November 2015

I love my little family.  (I also really love my house)  Both things bring me a lot of peace and solace in my life.

My Abby J sweetheart is growing up.  I love this but I also love that she still needs me and I hope this never goes away.  Her hugs and loves nourish my soul every day.  

She likes to draw and do art.(even highlighter all over her face, she said it was makeup)   She loves puzzles.  

She has gone to scouts with me since she was born.  At our last pack meeting she didn't want to sit with us.  She sat with all the boys on the floor.  She is just fine and comfortable:)  

She likes to play the piano since she sees Tyler and Ella do it.  She also likes to play the Organ when I go to practice.  She told me I needed to watch a movie on my phone while she practices.  

I love that Darren always likes to go on walks on Sundays.  We have done this since we were married.  I remember being newly weds and fasting on a Sunday and walking with Toby 4 or 5 miles. Just walking.  walking. walking.  

Tyler is super.  He is learning so fast.  He loves to do "buffness" with Abby.  They stuff blankets up their shirts and look buff.  Then they bump into each other.  Abby loves and adores Ella more than anything in life.  I am grateful she is finally showing Tyler that she loves him too.  He thrives on that. One night she crawled into bed with him.  They slept close and cozy all night.

Abby got her skis and Ella wanted to help her scoot around with them.  Silvermesa also had a spirit day where they got to have a fake injury for the day.  Ella looks pretty cute even with a fake injury.

Thanksgiving in Draper

We planned to go out of town for Thanksgiving... it ended up not happening since the weather in Sedona and St George wasn't awesome.  We figured we could stay here and spend the money on insulation!

But since we planned to be gone for Thanksgiving we celebrated the week before.    My girls went caroling to all their friends homes in the neighborhood.  And we set up Christmas before Thanksgiving Day.  But our actual Thanksgiving celebration was amazing.

My sister Jenny came from Pocatello on a late Friday night.   We let the kids play and then got some/very little sleep.  Cousins don't sleep in when all they want to do is get up and play together.  Saturday morning we sent all the boys older cousins including Josh Rupp to the U of U for a cool science class.  Sisters showed up when ever.  Cousin Megan and her kids came.  Julie Rupp and family came.  My friend Taylor came with her three kids.  Such wonderful food and company.  It was a really happy day for me.  So many memories of being at Grandma Hatchs house and eating food all day. Playing with cousins all day.  Watching my uncles sit in front of the TV and watch football all day.  And now that fun celebration was at my house.  Renee even put together the skit we always did as kids with my mom.  It was such a happy day!

Then when it was actually Thanksgiving and we decided not to go on our trip we were so excited to spend time with the Balls side of the family.  Pat and Seth basically brought down an entire Thanksgiving feast to share with us.  We had 3 cute boys stay over night with us one night.  We insulated our whole basement with good help from Pat and Seth.  It was a very yummy, highly productive weekend.  We were really grateful we had Nolan and Cories kids come stay with us so we had to stop working and have some fun with our kids!  They loved Classic Fun Center.  We were delighted that it snowed one day.  I made cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa inside while Darren played with the kids outside.  

We loved our weekend.  Thanksgiving is about family, gratitude... and food.  I love it all!

Darren in San Francisco

Darren got to travel to San Francisco the third week of November.  Just a quick training he needed to do.  I wasn't able to go with him this time.  He sent me some great pictures though.  I have memories of going to Alcatraz as a kid.  We went to San Fran a few years ago and road across the bridge with the kids.  and we spent time across the bay watching the tide.  We get to go back in June with Darren's work.  We will have to research a few new good places to go.

Cabin with friends!

I got to take some great friends up to my parents cabin in November.  It was cold and COLD but we loved it.  These girls and I have been together for a very long time.  We all became friends when we got married.  We married a bunch of boys who were best friends.  And here we are 15, 16, 17 years later... still great friends.  We have done a lot of fun, crazy and hard things together.  I cherish these girls and am great friends with all their husbands.  

We played games, and went for walks.  We had to try out the new swing which is crazy.  Since we are all climbers we had all the kids geared up with harnesses so there would be no disasters like last time.    

And our sweet Rowie is great with makeup.  She is the only one of us!  So she brought all her make up and made us all good great.  Cause you know.. when your at a cabin in the mnts, you need to look smashing!