Our Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend. On Thanksgiving we went to my parents house. We stuffed ourselves with all the nummy fixins, and my mom did some fun games for the kids. My sweet mom wanted to get a picture of all the grandkids for her Christmas card. Why is that always harder than it sounds? Trying to get 8 kids to look AND smile at the camera at the same time is near impossible! Anyways, it was nice being together as a family.

As Carter and I were putting up the Christmas tree today, Hailey thought the decorations made great necklaces. I guess we won't be using those this year!

Bryans parents came up the day after Thanksgiving to celebrate his moms birthday. We stuffed ourselves yet again with fried chicken and cheesecake. My insanely creative mother-in-law surprised the kids with this adorable gingerbread house that she made! Its pretty big, all four of us can pile in quite comfortably. My mother-in-law can make pretty much everything, she amazes me! The kids have loved playing in it.

This year has been a challenging year with Bryan losing his job, but in a way it has been the best. How often do you get to change career paths at the age of 30? We feel so blessed to have the opportunity for Bryan to go back to school and begin a new career. Bryan has been home more this year, which we have loved. I have been spoiled, and am not sure what I will do when Bryan graduates and starts a real career again! I am so thankful for everything we have been blessed with and so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. I could not ask for more.

Future Hobo of America!

I think I have mentioned before that Hailey loves to pile as much as she can in her stroller and push it around. Here she is with several blankets and stuffed animals. She reminds me of a homeless person pushing a shopping cart cart around with all of their stuff in it!

Carter's Quote for the Day

Bryan asked me to get something for him because he wasn't feeling well. I went to get it and Carter rushed in saying "Mom, I'll get that for you since you just got your Intestines taken out."
(I got my appendix taken out a couple weeks ago, but I think it is funny that he says "Intestines.")

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! We had fun! Bryan had Halloween off this year, which is a First! It worked out well because I wasn't able to go very far with them tonight. I just had surgery and was still feeling kind of sore, so Hailey and I bailed after about a block of Trick-or-Treating.

Carter was a Vampire and Hailey was the cutest Pumpkin ever! I felt kind of bad because she could hardly move in the thing, but she looked so adorable!

Hailey was more like a "Drunkin Punkin". She could hardly walk, which I can't blame her with that big Punkin Belly.

Showing off the Loot afterwards. Isn't it funny how every child, including myself, has to come home and sort through all the candy putting it in piles? Too funny.

TheRapY??????

So, I think Carter might need some therapy in the future. I think...............he is..................a HOARDER!
He wants to keep everything.....and I mean EVERYTHING.
If he catches me throwing something away, he literally has a breakdown. Starts breathing heavy, and tries not to cry.
Some examples of things he gets upset about:

1.He didn't want Bryan to bag the leaves from the yard and throw them away. He wanted to keep them ALL. After he collected about 10 leaves(that I will be sneaking into the garbage in the near future), I convinced him to take a picture of all the leaves so that he would remember them.

2.He wants to keep every single worksheet that he does in school. I do try to keep my favorites, but for heavens sake I cannot keep them all!

3. Those little stickers that come on fruit and vegetables.....he has to peel them off and keep them. If I have a piece of fruit without him and don't keep the sticker, boy am I in trouble.

4.Cereal boxes, milk cartons, pizza boxes, you name it.....yep, he wants to keep it. The only thing he hasn't asked to keep is Dirty Diapers.........I guess that's a blessing in disguise right??

Fortunately I have convinced him that taking pictures is a great way to remember things. Unfortunately I am sick of having the go through and erase the hundreds of pictures off my camera that he took of "garbage" ! I think I see Santa bringing him his own camera in the very near future!

Punkin Carvin

Dad talked Carter into pulling the guts out of the pumpkin this year. In years past he has always made Dad do it. Once Carter got his hands in there, he thought it felt pretty cool!

I decided to torture the kids today and get a few pics of them in our beautiful leaf covered yard. Carter has a little bit of a cough, and I feel bad that I drug him around now that I look at the pictures! I can tell by his eyes that he was not feeling the best. He was a good sport for me anyways, what a guy!

Peek-A-Boo

Our neigbors across the street were putting up Halloween Decorations, they obviously thought that was more exciting.

We just love these kiddos so much, I can't imagine my life without them!