Kindergarten Thanksgiving feast

 

I've got to mention that when Jace brought home the note about the upcoming Thanksgiving feast, he was beyond excited.  He kept telling me that we had to come!  It is an exiting time for the kindergartner's because this is the one time they get to eat in the school cafeteria.  He kept telling me to get the money to pay for 'the feast' into the envelope so he could take it back to school.  He then would ask daily, is today the feast?  I heard that for a week prior.

Finally, Nov 15th arrived and we headed to the feast!

Here is Jace, cute little pilgrim

 

Jace and me

 Jace and Chris

Do you all remember school food trays?  I'm pretty sure these are the same trays used 20 years ago - they look the same, are stained the same, and in general just kinda grossed me out!
The menu was turkey fricassee (turkey gravy over mashed potatoes), corn, cranberry sauce, a roll, peaches and pumpkin cake

Jace had been waiting for over a week for this day - what did eat?  The pumpkin cake - he may have taken a bite of the turkey fricassee and the roll but  nothing else.

I love how he gets so excited about things that go on at school, especially if he gets to share them with me and Chris.   The food was actually really good, even for 10:10 in the morning!  It was a fun morning and hopefully he will look forward to getting to eat at school everyday next year!! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Boise Idaho temple open house

It all started here, at the Boise Idaho temple 20+ years ago. 

Here we are today on the grounds of the temple.

Here I am with my girls

And my handsome guys!

 
Families can be together forever!

It was so fun to be able to go through the Boise temple during it's open house.  We were able to go through the exact sealing room Chris and I were sealed in and show the kids where we all started - the chandeliers were gorgeous, the new wood and stain glass windows were exquisite and the ceiling in the celestial room was amazing!!  What a special place for us and so glad we made the trip to show the kids.  We had a great weekend!!

Halloween 2012

 

This Halloween I wasn't prepared with my camera at all.  I took this picture of the kids before leaving for school Halloween morning.

Baylie dressed as a leopard, Jace was a knight shining armor and Ali was a mummy

The day seemed to be super busy, I was running around all morning had to be at the Elementary school by 11 for the costume parade and the spooktacular (yep, forgot my camera) and Chris and the kids put together a little 'spooke alley' in our basement!  Trick or treating was quick because they invited some neighbors over to come through the spook alley.  It was pretty funny and they did a great job on it! They had scary music playing and all!

Jace turns 6

My sweet baby boy turned 6 on Oct. 17 - I can't believe how the years are flying by!

He is the cutest thing and had certain things required this birthday, breakfast in bed was one of them.

Here he is in my bed with that request. On the menu?  French toast of course, his absolute favorite!

I went to his kindergarten class with treats of snickers bars and root beer!  Here he is with his teacher, Mrs. Killpack while his class sang 'happy birthday' to him.  You can see his 'happy birthday' on the white board.

And what birthday boy doesn't want a birthday crown?

After school was another surprise - he had been telling me he wanted a 'dirt bike' cake for his birthday - I had no idea how I was going to pull this off.  Thank goodness for facebook, I found 'cakes by Julie' and she is in Idaho Falls so I called her up about a week before and ordered this FABULOUS cake!!  The cake tasted as awesome as it looked!  The 'dirt' was crushed up cookies, there are candy rocks too -everything was edible except the dirt bike.

He wasn't too picky about gifts as a matter of fact, I had a hard time thinking of things he needed!  I was able to find a few things as well as some fun stuff too!

He is a sweet boy - for dinner he wanted to go to Pizza Pie Cafe in Rexburg because he wanted Lindsay to be able to come with us.  So we drove to Rexburg to pick her up and take her with us.  Here he is about to blow out the candles on his cake

Back at home we opened presents - we even facetimed Lindsay on our iphones so she could see him open them!

New coat, hat and gloves for the COLD Idaho winter ahead!

Look how he is just as excited for a new suit as he was for the toys!!  He is such a handsome little guy on Sundays.

We have absolutely LOVED having Jace in our family - as the only boy and the youngest, he is pretty spoiled by us all but man we love this kid!!  We were truly blessed when Heavenly Father sent him to us!!

Family photo shoot

Last weekend we went to Rexburg and had my sister Kara take some photos of us.  It's just that time of year again when I need new 'school' pictures of the kids but did a few family ones while we were at it.

Here a few of my favorites!

Lindsay is now 18 (almost 19) and a freshman at BYU-I (sniff, sniff)

Makenna is 16 and a Junior at Hillcrest

Emily is 13 and in 8th grade at Sandcreek

Alison is 9 and in 4th grade at Rimrock

Baylie is 7 and in 2nd grade at Rimrock

Jace is 6 and in kindergarten at Rimrock
(he is seriously the CUTEST little kid EVER)

The cute couple that made those gorgeous kids

A few of my favorites of the kids

This is at an old tree house where Kara's husband Brett used to play as a kid!

And one more of us all

Kara did a great job taking these pictures for us as well as placing us for them.  We went to her mother in laws and there just so many neat places to snap a few shots, I think total she took about 114 pictures.  I'm pretty lucky that my kids like to get their pictures taken so it seemed to go pretty fast. Afterward we went to have lunch and frozen custard at Nielsens, a favorite place of ours!!

Homecoming 2012

 

Sept. 29, 2012 was the homecoming dance.  It was a crazy day, Kenna started out with a day date at 10am.  The group went into the hills and played paint ball.  The boys even thought to purchase chest protectors for the girls and Kenna said they purchased 4000 paint balls!  She had a hair appointment at 3:30 but didn't get home from her day date until 3:20 - thus started the craziness!  She had paint in her hair and had to take a shower and wash it first so we were about 15 minutes late to her appointment. She said they didn't have cell service in the hills and no one knew what time it was. Then we got home and she decided to call a friend to do her make-up, she headed over to her house at 5:45 and Lerin was picking her up at 6:30.  She didn't get home until 6:20 - we had to quickly put her dress on and jewelry.  With all this chaos, I didn't get any 'prepping' photos especially since none of it was here at the house!

Here she is FINALLY ready!

 

Two of her best friends stopped by to see her before she left - Kaylee and Hayley

Chris meeting Lerin for the first time.  I'm not sure why he hadn't met him before the dance because he's been over several times.

Pinning on the boutonniere

Her corsage - it was gorgeous!!

I just thought this one was cute!

A few more before they leave

Photo bombed!!! This was so funny!

Kenna's friend Sara was in her group and her date was waiting in the car - I called him out for a photo and surprise, he matched Kenna's dress too!

This is Lerin, Kenna, Sara and Rayce

They went to Lerin's house for dinner -

Lerin's dad took about 200 photos Kenna said - I only got 3 of them.  This one I think Kenna said, "is the most legit homecoming photo ever!"

"She thinks my tractors sexy," is what I thought when I saw this!

One of Kenna with us!

They had a great time at the dance and Kenna looked stunning!  This dress she picked out just screamed her name and fit her personality like a glove!  We saw it online and she loved it! When we went dress shopping, we went to Circle of Love in Rexburg because they always have modest dresses.  Anyway, as we walked up to the front of the store, there was the dress from the internet in their window - is that fate or what?  We had to get it taken in quite a bit to fit her and they actually hemmed it too short and she had to wear flat sandals. If you know Kenna, she loves heals and the higher the better but it worked out and I'm sure flats were much more comfortable to dance in. All in all, I'd say her first big dance was a success.  Next up..... Sadie Hawkins and she's already asked her date!