Family Photos

This time of year I always think we should get a new family photo taken, but no one else really feels the same way, and so for the past four years we have not had a family photo.  The biggest problem with this is the fact that we have had another child added to our family since the last family picture.  Although no one really wanted to participate, everyone did their job and they turned out pretty good considering the fact that we have five kids.

Here are a few of them.

The Kids

The Boys

Tyson, Justin, and Emily

The Kids

Ryan and Abigail

Emily

Abigail

Ryan

Justin

Justin

Ryan

Abigail and Emily

The Girls

Emily

The whole Family

The Boys

Tyson

Tyson

It's Begining To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

This past week was spent setting up and helping with our Stake Nativity event.  It was a lot of work and took a lot of people to put it together, but it was fabulous.  The Nativities were arranged wonderfully, the music was good, and we had a wonderful turnout from the community.  I know the first two days we had around 400 nonmembers come and see it.  I am not sure what the final count was after Saturday.  I helped with the Children's room.  Families could come in and get their picture taken dressed up in nativity clothing. We also had Luke 2 playing, and hands on nativities to play with and books to read. Emily had the opportunity to play the piano for the Children Choir.  She did a great job.  A lot of people commented on how well she played.  I was very proud of her, I am always amazed at how well she does under pressure, I never performed well under pressure.  They figured there were close to 400 people there during the two concerts.  Emily plays a song again tonight for the sing a long that we are having before the First Presidency Devotional.

Here are a few pictures from the event.  I actually got them from my friends blog because I didn't ever remember to take my camera up there.

View looking toward the stage where an artist in one of the wards painted a beautiful picture to be displayed

The live nativity outside as you come in

Here is our families nativity picture.  I scanned it in and could not figure out how to crop it right.

This was a great event to get everyone thinking about the true meaning of Christmas.  I am so thankful for my Savior and for His birth.

Ryan Turns 5

Ryan turned five on November 30 (Tuesday).  I knew I was not going to be home all day that day so we celebrated his birthday on Monday.  He was so excited to have breakfast in bed.  He wanted everyone to get up on his bed.  I told him that would not be a good idea because he has a platform bed, so he decided he would sleep on his floor.  He borrowed our neighbors tent and slept in it.  He loved seeing his breakfast, but didn't eat any of it because he was too excited to open his presents.  He got a leapster explorer, and a fish tank.  He chose to go to Rosa's for dinner and we had cake and ice cream at our house that night.  I don't have pictures yet because Emily took the pictures with her camera and we can't find her cable so I will add them later.  Ryan was so good all day that day.  He shared with Abigail the whole day and acted so much older because he was so proud to be five now.

Book of Mormon Party

Each year when we finish reading the Book of Mormon as a family we have a Book of Mormon party.  The kids decided this years part was the best we have had.  We went to a place called "Dave,s Need For Speed."  We raced go-carts, played miniature golf, and laser tag.  It was a lot of fun because we were the only people at the whole place so we could let Abigail and Ryan play with us on everything.  Abigail was not of fan of laser tag, and I ended up holding her gun the whole time, but other than that we had a great time.  We ended the night with a trip to Ruby Tequila's for fajitas.  This simple celebration has become one of our kids favorite traditions.  They are always excited when we are getting near the end of the Book of Mormon.

Halloween

Halloween was a little different this year since it was on Sunday.  We didn't go trick or treating, but we had lots of parties leading up to Halloween.  We had a playgroup party at our house on Wednesday for Ryan and Abigail.  We had trunk-or-treat on Thursday, and Friday Emily, Tyson, and Justin all had a Halloween party at the house.  It was all  a lot of fun.  We used to have Halloween parties every year, and as life has gotten busier we had stopped, but I am glad we started it up again.  I decorated the basement and the kids had a dinner of Bat Wings and pumpkin guts (chips and Queso) Monster bones and oozing coffins (ribs and twice baked stuffed potatoes) and cooled mice and eyeball for dessert.  I learned with so many kids it would have been better just to have pizza.  The cooled mice turned out pretty realistic, here is a picture of them.

The kids had a contest girls against boys dressing someone up with napkins and tape.  There was a lot of dispute about who made the best costume.  You can look and decide for yourself who did the best job.

They ended the night with a game of capture the pumpkin outside.

Here are a few pictures of the kids dressed up in their costumes.  We didn't do a lot with costumes this year since we weren't going trick-or-treating.

Justin as Mario

Abigail as a princess

Tyson as a jail bird and Ryan as a Police officer

Emily as a mad scientist.  She and her friend dressed up as thing 1 and thing 2 for a Halloween party earlier, but I didn't get a picture.  Here friend was sick for the trunk-or-treat so we had to come up with something else quickly.

Tradition

One of the traditions we have in our family is to go to a BYU football game each year.  Since the Mountain West started it has been easy to make those games because one year they play in Albuquerque and the next year they play in Ft. Worth.  This year the game was against TCU in Ft. Worth.  BYU has not had a good year, and we wondered if we should even go since we kind of knew what the outcome of the game would be, but we went anyways so we wouldn't break tradition.  The game was as expected, but we had a great time as a family.  I am thankful for traditions that help make us take the time we need to take to be together as a family.  We were only there Friday night and Saturday, but we were able to go to Six Flags Friday night and Saturday morning.  The kids all agreed Friday night was the best time they have ever had at Six Flags because there were very few people there.  Here are a few pictures from the game.

Emily

Tyson

Justin (he had just finished a frozen strawberry thing, you can see the results on his face)

Ryan

Abigail trying her hardest to cheer the cougars on to victory.

Emily Wins Her First Tournament

We had a lot going on yesterday.  Jeff and Emily left the house at 7:45 for a tennis tournament, and I followed with Tyson, Justin, Ryan, and Abigail to be in the Harvest Festival parade.  This was the first time we have ever done that parade.  I was in charge of the entry for Bennett.  We were just going to walk, but at the last minute someone offered to let us use their trailer, so we had some kids walking and some on the trailer.  The kids had a wonderful time.  Tyson was not excited about it, but when he saw a lot of his friends show up, and realized how much candy they could pick up while walking in the parade his attitude changed.  After the parade was the annual Fun Run.  Justin and Tyson both ran in it, they were both in the top ten, but didn't get a medal.  Soccer games were next, we had two at the same time so Jeff left the tennis tournament to coach Ryan's soccer team and I went to Justin's game; Tyson played after them.  Jeff watched Tyson while I went back to the tennis tournament because Emily was getting ready to play in the Semi-finals.  I made it in time to watch most of that match, and then Jeff and the kids made it in time to see half of the final game.  Emily won the match 8 - 2.  We were all so excited for her.  I think this is the best I have seen her play.  She played a little more aggressive than she usually is, and it paid off.  I had given her some spirit socks to wear since it was a little chilly in the morning, and we are now calling them her good luck charm.  Tyson said she shouldn't ever wash them, thank goodness Emily doesn't agree!  Here is a picture of her with her trophy and her "good luck" socks!