Thanksgiving Part 2 the PJ's

My sister-in-law, Julie made these cute monkey pajamas for all the young kids. They were adorable! We spent some time singing, 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.... Decker, Dallin, Rhett and Elliott

Breez, Arikka, Isabel and Cambrea... I had so many pictures of these girls and trying to get them all to smile and look at the camera was quite the challenge!

Fathers and Sons

Thanks Julie for making them for everyone!

Thanksgiving Vacation Part 1

Mike and I took a full week off for the holiday and went to Vegas to spend time with my family. A total count for the maximum number of people would be 33 people counting women, men and children.

Oldest Generation: 3

2nd Generation: 17

3rd and youngest Generation: 13--of these 7 were under the age of 3.

It was so fun to be around everyone and catching up with each others lives...blogs and facebook just don't do it!

Here are some pictures from Thursday.

Because of our large gathering and the convenience of having the stake center right down the street, we decided to use the facilities, basketball hoop included. :) This picture unfortunatly is missing 5 people. This is gathered around the kids table:

The food table...Jessica and Alison...

Proud and happy parents ... My favorite two... Sisters....Part of the clean up crew....

Heather and Corie...Amber and Adam and ???? (May 2010)Luke, Lora and Dallin....Michelle and Steve....And with the Las Vegas Temple in the background, it ended the perfect night...Thanks mom and dad for braving bringing 7 children into this world and for bringing all of their immediate posterity to your home for the week! What a wonderful experience to be with everyone together!

And thank you everyone for taking time our of your busy lives to come...what a blessing to be together...

Our Little Harry Potter

I just love Decker's smile and him wearing my glasses. Such a studious little fellow reading his book about babies. ;)

Adventure Up 11/7/09

Today was our Super Saturday for our ward. We get to do crafts! ;) I decided to make a couple of tutus for my nieces in Vegas. I didn't get the craft done while at the activity, but took them home to do later.

Mike and I planned a drive up into the Mountains, following fire ranger roads, looking for Grouse and snow.

I decided that while Mike drove I could work on my tutus. After working on them for the first 10 minutes into the ride, I started to feel very naseous. So for the next hour, I stopped working on them...until we got to the top of the mountain in 2 feet of snow and we were stuck!

I had perfect confidence in our heros...Mike and Chris, that they would be able to get us unstuck. So while they worked with tow ropes, rocking the SUV's back and forth and digging snow with a hammer, their feet and arms, i worked on this....

And played with him...

We found the snow! :)
And a little mannequin model...

face not showing to protect the innocent. :)

Too Young to Go 11/6/09

I got a phone call yesterday from my ex-roommate Tammy. She got married about 5 years ago and has had 2 boys and a girl added to their family.

She called me yesterday to tell me some "sad" news. Her 3 month old baby girl, Sabrina died of SIDS.

With all the losses that I've had with friends in the last couple of months, I was just in shock and devastated.

I had made little Sabrina a blanket with her name embroidered and sewn around the edges and had yet to give it to her. Tammy and her family went on a 2 month long excursion/vacation to Utah and Oklahoma, so we were out of touch for awhile. And then just 2 weeks ago, I felt like I needed to deliver her blanket. I figured while I was out travelling to my accounts that I would stop by her home, meet little Sabrina and deliver her blanket. So I put her blanket in my car and carried it around with me for the last couple of weeks. But then, it always seemed like I had a reason to not stop, because of the time or distance and I never did.

So when I got this message from her yesterday, I was heartbroken...not because of the blanket, but for Tammy, Troy and Sabrina's older brothers.

So Decker and I went to a funeral for a 3 month old today. As we were in traffic at a light, I turned around to talk to Decker. I told him about Tammy and her beautiful baby girl and that we were going to a funeral and there might be people crying and sad. I told him that Sabrina has left this earth and was with Heavenly Father now. Immediately when I said that, he folded his arms like he does when we pray. It was so sweet and I was so touched when I realized that he understands so much more than I credit him for. As I talked to him, he listened and looked me in the eyes like he was understanding everything.

As we were waiting in the line of the viewing, Decker was holding the program and kissing the face of little Sabrina. For awhile he was very subdued as he looked at baby Sabrina in her tiny coffin, and I just felt that on some level, he understood what was going on.

The Memorial service was so sweet. Tammy read a letter that she wrote to Sabrina and Troy talked about the happiness that Sabrina filled their home with and how she interacted with everyone. She is surely missed and loved.

My heart and prayers go out to Tammy and her family.

Our Little Stinker 10/31/09

Choosing pumpkins is something we look forward to every year. We actually went to a different place to get the pumpkins earlier in the month but only had our phone camera, so we didn't take a lot of pictures. This place was full of rotting pumpkins. We couldn't believe how hard it was to find a suitable one. The owner said that Seattle had such a sunny summer that the pumpkins grew too fast, so by October they were overdue to be picked. We ended up getting some pumpkins that weren't too bad. These are the only 2 pictures we got before my battery in my phone died. Decker really enjoyed the ride.

So we had to go back to get the traditional photos in the pumpkin fields. So, on Halloween, we went to Remlinger Farms. This was the field...we thought it looked like a graveyard of pumpkins...though the pumpkins were still beautiful...much better than the other field we had gone to earlier.

Being that it was Halloween and it had rained the day before all day, there wasn't anyone at Remlinger Farms. There was just one other group of photographers. Here are some of the pictures we took.

Picking the perfect pumpkin...

The skunk costume: This summer we found this great skunk costume for Decker at a garage sale. It hung in Decker's closet for months. Almost every night, Decker wanted to pet it. We put it on a few times just for fun. Decker really liked his costume. The material is so soft too, like a stuffed animal.

Some pictures from the Remlinger Farms...
Tigger?In the corn maze... After the Farms, we went to our ward's Trunk or Treat. Since Decker was our "Little Stinker", Mike has his costume on. A surgeon's mask with a clothespin for our nose. I had a matching costume, but you'll just have to imagine it because we didn't get any pictures of me.
This must be one of the joys of having kids....free candy...Thanks Decker... :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Birthday Mike! 10/16/09

How do i go so many days without posting? I get so far behind and then I forget about the fun and exciting things going on.

I'm jumping back to October 16th. It's Mike's 36th birthday and his Grandma June Hancock was in town for a week visiting.

At Mike's request, we made Grandma Wood's famous Baked Spaghetti and then we made Mike's favorite cake: a cherry cobbler like cake.

It's so easy to make. You just mix 2 cans of pie filling cherries with one can of crushed pineapple, save the juice for later. Layer on the bottom of a jelly roll pan and then layer a box of white cake mix on top of the cherry mixture and then sprinkle the pineapple juice on top of the cake mix and bake for 45 minutes on 350. Eat hot with ice cream and YUMMERS...

anyways, we had that for dessert and we played a little bit of the Great Dalmuti. It's also a family favorite.

We then took pictures of everyone, one funny and one smiling.

It was sure fun having Grandma Hancock in town and we look forward to her next visit.