Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Ashley and Ryan's house.  Poor Kendyl babe was SOOO sick.  She slept in Ashley's office for half the day with breathing treatments every few hours.  I was just about to take her to the ER, her breathing was SO labored.  Broke my heart all day.  Besides that, the rest of the kids had a great time and the whole family (minus Tanner) was able to feast together.  There are a few pictures at the bottom of Nixon at his school program.  He ATE and ATE and ATE.  I've never seen this kid eat so much.  It was amazing.  He wouldn't, however, wear his Thanksgiving hat for the program.  He's a little stinker when it comes to performing :)  What am I Thankful for this year?  This family of mine.  They are my everything.  Everything.

Ice Skating & Santa's Arrival

Station Park in Farmington has the coolest little skating rink they set up each winter.  Lucky for us, it's close by, it's cheap and all of the kids love it.  The pictures below are 2 separate occasions.  The top grid was the night SANTA arrived at Station Park!  We waited in line FOREVER to see him (he was worth the wait).  Nixon asked for a Baymax, Brooklyn asked for a bow & arrow.  Kendyl wanted a popper toy, and Cam asked for walkie talkies.  Nixon and Hudson sat on his lap together and were so stinkin cute.  We then went iceskating with Sean, Papa and Ashley's family.   There were festivities going on all over the mall and it made for a very magical, Christmasy night.

November Stuff

November in Utah.  One day you're basking in the sun, the next day you're in your snow gear.  We've tried to take advantage of every moment we can be outside.  Let's review these random pictures.  

Nixon smoked me at 'Memory'
Checkers became our little hobby for a while.
Kendyl has proven to be an amazing artist
Nixon, Boston and Cal were playing dinosaurs....and it was too cute.
Nic took the kids to see "Big Hero 6" and the next morning, K and N dressed up like the characters and played Big Hero 6 in the yard.

A bunch of kids in their winter gear....pretty self explanatory :)
But the bottom right picture is Camryn standing in front of our Thankful tree.  We had the Martins over for FHE one night and wrote down things we're thankful for on these leaves.  We tied them to these tree branches and it was our centerpiece all month :)

Jumping the Gun

I'm usually pretty firm in my belief that we don't set up Christmas until AFTER Thanksgiving.  However....once the kids were out for Thanksgiving break, and they were bored, and I was feeling festive...we just went for it.  And you know what, I LOVED IT!!!  It went much faster since we only decorated one tree this year.  We finished off the fun by watching my favorite (and now my kids' favorite) movie, 'Home Alone'.  Nixon and Kendyl spent the next few days running wild so they could be Kevin :)

Clean the Cal

It's rare to find a bathing baby without a smile on his face.  It's especially rare when the baby just had a dum dum.  Calvy's smile is contagious.  And that little bum.  Come on.

Next door horses

Our neighbors have a horse arena that shares a fence with our backyard.  They have sheep, goats, ponies and more.  It's so fun watching their girls ride.  They are LEGIT and it's very cool.  Kendyl always wants to ride, and our nice neighbors are always more than willing to let her.  Kendyl has no fear and I'm sure she's be an amazing rider if she had access to these horses each day :)  It's kind of cool living in the country!

Soccer Kids

Nixon was PARALYZED  with fear for his first practice and first game.  If I wasn't out there holding his hand, he wouldn't even move.  Well then something happened.  He somehow scored a goal as I was dragging him along; and that did it.  He was a new man, ready to take on the field!  He let go of my hand and played like a champ the rest of the game!!!  As long as I started each game by easing him into it for just a minute, he did great!  He looked forward to his games all week.  He scored a few goals and we couldn't be more proud of this little man.

 Kendyl was born to play soccer.  We was asked to be on the more "skilled" team this season, but I decided to keep her where she was at for now and just let her shine on her team :)  Well shine, she did!  She averaged 3 or 4 goals a game and enjoyed every minute of it

Brooklyn is a hustler.  Always right on the ball and never wanting to come out.  She scored a few goals this season and they were beautiful!

Camryn has improved by leaps and bounds this year.  She didn't love soccer her first couple of years but she plays SO much better now and really seems to focus and enjoy the game.  She is a great defender and she also scored a goal this season.