Thanksgiving in Idaho

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Idaho to visit family. We left Wed. night and stayed the night in Boise. That has always been our half way mark, it makes it easier on us and the kids. Thursday morning we woke up and continued on our way to Jared's parents. His whole family, all the brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, were there which has not happened for quite some time. We started off with family pictures. Then locked our keys in the car and spent the next hour trying to fish open the door with a hanger. Finally we found a hot dog poker and that did the trick. By the time that was done we were all ready to eat so we sat down and enjoyed a great dinner made by all the siblings because Jared's mom broke her back the week prior. When dinner was over we went to the grandparents house and saw some aunts, uncles, and cousins.Later on that evening we headed up to my sisters house to finish off with many-a-pie. This has kind of become the tradition when we go visit for Thanksgiving. That night we watched a few flicks and headed out to my brothers place, planning to join all the craziness. My brother and I woke up early attempting to go, got out in the car, drove for 15 min and then called my nephew to see if he REALLY wanted to go. He didn't so we drove back home and went to bed. Nothing was worth my sleep I would be missing out on this year.Friday we did a little shopping and then went back to my sisters to play with Berek's new motorcycle. It is pretty fast and pretty fun. That night we went back down to see Jared's family and starting that night, He** began. We all got the flu! Makenna started, then Tayler, Bailey not far behind and towards morning, ME! It was a killer. Haven't been that sick for quite some time. Knocked us all on our hind ends. We did drive to Boise that night because we weren't quite sure how the next day would be. Good plan! Us girls were feeling a bit better but Jared wasn't. We took our time, slept in and then drove the rest of the 4 hours. It was great to be home and just lye in our own beds. We loved seeing family, it was real fun this year. Hopefully we will see some of you come Christmas/New Years time. WE LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU!!!

Weekend with the GIRLS

Jared had a scout/YM campout over Friday night so the girls and I thought we would take full advantage of having no boys around. At around 4:00 pm the boys took off and so did we. We started off with a promise I made to Makenna about going to the High School Musical 3. Even though it was very painful, I followed through and off we were to the movies. I made it through with much popcorn and pop. It ended about 6:30 so we decided to hit the mall. We were sure it would be totally empty because "TWILIGHT" came out and for sure all the women of the world would be there. To my surprise it wasn't. We shopped and shopped till about 9:00pm, each of us coming out of the mall with and article or two of new clothing and yes, even a few Christmas presents. We came home, got our jammies on and finally crashed around 10:00pm. The next morning we decided it would be a shame for the fun to stop there so we went to IHOP for breakfast. It was quite wonderful. Then back to the mall because the coolest person on earth was arriving......none other than SANTA CLAUS. Woooo hoooo. Bailey wasn't quite sure if he was wonderful or not yet as seen in picture.

Right next to Santa was a little store just like a BUILD A BEAR but quite a bit cheaper. Bailey ran in there and the other two followed. Soon they were all begging for a new stuffed animal. Soon we left a store with a kitty, unicorn, and panda bear, all fully clothed.

We were not done yet. We stopped at Sears and picked up a few more presents, then off to Costco ( it's not a Saturday without a trip to Costco). By the time we got home the boys were back and Bailey was dead asleep in her car seat. We ate lunch, chilled out, and then went over to our friends, the Smith's house, to shoot a few pictures of our family. They have the PERFECT house for this and it was about time since it had been almost 3 years. We set up our tripod and shot away. Let me just say, the bigger the family, the harder it is to get the perfect picture. One of us was either looking away, closing our eyes, or totally cheesing the camera. It was fun though. This was definitely a weekend to remember for us girls!!!

Cancun

We got back on Saturday night from a GREAT vacation in Cancun. My awesomely cool sister came and watched the kids so all together she had 6 kids ranging from 11 - 3 mo. We left last Saturday, took a red eye, and got into Cancun at 10:30 am. I won't go from day to day what we did so here's the summing up of it all.
Scuba Diving
Pirate Dinner Cruise
Snorkeling
Para sailing
Speed boats
Chichen Itza
Massages/Facials
Karaoke
Magic show
Cirque show
dancing
you name it, we tried to fit it in. I can't wait to go back. It was so wonderful....maybe my new home?!?!? What do you think Jared :)

Happy Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween this year. My sister-in-law came down with her kids to go trick or treating with us. We finally got the house finished (with our decorating). I was really excited. There are some things you don't get to see in the pictures. We had two fog machines going, a thunder and lightening machine, some fun lighting, and of course the scary music. We have such a fun neighborhood at Halloween. And we counted more than 300 trick or treaters this year!!! I took the kids trick or treating and Jared sat in one of the front chairs and handed out candy. There were quite a few people that thought he was just another decoration till he moved. He loved it. Hope you all had a great Halloween. I look forward to more decorating for next year!!!

Our trick or treating group
Jared's costume

Our Big Monster w/glowing eyes

Spider moves and has lights

Monster/skull with glowing eyes

Our graveyard

Pumpkin Time

It is finally time to carve our pumpkins. We've had them for a week, bought a few at Yokes and a few from a pumpkin patch. This is one of our favorites at Halloween time. We bought a kit this year that had plenty of carving utensils for all of us and even came with a book filled with different patterns. We had a total of 5 pumpkins to do. Each kid had their own and of course one for Dad. So here is our Family Night with our pumpkins.

Bailey's Spider

Tayler's Ghost

Makenna's Puking Pumpkin

Jared's Headless Horseman

Berek's Bat