T-day in the T-state

Hi Everyone!  This is Kristie.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  My brother Justin and his wife Kim and three kids came to stay with us.  They are living in Lubbock which is 6 hours from here.  It made us feel like we weren't so far from everyone to have family drive to see us.  They came Wednesday night and stayed until Saturday night.  We had all the delicious normal foods, and I had so much fun being the hostess.  Everything turned out yummy (except the gravy which was like jello), and done on time. We watched movies, shopped and went to lunch, played at the playground, and just lounged around.
After they went home, Corey, Maddie and I stayed up late into the night preparing talks for sacrament meeting the next morning.  Just as we were going to bed, Hazel woke up crying with a fever. Ephraim came into our room at about 5am with a fever.  Then I was too anxious to sleep well.  Didn't know what we would do in the morning.  Corey had early meetings and didn't come back home before church so when I woke up, I realized I had to decide.  I gave them both Tylenol, and we all headed off to church.  We made it through the talks (Corey and Maddie did awesome) then I slipped back home with the littles.
So we promise to not get sick when we're in Idaho.  We're excited to go.  Sad to miss seeing some of you.  By the way, who (which sibling) do Corey and I buy for?

Nori and her friend, Addison.

The kid table.

The growed up table. 

Cute Kristie.

Kim got a "demon eye" from pushing on it too
hard at the Twilight movie.
(She was scared!)

Mad and Ike were big kids this year.  

Up on the roof to see that awesome sunset.  

It actually looks like this a lot of nights.

Not posing.
Just holding really still because of the low light.

He ain't heavy.  

So Kristie wrote the above and I annotated the photos.  Just so you don't get confused if it sounds like I switched perspective.

Thanksgiving

This week we all decided to get sick from Tommy. Millie got it Tuesday and then I got it later that day and Wednesday and unfortunately for Maizy she got it on Thanksgiving. This meant that no in-laws could come because Con is still having his immune system killed so he won't reject the bone marrow. Bright and early Thursday morning our neighbor came over and he and Joel killed Thanksgiving. I only cried when I thought of how scared he must have been. When Joel finally brought a mostly gutted and mostly plucked turkey into the house we realized how big he really was! I helped finish the gutting (which I have to admit was REALLY interesting) and we weighed him. We couldn't believe he was 43 lbs! We used our branch trimmers to cut him in half and he still wouldn't fit in our enormous roaster. I cut around his legs and then broke them off and it just about killed Joel to hear that crunching noise. We finally got him in and just half of it had to cook for 7 hours! Good thing Aleisa has a meat thermometer. It was a weird Thanksgiving. Maizy was in the living room on the couch, Tommy was asleep, Millie was still sick so she just sat there, Miles wasn't impressed by the meal and Joel and I had picked too much and sat down full. We did eat the freshest meat I have ever eaten! Then Saturday we decided to head down to Temple Square. We got a room in Little America which I have to admit was fairly impressive. The girls were in heaven that it was fancy (we didn't break it to them that it was about the same price as a Motel 6). Most importantly it had a GREAT pool and hot tub! Maizy and I went to Music and the Spoke Word on Sunday and I LOVED it! Maizy chose it over swimming and was excited she got to see the Mormon Tabernacle choir in person and so close. Favorite story of the weekend. I was standing on the side of the pool and Joel was about 10 or 15 feet from me. I was holding Tommy and threw him to him. Tommy rotated in the air so Joel couldn't catch him so his head went all the way under. I told him to give him to me again so we could do it without Tommy being scared. I threw him again, Joel caught him and Tommy LOVED it. Not a second after Joel caught Tommy, Miles was there grabbing Tommy, hugging him and glaring at me. Then he pointed at me and yelled at the top of his lungs "STOP IT! STOP IT!" he was so mad we had done that to Tommy and he wasn't letting us do it again! We laughed and I teased him and said "Joel hand Tommy to me, I will throw him to you again" Miles wouldn't let go of Tommy and yelled at me again. Good big brother. Luckily Tommy knew Miles was being nice and gave him a hug. We forgot our camera so this is a picture of the three oldest ones at the pond with the floating lights from Joel's iPhone. These are Miles: Sad, Surprised an Happy faces and the kids on the way home from a whole weekend of swimming and walking.

