Christmas Trip- Part 2 Benjamin's blessing

 

 
On Monday the 23rd the whole family gathered together for Benjamin's blessing. He is such a cute baby! He was born premature and is just 2 months younger then Jane. This is Benjamin with his mom Laura.

 Jennifer, Kendall, Israel, Laura, and Benjamin

I love this picture of Kendall's twin brothers Isaac and Israel with their daughters Lucy and Learsiah.

This is the whole family. The only two missing are Kendall's brother, Alma, and his brother in law Ray. 

 

Kendall's sister Jenna. She delivered a huge 10 pound 3 ounce baby on Christmas Eve!

 

 We had a dinner after the blessing. Daniel filled up his plate with cookies! Kendall told him he could have as much cookies as he wanted but that he needed to have as much salad as he had cookies. So he filled his plate with salad and ate it all. And Guess what, he was so full of salad he had no desire to eat all those cookies!

I just love this picture of Jane and Kendall!

Christmas Trip- Part 1

This is us getting loaded into the car for a "9 hour" drive. The snow at our house should have given us some idea of what the roads were going to be like that day. We started out in good spirits though. The Elders were out throwing snow balls at the kids before we left. So the 1st mountain pass wasn't bad. They required traction tires or chains on the big semis. Kendall did an awesome job at driving! We saw several cars slide off the road and stopped and pulled one lady out of a ditch. We just took it slow and steady and didn't have any problems. When we came to the Blue Mountains in Oregon things got a little more crazy! We made it without having to chain up, but I would say the conditions were white out conditions. I have never been in weather like that before and it was a little scary! We almost got hit by a semi who decided to stop and back up in the middle of the highway! Not sure what the guy was thinking but we gave him a good long honk before he stopped (just a couple feet from our car!). We made it to our friend's house after 13 1/2 hours!  They were so kind and had a hot meal for us at 11pm and warm beds to sleep in!

We awoke in the morning to homemade waffles with jam! Seriously, LuJean and Kim are the best! LuJean taught Emma how to make this cute Christmas craft which she then taught to her cousins. We drove last part of the drive on dry roads and made it to Kendall's parent's house in good time!

This is the night's sky overlooking Cedar City!

Kendall's mom (and sisters) had the house beautifully decorated for Christmas. It was so good to see everyone that night!

Early Christmas Festivities

The first half of the month of December was a bit stressful for me (Kendall would say that's an understatement!) which is mostly my own fault for taking on to much! I just can't say "no".  We had parties for church, parties for school co-op, a big trip to Utah to plan and pack for, and all the other things that come with the holidays. We did have fun despite my stress.

 We had our neighbors, Elder Rogers and Elder Young help us decorate our tree this year. The kids are always excited to have them over!

 The kids get kinda wild too!

We gave Elder Young the honor of putting the angel on the tree. He finished his mission on the 18th of December and was able to spend the holidays with his family!

Every year we also decorate "ginger bread" houses. We use graham crackers cause it's easier! The kids look forward to this tradition and put almost as much candy into their mouths as they do on their houses!

Grass hopper food storage

Proof of Noah's grass hopper food storage!

The Thankful Tree

This is our thankful tree this year! So every year we make a tree and every night we each get a leaf to write one thing we are thankful for that day. Then on Thanksgiving after dinner we take the leaves off the tree and read what we have been thankful for that month. It's a great reminder to us of our many blessings and reminds us to say thank you.

Happy Halloween

I love the look on Jacob's face! He was a trooper and cleaned out the guts by himself!

Daniel and Jacob shared a pumpkin this year. This was Daniel's side. Jacob carved on the back of this pumpkin, so I guess you could say this pumpkin is two faced!

Kendall and Noah joined forces on this one. Noah drew the face and Kendall did the carving. As you can see it's puking up its guts!

Daniel was a shadow man.

Jane was a princess (I'll call her sleeping beauty)

Emma with her treats from the cake walk.

Jacob was a tiger.

Noah was a box.

This is our trunk for the trunk-or-treat. Everyone loved the pumpkin puking the candy up!

October Fun

 

This year we joined a home school co-op called LEAF. The kids take classes every Friday and we go on little field trips together. It's been great for the kids and they love making new friends. We went to the plant farm's pumpkin patch again this year. I love that they bring the pumpkins in and put them on the lawn so we don't have to trudge through the muddy fields to get our pumpkins!

They have a little tractor train ride.

Hello PINK! Emma just had to climb on this tractor!

Kendall and I have a tradition of going to a corn maze every October.  We went to a corn maze 13 years ago on our 3rd date. It was a special date, cause he held my hand for the first time that night and he told me he loved me on that date. We usually make it a date night thing, but this year was so busy and the kids really wanted to go so we went as a family. The kids had a great time running around the maze. This is them at the entrance to the maze.