The countdown is on...

The boys have been very anxiously counting down the days until Christmas here. I can't believe how fast the month is flying by. We had a super busy week here so thought I would post this before Christmas is already past. We celebrated Tammy's 44th birthday on Sunday after FHE. Black forest cake was requested so I did my best. I've never worked with ganache before and trying to transport a 4 layer cake with whipped ganache frosting is actually quite comical. Let's just say it looked better before we left the house with it. P.s. Sorry about the picture T-it's the only one Brandon got of the both of us

Cody finally went back to school after resting for 2 days with a tweaked neck. He went back on a good day b/c his 5th grade team were awarded medals for getting 1st place in their division for flag football. He was sure happy about that.

Dallas also had his winter band concert. He is playing the tuba now and enjoys it, although it's quite a bit larger than the trombone and has a hard time when it comes to practicing as he can't hold it well without the stand that is provided at the school. This is the best picture I could get of him, while he was walking in no less. After he sits down in his chair...it's all tuba:)

Of course Elijah and I had to take a selfie while we were waiting for the concert to start.

Elijah is so excited for Christmas. He has written a few letters to Santa now: This one made the final cut. He also loves to wear our Santa Suit and goes around delivering his toys to his brothers.

I had a job interview with the school district yesterday for a sub lunch lady:) It went fine. I should know in the next few days what they think. On my way home though, I saw this beautiful double rainbow. I couldn't capture it all but I saw the whole arch. It was pretty awesome. Wish I could've caught the whole thing.

Finally, I've started babysitting my niece, Haven, for the next little while. It's fun having someone to play with during the day. It's sure different watching a baby all day when you haven't done it for about 6 years though. You forget all the stuff you don't get done;) The boys love it though. She never starves for attention-that's for sure!

Words to live by...

Christmas Parade

I took three of the four boys to Sumner to watch the Santa Parade. It was about an hour long and the kids got quite a bit of candy. I think they would've enjoyed it a little better towards the end if two of them hadn't had to go to the bathroom so bad. Cody really enjoyed watching the trombones in the marching bands. The instruments were all decorated too! The kids enjoyed the tractors and the Grinch float. The Santa at the end was really neat too! (Cody said we needed to get some pictures of the tractors for Grandpa Stone)

Pretzel Time

I had a mix for homemade pretzels and last night decided to make them. I have never made them before but had fun trying something new and it was super easy. After the dough rested for 25 minutes, I rolled the dough into long ropes and did my best to make the famous pretzel twist shape. Once that is done, you drop the pretzel into boiling water with baking soda. This made the dough kind of rubbery looking...you only leave it in the water for about 15 seconds before placing on a baking sheet, sprinkling with pretzel salt and baking for 10 minutes. I am NOT a huge fan of pretzels but they tasted really good. I'll definitely make these again.

Winter is here!

This morning, after having a fun cousin sleepover, we woke up to SNOW!!! The boys were so very excited to see white. They hurried and got whatever they could find: hats, gloves, coats and ran outside to throw snowballs. Of course it's even better when their cousin Richie was there to have fun with. Since it was cold outside and looks like Christmas we thought we may as well decorate for the season. We are all battling colds here but we had fun putting up the tree and decorating the house. The boys always make for great helpers. We also watched a couple of Christmas movies but one of our favorites we watched this evening as a family: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas-the Jim Carrey version which is our edition of choice.

Got to love the Grinch:

Pack Meeting

The boys had their monthly pack meeting tonight. The theme was citizenship. Cody and Elijah were able to bring in the American flag during the flag ceremony which was neat for me to see both of them doing that together. Cody also earned 3 pins for Webelos: outdoorsman, readyman, and sportsmanship. We hope to have several more next month. The boys wrote letters to servicemen to be sent to soldiers and also took a picture to be included. We are very thankful for all our veterans serving us and are excited for them to get these letters.

October at a Glance-

Still trying to catch up on October happenings....although football took up a great deal of time, there was time for other things as well. I was able to do some babysitting, filling out of lots of job applications, running errands, watching Dallas taking "selfies", getting priorities in order, cousin sleepovers, my brother, wife and niece visiting, birthday parties, parent/teacher conferences and of course Halloween! The boys actually got to go out 3 times this year: once at the cousins trunk or treating, our wards trunk or treating and then actual Halloween-let's just say that there will not be a shortage of candy around here anytime soon! Glad this month is over and on to the next month. I'm sure it will have some equally big things happening. But of course you will probably have to wait till it's over to find out what's happened at this rate...LOL

My niece Hailey:

(Like my new hair...awesome huh?)