Holiday Highlights

Here are some highlight pictures from Thanksgiving. We had a nice, relaxing holiday. I still love that I don't have to host or cook much (this year I only did a pie and a green bean casserole). I have to take advantage of that while I can, which makes me very thankful for my mom and mother-in-law who do go through a lot of work to have a nice family dinner. This year, my mom, sister, niece, Ashley, and Amanda all started Thanksgiving morning running the Turkey Trot (a 5k run along the Columbia River). My mom and Ashley walked, Mindy got sick partway through (still finished and did great) and I capitalized on everyone's weakness and did well--three minutes faster than the last race (this is not hard to do when you run as slow as I do). Amanda also did awesome! She ran the whole time and was such a trooper--it was very cold! Nate and Jared went to play some football with a bunch of families and then we headed over to Papa and Nannee's for dinner. Megan and her cousin, Jordan, are pictured doing a "Thanksgiving play" which was a short narrative about the first Thanksgiving, I think. They looked very cute! Amanda and Kayleigh and Nannee are in the next picture. We also spent an arduous two hours getting family pictures taken. At this point, I'm grateful they are done, we survived and we were all in the same place at the same time so just keep that in mind when you see your Christmas cards this year. We rewarded the kids by going to the Bee Movie and then spent some time getting some Christmas shopping started. Above is one Santa picture and all the kids are pictured with him near the heading of the blog--kind of unplanned, as we were there to see the Festival of Trees but I love the classic "baby traumatized by Santa picture." We kind of predicted Bradley would be my one kid who didn't care and would like Santa--he's not shy and will go to ANYBODY. I guess we're 4 for 4--all of my kids thought Santa was scary initially. Well, we're forging onto Christmas and it feels like it's coming too quickly. I hope to be able to step back and enjoy a little this year--I was too pregnant last year to enjoy much!

Thanks and Stuff

Every once in a while, we actually get a productive Family Home Evening lesson in on Family Night. We've done a few variations of a "being thankful" lesson over the years such as paper chains, lists and leaves on trees. As I looked over the feathers, I realized we all feel thankful for many of the same basic things (which is a good thing). Since then, I have thought of a few more that wouldn't quite fit on a feather in one or two words:

1. The 24-hour flu bug only lasts 24 hours or less.

2. No one wanted to show our house during the flu outbreak.

3. Carpet cleaning products that work pretty well.

4. Football playoffs ended before the cold weather began.

5. The policeman who this week let Nate know his tabs expired on his truck--last June! (I'm not really thankful for the $216 ticket, however).

6. Elementary school conferences where kids are home and want to play.

7. Everyone who cares about our lives and reads our blog! = )

8. By popular demand (i.e., inquiring grandparents) here are the latest schedule's:

1. Nate's 7th grade boys' basketball (B white)http://www.rsd.edu/schools/carmichael/pdf/winterIsportscarmichael2007.pdf

2. Nate and Jared Richland Storm AAU basketball http://http//www.ieaau.org/yakimaleague/2007/fall/4boys.pdf

Thanks for being so supportive and coming to our activities--we love it and all of you!

Halloween Fun!

Of course I have to post some Halloween highlights--These are from our church ward chilli feed and trunk-or-treat, family night carving pumpkins with several families at our friends' dentist office, and trick-or-treating at Uptown in Richland. The kids and their cousins--Ashley, Tyler and Maddie are in the top picture and our friends, April and Sierra, are inadvertantly in there, too.

Thinking of Many

Amanda wore this symbol on her shirt to school yesterday along with many of her friends to show their support for their friend, Kaylee's, mother. She underwent surgery yesterday in Seattle as part of her ongoing fight with breast cancer. I tried to remember if cancer was a part of life in my world as a seventh grader and I'm pretty sure it was not. Amanda has helped bring meals in and fill an angel basket and made cards and letters of encouragement. I am very sobered by this. I wanted to express to those of you who we know of who are dealing with cancer in their lives (past and present) that you are on my mind and in my prayers. I also recently found out that one of the young moms I played softball with for several years was just diagnosed with breast cancer as well. So, Butz family, Joe's mom, the Bassett's, the Peck's, April's dad, Kirsten's grandma, Sherrie and many, many others, much love and positive thoughts as well as prayers on your behalf are going out and although it is not much, I hope it helps just a little.

A Good Read

Are any of you into the series by Stephenie Meyer--Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse? I just finished them all (neglected many other things but boy, did I enjoy reading)! I'm glad there are plans for more books in the series! Amanda is reading Twilight now and is getting into the story line, too. So, since I should be in bed I am goofing off taking a quiz to find out which Twilight character I am. I think it's wrong, however, but you may enjoy giving it a try.

http://www.quizilla.com/users/twilightnexus/quizzes/Which%20Twilight%20novel%20character%20are%20you%3F

It Wouldn't Be Fall Without a Trip to the Pumpkin Patch!

Although I absolutely love warm, sunny weather the most, I have to admit I am starting to enjoy the beauty of fall more and more each year. The trees are so colorful right now, it's fun to decorate the house and I love making soup for dinner. With grandma and grandpa, we enjoyed beautiful weather at Country Mercantile on Saturday after Jared's football game and before celebrating Nate's birthday with his family.

I've Joined a Cult

We're having battery issues with our camera so I don't have any recent pictures to post from last weekend (I'll get to what we did, later). However, Amanda took this cute pic of Bradley with her camera and I needed to give him some blog time, of course. He's supposed to be my little buddy but much to my dismay, he seems to be indifferent to his mother. I think he thinks I'm OK because there's no one else around during the day and I take care of him. For that reason, he tolerates me. Once someone else walks through the door he's happy to have a better option. Really, though, he's at a great age (9 months) and we're having lots of fun with him. We have good times together during the day, that is, until 3:30. That's when my cult that I'm in takes over. By cult I mean strange consuming lifestyle that others who are on the outside may find, at best, ridiculous. Memebership in the cult probably began about 12 years ago (upon becoming a parent) but I held off on full participation until this year. The lifestyle requirements of the cult are as follows:

1. You must get in and out of your car and drive around your city four about four hours daily.

2. You must watch the maximum amount of sporting events you can possibly fit in during a week and shuffle your kids to any extra practices that are scheduled (because 5 days per week is absolutely not enough football when the playoffs are around the corner).

3. In between driving to those sporting events you must also schedule your kids for piano, church and scouts in between so that there is no breathing room which will in turn cause you to, out of necessity, be part of a carpool. This entails multiple phone calls daily to see which moms' schedule is the worst for that day.

4. You must live off of boxes of food and drinks that you can throw in your car with sandwiches, or, on a really special night, order pizza.

5. Upon arriving home, exhausted, you must attack homework, showers and bedtime at a marathon pace so that you can crash into bed and wake up ready to repeat the following day.

Last weekend, we decided to play hookey from this pace and did what? Watch more football! Nate wanted to go to an EWU game so he, Amanda, Jared and Uncle Kevin braved the cooler weather while Bradley, Megan, Aunt Em, Jordan and I opted for warmer activities. We had fun with some down time in Rathdrum, Coeur d'Alene and Spokane, so thanks Fuhr family for helping us avoid our cult for a day or two!