Weekend Parties (Thanksgiving)

After two days of work last week, we got our Thanksgiving Break! We went to mom's on Thursday for thanksgiving and had lots of yummy food... Our traditional Kloessel, blaukraut, turkey, rolls, salad. SSSOOOO YUMMY!!!

Can you tell the difference between the turkey and the Kloessel?

Me and Chloe. She wasn't feeling too good, so this is a 'rare' smile photo of her :)

Me and the brother, Jake. Never know what you're gonna get.

"Hey Jarren, make a funny face"

Saturday, I was invited to Stacey's house for their Thanksgiving dinner (they couldn't have it on Thursday). I made the food... (or not) and made them all laugh. What can I say? It's what I'm good at :)

After dinner we set up the tree and decorated Stacey's head

The beginnings of the tree...

Voila!

Helping Stacey put up her tree put me in the mood to put up my tree.
It's small, but it's good for me!

Later Sunday evening, the family got together to celebrate Crystal's birthday...
Jarren loved his icecream and cake!

Cutest Avery and Awesomest Aunt ;)

Chloe loved this hat. She was feeling much better, so she was walking around, talking, and taking candy bars from me and sharing with those in the room.

What a great weekend I had! I love getting together with my family and laughing and playing games and having fun! I love being able to see my nieces and nephews (I missed you, Jordan!) and goofing off with my brothers and sisters.

Happy Birthday Crystal!!

Yesterday Crystal turned 16!!!! I can't believe how fast she's growing up.

Crystal, you are an amazing person and I am glad you're my sister! You are so cheery and bright. You have such a great sense of humor and I love being around you (even when we get on each others nerves. LOL). I'll try to stay off the road when you're driving... hee hee. You make me happy and I want you to know I love you :)

Everyone have a great Thanksgiving!! See you all on Monday :)

Long Weekend

This past Monday thru Wednesday I was able to go to Logan to visit some friends. My friend Laura, who lives in Washington (state), came to see her family for Thanksgiving. She came last year too, so it's been a year since we've seen each other...

This is Linda's (Laura's sister) oldest daughter. What a cutie!

Here's Laura's twins. What a handful of joy and surprises they are :)

Linda's baby, so quiet and didn't really cry except for nap times.

Take these stones,

Cut out the paper,

Add the glue to the back of the stones, put the paper on the glue,

After the glue is dry, add a magnet (they look like Oreo cookies).

Here's Daisy the dog :) When you pushed her ears up toward her face she looked just like an Ewok! So funny. She didn't like it very much tho.

Here's Laura and Linda's Gram. I haven't seen her since Laura's wedding reception.

Here's the magnets I did :) I only flipped half of them over - they all have a twin.

Wednesday, I was able to take my nephew Jordan to 'dunch' and a movie. We ate at McDonalds (I just realized I forgot to upload photos from that... I'll get on it, no worries) then went to see 2012. The movie was better than I was thinking it would be, but it was LONG and felt like they combined every apocalyptic movie ever made (and titanic. LOL).
We had fun and hopefully we'll be able to hang out again sometime :)

Me and Laura. So good seeing you again my friend!

We were confused why I needed to go. Disappointed, really.

Me and Linda. Thanks for letting me come over!!!

My magnets as they now sit on my fridge at home

I had such a great time, even tho I'm not used to the 'inside kid noise' (very different than 'outside kid noise')! So many fun times and good memories were made. Here are a few of the memories we made:

• Twiggy maggots
• Kong-long-a-rong-a
• Mong-yong-rong-tong-long-e
• I go potty!
• Singing of Primary songs
  
• I want watch Woody Buzz Jessie
• *screeching* (like Kevin the bird from UP)

I know there were more, but sitting at work with other distractions, it's hard for me to remember them. LOL.

I only worked two days this week, and am I glad for the weekend? HECK YES!!! :D

For the Beauty of the Earth

This morning on my way to work, I had my headphones in, listening to music. But that didn't keep me from noticing the sun, the snow dusting the mountains, and these drops of water hanging on these branches. I wasn't going to take pictures, but I decided I needed to because I may not see it again.