 I strategically left the slit throat out of this picture.

Tommy is having nightmares about a chicken in his bed and gets so hysterical when we put him down that he can't breathe. He wants me to rock him to sleep in the rocker which he has NEVER wanted before. Tonight I was rocking him and he said "Sleep in chair, don't want sleep in bed. Chicken in bed" When I explained to him AGAIN there was never a chicken in his crib he said "Chickens in coop. Daddy put chickens in coop" but that didn't help. Poor kid may be scarred for life!

DURST'S
FOR SOME REASON LAST WEEK I COULDN'T SIGN IN, SO YOU DIDN'T GET TO HEAR ABOUT THE 3 FIELD TRIPS I WENT ON IN 3 DAYS. IT WAS CRAZY!!! I REMEMBER NOW THAT I GET CARSICK ON A BUS WITH 45 PLUS NOISY KIDS!!! LUCY'S WAS JUST 2 HRS.AT THE AURORA COLONY MUSEUM. TATE'S WAS ALLLLLL DAY LONG AT OMSI A SCIENCE MUSEUM IN PORTLAND WHERE THERE MAIN ATTRACTION WAS GROSSOLOGY, AND IT WAS DISGUSTING!! JUST READING SOME OF THE INFO MADE ME GAG, BUT THE KIDS THOUGHT IT WAS NEAT. FOR MOLLY'S IT WAS WITH MOST OF THE MIDDLE SCHOOL TO SEE WRECK IT RALF. IT WAS CUTE, BUT NOISY!
MOM WAS ABLE TO COME WEDNESDAY AND SPEND THANKSGIVING WITH US. IT WAS SOO FUN HAVING HER HERE. WE EVEN GOT OUR TREE (FOR $5.00) AND PUT IT UP WHILE SHE WAS HERE. SCOTT HAD TO USE THE LEAF BLOWER TO DRY IT BECAUSE IT DECIDED TO POUR DOWN WHEN WE WENT TO GET OUR TREE. WHEN WE GOT IT HOME HE HAD TO CUT 6 FEET OFF OF IT. BUT IT WAS THE ONE WE LOVED. IT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE CHRISTMAS VACATIONS TREE :)
WE ATE THE LAST OF OUR TURKEY TODAY, AND I AM FINE WITH THAT...
TATE STARTED TAE KWAN DO AND HE LOVES IT. THE TEACHER SAID HE WAS REALLY FOCUSED SO HE WILL CATCH ON QUICK. GRACE AND COLE ARE BUSY GETTING IN SHAPE FOR SWIM TEAM, AND IT MAKES THEM SO TIRED!
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO CHRISTMAS SHOP, AND I AM NOT INTO IT YET, DOES ANYONE ELSE FIND THIS STRESSFUL??
AND MEL, SCOTT AND I WANT TO SEE LES MISERABLES AND LINCOLN. THEY LOOK SO GOOD! I WISH WE COULD BE THERE FOR CHRISTMAS TO GO SEE IT WITH YOU ALL.

OH I FORGOT, SCOTT'S PARENTS GOT THEIR MISSION CALL 2 WEEKS AGO, AND LEAVE DEC. 10 TO LITTLE ROCK ARKANSAS. IT IS A 6 MONTH MEMBER SUPPORT MISSION.

Radfords

Well I am a little sad that I don't get to read 7 other posts, but i'm sure everyone has had a very busy holiday weekend!! We were pretty busy driving this week. About 30 hrs worth. But we had a fun thanksgiving in WA. We drove with Jon and mom to washington and dropped mom off at the pasco airport to go to portand. We had a traditional thanksgiving meal. The highlights of our week were;several Costco trips, running each morn, and seeing the movie Lincoln. It was SUCH a good movie!!! It is definitely a must see. Speaking of movies, we saw a preview before Lincoln, for Le Miserable-we got chills watching just 30 seconds of it! :) I think our family needs to go see it Christmas day! 

Well that was pretty much our week! Can't wait to read everyone's posts!!!

P.s. I will post pics when I get the computer....I'm writing this on my phone and don't know how to do anything else but type :)

Tyler, Jen & Boys

Things must be getting even busier for people- there are a lot less posts this week and last than there usually are :(   We miss reading about everyone's week.

