Halloween Hoopla

Our Halloween fun started on Thursday night when Genna & I went to a Disney party at the Kunz house.

Little Sharpay


Heather & Genna(who felt much more comfortable without the wig)


Latrice, the evil queen, Cruella(Sue) and Tinkerbell


Ammon, Hannah, & Tyler in the unbirthday room


Ward Trunk or Treat on Friday night- my camera battery was dying and so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted. Plus we got there late, Jameson's costume wouldn't inflate and it was really cold. Some of the primary kids couldn't believe that pirate was the Bishop.



Saturday morning and afternoon were the last Soccer games of the year


We were so happy it warmed up for Saturday evening.


The kids were ready to go.


Trick or Treating in Shane & JJ's neighborhood- isn't Jameson's costume hilarious? He must be getting too old, he went to about 5 houses and was done. Connor lasted about 10.


Pirate Shane & his treasure JJ- this was the first time we saw their cute house


Mr. & Mrs. Scary


We had the best time at the party eating yummy food, celebrating Betty's birthday and hanging out with our family


Not Halloween related but yesterday was sweet little Seth's blessing


Hope you all had a safe & fun Halloween

MidOctober Merriment

Time Out for Women 2009 in Kansas City was SO wonderful!


The kids did a great job on their Sacrament meeting program all about the family


Another puzzle finished up


Bambi has a close encounter with our minivan while Troy & Jameson were home teaching


Mo tries on his costume and is not a big fan of the hat


Carving our pumpkins for FHE


The sun makes the fall colors so vibrant

Ringing in the New Year

We were happy to ring in 2009 down in Kansas with my sister, Lorilee. We had such a fun couple of days together. The kids had a ball playing together, Troy & Mark watched lots of football, and Lor & I cooked, shopped, sewed and had a great time together.

Jameson & Ashlyn

Our 1 hour aprons that we whipped out in 4 hours.

Going out to eat one night

Homemade pizza

Mo, first class traveler


We decided to try and come up with some activities for New Year's Eve for the kids that didn't involve the computer or Wii. We hit up the Dollar store and made up a bag for them to ring in each hour leading up to midnight. Inside the sacks were pop rocks, silly straws, sour straws, glow sticks, and those toys that grow in water. At 11:55 we had them open a bag with their blower, party hat and popper inside. We also had the kids decorate with glitter glue plastic champage glasses for our sparkling cider toast at midnight. After getting everything ready for the night, we were pretty exhausted and decided against a few of the activities we had planned. However, we did play the Candy Bar game, yahtzee and hangman. Genna and Ethan didn't quite make it till midnight. We laughed all the way through our New Year's toast. It really was a fun night and we were so happy to be with each other.


New Year's Day we traveled home just in time to go over to Tiffany's house for another Christmas get together. All of Troy's Dad's siblings(except his brother Denny who is currently on a mission) gathered together. There was lots of good food, fun games & a sweet Nebraska victory!


Wishing you a joyous 2009!

Christmas with the Bennett's

Christmas afternoon we headed over to Tiffany's house. Genna wanted to have curly hair and it turned out so cute! We first opened presents and then ate our traditional soup supper. Tiffany sewed beads on 25 little stockings with our names to be adorable little place markers. Then on top of that she made 25 bread bowls from scratch for us to put our soup in. Check out Creighton's bread bowl filled with candy, his mean mom made him dump it out and put soup in it, lol! We always have so much fun being together. After presents & dinner it was time for games. We played tripoley, hucklebuck & madgab.



Be sure and click on the picture so you can read the captions on the pictures!

Christmas Day in the Morning

What a beautiful start to our Christmas morn- thank you Heavenly Father.

Thank you children for letting us sleep in till 7:30.

Thank you Santa for all the fun presents.

Thank you Mo for being so much fun to watch!

Thank you Hobby Lobby for providing such nice thick wrapping paper. There were no little mice nibbles in any of the corners of our presents. Also a big thank you to the blog I got the idea from years ago to wrap each person's present in their own paper. Then I just don't put tags on the presents and they have to wait to find out which paper their presents are wrapped in until Christmas Eve.

Thank you Target for making an "American Girl" doll named Jenny with green eyes & blond hair for a fraction of the cost of the name brand dolls. Thank you JcPenney's for making a matching doll dress to Genna's Christmas dress, she was more than thrilled to discover she could match her doll.



Thank you sweet children for letting us experience Christmas through your eyes.
Thank you again, Heavenly Father for our jobs to provide for so many nice things.


Thank you Troy for sending me on a fun scavenger hunt and for totally shocking me with such a fun addition to my scrapbooking supplies. Thank you Cheryl for finding such a killer deal for him!

(sorry about the scary picture of my basement & me!)

Thank you Grandma Koski for making the almond coffee cake wreath that evolved into our traditional Christmas morning rolls.


What a blessed Christmas morn!

Feliz Navidad

Our ward activities chairperson decided to steer away from the customary decor and fixings for the annual ward Christmas party. Instead we had a Feliz Navidad celebration. It was such a fun night. We had a ton of yummy food, a pinata and we sang and learned about how several of our Christmas carols came about. It may not have been the traditional party, but was a great way to commemorate this holiday season.

Christmas List part 2

My 2008 Christmas list is dwindling...and even though I really do love the doing of all the things on my agenda- it still feels good to check them off and get a step closer to December 25th.


Here's what we've been up to:

family temple trip- check


drive around and look at lights- check

this one had music to go along with it


this one was just crazy!!!


help out at our local food pantry- check


make and deliver neighborhood goodies, caroling as we go- check

(it was a balmy 6º tonight when we went, we came back and warmed up with hot chocolate)

presents all wrapped- check


get together with my dear friends- check

12 days of Christmas presentation with pictures for Enrichment- check

Southeast Seamless Christmas dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise- check

yummy chocolate nachos


great minds think alike


We also started our 12 days of Christmas. Last year, I did a gift for each day, but this year, we're only doing gifts every couple of days and then reading our Christmas books on the other days.

What's left on your list?

Decking the Halls, etc.

Thanksgiving was awesome and the rest of the weekend was nice and relaxing. Friday, Jameson and Troy went to the last Nebraska home game and Connor, Genna, and I stayed home and hung out. We got all the decorations down from the attic. That night we all snuggled under the covers and watched Christmas With the Kranks.

Saturday, we got serious about putting up the decorations. I wish I could say it was just like a scene out of Norman Rockwell painting, but the reality is that it was more like a scene from Christmas Vacation with the Griswold's. The lights didn't work, there was fighting over whose turn it was to put up the star, etc. but the end result was magical.





That night Troy and I were able to go to the temple with his family. We decided we are going to do a monthly family trip. In our session that night, there were only 2 people who weren't part of our family. It was such a wonderful experience to be there surrounded by those you love. It was snowing when we came out.

Afterwards we went out to eat at Carlos O'Kelley's and then did a little Christmas shopping at Walmart.

Tonight we had FHE here at home and then went to visit Troy's Grandma Kastens and bring her a little Christmas cheer.

She was so excited that we sang some songs for her. She couldn't get over the fact that we all had matching hats on. She has a little book where people sign in and we were her only visitors today. Made me sad and more determined that we get there more often.

Last of all, while we were having our treat(Eggnog Shakes) Jameson finally set off his volcano tonight. He made this volcano about 3 weeks ago and it has been sitting in my kitchen, crumbling,ever since. We oohed and aahed as it erupted.


Hope you all had a great weekend, too!