With the holidays comes the cousins...

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to have Jodi and her kids come visit. She had to be back in Washington by Friday so we had an early Thanksgiving with her on Sunday. We just love having Abe and Dallin come to play, Noah and Cooper just adore their cousins! Then the Randall cousins came the Saturday after Thanksgiving so we had another feast with them on Sunday. Once again our boys were totally worn out from playing with their cousins. I just feel so blessed that my boys have such great cousins, we are so lucky! Now we just need the Sanderson cousins to come play.Dallin, Noah, Abe, and Cooper

Tyson, Molly, and Owen

Brooke, Cooper, Pyper, Shae, Riley, Ethan, and Noah

Grandma Great gives all the great grand kids a new ornament each year. They love this tradition and look forward to it each year! (she use to make all of them, but it would take her all year now with how many kids their are)

BYU vs WY game

With Tommy's schedule we really haven't been able to have any football parties. So finally for the BYU vs WY game we had the Hamilton's and Willards over for pizza and football. As you can see from the pictures all the kids ended up on the trampoline, the girls ended up talking the whole game, and the boys enjoyed an easy win! I just loved these pictures of all the kids, and yes there are tons of boys and only one girl... good thing she's tough. And I'm not sure how we allowed Miles in the house with a red shirt on... he won't make that mistake again :)

Halloween Time

I love Halloween! For some strange reason I have always loved the idea of dressing up and getting 'free' candy... maybe it's just the free candy I like. It's especially fun to see your kids get so excited and count down the days until they get to go trick or treating. Cooper had his pre-school halloween party on Thursday, Noah had his on Friday, and then a day full of Halloween fun on Saturday.Cooper dressed up for his pre-school party

Noah at his school Halloween parade, he was very focused on staying in line with his class and didn't care about getting his picture taken.

Tyce sporting his Halloween shirt. I think he's making a mighty fine mummy face.

We made mini orange pancakes for Breakfast.

Kiara and Tyce ready for trick or treating

Jace, Cooper, Hailey, and Noah trick or treating at our house. Grandma was nice enough to pass out candy so I could take the kids out.

Cooper and Noah trick or treating

The loot!

Daisy and Pepper... Tommy won't let me dress Daisy up.

Tommy helping Cooper carve his pumpkin.

We're so excited!

Yesterday we were able to go see our friends adopt their little girl Jordyn. This has been over a year long battle for them, with many ups and downs and more downs. But it's finally over and they can't start enjoying themselves as a real family. I'm so grateful for our friends Kendee and Emerson and for their wonderful example. It just made me realize yesterday how important family and friends are. It really doesnt matter what you have, it truely matters who you are and who you surround yourself by! Congratulations to them!!! (I'll be posting pictures later)

Cooper's first field trip

Cooper has the best pre-school teacher ever. He just absolutely adores Miss Jenny! For Halloween they have done so many fun things, but one of the best was his field trip to Hee Haw farms in PG. You'll see from the pictures below that there were so many things to do and the weather was just perfect! Sorry there are a ton of pictures I just love them all.Cooper class

Hay ride

Jace and Cooper petting the pigs

Cooper happy....

Cooper alittle nervous. They went up and down these slides so many times and their faces all have sheer terror on them until they hit the bottom and they just lite up with excitement. Then they would run up and do it all over again!

Miles (one of Noah's friends, his little brother was on the field trip)

Evan... as Cooper calls him Eben.

Cooper and Jace jumping

Jace, Evan, Cooper, and Miles in the Corn Maze.

Miss Jenny brought donuts and drinks for everyone to enjoy after they picked their own pumpkin! What a fun day!!!

A night with friends

We had Cy and Jordyn come over to play one night. We always love it when they come hang out, all the kids get alone so well and have a blast playing. I think kids are immune from the cold, it was freezing outside, but they still had to go jump! At least they had a blast. Then we decorated some Halloween cupcakes. This year has been so busy and we weren't able to find time to have a Halloween party, so cupcakes will have to do.Cy, Jordyn, Cooper, and Noah

Jordyn decorating her cupcake

Cooper eating his cupcake plain... he's hates frosting... he must not be my child!

Cy showing his work of art

Noah chowing down

Gotta love that chocolate face! She's decorating a cupcake for her mom!

Park City Skeleton Race

This is the last year for us to see Noelle race up in Park City. We all have such a great time going up so we pulled Noah out of school and went up on Friday as a family and then me and the boys went up again on Saturday with my Mom and Kiara. We had a great time and Noelle took first place which put her on the World Cup Team.Noelle at the start

Noelle at the start

Noah and Jayden throwing snowballs at Cooper. As you can see he loved it!

Tommy and Cooper

What responsible parents we are letting our children wrestle around in front of cars. They sure were having a great time though!

Love this picture with the flag in the background

The next up and coming bobsled team!

Kiara and Tyson

BYU Boys

I love my BYU boys. The little ones are not into the games yet, but they sure enjoy wearing their BYU shirts and yelling 'Go Cougars'. Last weekend it was an exciting day for Tommy, "A once in a life time chance" to go see ESPN broadcast Game Day from the BYU stadium. Since there's all the excitement over busting the BCS we had to make signs and support all the work that Matt is doing with the playoffpac.com. So you can see the poster's below. It's been a long time since I've made posters like that, I remember back in the day we used opac (sp?) machines and over head projectors... gotta love laptops and projectors, it still took us 2 hours though. Tommy had a great time and his poster made it on TV sevral times before they took it away (evidently they didn't like the idea of the BSC = Bribery, Coruption, and Scandal).

1st day of speech

Today was Cooper's first day of speech therapy. He goes every Tuesday for 20 mins. At first I was thinking 20 mins wasn't long enough to get anything done, but any longer than that and he would have lost all interest. His teacher started with the letter k, so we're working on that sound all week. His teacher is great and really made it alot of fun for him. Let's hope it works!

It's that time of year...

Flu season is on it's way. So today the boys went to get their flu shots. Noah was one tough dude, he just sat there and took the shot like a man! Cooper on the other hand not so much... maybe next year. The hot bitter tears were done with by the time we left the room though. Tyson just had his 4 month well baby, he is growing but not nearly as fast I thought he was. He's only 12lbs 11oz, and 25 inches long. Which puts him in the 11% for weight. Noah and Cooper both dropped off the charts by 6 months. Let's see if we can keep Tyson on for 2 more months, time to pack on the weight! Since the boys were so brave we made a stop by the dollar store, every little kids dream come true I think. How nice is it to spend a dollar on a cheap toy that brings them such great happiness, then when they get bored with it a few weeks later you throw it away. Ahhh it's the best!

Fall Leaves

For Family Home Evening this week we took another trip, this one with my Mom and Kiara, up to see the leaves. This time we went up South Fork. The colors were some of the prettiest I have seen in a long time. The boys are constantly asking if they can take a picture, but with my new digital SLR I just don't like them touching it. So I pulled out our old Fuji digital cameras, put new batteries in them and the boys were good to go. It was fun watching to see what caught their eye and what they wanted to take a picture of. Once I figure out how to download the pictures I'll share, but in the mean time here are some of mine.

Oh how I love Fall...

The smells, the colors, the sounds... It all just brings such great joy to me. That's why we love calling Utah home. Right when you're getting tired of one season the next one is on it's way. Tommy was only home for 24 hours this weekend so after dinner on Sunday we decided to take a quick drive up and over the Alpine Loop 'on our way' to his office in Orem. It was such a beautiful drive. We got out and took a little hike with the boys and took a ton of pictures! One of these days we'll get better and the lighting on the pictures, but for now this is what ya get.