We had a good Thanksgiving.  Tyler played football with some guys from church in the morning, and while he was gone I got the turkey in the oven and a few other things made for dinner while the kids played outside. When he got home we finished up everything else for dinner, cleaned up the house, and ate at about 2:30.  It's kind of a bummer that so much time is spent on preparing the Thanksgiving meal and then it's all over in about 1/2 hr.!  Oh well.  At least everything turned out really yummy and there were lots of left-overs :)

Thursday early evening we went to have our family pictures taken.  When we got to where we were going, I turned on our camera to test the lighting and the battery went dead!!  I felt so bad!  We had made arrangements with a friend in our ward to come and take the pictures, so we had to reschedule.  What a pain!

Friday morning we cleaned out and organized the garage and pulled out all of our Christmas decorations.  When Levi finally went down for his nap, Tyler and I left Taylor in charge and ventured out to do a little Black Friday Christmas shopping.  There aren't many stores here in Havasu, but we did get a few things at JC Penney and Wal-mart.

Friday evening we went to have our family pictures taken again.  I made sure the camera battery was charged and we got some pretty good pictures.  Thankful for friends that are willing to help out in the absence of family members who have always taken our family pictures in the past....

Sad that Thanksgiving break is over and that it's time to get back to the regular routine.  Can't believe that Christmas is only a few (4) weeks away! 

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!

 

An interesting holiday

We had an interesting holiday week here! Norris had some back surgery on Monday and things were going really well. We decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday or Sunday to get him home and settled in. So we had Thanksgiving with just our little family (sounds like a lot of us did that this year!). I was pretty proud of the girls and myself. We had everything done at the same time and all of the traditional items. Daphne looked at the table right before she said the prayer and said, "I am just so happy right now." haha. In the meantime, Norris had taken a bad turn (I guess that can happen after routine surgery if you're 77 with diabetes and a bad heart...) and was moved into ICU. Bunny called right before we sat down to dinner so Ken could tell Norris where he was and what was going on. He wouldn't believe Bunny. The girls and I were a bit freaked out overhearing the conversation until Ken hung up and started laughing. We had thought maybe he was losing his mind--turns out they had just upped his meds considerably. :) Thanksgiving night the girls and I went to the last Twilight movie. I quite liked it. Then Daphne went and spent the night at the hospital (she and Emmy have been trading off Bunny and Ken. They need someone in his room with him because he keeps trying to escape.) and I went home and went to bed until 6:30. Hit all the stores AFTER the rush and got some great deals and about finished up my shopping. Hate to think of us all going back into our schedules of work and school tomorrow--the time off has been a lot of fun!

Radfords

This week was very fun!! We spent the weekend out at mom's and set up all the Christmas trees while listening to Christmas music (and Stori screams) and eating yummy Caramel Tree treats. On wednesday we had our last ward volleyball game and finished the season undefeated! It was so fun to be able to play with fun people and still have it competitive. After every game we would stay for an extra 2 hours playing. We put up all of our Christmas decorations on Monday for FHE while we drank egg nog and ate crepes. OH and I will answer all of my enigmatic questions from my last post in one sentence. We got our callings as Family History teachers before we left for a farewell in Rigby, which was were we discussed dan's new job offer as a PSR worker in I.F. while Stori started choking on eggs because she put her binky in immediately after. I think i did it! :)
Stori-discovered she loves Jingle bells, her cousins, chocolate PB, chocolate covered nutter bars, and the trampoline.
Mel- didn't make dinner once this week, got offered a raise to stay working, and finally saw Brave. (LOVE).
Dan- finished up one of his classes, got a retainer, put up 4 Christmas Trees, installed a stereo in our car, and made dinner every night. (LOVE)
As for all of us, we spent time with family and friends, and leave for WA in 2 days! We are super excited to go to Costo! :) Hope everyone has a fun, safe, delicious, and relaxing holiday!

Our Christmas Tree, Home Alone, Egg Nog night

on our way to my work to work on Dan :)

silly photos after Stori Rose pulled out her pony-tails. we call it the "Crusty the Clown" look.

