Thanksgiving 2012

I was pretty excited to get our turkey for free from our local Kroger. Used some coupons to spend less than the required amount to get it. Very sweet! We had a full house too! I think the last time we cooked our own turkey for Thanksgiving was maybe 2006 or 2007? So we were a wee bit newbie on it but I think Brian did a great job on the turkey! We had Drea, Ian, Becky, Liam, Scarlett and my cousin Tricia, Hunter, and Ariana for Thanksgiving Day. Our house was full of family! It was wonderful!

Brian and I have really been blessed this year and it's not really in any big ways but just all the little things. Every loving word or embrace from our family and friends, every day that our car works, that our children are healthy and happy, every day that Brian has a job, every day that we remember what our Savior has done for us and every day itself, a gift from God. Thank you for being a part of our lives and being another blessing from God above.

Sibling and cousin love

Just some cute shots of Sydney and Jonas together:

Aren't they cute? Half the time they are happy and chummy like this and then the other half they are fighting over toys, what show to watch and what not. We've decided to move them into the same bedroom and then have the other bedroom as a play room. I like it because it means one room stays relatively clean and they know it's purpose: sleep!

For a couple days the week of Thanksgiving, we got to watch Liam! Sydney and Jonas are always thrilled to get to spend time with their cousins and Liam adds such imagination to our days!

And the weather was great!!

Farewell Tessa/ Liam's Birthday

On November 12th, my sister Tessa flew back to Arizona. She had been with us for 6 very fun weeks! and we were sad to see her go! But she has to go get ready to start at BYU-Idaho in January! We are so proud of her and she is such a sweet sister and aunt!The night before she left, we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa to say goodbye. I got the following pictures

 Bye Tessa! miss you!

On the 17th, we got to go to Liam's Birthday Party! Sydney and Jonas had a blast on these huge bouncy house castles!

This kid dresses herself these days. Just sayin'

Weee!!

Birthday boy!

You can tell I am so not excited to clean this cake monster.

This was his face when I went to clean him.

A super fun day!

Halloween 2012

I'm a little late in posting things from October but here are some pictures of Halloween night! We went over to Drea's neighborhood and we hadn't planned it but our kids' costumes really went well together! Liam was a knight, Sydney a princess, Scarlett a witch and Jonas a dragon! Worked well! Then Uncle Ian was an executioner. Now, Tessa, Brian and I were nerds and Tessa asked how we went along. I said that we were nerds playing Dungeons and Dragons and the kids were our role-playing characters. I think that works!!

Some hilarious pumpkins we saw

Even Drea's dog Eva was all dressed up for Halloween! But poor puppy, no one was handing out doggy treats.

The stash! Jonas' bucket was filled to capacity more than once and we would dump some in Sydney's bag to make more room! When Sydney and Liam complained of having to carry their heavy trick or treat bags, we knew it was time to go home!

Jonas was pretty slow moving. I think he and Scarlett found the decorations more interesting than the idea of candy. We got him to say at least "Candy please" wherever we went. 

A very fun Halloween! I know the kids had a blast!

New Orleans Trip!

For my sister Tessa's 17th Birthday, Drea and I decided to take Tessa to see New Orleans! It was really fun! I have been there once many years ago so I was excited to see more of it and the history of the city. The first night we were there, we did a walking tour of the French Quarter and our tour guide had great stories of things that had happened in the town that gave rise to rumors of vampires. It was very cool and I learned a lot.

We also walked along Jackson Square and took some pictures together.

Love this cute baby bib!

In case you don't get the reference, it is traditional to hide a plastic baby in a king's cake, a dessert had around Mardi Gras. The baby is for good luck through the year but also means the finder is to purchase the next cake! 

 I just loved this name and the French-style spelling!

Check out some gorgeous architecture!

We started out our second day at the WWII museum, very powerful experience. We rushed over to the aquarium and really only spent 20 minutes there because we were in a hurry for our steamboat cruise.

I think one of my favorite things for the trip was lunch on the Steamboat Natchez. It was such a fun riverboat cruise! And the food was amazing! and not spicy!

Passed some large ships!

And then we took some time in this garden while waiting to eat dinner.

Check out these crazy shoes in one of the clothing shops in the French Quarter

This is our scary hotel room we got. Yeah, no number. Pretty special there.

On the day we left, we stopped by a few more places. One being the St. Louis cemetery #1 where we could see some of the oldest mausoleums in the city. Dating back to the 1700s, they reuse the mausoleums by waiting a year and a day and then pushing the bodies to the back where they fall down a chute and then they can place a new body. When new bodies are placed, the break down, as gently as they can, the gravestone covering the hole and then place new ones.

This is Marie Laveau's unmarked grave and people leave trinkets and mark the stone with an x to make a wish for her to grant.

 This is an example of the gravestones being moved to make room for a new body.

Our guide said some fancy actor bought this "tomb" for their body.

Gorgeous statues and artwork.

This was insane. That's a grave stone that has sunk. I took pictures but they didn't come out well, but you can find seashells all around showing how it was under water. The guide said that after Katrina, this grave yard was 17 feet under water.

Tessa and Drea leaving trinkets.

Another stop we made on our way home was to Longue Vue House and Gardens (pronounced "long" ). It was so gorgeous! Built in the 1930s, it had the original furniture and  amazing gardens all around. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the interior of the house but we got a lot around the gorgeous gardens.

This stone sidewalk was amazing!

Happy Birthday Tessa!!