Thanksgiving 2014

This year our Thanksgiving was in Logan with my family. Wednesday morning Casey and Kendal went with Brett, David, and Becca up the mountain to get a Christmas tree for Brett's house. I under-prepared Kendal for the snowy terrain , but she had fun trolloping around with her cousins, eating plenty of snow, and taking her time to follow the boys. After they returned we headed to Logan. We enjoyed dinner with my family and played games that night. Andy took Campbell and Kendal out to see The Penguins of Madagascar. They enjoyed the movie and were quoting it the rest of our vacation.
Thursday We ate Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house with my immediate family. Nana, and Cody were also able to join us. Kendal was so eager to start eating she finished her fruit salad before we sat down to pray. We ate our fill and shared what we are thankful for. We headed out to my Grandma's house later that evening for Pie. Casey and David braved Wal-mart's opening to get tablets and a game. My mom and I headed out later on when the lines and crowds had died down. We got a few good scores on our trip.

Friday morning the kids had fun playing together. Casey was recruited to help my Dad for a couple of days so he went out to work for the day. The kids made rockets and paper plate crafts. Andy and I took them to Jump Time. The kids had fun burning off some energy. Kendal adored the rope swing that was over a foam pit and spent most of her time there. Peter was all over the place enjoying himself. Campbell enjoyed the swing and the basketball hoop the most.

Friday Afternoon we went out to my Grandma's house to help her put away some fall decor and start on her Christmas decorating. The kids love their Nana. Kendal had fun being a helper and putting away Cherished Teddies and helping with boxes. Seeing all of Nana's Christmas decor made me reminisce about Christmas' growing up and the fun times we had with family. We ended back at my parents where we got to play games. Casey went out to a late movie with Cody. They saw Intersteller.
Saturday morning we made peanut clusters (A Loosle tradition). The kids played play dough and begged for the chocolate goodness the whole time. My Mom sister and I took the kids to Novemberfest (A local holiday craft fair held every year). It was nice to get out and there were some cute things for sale.

We ended our trip to Logan going to Gossners for some flavored milk and discount cheeses. The kids devoured their chocolate milk on our way out of town. We spent the evening in Raft River visiting Casey's parents.
"Peter doing while we were at my parents" My Dad and brother were looking at boom trucks for fun. They showed Peter and asked if he wanted to go in on it with them. My Dad asked if he would give up his blanket and his Monkey. Peter said No, but he'd give Kendal's Duckie for it : )

Today we decorated for Christmas. The kids love the nativity my parents gave them and the tree has been on all afternoon glowing with holiday happiness. This week is busy with Basketball and my rotation of preschool.  


We have a tradition of doing "thankful" leaves for one of our FHE's and displaying them for the month.
Here is what we're thankful for this year.
Casey - sun, job, good students, Mommy, technology, examples, knowledge, smiles, teachers
Marianne - Heavenly Father, gospel, laughter, time with my Casey, Temples, music, repentance
Kendal - our family, strength, clothes/shoes, seasons, primary, brother, learning, church, love
Peter - Christ, Monkey /Duck, tractor, Grandpa's and Grandma's, food, sister, toys, bikes, Aunts

Above pictures (Kendal and Peter trying to do a next generation photo in grandma's tub like the ones I took with my siblings when we were little.) (Casey gladly ending his Movember and taking one last shot before he shaved.)

Movember and other happenings

This month Casey has been growing a mustache for Movember; supporting men's health. The male faculty at Kimberly middle school decided to participate and grow mustaches. Casey said this wasn't much of a challenge for half of the guys he works with because they already sported different facial hair. In my history with Casey I have never seen him go for more than a few days without shaving. I know he could grow a full beard with ease, but he has never had the desire to and I'm thankful for that (I don't love prickly kisses ; ). About two weeks into this Casey wanted to give up and shave, but he's stayed strong and continued. He finds his mustache annoying and messes with it quite a bit with his fingers or lip. While I wholeheartedly support this cause and am proud of Casey for sticking with it I'll be happy to have my smooth man back in a week.

 Below are Casey's weekly pictures starting a couple of days in and leading up to this past week. I'll post his last shot with Thanksgiving.

