Thanksgiving

For my side of the family, I took the kids up to Granny's. Just to warn you, there are a lot of pictures but I'll explain as I go. First, I will start out with a hammock picture.













There were some casualties again! (If you don't know what I'm talking about go here.) My kids were not "privileged" this time. I was pushing the hammock pretty hard thinking, "Sweet, I'm totally going to tip them!" When all of a sudden, the chain just broke and they all fell! It was awesome! (It's a family thing to think it's funny when other people get hurt. Strange, I know.) Just to get started here is a picture of the Tire Swing.













A lot of the cousins were there and the youngest 5 (which includes my sister, Jill and I and Rae Ann, Joey and Jesse Anderson) were reminiscing about our Helicopter Swing. While I was eating I mentioned something about it again to my nieces and they looked at me like I was weird! I looked at them with the same weird look and said, "You've never heard about the Helicopter Swing?" With excitement in my voice I said, "I'll show you when I'm done eating!!" So apparently, the 5 youngest grandkids/cousins have never actually talked about this, let alone passed on the fun! Why were we so selfish in keeping this to ourselves when we had so much fun doing it in the first place? I have no idea! "What the heck is a Helicopter swing," you say? Well, let me explain. When "we" (the 5 youngest grandkids/cousins) were little we spent a lot of time at Granny's for the summer! Granny lives in a super small town called Gisela. It's on your way to Payson. Anyway, there's not a whole lot of things to do there so we got very creative! More so when Granny tended too be busy or gone! heehee! So many great memories! I'll have to share more stories later! In an attempt to fit all 5 of us on the Tire Swing at the same time we came up with this CLEVER idea to put Granny's straight ladder in the middle of the handles. Not so much fun swinging back and forth on a stinkin ladder. Then, came the excitement of twisting the ladder to spin around on it! We learned a lot about Physics that day with many casualties! Sometimes we squished poor little Jesse in the middle, but it wasn't any different then spinning in the swing itself without the ladder, except more squished! It was mostly 2 people at one time. So more brainstorming came and we finally understood the Physics part of it all and finally found the right balance for all 5 of us to spin at the same time! Now the problem was to spin the swing as high as we could go and then get on and ride it down! Another problem! How can you jump on a ladder that was so tightly wound up so high without actually enjoying it? More creativity, of course! Granny had a step ladder that we would use for the last person to climb on while holding onto the other 4. The last person would get on and KICK the step ladder out of the way so as not to fall on it as we were coming down! (We actually hit it a couple of times before figuring out that we needed to kick it out of the way.) While showing this to all who was fortunate enough to see it, my sister, Jennifer named this our Hillbilly Helicopter! One last warning, the safest way to get off is to let the people on the Helicopter fall or completely ride it out! If you tried to stop it mid-flight, you got hurt yourself! Okay enough suspense! I'll show you what I'm talking about.


I think this is hilarious!













Adjusting for balance!













Spinning for speed!

There was also a little pellet shooting going on also. We would stack up empty soda cans and then shoot them down. It was pretty fun.













My nephew, Nathan was nice and patient enough to show David how to shoot.

















David and Matthew playing with toy guns.













Notice anything different about Matthew? His pants are on backwards. When I told him this he emphatically said, "NO! They're not!"

Preschool Thanksgiving Program

I know it's a little late for this, but better late than never right? Anyway, I still need to get pictures from my side of the family to be able to post a little more about what we did over the Thankgiving Holiday! I think Cynthia did a really great program for her preschool! Thanks Cynthia! (Just a warning, it's a bit long.)

