids and adults to play. in this game they had a starting line and a finish line, the kids had to hit the pumpkin with their bat. whomever got their pumpkin passed this finish line first won.
brooklyn got the right idea and just picked her pumpkin up and ran to the finish line to win, uncle john picked on brody and kicked brody's pumpkin away...it was all in fun but brody didnt like that too much.
next we bobbed for apples, brooklyn yet again just decided to stick her hand in and pull the apples out and take a bite...much easier and cuter. brody tried so hard...

and finally got one!

the triumph!!!

mom and dad raced to see who could get a apple first....josh pushed me out of the way to win!

uncle john carved this pumpkin and said it looked like me so of course i had to take a picture! he like to tease me quite a bit! one of these days though i am going to get him back good!!! we played another game called capture the ghost but i didnt get a picture, the kids had a fun night despite not trick or treating. i think they actually like passing the candy out more!!!