 Casey's basketball season has begun. This past week he had two games. They lost the first to at an awat game to Wood River and won the second against Jerome. Casey has a decent sized team this year; all with varying talent (but that's nothing new). Casey has had to do early morning practice this month which means he's up at a quarter to five and has to be gone by five twenty. Goobie hasn't loved the cold weather and has been giving Casey grief getting started in these early mornings, but luckily a couple of jumps and nothing more serious so far.
Our weather has been on the fridged side for the last couple of weeks. The kids don't love being kept inside so hopefully soon well get some days where it's not freezing and there isn't slush/mud all over. We've kept busy inside with lots of play dough time and crafts.
Friday morning we had an outing with our preschool group to Jump Time in Twin. It was much needed energy break; the kids could run around, jump, slide, and be loud. Peter kept climbing the tall slides and refusing to come down unless I was there to catch him. He also adored the area that was covered in trampolines and balls. Kendal wanted to do everything and had a blast with her Preschool buddies. 
The kids got to go to Casey's first home game of the season on Friday. I know I can reign in Kendal easily but I expected Peter to be all over the place. He proved me wrong by staying by my side the whole first half and running back and forth with Kendal behind me the second half. Kendal likes cheering for the girls at random times during the game yelling "Go Bulldogs!", "Go basketballers!", or "Go Daddies players!". Peter even got into and said "Go Boodogs!" a few times.
Saturday morning we had the opportunity to clean our church. The kids are always willing to "help" and loved flowing us around and adding to the finger prints I was cleaning off of the windows. Our building is remodeling near the baptismal font. They had a baptism that night so I got the opportunity to clean the font from the dust and grime that construction has caused. It was nice spot of time sitting in the huge font cleaning and reflecting on my own baptism and the future baptisms of my kids.
After we cleaned we headed out towards Filer to go to landscape place that was holding a festival of trees event. The kids ate a breakfast, we walked around and voted for trees, and the kids saw Santa.  On the way to the event Kendal surprised us by saying we weren't seeing the real Santa. With further questioning she meant that Santa must be at the North Pole so we were seeing a helper Santa. (As always Kendal is a mountain of questions, she's very logical.) As we were in line to see Santa a local newspaper reporter came up and talked with us; he asked Kendal about what she's going to ask from Santa and took the kids' picture on Santa's lap. Their picture was posted today online along with an article about the event with a mention of Kendal in it. Neither kid was smiling in the photo, but at least they weren't crying.
This week we're headed to Logan for Thanksgiving; hoping for decent weather, great food, and good family times.

Link to the article:
http://magicvalley.com/news/local/breakfast-with-santa-children-convene-at-festival-of-giving/article_7febf46e-3125-5d91-845a-fa74f9730197.html

Birthday Recap

Kendal was up bright and early on her birthday. I put up a Frozen poster, some snowflakes and a happy birthday sign for Kendal the night before. (Casey and I had date night cutting out the snowflakes : ).  Kendal was delighted with the decor and was overjoyed when she walked into the kitchen and saw an Elsa doll holding a happy birthday sign. Kendal got her doll, a poster, a backpack, stick on earrings, extra barbie / Elsa doll outfits, and markers with Frozen coloring pages from us. She spent the morning playing in a state of bliss with her dolls.
For lunch we went out to eat at Girties. We had some of Casey's family join us and my whole family was able to come up for the day. Kendal was thrilled to have pizza and run around with five of her cousins and play on the arcade games and rides.

 After we had our fill we returned home. Kendal tore through her gifts from family and was giddy the whole time. She received some awesome gifts from our family and has been playing with, snuggling with, and wearing them since. The kids played pin the nose on Olaf  (When I say play I mean peak under the blindfold, move each others noses, and cheat like only toddlers can, o well ; ) They also had to race and thaw a frozen heart (heart ice cubes.) They all had to resort to sticking them into their mouths because their hands were to cold. I also had some Frozen coloring pages for the kids to color. I kept it simple and short since we had a house full of people. We ate cake and let the kids play while we played catch up with family.

Later in the afternoon we let the kids watch the Movie Mr. Peabody and Sherman. Kendal requested pancakes for dinner so we had a breakfast. My family was able to stay for the day and all but David and Anica spent the night Saturday. Kendal and Peter loved having Campbell camp out in her room with them. Sunday my family joined us for church and left soon afterwards.

I'm so thankful for the family that we're blessed with and the opportunity we had to have them over this past weekend to celebrate a very special little lady! Heartfelt thank you to everyone!

Kendal is 5!