 

  

Petersons

Unfortunately, the rooster and turkey are still alive. I'm not sure if we are even going to get turkey for our Thanksgiving! Joel just keeps putting it off and I'm not in a big hurry to pluck and cook my little huge friend either. On the other hand, if I had been able to catch the rooster on Saturday I would have killed him with my bare hands! We were outside cleaning out, and putting fresh straw in the coop so the chickens were out in the yard. Tommy was standing out by the run against the fence. We heard him scream and looked up. The rooster was in front of him all puffed up but we didn't see anything and it kind of happened in slow motion. Tommy was still screaming and the rooster jumped up at him but it was so fast we didn't really see what happened. Maizy had seen the first attack and the rooster had jumped up and grabbed Tommy with his talons  I ran at him and grabbed Tommy and he had one scratch  across his cheek and jaw and another one across his collar bone. The rooster is almost as tall as Tommy and it had to be terrifying to have him jump at him and scratch him! Tommy walked around saying "Turkey mean", "Turkey hurt me".  Hopefully Thursday he will "get the ax" literally, along with the turkey. (nailed it!) Tommy was walking around the house one night saying "Joeeeeeelllll, Joeeeeeeellllll, where's Joel?" I thought it was pretty funny. The next morning when I went to get him out of bed the first thing he said was "Where's Joel?"  

           Joel and I went on a fun date last night. We went out to eat at Cafe Sabor (YUM!) and did a little Christmas shopping. When we got home Tommy was in bed but was fussing and woke up a few times. Finally at midnight he was crying for Daddy of course, so Joel went to get him and he had thrown up. He got in our bed and threw up, so Joel took him out to the couch to sleep (Joel has to do this because Tommy will NOT let me take him when his precious Daddy is home) and he threw up a couple of more times. So Tommy and I stayed home from church since Joel teaches and he was fine! Hopefully no one else comes down with it!

Christmas

 

 

 

  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at my house!   We had a sleepover  this weekend.....three Christmas trees up and decorated.... a few leaves raked ...good food,  goodies, and a temple dedication.....a FUN weekend!  It was a busy week at work.  We had Festival of trees all week....and Sat. was The Bonneville Craft show.  Melanie included a picture of my new glasses.


Ty & Jen Family Update

No School on Monday.  Dr. Appt. on Tuesday- Baby and Mom are both doing good :)  Wednesday and Thursday- Same ol', same ol'.  Friday, Tyler had the Purple vs. Gold Wrestling Scrimmage where the wrestlers all had matches to see who made which team (Varsity/Jr. Varsity).  Yesterday, Taylor & Jon both had their last Flag Football games of the season.  Taylor's game was Kids vs. their Parents, so Tyler played on the Parent team.  It was fun for them to play against each other even though Tyler embarrassed Taylor a little when he picked off a pass one-handed and did a front flip into the end-zone for a touch down.  Everyone else thought it was pretty cool though. The team that played before Jon was short a few players, so Jon filled in for that game and then played in his own game too.  He was pretty tired afterward, but had a lot of fun.  Max and Levi are as crazy as ever.  I bought a box of hair dye this past week to cover up the increasing amount of gray I'm getting.  Max saw it sitting on the counter in the bathroom and asked me "Mom, did you put your new hair on yet?"  It made me laugh :)   Makes me wonder what else goes through his little mind.  We're excited for Thanksgiving this week even though we will be spending it by ourselves again.  We cooked a whole Turkey last year and I about gagged when I had to pull all the stuff out of the inside, so this year we opted for a nice Turkey Breast.  None of us like the dark meat anyway.  Oh- one more thing-  Tyler and Max both felt little Spider Ryder (baby boy) kick the other morning :)  Max was so excited!  After he felt it, he said "I have to go tell my big brothers!!!" and ran out to the family room to tell Taylor and Jon.  It was sooo cute!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!  We are so grateful for all of you and the wonderful family we have.  We hope you all have a fun day full of thanks wherever you may be :)

Here you go mom!!! :)

