Christmas

Well I am finally getting around to posting Christmas, lots of pictures to follow.

The somewhat cleaned up aftermath, so love that we have our stove in the living room!
The one picture of Beckett on Christmas, you know how it is to get pictures of a 2 year old!
I made the older two blankets from their sports t-shirts, they turned out great and even better, they loved them!

Emree so loved the bear, bad thing is a couple minutes later its neck tore open so we took it back and haven't found another one yet!



Our traditional, wait until Dad gets the camera ready before you run in the living room! I tried once again to post a video, but alas no such luck!

I had anticipated a nice reverent and spiritual Nativity story, but with a very excitable cow who really loved to moo, it didn't exactly turn out that way. Oh well at least I tried. We still had a nice evening with the Elders and the Flowers with a lovely Mexican feast.

The Elders being wise men

Chas being Simeon as Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to the temple

Wood cutting!

Our last day of wood cutting. I am glad we went up and played in the snow then, cause we haven't seen any since! We had quite a few adventures that day due to the new, wet snow, but only one of our trucks came out with a MAJOR dent in the side!

Brady gets an award at school

Veterans Day

I knew the Veterans Day program that the kids put on at school was coming up and so I have mentally been trying to prepare myself for this day, but it has all been for nothing. I walk into the gym on Tuesday afternoon and see all the flags hanging and immediately my eyes start to tear up. What is it about seeing the flags and hearing the National Anthem that make me get all teary? I can't even get through the first line of the dang song! And I am crying like a baby. I make the excuse its because I am the only one in the room who hasn't grown up singing this song and hearing all the other songs that my kids are learning and singing in Remembering those who have served this country. Yes that has to be the reason because I can't recall a time when I have ever been this emotional while singing O Canada. Maybe it's because I am older and realize what a sacrifice so many have made for me. I can't imagine Chas having to leave right now and go fight somewhere on the other side of the world and not knowing when he will come back or even IF.
At the end of the program they had all the Veterans in the audience come and stand at the front, most of them were crouched over and had very grey hair, if any, and the thought struck me that these men sacrificed not only for themselves, but for GENERATIONS to come. By that time I really couldn't hold it in any longer and let the tears just stream down my face, (like they are right now while I am thinking about it) and enjoyed the sight of all of these men who fought for our freedom and said a little prayer that I would be worthy to enjoy that freedom and teach my children to be patriotic and thankful for the blessings of being free.
After the program the younger kids and I went home and waited for the older two to get home. They both walked in the door and said that their friends said I was crying at the program, the funny thing was they didn't seem to surprised. I always cry, even when I feel the tiniest touch from the spirit. Blessing? I don't know, but it is a physical reminder to my children that I do feel the spirit and that is it real.

A couple Family Shots

Here are a couple of family ones, not too fancy, but not too bad considering the camera was propped onto the car.

More lovely girls

I can't figure out how to turn these babies, so you will just have tilt your head, cause they are sooo darn cute! The boys didn't dress appropriately for the occasion so there are not many of them.

My lovely girls!

Ok so instead of waiting till I catch up on my blog, I thought I would put up some pictures that we have taken recently. Here is the cutest Jo JO around!

Halloween

Halloween was a blast again this year. We had Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, cowboy, granny and a witch.

Flag Football

Brady played his first year of flag football and had a blast, Chas helped coach and was in heaven I am sure, football being his first love and all. Grandpa and Grandma were here to watch his very last games, glad they could see him play. Of course I don't have many pictures, but I have decided that Beckett may be the only kid that will have lots of pictures, mainly because he will be playing and I won't have to chase him off the field because he will actually be old enough to play!

Gwilliam's Bakery

My Mom and Dad came down for a visit at the end of October. As always it was so fun to have them here and sad to see them go. Since we have some family history over in the Baker area, we drove over there one day to go to the old "Gwilliam Bakery" as we had heard they still have some memorabilia on the walls there. It is now a pub, but they let us in to look at the cool things they have hanging up in there. We had a fun time listening to Dad tell us all about the bakery and who are in the pictures.

The Nunns

We got to stay at my cousins house in Ranchester, WY. They have a great place and we had a nice relaxing visit with them. I haven't seen them for awhile and it was great catch up. Les lived in the same town as I did growing up so it was nice to visit with him again.
And of course if there are horses around...

Beckett went missing for a couple of minutes, (I know you are all surprised!) anyway we found him way out in the horse pasture trying to "catch" the horses wearing Chas' boots, the kid keeps us running!