 Well Kendal wanted a "Frozen" birthday party and mother nature sure delivered with a week of temperatures that surely kept us frozen.
 Kendal has been so excited to turn five; for weeks now she's asked us when her birthday was, and loves to tell everyone around us her birthday is coming. Kendal is enjoying preschool and learning with Mom. She enjoys experiments and art activities best. Kendal is steadily growing her reading skills and is doing well with pre-reader / beginner books. Kendal is always full of questions. Kendal gets compliments from her primary and preschool teachers about how much she knows and her willingness to participate. Kendal still enjoys being read to and likes it when I'm reading a book  that she's memorized so she can chime in and finish the sentences. Kendal loves to sing. She did so well with all of the songs for the primary program, and likes to belt out different songs all of the time. She especially loves Frozen songs and likes to have me play music on Pandora so she can get dressed up and dance and sing to music. Kendal's favorite pretend play lately is princesses (Elsa), she also enjoys playing house, and super heroes. Kendal loves to play with characters (Barbie, Polly Pockets, Ponies, Minnie, Lego men, etc.). She goes off on stories with them and it's funny / sweet to hear her. Kendal plays very well with other kids, however she can get a commanding / older sister vibe going. (Showing leadership skills I guess.) Because Kendal likes to take charge she frequently buts heads (figuratively and literally) with her little brother when they play. Peter plays best left to his own devices and playing next to someone. He will play with Kendal (especially cars and Lego's), but when she takes over and toys are taken / not shared things get rough with them. Kendal has loved riding her bike and scooter around this summer / fall. Both she and Peter were mad that this weeks temperatures and snow has made their outdoor time less. Kendal is our slow eater. She likes a good range of foods, however when she's talkative or not loving her meal it can take a long time for her to finish. Kendal loves it when Peter goes down for a nap and she and I get one on one time. We do learning activities, games, and quite play. I'm still lucky that Kendal will go down for a nap one two days a week. I generally force a nap when Kendal is extra whinny / dramatic, or if she's been super active and I know she could use a rest. Kendal still likes to be helpful around the house and generally does what's asked of her. She has such a wonderful and loving personality. We are so grateful for our sweet and happy little lady Kendal Ann!

Above pictures: Dressed up like a Native American at Preschool, and playing dress up from mommies collection from when I grew up.

Kendal's 5 year old interview:

Favorite color, Pink
Favorite toy, Barbie & Poly pockets
Favorite food, macaroni (She also loves spaghetti, tacos, pizza, pancakes, and sandwiches.)
Favorite animal, Dolphin
Favorite song, Gethsemane
Favorite holiday, Easter and 4th of July
Favorite snack, Fruit snacks
Favorite movie, Frozen
Favorite show, Peg and Cat
Favorite book, Her Tinkerbell story collection
When she grows up? Kendal wants to be a Mom (She usually adds in a basketball player, student, and teacher.)
Nicknames, Sweets (stems from Sweet Pea which I still occasionally call her), and Little lady

At age 5 Kendal is 43 in. tall (60%) and 37 pounds (30%)

Halloween week

Each year we have a tradition to carve / decorate our pumpkins on the family home evening before Halloween. We let Kendal draw her own face for her pumpkin and we let Peter tell us what shapes he wanted for the eyes / nose. Casey and I carved the pumpkins and the kids helped us scoop them out.

 Preschool was at our house this week. On Monday we learned about the letter G and the number 7. We made shape monster's with the kids that had seven eyes. We also played a monster matching game.
On Wednesday I had the kids come dressed up and we did some Halloween activities. They did a spider web toss game (which you can see in the background of the picture below.) We made goo and did Halloween cut outs from tortillas then we baked them with cinnamon sugar. We made tissue paper ghosts fly using static electricity (also pictured below). We also made a popcorn craft for the kids to take home and had a freeze dance party. It was a packed preschool day and the kids had a blast.

 Halloween morning I let the kids paint. We painted pictures of pumpkins and I let the kids finger paint a bit. After Peter's nap the kids got in their costumes for our fun afternoon / evening. Kendal probably would have loved to be Elsa for Halloween, but she already has a bin full of costumes that we had her pick from. So she happily chose Cinderella and was excited about it after I rented and let her watch the movie. On Wednesday Peter refused to let me dress him up as a pirate, and he was the same Friday. I'm not going to fight with a two year old over a costume so he became Linus and I let him carry around snoopy and his blanket. The kids and I went and picked up their cousins David and Becca to go to a trick or treat in Twin. We had to wait in an hour long line, but the kids didn't mind they had fun spotting and naming the other costumes. Kendal had to point out every Elsa there was (which was about every 10 ft in as we wound our way around the line). After the RV trick or treating I took the kids and we got some free Jumba Juices. We joined Brett and Vanessa's ward for their Halloween party. Kendal and Peter had a blast in the bounce house and we went on a hay ride and ate pizza. After a couple of more games when we returned from the hay ride we left to go trick or treating in Kimberly. The kids have never done house to house trick or treating so Casey and I decided we would take the kids up a couple of streets in a nearby neighborhood. Peter caught on really quickly and enjoyed saying trick or treat and grabbing candy that we had to pry out of his hands so he could get more at the next house.
Afterwards we let the kids snack on a bit of candy then put them to bed. Casey and I pulled out Star Wars and sorted through the kids' candy (we filtered out what we would let them eat, what we'll toss, and of course we grabbed a few treats that we personally love ; ).

All day yesterday Kendal wanted me to turn the calendar so it would be her birthday month. In two more weeks we'll have a five year old on our hands. Casey starts basketball Monday. He along with the other male teachers at the middle school are growing mustaches for no shave November. He started out not shaving at all for a few days but now he's sporting a short and bristly mustache. I'll post pictures and updates later on in the month.