Thanksgiving 2016

We spent Thanksgiving this year with the Jones family.  We all got together at Grandpa Jones' and Judy's house.  We had a lot of fun!

Kyle, Eric, Andraea, and Dallin

Haylee and Matt are on the left and Malissa and Ryan are on the right.  

Anissa is in the background... :) 

This is a picture of me and Alice 

(with Todd totally photobombing our cute picture)!

Okay, here we are just by ourselves.  Well, at least no one else is paying attention anyway.  That's much better! :)  Sweet Alice!

Parker and MaKenna playing "sibling rivalry." HA!

Cute little Henry!

(And Jacob in the background)

Jacob is so "cool." :) 

Makenna and Parker...no more sibling rivalry.  

(I love the look on Parker's face...I AM smiling and being good).

Judy and Melissa

Anissa, Haylee, Matt, and Malissa

Rob and Henry (so cute! Henry, not Rob).  

Just kidding Rob. You're cute too.  :)

Todd and Grandpa Jones

Zach, Emma, and their cousin Nick (from North Carolina)

We were missing two of the Jones families.  Aaron and Kristin's family were vacationing at the Grand Canyon for Thanksgiving, and Mike and Shauna's family were trying to get over illnesses, so they didn't feel good enough to make the 5 hour trip.  We missed both of their families!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Kyle turns 15!

Happy Birthday to Kyle!  I had somewhere to be on Kyle's birthday (for half the day), so before I left at about 9 in the morning, I woke him up and had him open his presents.  (Todd was already gone.)  Of course, Kyle wouldn't look at me. (I actually sided with him this time though.  After all, he had just woken up.) :)

But my patience didn't last long...then I made him look at me. 

He got a new pokemon game for his Nintendo 3DS (which was actually a birthday present also, but he got that present early....like a couple of months before). 

Oh Brother! :)

He got a cool pocket knife too that said, "Have Courage."

And Ziggy had to be right there too.  Funny dog.

Later that night, we watched a movie as a family (Kyle's choice, of course) and had cake and ice cream.  I think he had the perfect day and did exactly what he wanted! (He got to just sit around and play games all day...and he didn't have to do any chores.)  

Oh, and I think my cake decorating skills are getting worse....just saying. :)

Happy Birthday Kyle!  

We love you so much and are so grateful that you are a part of our family! 

Fifteen! (give me strength!)  HA!  :)

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween 2016

We didn't have a lot of time to carve pumpkins this year, even though we grew a whole bunch of them in our front yard!  So we mostly just decorated the outside of them.  Desperate times call for desperate measures. :) 

But we still had a great time!

Kyle was in usual form...and wouldn't look at the camera!

Jacob put some stickers on one of the tiny ones...

This is Kyle's pumpkin...AND KYLE! HA!  I got one! :) 

Dallin carved his pumpkin for real.  Way to go Dallin! 

We added a little "pumpkin kit" to Jacob's small pumpkin...

Todd helped Dallin get all of the "guts" out of his pumpkin....

If Kyle would just smile...wouldn't that be nice?

And Jacob decorated a big one too...

He did a great job!  (Todd took out the middle thinking that it was going to be carved, but then Jacob just wanted to draw on it.) :) 

One more try at Kyle...Ugh!

Dallin's pumpkin is the one on the right...

And just so you know, I made that alien/Frankenstein one with the scar...

All of our decorated pumpkins (and Ziggy begging to come outside).

 Too bad for Ziggy.

Jacob is the only one of my kids who dressed up and went trick or treating for Halloween this year.  He was a "greaser" from the book, The Outsiders.  He read it with his English class and his teacher gave the kids extra credit if he/she dressed up on the day they watched the movie.  Jacob liked it so much, he decided to be that for Halloween too.  (And by the way, he got that leather jacket from Gina.  He was so excited!  She even let him have it!)

Jacob's got personality, that kid!

We had a low-key, safe Halloween.  

Happy Halloween!

Welcome Fall 2016!

 The leaves are falling down and the air is getting crisp!  It's Fall, people!

"Welcome Autumn"

Dave Woolley (a guy in our ward and great friend) helped Jacob plant a bunch of pumpkin seeds in our front yard at the beginning of the summer.  We had no idea how many pumpkins would grow!  But it was our best crop yet!  Look at all the pumpkins we got.  (I didn't buy any pumpkins this year!)  So cool!

 (I wish I'd taken a picture of the pumpkin patch.  Todd kept saying it was the "most sincere pumpkin patch" he'd ever seen.) :) 

Not too shabby, eh?  

And there's Ziggy, hoping he can convince someone to open the door and let him out.  But it aint gonna happen!  Poor Ziggy!  (It's his own fault. He can't be trusted without a leash!) :) 

Welcome Fall everyone! 

 (The holidays are quickly approaching!) :)

Hilary Weeks in concert!

You know how much I LOVE Hilary Weeks, right?  (Well, she's my favorite!) And she just gave her first concert last month and I got tickets for Todd and I to go see her.  Her new concert tour was titled, "Love Your Life," which was also the title of her latest CD.  I was so excited to go, I could hardly stand it.  I really love her music!

Before the concert started, we were able to take some pictures.  They had this big billboard set up with Hilary Weeks' name all over it.  It was like being at the Oscars (Or was it like the Grammy's?  Obviously I don't really know.)  :) But it was still really awesome! 

A selfie, waiting for the concert to start!
(And me with my smiley earrings!) :)

And then we saw someone from our stake and she took pity on us (and our terrible selfie).  This one turned out much better! (Thanks Rachel Beckstead!) 

I could hardly contain my excitement throughout the whole concert.  I loved every minute of it!  (We couldn't get a very good picture of Hilary on stage.)  But the concert was still amazing!

I was so glad we got to go.  It was uplifting and inspiring, and I cherished the whole evening!  Thanks to Todd for being a good sport and going with me (it was mostly a "girl" concert.) :)  But it still rocked!