Thanksgiving

 We had a great thanksgiving this year. It started with a day in chicago with Haylee, Luke, and Lily. We walked down Michigan Ave, ate at Gino's East Pizza, and swam in their downtown hotel pool. Then we headed to mom and dad's a couple days later where we ditched dad with all the kids to babysit (where he slept for part of it, but we made sure Colin and Brannon knew what was going on) while the rest of us when to see the final Twilight movie. Then we just hungout, took some pictures, and cooked cooked cooked. Everything was super yummy! Dad's friend from College-Alan Taylor was in town with his daughter and son-in-law who live in chicago for school so they came to eat with us.  After we went home I had SO much to do for primary and our upcoming trips and christmas that I wasn't going to set any Christmas stuff up since we would be gone. Well, Colin and Brannon didn't like that so they went to the attic and got everything down themselves and all three boys put the tree up and decorated it by themselves. They even cleaned the mess up afterwards and ran all the boxes back up to the attic! Such good boys!! We have so much to be grateful for right now. Life isn't always easy but we are happy and healthy and try to find some joy in every single days...despite how difficult and tiring some may be.

Our Gymnast

Brannon was feeling a little sad to not be a part of cub scouts so I signed him up for a gymnastics class. He ended up loving it and was pretty good! He's a compact set a muscles. He got an award one day for doing a perfect something another ??? and these awards aren't given out often. We didn't sign him up again because he started basketball but we will probably do it again next fall.

Legos & Birthdays

Colin and Brannon wanted to get their picture in the Lego magazine so they built a "junk yard".... see the cool tire stack :)

I told them it might not stand out among the pics of big things that kids build so they did a pyramid of all their favorite Lego guys...

 They sure are cute, aren't they :)

We also had a couple birthday parties to go to this month...actually they were in the same day.

 First up was Kiko's party. She goes to church with us. It was at a wilderness center and was a really cool party. They did a nature walk, made fossils of animal prints, went through a small "zoo" area of small animals and got to pet some of them! It was a lot of fun.

Then that afternoon we went to Ross's birthday party. He was turning 30 and had all the important stuff...BAcon, marshmallow shooters, and pinatas :) All the kids loved it.

 The Gonzales family who hosted. They are recent converts and good friends with the missionaries.

 The Lopezs'

 the Cruz's

Evrett and Ross