So yea, I have a hard keeping up with blogging, but here I go.  So the last few weeks have been pretty uneventful.  I did get to register for classes, and I start on January 7 and have only about 3 1/2 semesters left for my bachelors.  We were excited we got the chance to go to Logan to drive around, and then out to Clarkston to hang out with sisters.  We enjoyed our time there, and the kids are still talking about Megan and Joel's butterball of a turkey.  We are still eating yummy fresh eggs from their chickens too.  So this week, I made yummy bran muffin mixed, doubled.  I am so domesticated, yet still so much of a man. :) Not only did I make muffin mix, but I made re-fried beans from scratch with a little help from Megan.  I think it turned out pretty dang good. I'm looking out the window right now watching the snow fall down.  It is actually really pretty for those that live in non snow areas, and down right nasty for those of us that get to see it all winter.  We are excited for the Holidays, and even though we will have an uneventful small Thanksgiving dinner, we are excited to cook all the yummy food and have Aunt Sherlene over to hang out with us.  So yea, for all of you that live far away. me, Amanda and the kids are going to sleep out at mom's house this weekend so we can pretend like we are visiting from out of town and hang out with her, Dan, Mel and Astoria.  We are excited. It's going to be a sweet party time. :)  anyway, I think that is about all that is going on with us.  The girls are loving school, Amanda still cant believe she gets paid for doing something she loves, and I am excited to get back to finish school in January.  I hope everyone is doing great, and love to hear from you all. 
                                       Josh, Amanda and the kids

Ummm....

I am getting way too old! Every day at school I have to ask my classes what we did the week before and now I am sitting in front of the computer and can think of nothing this week worthy of note!
 Emmy (and Domino) came out to visit us today. She came after work last night (about midnight) and slept in the family room. I heard her come in but apparently Ken didn't until Domino came running in and trying to jump up on our bed. Haha! I am still laughing out loud to remember Ken's reaction. I don't think he got back to sleep too soon! :) It was so much fun to have her here again for a while.
 I am still loving my job but am a little discouraged about it today. I got my retirement information and found out my original plan will never work. I had wanted to work about ten years--then the farm, house, and student loans will all be gone. But to get my retirement money (and we calculated--definitely worth waiting for) I have to work until I'm 65. I know, I know--this is what normal people do but it is definitely a downer. This grown-up, real-world stuff is no fun! :)  Well, I still have the summers to play SAHM, I guess! I am grateful for that.
I am excited for tomorrow. I took the day off for a legislative luncheon for MY PTA (not the one where I work). I will be here to see the kids off to school and when they get home. I am also planning on putting up both my villages! I put up one of my nativities this last weekend and didn't feel like I was cheating to listen to Christmas music while I cleaned. My favorite radio station has also been playing straight Christmas music for about a week. Loving this time of year.
I am still missing three teeth (I can pop the front one back in which I do for public-I know, can I get any more redneck?) And find I am having a hard time finding a dentist on my insurance I trust. I MISS MY OLD DENTIST!!! It is fun to see all these posts from everyone in the far-flung parts of the country but I still miss the days when we weren't so spread out!
Well, this next week I'll try to notice more of what goes on around me so I can make a more interesting post...

Siblings

Just have to say after reading through our posts...I LOVE THIS BLOG! Makes me feel like we have a geographically closer family than we do. My friends both have families really close and spend every Sunday with them all and I get jealous but this is a good second. (and we don't have to drive home at the end of the day) :)

The United State of Texas

So, in picture one, Kristie snapped a shot of Isaac being a doggy for Hazel.  She played like this forever and then when Isaac was done, she put the leash on herself and tried to keep going.

Picture two is of the cuties on a date this week.  I love these girls.

Picture three is of Kristie holding the whole, (head on, vein in, tail flapping) shrimp before peeling and eating it.  We went with some new friends to a place called the Boiling Crab.  They put butcher paper over the table and plastic bibs on the patrons and then bring out a plastic bag full of cajun spices, sausage, corn cobs, crawfish, crablegs, shrimp and stuff.  No utensils, just your fingers.  It was good.  I was proud of Kristie, too.  She didn't ever gag, (but she was still hungry when we left.)

