Missionary Mice

I was getting ready to send off my little brothers missionary stocking and decided to take a picture of it. I found one with 2 little mice in it so I decided to cut the mice out and make them into mini missionaries. I thought they turned out pretty cute. Then I attached them back into the stocking. There is even a button to push and they sing, "We wish you a merry christmas." Well anyways...I guess it's time to get back into the swing of things after Thanksgiving. Sure was a fun holiday... now I am excited to get ready for Christmas and all the fun and warm feelings that that brings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow...now I can sit back and relax:) Yesterday was kinda crazy with all the baking of rolls, cookies, cakes, etc....Now I can go to (the White House) Graham and just enjoy good company with my family. Aaron and Juliet are flying in today with Kingston and we'll be eating this afternoon. I was thinking on how much I am grateful for this morning while I was on my morning run (around bldg. C) and started thinking about all that has happened since last Thankgiving. We have had a baby, moved, went on vacation to Utah, saw my brother off in the MTC, had some crap to go through, became primary teachers, saw Dallas into the first grade, lost 43 lbs. so far;)watched our baby start crawling and even start to stand, saw Cody learn to use a two wheel bike, Elijah start talking non stop and very well. I am so blessed that I have healthy, smart, funny, loving sons. I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband who supports me and helps me to achieve my goals that I'm working on right now. I'm thankful for my brother who chose to serve a mission in New Mexico. I'm thankful for my sister who babysits for us every week and for Mike's family who are always taking turns watching our kids so that I can go and support my husband in his various gigs. I'm thankful for my mom and dad who raised me and instilled wonderful values in me that I can pass on to my own children. My family is wonderful. I love the family that I married into also. I couldn't have married into a more awesome family. I'm so thankful for all my girlfriends. I have never had friends like these before and I am so blessed to have sisters. I am even thankful for the many trials in my life because they have made me see what is really important and what I want out of life. I know that we are put here for a reason and I'm thankful for that knowledge. I love the gospel and am thankful that I can be a primary teacher right now and share what I feel and know about the gospel to our primary kids.
I would like to end with a quote that I like on my calenar. "Thanksgiving is a time of quiet reflection...an annual reminder that God has, again, been ever so faithful. The solid and simple things of life are brought into clear focus."

Fall Conference

We went to the school tonight for the first parent/teacher conference of the year. Ms. Ellis had a lot of good things to say about Dallas. The only thing that she said he really needed to work on was his focusing. He likes to do everything but the task at hand so we need to work with him on that. We also ran to Schucks and to Wal Mart after that because we had to pick up a few supplies:) Mike has been working on the F-250 the last couple of days trying to fix it up a bit. He ended up replacing the wiper motor so now the windshield wipers work *woohoo*! and he took down the old headliner that was falling apart and bought some new material and he glued that in. It looks ten times better. Now we just need to work on getting a new windshield and the truck will be doing much better. Always something to do!

Our week

I was just playing around with my new program and wanted to try some things out. Sorry if you've seen these photos before:)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Soup er Saturday

We recently had our Soup er Saturday and one of the projects was making a family home evening board. I've wanted one of these for a while now so I was real excited to finally be able to make one for myself. This is how it turned out:)

Our Missionary!

My little brother Derek left for his mission to Albuquerque New Mexico in September. He has been out for 2 months now and we are so proud of him. We took the kids down to Utah when he went into the MTC and made it our family vacation for the year. We love you Elder Cooper!

Our Utah Trip

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Veterans Day!

We decided to get out of town for the day since the business was closed today for Veteran's Day and Dallas was out of school. We invited Lisa and her kids and Tam to come and join us for a fun day at the Seattle Aquarium. We'd never been there before so thought it would be something fun that we all could enjoy. It was pretty chilly and windy when we got there but by the time we left it was a lot calmer. The kids had fun touching all the starfish and all the sealife. Elijah especially enjoyed seeing Dory and Nemo (although he thought most of the orange looking fish were Nemo). After the aquarium we all took a walk down to Ivar's -if you've never been I would highly recommend it...very yummy. We had a great view in the restaurant too-a fire rescue boat was right out the window from us and we got to see the ferry coming and going with all its passengers and vehicles. Lots of fun but now we're all pretty tired.

Seattle Aquarium

Just a few of the fun things we did today while enjoying a day at the aquarium.

Fun with the Girls

Last weekend I got together with my girlfriends to welcome back Maribel from Mexico....we went to the Olive Garden in South Hill and just had fun hanging out and being together. So much to catch up on with everyone since moving from Orting about 6 months ago. The last year has been kinda crazy with everyone since all of us have kids in school. I remember getting together at Des' house on Fridays and learning to knit...then just getting together and mostly eating and seeing what delicious treat someone was going to bring (and then getting the recipe from them)...those were crazy days then with all the kids and everything...now there are even more babies (and one more on the way *April*). I just hope we can always stay close and get together no matter what the distance someday. I love my girls:)

Look at these Spooks!

Ooops!

Sorry you'll have to bear with me while I try to figure out my new photo shop on my laptop-hence the reason some of the pictures are sideways even though they aren't on the program...

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2008

Halloween was so fun this year. We all had a blast. Maribel came over in the morning with the kiddos and cut my hair and decided to do my make up for later in the evening while she was there. I was a vampiress, Mike was the Grim Reaper (all the kids loved him at the ward party), Dallas was Count Dracula, Cody was a football player, Elijah was an alligator and Brandon was the cutest little lion that you ever saw:)

We headed over to the church for the Halloween party which included lots of games, cupcake walks, and operations....for the kids, dinner, sno cones, popcorn, cotton candy, prizes and finally trunk or treating. Eli really got into the whole candy thing this year and had a blast going up to all the cars and asking for candy. He did get hot and stripped off his costume about half way through the evening but hey what can you do?! My sister, Desi, also came and hung out with us and I think had a pretty good time as well.