New Tradition?

Before November is over and the Christmas festivities begin I thought I would share what our family did this month.  For whatever reason Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday, (don't judge).  I'm not a hater, it is just not my favorite day.  However, this year I wanted to focus a little more on the gratitude that I truly feel in my heart.  Though not a new idea, it is a new activity in our home.   We made a tree and added leaves every day with things that we are grateful for.

This is how our tree started at the beginning of the month.  Let's take a quick look at some of the things that were written on the leaves.

This is by far my favorite leaf, (the green one) "Mom's ability to fix things", yep, definitely my favorite.

At the end of the month our tree was full, and yet there are still so many things that I could continue to think about and mention.  One of my favorite scriptures is in the 

Doctrine and Covenants 78:19  And he who receiveth all things with thankfullness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Halloween 2013

Halloween?  Don't let the title fool you because seriously Halloween at our house DIFFERENT this year, (notice the all caps).  Because it was not the norm I decided I would add a few other pictures to round out the night, if you read to the end you'll figure out why.

We went to a local straw maze.  Troy was not so sure about it but we ended up having a great time.  We went early and so we had the entire place to ourselves.  We went through several times and even timed the kids, I think they were able to run through in a little over three minutes.

Cambelle was the only one who needed Troys help this year.  J.T. carved his earlier in the month and Sara, well Sara's pumpkin sat uncarved on the front steps until Halloween morning when a teacher stopped by to ask if he could blow it up at school that day.  She said "yes", she's cool like that.

This folks is it.  The ONLY picture of my kids dressed up and guess what it wasn't even on Halloween.  Troy had a ward party the Monday before so the kids all went.  On the night of Halloween, Sara was at a football game, J.T. went to a party at a friends house and Cambelle hung out at the house with us.  Now before you think we are terrible parents, she did not want to go trick or treating.  As many times as we asked her she did not want to go.  We went out to eat, stopped at a candy store, and came home and watched The Great Pumpkin on T.V.  It was a very quiet night, I could get used to Halloweens like this.

The 24th

The 24th of July this year was a little sad.  We were missing some our favorite people and we were feeling a little homeless.  We went to the parade and sat by ourselves,  Troy's mom and dad were talked about and thought about OFTEN.  

The day was overcast and continued to get cooler and cooler, at one point it started to rain so we moved our chairs under a tree.  Sara and her friend were cuddled together in one chair and a nice man took pity on them and brought them a blanket, oh to be young and cute.

The parade as always was really good.

It started with our favorite, the milk truck.  Chocolate milk and the parade go hand in hand.

This little event was crazy, these two dogs decided they did not like each other.  It took a bit of strength on each owners part to get it under control.  They did a great job and we were back to the floats.

After the parade we usually always have a cookout at Grandma and Grandpa's.  So this year we headed down to Five Guys and let them provide the cook out.

Not  quite as good as the grilled hamburgers Grandpa would make for us, but for the next three summers it will just have to do.