We are getting excited for the new era of America.  It will be nice to finally have done with all the poor people and all.  Once the Affordable Care Act kicks in we are planning on having many more babies and getting the surgeries we have always wanted.  I am excited to finally be able to share my means with my neighbors in a compelled but caring way and hope that they never have to be burdened with the once terrifying thoughts of getting work or earning a living.  It should be Nirvana, the perfect end of the founding father's dream for this great nation.  All thanks to our Dear Leader and the many, many socially conscious voters who daringly put their names to the ballot, (in some counties even more than 100% turned out, inspiring!) all in the effort to help others be our brother's keepers.  It is all so exciting, I have found it hard to sleep at night, disbelief and anxiousness revving up my brain and running me through all sorts of scenarios of what we narrowly escaped in the horrible near-reality of a conservative victory.  shudder.  Just think, if the racist Republicans would have been able to enact some sort of ID verification for voting in some of those swing states, or even if the deployed servicemen, (or warmongers,) had been able to vote, things could have gone all wrong.  

But remember, the future is only as bright as our faith.  

And this year only, Corey is allowed to play Christmas music before Kristie, but only instrumental, more specifically, Steven Sharp Nelson.

Peterson's

Tuesday I refreshed the election coverage every minute or two convinced Mitt was going to win and then went to bed, woke up in the middle of the night, went to look at the computer swore at the results and went to bed with nightmares. Well, we got our house plans done! (two hours before the zoning meeting) and I went to the zoning meeting and got our plans approved! We are in the process of getting bids right now and HOLY everything is so expensive. When we got done getting our bids we will decide if we are going to do it or not. We are doing the contracting and it is....confusing. Who knew you had to have a separate person for excavating, footings and foundation?! Not me. It will definitely be a learning experience. We made sugar cookies on Saturday and when I got the dough out of the fridge Miles was trying to roll it out, it was REALLY stiff and he kept saying under his breath "Holly shoot!", it was pretty cute. This is what our house might look like. If you ask Dan he is not a fan of the porch, and the left side our house if "visually heavy" :) Mom gave us some fabulous suggestions that fixed up the original drawing a lot so this looks much better. We keep thinking we should just build a new house but we just can't seem to give up our location, yard and barns. Besides the fact that I just really love this house.
The kids had their primary program today. Maizy gave a talk on the tree of life, Millie said her three sentences without any help (even if it looked like she was reading it, she was looking at the pictures I drew for reminders) and Miles was just supposed to say "Jesus teaches me to choose the right" but he added "Jesus help me be good, choose the right" while Tommy cried for "Mama" most of the meeting.

Some of the ladies in our ward wearing hats to support Eileen (bottom left in black) who just finished her radiation treatments for brain cancer and is losing her hair. She is only 37. It was a pretty neat day!

So things were pretty uneventful this week besides the election results which put us in bad moods for a couple of days. I can say this really affected us. Pretty sad! I was invited to lunch with some ladies the day after (by Heidi 4th from left on bottom) but we had to promise not to talk politics! :)

The kids finished up all fall sports! Yeah, but start swim team tomorrow. Cole is joining grace this year but is not too excited about the suit he gets to wear. Scott has several names for it, but i will refrain from sharing! :) but i will say it is the long ones, not the speedo! 

The air is getting colder here and the kids are wishing for snow, we shall see. When the sun comes out it is still pretty beautiful since the leaves aren"t completely gone.

It is beginning to feel a little like Christmas. I am only playing the instumental holiday music on pandora, so as not to upset some in the family (Scott ") he seems fine with it so far. I Love this time of year!

Christmas names

I just talked to Mom and Bridget and did the drawing and went to post it and saw Jen's post. Great minds think alike! (or start needing to Christmas shop at the same time!) Anyway, I got the info on who was and wasn't included. Sounds like adults are still doing the gift giving. Just the couple two younger than you. Like we have Dan and Bell. We drew names from a bowl and didn't have to redraw a single name! Every person got someone different from themselves and different from their family, Amazing. Here they are!:

Emmy              Eleanor

Daph               Clara

Caleb               Jon

Bron                Max

Asher               Taylor

Lily                  Stori

Sam                 Levi

Lexi                 Isaac

Annie              Hazel

Avary              Miles

Astrid              Lilly

Sophi               Sam

Jack                 Maddie

Maddie            Avary

Isaac                Lexi

Clara                Jack

Eleanor            Sophie

Ephraim           Bron

Hazel               Tommy

Maizy              Caleb

Miles               Astrid

Millie               Daph

Tommy            Emmy

Taylor              Asher

Jon                   Annie

Max                 Ephraim

Levi                 Millie

Stori                Maizy

Hello from Havasu...

