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!!!

costumes 2010

introducing brody...oh i mean anakin skywalker

we are so into star wars this year...can you tell?! when asked what he wanted to be anakin skywalker was it!

brooklyn on the other hand got this idea in her head that she wanted to be a ladybug. so i made her costume using tulle, felt, and a wire hanger for the wings. easy and cheap! we like that around here.

getting the full effect!

we were invited to a halloween party through our other LDS med students (dont worry the party was on the 30th) the catch was it was a required costume party. now josh and i have never EVER dressed up for halloween before but this year we had to. i was the sunmaid raisin girl and josh was a bunch of grapes. josh came up with the idea i just had to put it all together. i made the bonnet from a wire hanger and a cereal box, the apron i just threw together and josh well he was easy balloons galore.

one big SILLY family

carving pumpkins

brody drew his own face on his pumpkin this year and carved it all by himself

and of course, he HATED getting his hands dirty...brody hates anything to be dirty, i guess he gets that from his OCD parents

brooklyn however is not as clean as the rest of us and loved every minute of it

working so hard to make it perfect

all done and big smiles

scary aren't they?!

i almost thought we weren't going to get the pumpkins carved, i wanted to wait until josh was home, so he could be apart of the fun tradition but things are so busy right now. we will usually carve pumpkins on the FHE before the week of halloween. this year though we carved them on the 30th. the kids had fun and daddy was there to help them with it.