You can't really see all the drops, but there were quite a few

I love how the sun light is caught in this one

I think this one is my favorite :) I love the reflections in the drops!

Moral of the story: Never miss an opportunity to notice what Mother Nature is showing you!

Saturday with the Family (sorry for text and pics not lining up)

Last Saturday, the family went to Snow College to watch Kati play basketball. She is on the Northwest College basketball team in Powell, Wyoming. It's not very often the team plays in Utah, so when they do, we try to get together and watch her play.
We kept ourselves pretty entertained before the game started... brothers acting silly.












Chloe was busy dancing and clapping before the game started.





The game started off good... Kati got 2 fouls in the first half of the game.








Jake and Jess were watching intently (as we all were... maybe not me ;) )






It was fun watching Chloe. She kept walking up and down the bench and dancing to the music.






Half time. Brothers were being silly again and doing flips and making us laugh.












End score: Northwest won! They played the Gauchos from... hmmm. Arizona? New Mexico? I can't remember. Oops. Good game! Good family times :)

Children, Children

So I don't know what is going on today, but the kids were not following the rules. So very stressful. Kids were:

• tackling

• hitting

• wrestling

• jumping off swings and getting hurt (I rolled my eyes at that one, saying "That's why we have the rule 'no jumping off the swings', so that you don't get hurt")

• 4 or 5 girls lifting another girl above their heads

• kids swinging baseball bats at others' faces

the list goes on.

So what do I do? Try to stay calm and grit my teeth, waiting for the end of recess. I shake my head a lot wondering what is going on with kids today and hoping it will not be this way tomorrow - tho according to the news it is going to get colder before it gets warmer again. Good thing I'm keeping track of weather conditions and how the kids act at recess... then I'll have proof that weather affects the kids' behavior!

Lesson #10

I can't believe I've taught ten lessons already! Man this year has flown by...

My lesson yesterday was: Becoming Saviors on Mount Zion. I asked the class what they thought of when they heard the word 'savior'. Most of them said "Christ", "the atonement", etc. One sister raised her hand and said, "If it's just the word, then I think of anyone 'who saves' as a savior". I thanked everyone for their comments and asked if we could be saviors. The answer: YES. We then talked about how we can be saviors for those who have passed on before us by doing their temple work.
Sisters shared their opinions and stories and I thought it all went pretty well, even with me forgetting what I was saying again - and had a brain freeze for what seemed like forever... LOL. I challenged everyone to go to the temple more often to do the work for those who are not able to do it for themselves.

Halloween Party Weekend

Friday the 30th we had our school Halloween parties at school. The office theme was 'sports'
I came as a Jazz player and even brought the Jazz Bear! ;)

Our principal was the BYU football player, Riley Stephenson - who happens to be his nephew!

Our assistant secretary was a 49ers football player

A fight broke out between the Jazz and the 49ers...

This was the scariest costume we had in our parade...

That night, we had our Monster Mash family party at the school. This is my second costume.

Saturday the 31, I dressed as a nurse/doctor type for our family birthday party

Happy Birthday to Casey, Ed, Avery, Aaron, and Chloe (who turned one!)

This is such a cute picture of my nephew, I had to include it! He was the cutest lion I ever saw :)

In taking this picture, my mom had the camera and Chloe kept looking at the camera, then turning and looking at me, look at the camera, look at me... So I followed what she was doing... I'd look at the camera and look at her, look at the camera, look at her. Fun game we played ;)

I can't believe she's one already! It seems like she was just born...

My sister's friend, Kendra, hosted this party for our family. We never really did decide where or how she got this rat on her shoulder...

"Jordan, don't close your eyes!"

Saturday night I went to Stacey's to go out with her and her boys trick-or-treating. I put on Logan's mask and took a picture... creepy you can see my eyes through the eyes of the mask.

Overall, this Halloween was a good holiday. Lots of good times and good food and fun people :) I love Halloween!!!