Christmas Preperation

I can't say it was the best trip with a cranky pants in our presence, but Temple Square was beautiful.  It's such a blessing to live so close to so many amazing temples.  

On Christmas Eve Ryan and Jennifer's family invited us over for an amazing meal and a fun Christmas sharing time.  Brett and the boys practiced reading a really cute book about the true gift of Christmas.  Noah decided not to participate, but he performed a very cute arrangement of Jingle Bells singing it well and playing the piano.  It was a fun night and a great way to prepare for Christmas.

Phone Picture Dump

I love looking at all the pictures I have collected on my phone.  They're kind of fuzzy and sometimes crazy, but I finally got around to uploading them onto the computer and wanted to share some of the highlights:

This was the most fun ride at the new Carsland at Disneyland.  We loved it:

Adobe had a work party in the summer.  They had animals to pet, acrobats, hula hoopers, face painting, and balloon making, etc.  Noah was so excited to be a pirate:

For the past several months whenever Owen gets nervous about something or really tired he puts his pointer finger up his nose.  Occasionally he even puts his pointer finger in his nose, thumb in mouth, and other pointer finger in his ear.  It's pretty funny, but I can never capture it on my camera, so I was excited to catch this one picture:  

Brett has been so awesome to support me in a crazy tradition I have with a group of my friends.  We've seen all of the Twilight movies the night before the premier during a special charity showing.  It ends up being a really fun girls night out.  With this being the last segment in the series we went all out with movie, shopping at the new Outlets, and a nice dessert at Kneaders.  There were more girls we met up with at the show, but this was our car full:  

Albuquerque Thanksgiving

We started Thanksgiving with the annual Turkey Bowl that Brett represented the family at.  Next to the field was a nice park that Grandpa Rushton and the kids got to play.   

(Hyrum had fun playing too, but whenever the camera came out he seemed to disappear   

Grandma Rushton spent most of the day in the kitchen and it all paid off with an amazing meal that filled everyone beyond the brim.  Here's the big kid table: 

Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast

With Hyrum in school this year, it is the first year in our family that Thanksgiving became a little more of understanding where it all started.  It's been really fun to hear the things he learns.  He memorized a few poems about Thanksgiving and he was really proud to share them.  I got to help out at his Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast.  It was SO fun!  Hyrum was so happy that I was there and excited to show me all of the kids in his room, where he sat, etc.  I love that he loves being around me at this age. I know it won't last forever.  :)  His seat was at the head of the table so he told everyone that he was the King of the Feast. 

Snow

At the first 'big' snow of the season, the boys were SO excited to get out in it and build snowmen.  They built one big snowman and a baby snowman.  They did it together, with my help, and took turns painting it with the water/food coloring in the spray bottles.  It was a fun day and it ended with some yummy snow ice-cream before bed.  Good times:)

Hyrum

Hyrum is getting so much older and really growing into his own person.  It is exciting and heartwarming. Today we were playing at one of the boys' favorite parks and Hyrum was swinging on the swings.  He looked very contemplative for a moment and said, "My brain is telling me to slow down, but my heart is telling me to go higher"  after another few swings he decided: "I guess I should go really fast for a little bit and then go really slow."  His mind is always working and he says the cutest things.  

He really loves his bus driver that drives the Kindergartners home in the afternoon.  He is the nicest Grandpa that loves his retirement 'job'.  He knows all of the kids and they all just love him.  Today right before bedtime Hyrum told us that he needed to draw a picture for Richard (the driver) because he promised him he would.  He drew this picture of Richard and Hyrum holding hands in front of the bus. He said the bigger guy is Richard because he has a bigger belly:).  He put it in his backpack and then laid it down next to his shoes so that he wouldn't forget anything for school tomorrow.  I snuck it out so I could post it tonight.  It just made me smile.

This was another picture that amazed me for his creativity.  It is a haunted house he made for Halloween.  He said that each door on the house had different monsters and scary things behind them.  Ghosts came out of all the windows.  He is so creative and such a blessing in our family.

Halloween

Today started early with the Elementary School's costume parade.  Hyrum loves his brother Owen so much.  He was playing with Ethan (behind him) earlier this week and Ethan was telling me all these stories about 'Baby Bubbles'.  Hyrum and Ethan don't play together very often so I asked him how he knew so much about him.  I found out Hyrum talks about Owen during Kindergarten every day.  He only refers to him as Baby Bubbles and the rest of his class can tell you all about him:)  I caught this picture of him when he first saw us.  He pointed at Owen in his costume and was so proud and excited to show his friends Baby Bubbles.  Hyrum was really excited to be a robot.  It was a dream come true. 

After Hyrum's class was done Noah and Owen got bored and the playground was calling them.  So, here is Superman minus his cape that was getting in the way.  I really wanted to dress the boys up like Phineas and Ferb, but they had their own plan so I went with it.  I was really glad that Noah wanted to be Superman since we already had the costume.   

And, of course, where's Perry?