Thanksgiving at Grandma's

The weather was good at the end of November so we were excited to be able to make the trek up North to Idaho for Thanksgiving.  It started to get really cold just before we left and secretly (or not so secretly) I was wishing we were going 7 hours south instead of north.  We were excited to get the chance to visit family though since we live far away from everyone.  I envy people who live close to family. I wish our kids could grow up near their cousins.  We missed a couple of Kent's siblings but we take what we can get.

Some of the bros

Cousins!  We love cousins!

Adele and cousin Kristen

Kent being a good helper

Carol and her silly kiddos

The trip was a lot of fun, the food was awesome, as usual.  We stayed with Mark and Carol for 3 days and spent time with Gma and Gpa too.  Unfortunately Adele came down with the stomach flu the night before we left which started a whole tidal wave of disgustingness but that is a post for a different day.

Reflections Winner!

 The theme this year was Believe, Hope, Dream (or something like that).  Ian made a sculpture at art class of what they want to be when they grow up.  He apparently wants to be a millionaire.  They made the sculptures out of wire and paper mache.  He won an award and is going to district.   Pretty awesome.

Lot Pix

Went out to the lot today with a friend to show it to her.  Actually remembered to snap a few pictures.

This is the view across the street and facing the south a bit. 

Curly

Adele is finally seeing the advantage of having long(er) hair.  Dare I say that she has passed the self-haircut phase?  Let's hope so.  Lately we have been trying all sorts of hair-dos and she is having so much fun getting her hair done! She's definitely my girliest girl.  Curlers have been on the top of the hair-do list and we have done them 3 times in the last 2 weeks.  I think she also likes the attention she is getting with all her new hair-dos.

A Lot

We bought a lot.  (A lot of what?  ha ha.)  A lot of land.  When all this crazy house business started we were looking at lots and homes that were in our ward.  There were a few things that didn't work out with that so we started looking at other options and found a place called Eagle Ridge.  There were several lots for sale and we were seriously considering buying one.  Then some investor (s?) came along and bought most of the lots that were for sale.  The lot that we liked the most was not officially for sale but our realtor knew the guys who owned.  He said they would sell it.  When the other lots were sold the price of the one we wanted went up.   We wanted to look around a little bit more so could be sure that was what we really wanted, especially with the price increase.  After a lot of driving around and looking at neighborhoods we decided that we really did like Eagle Ridge the best.   We made an offer on the lot we wanted, did some negotiating and finally agreed on a price.  We closed on the lot yesterday, and we are so excited! (We need to sell our house now!)

Here is the view from some spot in Eagle ridge.  This must have been taken in the evening because the lighting is good.  The view is beautiful but I must admit that it looks drier than this.  This is a photo that I found online.  I keep forgetting to take pix when I am there.

We have also been working with a builder and we have our house plans ready.  We are going to "make selections" (choose all our colors etc.) after Thanksgiving.  Then we pretty much just have to wait and wait and wait until we sell our house.  Hopefully after the holidays things will start moving and we can start on our new house!

This is a picture of the house we based our house plans on.  Ours will look a bit different on the outside but this is a general idea.

Ian's 9th!

The birthday boy and his birthday boiled eggs.
With candles.

We celebrated Ian's 9th birthday last week with the typical, traditional birthday activities:  candles in the breakfast, getting picked up from school and taken out to lunch, and getting to pick the birthday dinner and dessert.  Ian's birthday was on a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays I help in Adele's kindergarten class.  Her teacher has a son (Bryce) who has the same birthday as Ian. I had forgotten this and she mentioned something about it when I was there. I then got the idea that it would be fun to invite Bryce to go out to lunch with us since it was his birthday too.   His mom said that was ok and I asked Ian if he wanted to go by himself or invite Bryce to come with us.  He thought it would be fun to have Bryce to come.  Ian wanted to go to the hospital to get lunch with Kent for his birthday lunch so we went there.  He had chicken strips and Bryce had pizza.  They felt pretty cool, being out to lunch on their birthday.  I also got a great idea from Bryce's mom when we were talking.  She said that she always gives her kids the option of having a birthday party or taking the money she would have spent on a party.  I thought this was a brilliant idea and decided to start doing that.  I offered that to Ian and he was ALL over it.  So, he decided to take the cash and skip the party.  (Good choice buddy!)

He kept doing this funny mouth thing and wanted us to get a pic of him looking like he was blowing out the candles.

Remote control 4 - wheeler.

Halloween -

So I'm pretty much a Halloween-photo slacker this year.  Elise and Kent were gone the night we carved pumpkins (daddy-daughter bowling the night before Halloween).  So they did their pumpkins after the rest of us.  Did I take pictures?  No.  Sorry guys, but I did steal a pic from Facebook of you at the bowling alley so you are represented.

And on Halloween night... Yes we did go trick or treating.  Elise and Emilia went with some friends this year (for the first time! What fun!).  We were in such a rush to get everyone ready that we completely forgot to take pictures.  Slackers.  Ian was a gangster again.  Elise was a chef (and I made her a super cute apron to wear).  Emilia was  a zombie or something.  Adele was... she was... I can hardly remember (this is why we take photos, duh.)  She changed her mind so many times, and tried on a bunch of different costumes.  I will have to get back to you on that!  (Mom of the year here.)