Happy November!

Wow, November already? There is always time to enjoy a beautiful sunset!

We had snow very briefly one November day.  Here is proof!

Clark finished up another marching band season.  Crazy he has only one more left in high school!

One Saturday Lee and I went up to the temple by ourselves and all the kids stayed home.  They said they would clean the house and do their jobs.  This is what we found when we arrived home.  Not bad!

One day was gorgeous out, high 60s.  Lee obliged and put up the outside Christmas lights. 

Shanna loves all things Vera Bradley and was excited to get this blanket!  Lee receives gifts with the different Vera Bradley purchases he makes through work.  Shanna was able to earn this blanket with some piano practicing. 

Clark was inducted into the Social Studies Honor Society. 

With November brings Christmas prep!  I bought a ton of goodies all month long in preparation for our Christmas at the cabin in Tennessee.

And I readied our ugly sweater invites and figures out the yearly Christmas cards!

Elden made this, and I thought it was cute.  

Lee, Cal and Clark practicing some Christmas carols.  They sound nice! One of Lee's dreams coming true...playing songs with his kids. Lee really loves music so this is really fun for him. 

Elden completed this little booklet at school and I thought the answers were so cute!

Elden has been super excited about the ski season! Well all the kids have been.  Their anticipation has been so fun to see. 

Clark made it into the City County band.

A preview of our Christmas lights!  We just have a few, but they are still fun!

I found some sweaters for us at our local thrift store. 

Thanks Doris for the fun painting of Frosty!

One of our trek "kids" McKay was baptized in November.  So wonderful!  We enjoyed being there.

McKay's good friend is Mason Gold.  Mason' mom, Alicia was one of my roommates at Ricks College.  It's always great seeing her!

This is one of our friends that our boys have been bringing the sacrament to on Sundays.

Shanna likes taking selfies, and I thought this one was cute. 

Fun snack foods for Sunday lunch. 

We have our ski passes!

And our Christmas post cards arrived!!!

We are headed to Nicaragua for the week of Thanksgiving and decorated for Christmas before we left.  Lee or Clark put out this euphonium and Lee had fun taking pictures of it with the Christmas bling.

If you've been reading this blog we have been cleaning out spaces all around our house.  Right before we left the country I finally got around to cleaning up the playroom.  Lee emptied all of the attic spaces and then I went through all of the stuff.  It sat in the playroom for a few weeks before it finally bothered me enough to do something about it! I came across some of my things from when I was younger and also college age. 

I forgot that I served with my friend Britt in Young Women's.  And I forgot all about the sweet note she sent to me!

Still so fun to read years later!

The napkin I asked Lavell Edwards to sign, and my "farewell" with my friend Jordan.

I love this scripture from the New Testament. It's one that I've been thinking about and how it applies to Relief Society and ministering. 

Hope your holiday preparation went well!!!

Jake's Baby Blessing

We headed to Indiana for Jake's baby blessing.  But of course first, random photos!

Shanna and Haley entered a poster contest for a peace around the world poster.  Or something like that.  Shanna's around the world.

Haley's won 3rd place at the school!  She will receive $50! Haley's poster and timeline.

I made it to Indiana about 4 in the morning.  Lee and Clark didn't come as Lee was in South Carolina and Clark had a marching band competition.  The rest of us headed out to be with family.  I loved seeing everyone! I went on a short run that morning.

That afternoon I went to the temple with the kids except Elden.  Darrell and Stacie and kids were there, along with the Bunkers.  So fun.  We all got to be together to do baptisms.  After baptisms we later went to Hobby Lobby, then IKEA and visited.  Oh we also went to a park as well.  It was fast Sunday so the kids and I fasted.  It was also the end of day light saving.  We ended up fasting technically 25 hours.  But we made it!

Painting our nails before church. Sam and Shawna's kids were with us on Saturday and then they met up with us Sunday morning. 

I love this cute flyer Stephanie made.

My kids love to play with the duplos there.

James and Darrell are buddies.

Sunday afternoon everyone headed home.  We stayed the night.  We helped clean up and I had a good visit with Steph.  We all went to bed fairly early.  We left about 4:20 am to go back home.  We arrived about 1:45 or so.  Thanks Steph for the great weekend! 

Since it's now November the Christmas shopping begins!!!  Last year I made sure to have all Christmas money saved up for November.  I did that again this year (thankfully it worked out to do so!) and I love it.  I can shop at will here and there and get it done.  I actually have all the family gifts done.  Just need to mail off one come December.  The Christmas cards are done as well, just need to wait for them to arrive!  I feel sad when people say they hate the holidays, or that they are so stressful.  I just think to myself....they are your holidays!  Make them fun.  Make them not stressful.  Make them peaceful.  That power is within them and it's UP to them! I hear that the gifting part is stressful.  Well, tell people no gifts!  Even if it's your kids! We have all of our plans pretty much set for the holidays.  I do get it.  Life in general is busy.  And then throw in the holidays on top of an already busy schedule...yep. That's hard.  But there are always things popping up.  Halloween, school trips and performances, concerts, test, etc.  Life is just going to be busy.  People should make the holidays what they want them to be and not let other people's expectations drive their spending or other things that aren't enjoyable. For example, if people get all mad about you not wanting to participate in a gift exchange, well too bad!  It's not THEIR money.  It's yours! Have healthy boundaries and just stick to them.  This year we aren't buying our kids presents at all and they in turn are going to do service projects for people that they themselves decide on.  Lee and I actually decided as well not to give each other Christmas presents anymore.  Well, for sure this year.  We've done this a couple times already.  And I think we will continue to not gift each other presents.  There's my holiday rant for you!

But, I'm SO excited for the holidays!  We are going to see a lot of family and I am going to turn 40 before the new year! AHHH!!!!