Sunday Morning...First in December

 Sunday was a good day. We all looked so Christmasy (is that a word?) so we took some photos before church. All the boys had on their Christmas ties and McCall her little dress. We set the camera on a garbage can to get it to where we could get one all together with the timer, so not our best photo, but it works.

 Had to get the wiggles out!

The kiddos.

It was a really great day. We came home after church and had a mini Thanksgiving dinner again since we weren't all together for it. Then we watched the First Presidency Devotional as a family and after that we had pumpkin pie, hot chocolate with egg nog and played Apples to Apples. It was a good night!

Family time... Scuds Resturant and CD'A lights.

So our friends Brett and Emily Lyman opened a resturant in CD'A Idaho a few weeks ago. It's Gourmet Grub, as he puts it. He is a really great cook! And these burgers are HUGE! He stuffs them with all sorts of stuff. It was super fun, we had been waiting for a night when our whole family was home so we could take them, so last weekend it finally worked out. We had a good time.

Our crew... Parker is a ham!

Brett in the back making our burgers.

 You should have seen the stuff oooozzzz out of this burger when Landon bit into it!

 Parker ate the entire Scruds Burger..which is huge and all his fries... when you do that you get to put your name on the wall. The rest of us split ours. :)

 Daddy and his girls

 Mommy and some of her boys

McCall and Cameron are just a few months apart, McCall is older, but shorter.

I can't believe how tall he is getting! The other day I was in a little argument with him and I was suddenly shocked that we were eye to eye! He's only 12!

 After dinner we went to the CD'A resort and looked at all the lights. It's so beautiful. It was a good way to kick off the season as a family. It was freezing!

 Easton LOVED the lights. He would have stayed out there all night!

 All the kids

The lights are just amazing. It was a good night.

The kids were exhausted!

Thanksgiving at our house

Thanksgiving this year we only had one of our kids... So we invited people from our ward over for an early dinner, then we went to Don's sisters house for some games and MORE desserts. It was a great day!

  This is Katoba Mushala, she's from somewhere in Africa. Her husband just finished his masters at Gonzaga and she is working on hers and she also teaches zumba at the church a few nights a week. She is so great! Little Hope was cheweing on a turkey bone....so funny!

 Cortney had to work Thanksgiving and the day after and before, so Jeff took the kids and went to Seattle w\ to see Jeremy and his family, so she came to my house. It was nice having her here.

 My mom and her husband Bill came too, she brought pies! Yum!

Easton was so excited for Thanksgiving, even though I am not sure he understood what it was, he just knew friends were coming over and he was really excited to wear his church clothes.

             We also had Matt and Alicia Crossette and their new baby girl and their daughter Hannah.

 Table one...which we didn't end up using, our good friends the Lymans were supposed to come, but their little boy got sick and they had to stay home. We missed them!

 Table two.

And of course.... Midnight Black Friday Shopping!!! We started up at Shopko and worked our way crazy until about 7am. It was freeeezing waiting in line, but we only had to do that once and we got what we had gone for. It was a FUN night with my man.

New backsplash....FINALLY!

Before .....

..... After

I LOVE IT!!!! It says Sara!!! It's been fun redoing things in our home, part of what needs to be done when you move into a space decorated and designed by someone else. Don has been so great about letting me paint and change things up. He promised to get this backsplash done before the Holidays and he just barely did it, but it's done! We are having Thanksgiving in our home and I am super excited to have this done.

Seattle Trip

So... we went to Seattle over the weekend for a quick trip. This was how Snoqualmie pass was to drive through, I am taking a picture from the side of the road, where we are sitting with a flat! Yep... a flat. I was driving and hit this pothole that I couldn't avoid and my hub cap flew off and my tire popped. Ironically, we had JUST put those tires on that morning! But... luckily my husband is awesome and would he would like to report that he had our tire changed in about 12 1/2 minutes. :) It was actually pretty scary for me and the two boys in the car waiting, we were on straight away, but the roads were bad and I was so afraid of someone hitting us while we were sitting there. Cameron, Jaxon and I prayed while we sat there and that was comforting. A ton of big trucks were pulling over while we sat there and putting chains on. But, we did make it safe, and the way home was totally clear. It was an adventure!

 

 Not too far down the road we were sitting for about a half hour waiting for an accident to clear, so we watched Megamind. It has to be one of our favorites!

I guess after all the excitement from the drive there, we totally forgot to take any other pictures, so this is the only one. We had a BLAST together. We dropped the boys off with their dad, who lives over in Everette for the weekend, and then we went SHOPPING! Not the typical kind though... one of the things we love to do most is go to thrift stores and see what kind of deals we can get, so we looked up about everyone we could between about 4 cities and went to them all. It was so fun! We found some great items for great deals. I wish I had taken a picture of our car, it was loaded! But we got a lot of our Christmas shopping done for a fraction of the price, which is important with 6 kids!

                                                       

Ok...maybe there was one more picture. SO, we had a hottub in our hotel room... and I hope this isn't a dirty picture, its not intended to be!! But, Don stepped into the bathroom and I put bubbles in the hottub and turned on the jets, not thinking, so when he came out there were bubbles EVERYWHERE!! It was so funny.

A weekend away

 A few weekends ago we took my three boys and went to Kalispell, MT and Glacier National Park for the weekend. Don had to be there for a few days for work so we thought it would be nice to just get away since his kids were going to be gone too. It was a fun little getaway that I think we all needed.

 "He's got moves like Jager"

I PROMISE even though there is also a Prius in the picture, my husband is not gay.....just different! But, this is why I love him so much!

The boys asleep....

...and awake.

  There wasn't alot to do in Glacier because the season was over and it had closed a few days before we got there, but it was a nice sunny day and we stopped along our drive to skip rocks.

He is searching for the perfect rock.

We also swam in the pool... Easton LOVES the water. He and Jaxon were in the

 pool every chance they got.



Halloween Thrill(er)

So this last Halloween was the best one EVER!!! Me and a group of girls, about 10 of us all got together and learned the Michale Jackson Thriller dance. We dressed up as zombies like his music video and flash mobbed our dance all over! We did 4 church carnivals and trunk or treats one night, then we did Wal-Mart and our local Halloween Super Store. Then on Halloween night we went to the biggest and craziest neighborhood in the Valley and did it about 10 times all over the neighborhood. It was SO FUN!!! People followed us waiting  for us to do it again and the cheers from the crowd were so fun to hear. Don followed us in our car and shined his lights on us and another car played the music loud. It made for a super fun night.

  Don and I at our Halloween Party for the ward. He was a vampire.

 Grandma Carlene and Easton on Halloween... that morning he decided to wash the dirt off his boots and       from there he became a cowboy for Halloween instead of Spider Man.

 Our Family on Halloween... Cameron was a zombie, Landon a gangster, McCall a little witch, me a zombie and Jaxon, our clown.

He was the cutest cowboy. He named his horse Bullseye.

Maine.... Sister and Grandma

 I was home from my girls weekend one day and two nights and then left for Maine to see my sister Jennifer and Grandma. My grandma grew up in Maine and has gone back the past few years to visit, she's amazing! She's 92 and still traveling on her own. It was good to see her... and my little sister, who's  pregnant with her second little girl right now. We were able to watch General Conference together on Saturday and Sunday, and Jennifers sister in law made Haddock Chowder for Sunday dinner, my grandma loves Haddock!! It was really good! We had a good time visiting with her for a few days.

        My sisters little girl and I at the beach.... not really beach weather... her name is Regan, she is a doll!!

 I just adored her! She is a ham!

This is the cute little outfit her aunty Sara bought her. :)