 

We celebrated Jon's 10th Birthday this week.  I think the gift he was most excited about was his very own bag of Sun Chips :)  He loves to eat chips!


We stayed up way too late watching the election coverage only to be disappointed.  Wish the President was elected by how many votes they get instead of the Electoral way.  It will be interesting to see what shape America is in 4 years from now. Taylor will be 16, Jon will be 14, Max will be 8, Levi will be 6, and Baby will be 4.  Crazy to think about!  By the way- any baby boy name suggestions? This is what we've come up with so far: James (Taylor), William (Jon), Spider Rider (Max), Ryder (Jen), Howard, Elway, or Albert (Tyler).

Everyone's excited to have the day off tomorrow.  Tyler's participating in No-Shave November and he's getting pretty prickly.  Jen's not too excited about it. 

Wondering what the verdict is on the cousin gift exchange?  Unless someone else has their heart set on it, Tyler and I will do the drawing, but we need to know what names to put in it :)  If you could comment below if you want your kiddos to be in the drawing, we will get it done this week.  Also- the adults are still exchanging gifts, right?

Another week gone?   Unbelievable!! Once again, my life consists mainly of work....I did survive the 9 days that Chris was gone  (he should be back today   :)  )  No major disasters!  Saturday, I spent about three hours raking leaves in the snow......the silly trees are sure hanging on to their leaves, and if I don't get at least the leaves by my sidewalk and steps picked up before winter, I have them tracked in all winter long.  I also got a few more things put away....hoses, garbage cans, potato baskets.....yes, you know what I'm talking about.......the dreaded frisbee golf receptacles!   :)

I ran errands Sat. afternoon.....went to Skyfall, the new james Bond movie....picked up a few groceries.....came home.    Such excitement!

Rads

This week was fairly boring. We only made popcorn twice.

Mel-had a craft day with my running friends while the guys watched the kids (and football).

Dan-applied for graduation that is in ONE MONTH!!!  got a possible job offer, and made shortbread cookies for the first time.

Stori-got her flu shot, got her hair curled, had a part in the primary program, choked and had to have mother save her life-threw up all over her new dress and tights but still alive.

Radfords-Voted for Romney, cried for Obama, had a pancake night with friends, decorated for Christmas.....(well, doing that today, so I'll post pictures of that next week), and got a new calling in church.

P.S. since the world is ending on Dec 21, I suggest you all decorate for Christmas today.

curled hair for church

we were the last people to vote in Madison county.

Burlap banner made with friends (it will go above my window where I will place my other craft- cotton ball snow hanging from fishing wire. it's way cuter than it sounds.

Craft I made at Meg's house. I love it!

Texas Christensens

Out by the fireplace 

Getting warm(er!)

Carving

Not carving

Sitting in the spilled rice

Frodo

Bo Peep

Nerd

Dragon or Dinosaur (you choose)

Dementor

Happy Halloween!

Lady Bug

We have been enjoying the cooler nights by sitting by our outdoor fireplace.  We carved our pumpkins by it, though, and I don't think it will ever be clean again.  The kids loved going out for candy in warm air, (and with no shoes for Frodo, Bo Peep and the Dementor,) and made a huge haul, which we are throwing away as I type.  We have a really fun neighborhood with great families.  There weren't really any weirdos knocking on our door and the night ended earlier than it does in Idaho Falls.  We had our pumpkin soup with pumpkin biscuits.  It was soooo delicious.

Pony Ride

Pony Ride

Rubber Duck Races

Chucking rocks up a tube

Punkin Chunkin

See the cob heading right for the hole? (Just missed!)

Boom rocks!

Yesterday, we went to a pumpkin patch called Yesterland Farms.  It was really fun.  They had pony rides, a corn canon, a punkin chunkin into a lake, pig races, rock climbing, hand dipped corn dogs and fried marshmallows.  If it was just ten degrees cooler it would have been perfect, but it was still really fun.