Thanksgiving Festivities

We got together at Whitny's house on Wednesday night for the traditional mexican food feast. We figured out that we've been getting together the night before Thanksgiving for chimichangas and enchiladas for about 30 years. We used to go to GG's house, I remember all my boy cousins and uncles and Lindsey used to wrestle in the garage. It wasn't good times until they had all injured something and been crying. I never understood why they needed to beat on each other every year. But this year all 13 boy cousins were out on the trampoline bashing each other up and some of the 6 girl cousins ended up in the action too, they have yet to learn about boys and their feats of strength. I guess it is a boy thing.

The food was yummy.
Leah found an ROUS.

This is my kind of cousin play.

We were looking at a midget throwing stuffed animals over the balcony. He was a cute midget.

That's my new baby. I will steal her.

That's my new brother and nephew. Aren't they so cute? The wedding is in two weeks!!

I am thankful for my big crazy wonderful family. We spent Thanksgiving with Terry and Arnon in their home and it was lovely. The food was delicious, and the company was fun to visit with. Thank you to our Mothers, Fathers, Sisters and Brothers both far and near. We love you.

P.S. not only did Whit throw the party, she also took all these great pictures and I promptly stole them. Thanks Sis!

Funnies

So two of my nephews turned 8 in the past few weeks so I sat each one down (well, as best as an 8 year old sits down) and I gave them a bunch of info about being a Wolf Cub Scout and how much fun it would be and the patches, arrow points and belt loops they would earn. It was exciting for all of us.

Phil got his Cub Scout lecture today in anticipation of his first den meeting this afternoon. A lot of funny things were said during our interview, that's just how talking with Phil goes, but this one stuck out for me. I was showing him the first achievement in the book, "Feats of Skill" and he was showing me that he totally knew how to do most of them already and he was trying to do the "frog stand". A picture is worth a thousand words.

What Phil said was, "Why do they call it feats of skill? That doesn't use your feet at all." I tried to explain but I was laughing too hard. He is adorable.

Halloween

Peter's costume got finished yesterday. I made him Lightning McQueen, it's just cardboard, paint and tape. He likes it a lot. Oddly enough, I am not fussed at all about the bigger kids costumes this year. They can do what they want! I remember being that way as a kid too, my mom would make us elaborate costumes and we didn't appreciate them either. So the darlings have access to all kinds of dress up stuff and they can just go to town on it and do whatever they want.

But, since Peter has yet to not appreciate a costume I worked hard on, he gets one.

The hood lifts up to reveal a candy holding compartment of my own design. Too cool. It will likely be destroyed by the end of Halloween but that is fine with me.

Also, I don't know why the pictures are so yellow, I think there is something on the lens. . .

Sisters

Last night my sisters, Whitny, Amanda and Lindsey took me to dinner at Siam (yummy, spicy, mmm). And we had a great time. Then Linz ran away because next we went here;

And Linz said she would rather be shot. I absolutely loved it loved it! There was a full orchestra with all kinds of interesting instruments and a fabulous chorus and a boys choir too! There was a soloist, and it was lovely. Whit doctored the picture I took at intermission. Can you see who joined the audience?

Hiking

The kids have Fall Break so we went hiking this morning at Shaw Butte. Alana was mad in this picture, there always has to be one. The glasses are the girls' newest fashion accessory, they have no glass in them, they are just for the look. Weirdos.

We weren't the only ones out enjoying the lovely cool weather. We found this little rattler slithering near the trail. We watched him slither for a while then we hiked on. The kids took it as their duty after that to tell every hiker they met that 'there is a rattlesnake just ahead!'. It was pretty exciting.

greed

we had all the kids with us in the car on the way somewhere and ryan was meeting someone from craigslist to sell something. he did the hand-off and was coming back to the car, jefferson said, "look dad has $40, maybe he'll give us some! act good!"

Kiss Your Brain

So today I've been totally accomplishing stuff. I did dishes, laundry, went hiking with Pete and Tess who is home from school today, swept the pool, swam with kids, and made bread. While I was waiting for it to rise I sat down at the computer and for some reason or another went back and read old blog entries then I couldn't stop reading them. I just love that I've kept this blog up for the past three and a half years, I love the pictures and the videos and the stories that I would have absolutely forgotten about had I not written them down. But while I was reliving the past I forgot about the bread, it rose too much and now it will be all kind of flat-ish and ugly. Boo.

Tessa and Alana's kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Pulido, used to have the kids "kiss their brains" when they did a good job on something. They would kiss their hand and pat their own heads. Too adorable. So today I kiss my brain for doing the blog all these years and also I kick my brain (figuratively, not enough yoga for that maneuver) for allowing me to become distracted and forgetting the bread. Argh.