Time Out for Women & Girls

I had the opportunity to go to Time Out for Women & Girls on Saturday. It was awesome! There were some singers and a couple of speakers. One of the things they did was had a girl and her mother come up and stand on the stage and the MC told a little story about celebrating others. She said that in a second we were all going to give her the best standing ovation we had ever given for this girl! The girl immediately started to cry. I felt the spirit so strong I almost couldn't cheer! I know I needed to give this girl my all, so I stood up with everyone else and yelled my little heart out for this girl to know that she was important and loved by everyone who was there and most of all, by our Heavenly Father! I was so moved at being able to watch the mother also. You could feel the love she had for her daughter! After we all sat down (which took some coaxing) the MC said we were going to do the same thing for the mother. I gave my all for her also knowing how hard it is to be appreciated as a mother also! She had a very hard time standing still! She looked like she didn't feel like she deserved it! She told the MC that was enough but we just kept going. Then, after we were urged to sit down again, the MC said that this is something we should do for ourselves on a regular basis! We need to have the encouragement that we so deserve, even if it's for the little things! So to all the women and girls in my life, I give another much needed, best ever, standing ovation!

Fire Station Field Trip

On Wed. Matthew's preschool class was able to take a field trip to a fire station! This is Matthew on the front of the ladder truck!













Here is the morning and afternoon class together with a couple of family extras.













Here is both classes with the "firepeople" with them.

This is a video of the truck pulling around back.

Matthew had a turn spraying the hose to knock down the cones!

I'm not the only one!

I was looking for a picture for Family Home Evening in the new Nursery Manual and came across this picture! (Click for closer inspection if needed.)












I thought it would work very well for the lesson I was going to use along with the other picture on that page. My kids like to color on anything they can get their hands on, so I thought maybe there was a little scribble in my book! On closer inspection and looking at the manual online, I realized I am not the only person who has "kid artwork" on my wall! HAHA! Don't see it? Look right above the father's head next to the curtain. It's very faint, but I noticed! They have kid artwork on their wall like me! This makes me feel so much better knowing the church publishes REAL family pictures in their homes and not some propped family! I love it!

Fall Sports

I love the Fall! The 4th was the 1st day of Fall Youth Sports for Peoria. Matthew is playing Kickball and David is playing Soccer. At one of the practices, Matthew accidentally got hit in the head with the ball. Since then he has not wanted to play. :( This bums me out because I know how much he likes to play ball! He's not one for the rules though! Too restricting. Maybe next year he'll do better at soccer, when he can run all over the place! I hope as the season pushes on that he will warm up to the idea of playing again. Anyway, this is a picture of him on game day.

















He refused to put his shirt on until I told him I wanted to take a picture of him. He immediately took it off after the picture! Stinker wouldn't even smile for me! David on the other hand, LOVED soccer! He was having so much fun! I didn't know if he would like it because of how much running they do. Boy, was I wrong! He did so great! He has a natural knack for soccer like his mommy did! :) I love being a soccer mom! I actually get permission to yell at my kids! In a positive way, of course! I love being able to cheer them on and for them to have fun doing it! I have come to realize that I have turned out exactly like my mother when it comes to cheering on for sports! But now I totally understand where she was coming from! I think this picture shows exactly how much fun he was having!

















Here is a little clip of his team playing also. David is #7!

Future Michelangelo?

6 days ago I left my house to go to Young Women's. I needed to do a little grocery shopping before I came home so it would be easier and faster without the kids! To my surprise and being extremely livid, I found this on my wall above my bed! (I'll give you 3 guesses who the artist is.)













I immediately blamed Gordon for not watching the kids and threatened to quit going to YW! He said that was fine and that I shouldn't be mad at him for trying to get some sleep before going into work. Hmmm. Umm, I'm still mad just not at you anymore? I was still very upset and decided that I was just gonna have to live with my new artwork! I gradually got over it the next couple of days. Then, on either Friday or Saturday morning I was reading my scriptures. I came to 2Nephi chapter 2 and was reading about opposition in all things. I get to one of the verses and I literally laugh out loud! Lehi is speaking to his son Jacob about the fall of Adam and how it was needed for us to feel misery in order to feel joy. In verse 23 it says, "And they would have no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery... THE SCRIPTURES CLEARLY STATE THAT CHILDREN BRING MISERY! HAHA! Of course the most important lesson is to know that they bring you joy also! This is a lot harder for me to remember. I really do enjoy my kids when they are not making me miserable!