Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Today was the last day of Primary for the year 2011.  Next year I will be in Senior Primary.  I like Senior Primary.  I will get to have a Faith in God book.

Friday was the last day of school for this year.  It was awesome!  I made a gingerbread house out of a milk carton and graham crackers.  Firefighters came to our school to talk about what to do if the smoke detector goes off.  Now I am prepared.

Our class won the “golden recorder” award at school for having everyone being on task in music.  We had a sing-a-long in our assembly.  My favorite song we sang was Feliz Navidad.   The last song we didn’t sing, we did actions instead.  The song was Sleigh Ride.

In piano I am learning to play O Christmas Tree, Away in a Manger, Jolly Old St. Nicholas, and Joy to the World.

I’m going to get baptized, and I’m going to get a Bible for my birthday.

Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

love,

Josh

 

I’m going to be in CTR 6 next year.  Today our lesson was on Jesus’ birth and that we celebrate it on Christmas.

At school we filled up our Pom-Pom jar, and we got to watch a snowman movie and eat chips.

I’m starting to read lots of words and even read a few books with my mom’s help.

I hope you’re having a good time at England.

Do you have a Christmas tree?

While Josh was at piano lessons we went to the mall.  We saw a big Christmas tree and Santa.

I hope Santa brings me all the stuff I want.

Do you have decorations on your tree?  Do you have a star?

I hope you have a good time teaching people!  Merry Christmas!

love,

Andrew

 

We have bows on our Christmas tree.  Do you?

Today was my last day of nursery.  Next time I’m going to be in Sunbeams!!!  I got a new Book of Mormon to take to Primary.  It has my name and picture on it.  I’ve been carrying it everywhere.

Is your mission good?

I’m going to draw you a picture on brown paper.

Santa came to our ward Christmas party.  He gave me a candy cane that was so spicy and so sticky.

I licked the candy cane and then threw it away.

I can’t wait for Santa to come to my house.

Merry Christmas!

love,

Luke

The accident

On Wednesday, the 30th the kids and I were involved in a car wreck.

I drew this nice little picture to tell what happened. 

We were on our way home from the store about 2:30pm. 

We were approaching the major intersection by our house and preparing to turn left (our van is car #1 in the drawing).  The turn lane is unusually long for some reason, and there was maybe one car stopped at the arrow light which had just turned green. 

We had a long ways to drive in that lane before we actually were going to turn left.

Suddenly car #2 decides to do a U-Turn and doesn’t see us.    He pulls out, makes a hard left turn, and we essentially t-bone him.

His Forerunner had unreasonably large wheels, and because of that, our van hit him hard and then pushed him right over.

I was super scared we had killed him, but after a couple minutes he popped his head out of the driver’s side window.

I’m pretty sure his big wheels saved his life.  If he had been at our same level I would hit him hard right where he was sitting.

We were all very blessed in the whole situation, and we’re thankful we were being watched over that day.

Always think twice before making illegal U-Turns :)

We’re still waiting to hear if our van is totaled or not…

What do you think?  Should I get my hopes up for a new van?? 

Weekend.

Thanksgiving was fabulous.  The food was divine.  We ate to our heart’s content.  We had so much pie that we’re still eating it.

Tanya was a great hostess as always. 

It’s kinda fun to have your birthday on Thanksgiving once in a while.  especially your 30th birthday.

Thank you for all the presents, cards, notes on Facebook, and text messages.

I felt very loved! 

I finally decided I wanted this from Darrin.  I’m excited to get it and tame my ever growing jewelry collection.

On Friday Darrin was the only brave one to shop.  I think he bought everything in Fred Meyer. 

Last year we went to Wal-Mart at midnight, and we vowed NEVER to do that again.  lol.

Later in the day we took the kids along with Aunt Kristin and Natalie to see Arthur Christmas and then to eat at the Outback Steakhouse.

It was a cute movie!

On Saturday afternoon we went to the Jon Schmidt concert.  It was fantastic, and I was a little surprised at how much the kids enjoyed it.

I felt like a good mom giving my kids a taste of the arts.

We came home and had pizza for dinner and then Kristin, Darrin, and I watched Limitless.  It’s the first non-kid movie that I’ve seen in a very long time.  It was really good!

Well that was our weekend.  3 more weeks of school until Christmas break.  Yay!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving.  I have lots to be thankful for. 

It’s also my 30th b-day.  My sisters are here.  We’re going to Darrin’s brother’s house for dinner.  And I’m having candles in my pumpkin pie.

It’s going to be a great day.

More on all that later.

To celebrate the holiday I will post a story Josh wrote about his turkey he had to decorate for 2nd grade.

One day there was a turkey.  His name was Bob and he had some friends.  And they laughed at him because Bob was not like other turkeys and this is how…He had pom-poms and a big googly eye.  Two more days had gone by and both of those days his friends were laughing at him, so he walked some place in Florida.  He walked 10,000 miles to get there.  But suddenly a turkey hunter came out of no where.  Bob ran as fast as he could all the way back home.  He learned his lesson which is: Never run or walk or slow motion walk or speed walk from home.  The End.

Very good advice Josh!!

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Halloween

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I’d better hurry and recap Halloween. lol.

On Halloween Day Darrin came home early so we could carve our pumpkins.

Each kid designed what they wanted their pumpkin to look like. 

Luke wanted a happy pumpkin.

Costumes:

Luke was a policeman, Andrew was a skeleton, Josh was a ninja.

Darrin took the kids out to get candy, while I stayed home to answer the door.  We had so many kids come, I could hardly sit down!

Luke with the loot!

Yay for Halloween!

Primary Program 2011

On October 30, our ward had it’s primary program.  The boys did very well to speak their parts slowly and clearly.

Josh said, “I’m trying to be like Jesus by obeying the commandments.”

Andrew said, “I can follow God’s plan by saying my prayers.”

Next year all 3 of them will participate!

Fall Soccer 2011

Josh

Team: Ninjas

Coach: Dad

Team mates: Keegan, Tyler S, Tyler B, Wiley, Liam

Record: Won one game

End of the season party: doughnuts and hot chocolate after the last game

Andrew

Team: Tiny Timbers

Coach: Dad

Team mates: Nolan, Danny, Aidan, Jett

Record: Won all games except the last one.

End of the season party: Round Table Pizza

Final Summer Flashback—Visit from the Bywaters Sept. 10-15

Even though school had already started, the Bywater’s visit to Oregon was the last party of our summer.

We were delighted they came to visit.  We packed in as much fun as we could while they were here.

Picnic at the park, girl’s night, boy’s night, pedicures, games, golf and Frisbee golf for the guys, and just hangin’ out were all apart of the fun.

We miss them tons and hope we can get together again soon

I know there’s lots of pictures of Kenzie and Luke…but I’m just preparing for their wedding slide show in 20 years

Saturday Summer Flashback—Labor Day Weekend

Over Labor Day Weekend Darrin’s parents came to Oregon for one last visit before they left on their mission to England. 

The first night they were here we had an English tea party in their honor.

We ate little sandwiches, finger food, and lots of yummy desserts.

On Labor Day we had a picnic at the park.

The kids had a great time playing with these cat tails.  We discovered how messy they can be!

A couple days later we said good-bye!  We had a great time during their visit and can’t wait to see them when they get home!