Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was pretty special.  We spent it in Las Vegas with my family.  My dad and his girl friend flew in from Vegas, my sister and her family drove from CA, as did most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I hadn't seen most of them since my grandpa's funeral in 2007, so I was pretty excited about it.  My dad, Carolyn (his girlfriend), my sister and her family, and our family rented a house to stay in.

Excuse some of the quality in these, a lot of them were taken from my iphone.

The first night...

Cousins reunite!  

That first night we went to my aunt and uncles house for dinner.  Most of the family from CA were still at State line for the night because the next day was a golf tournament.  

My uncle Greg and my dad.  My dad is the oldest of 10 kids and Greg is the youngest.

The next day was Thanksgiving.  The guys played in the "Annual Pliny Mier Memorial Golf Tournament", at State Line in NV.  

Rich and my Dad.  

Paul (my cousin's boyfriend), Rich, Wes (my sister's hub), and my dad got to play together.

Some of my handsome cousins.  Josh, Zack, James, and Johnny.  I grew up with all of them and babysat James and Johnny a lot.  Johnny is an AMAZING golfer!

That night, everyone came back to Vegas and we had our Thanksgiving dinner.  I finally got to see so many members of my family that I hadn't seen in years!  So exciting.

Brittany (cousin), Nikki (cousin), Lorisa (my sis), Kinley (my niece), Danielle (cousin), and me.

I grew up with all of them as well.  Danielle was basically my other sister and my best friend growing up.  Her mom raised me after school for many years.  So nice to be with them again!!!!!!!!!!

They always hold a little awards ceremony after the tournament, once they figure all the scores out.

Here we are piled into a room doing that. (This picture doesn't show everyone).

Good food, good company, good to be back!.  It was a nice Thanksgiving!

More from our trip...

All of my dad's grand kids.  

It kind of makes me sad looking at these pics.  I'm really missing everyone, but SO glad I was able to spend time with them.  Can't wait to get back together!

Fall

It's been so fun to watch all of the trees in our backyard go through changes throughout the different seasons.     On this particular day, I opened up our blinds and noticed all of the pretty fall leaves all over the yard.  I knew I needed to take advantage of that awesome scene while it lasted, (especially since our yard guy, aka: Rich, would more than likely want to rake that "mess" up asap).  The older boys were at school and Cooper is usually pretty good about letting me take a million pictures of him.  So I got him dressed and out back we went.  I just let him do his thing while I clicked away.  I love these pictures so much.  I love the background. I love my backyard.  Most of all, I am crazy in love with this little boy.

Peek-a-boo, you little cutie!

I took a ton more, but you get the point:).  Did I mention how much I LOVE him?!

Halloween Celebrations and Activites

I'm never thrilled to spend money on costumes each year, but I end up doing it every year because I'm a sucker for their little wishes and how cute they look in them.  I am not (yet:)) crafty enough to make them, although I hope to get there someday.  I love watching them get SO excited to wear their costumes!  One thing I like about having costumes that we don't have to return (if borrowed) is that we can add them to our costume box, which serves as a fun dress up box for the boys and their neighborhood friends.  I took the older boys out shopping for their costumes, and that was a struggle.  There just isn't anything very good for boys to be that don't cost an arm and a leg.  But in the end, they were happy and I was happy with their choices.  This year, I was really happy with this cute Monster costume I found at Old Navy for Cooper.  It couldn't be any cuter.  He, however, was not such a fan.  It took weeks to get him comfortable with even going near it.  We practiced hugging it and rubbing it's head and calling it a nice monster.  Something about those horns and the one eyeball sitting on top of his head was not so comforting to him.

Our first celebration of the year was a work party.  We had a great BBQ potluck and then games and trick or treating to all of the loan officer's rooms.  Cooper still refused to put his costume on, but I brought it anyway.  Somehow, his aunt, who was also there, got him to put it on for her (go figure).  I was so happy to see him finally wearing it.  So adorable!

He doesn't look so thrilled though, does he?:)

Cooper and Hallie.  Too cute.

Rich got suckered into cooking all the meat.  Remember those glasses from the Tuacahn post? 

He didn't seem to mind though. 

Julien wanted to be a boxer this year.  Are you surprised?  Jordan had the same idea.  They are cousins.  Did I mention a TON of our family work there?  So they had cousins galore there.

Jonah decided on being a fighting ninja this year.  He was pretty excited about that!  More cousins...

The boys in Dad's office..

Fun night!

Somewhere in there we had a Ward- church party, but the pictures didn't turn out that great.

We did a little pumpkin carving at home.  Julien was a little grossed out by it this year, but Jonah and Cooper  loved helping me with it.

Yeah, we don't get too daring with our designs.  Maybe someday.  

Next, Cooper and I attended the boy's school costume parade.  It was HOT outside that day.  I felt bad for the kids, but they sure looked cute!

Again, not very good pictures.  I liked what's taking place in this one though...Jonah's class walking by Julien's and Julien reaching out to give his little bro a five.  

Finally, Halloween night came.  We went trick or treating with some of our neighbors.  

They like to start early in the evening.:)

A little later, we drove over to some other neighborhoods.  Our first stop was at this house (a friend of our neighbor's), which was decked out and pretty creepy.

Cooper's reaction to it...

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It was a fun-filled month, but I'm always glad when it's over.  Onto my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving (time to see family!!) and Christmas.

Scouts

Julien started Cub Scouts this year.  So far he is loving it.  What's not to love about it for a boy... hanging out with all of his friends, going on adventures, learning new skills, treats, awards, etc.  He loves it.  I'm just glad he is learning new things, building friendships, and having fun.  These pictures are from late August.  Man, I'm behind on this blog!

Fast forward to Sept....

The Pinewood Derby.  That is a "big" event for the scouts each year.  They give you a kit with a block of wood and wheels and the boys are supposed to sand it down, decorate it, add weights, etc.  They give it to you a month in advance so you have plenty of time to spice it up.  Most people would probably be on the ball with that, but uh, yeah, we dropped the ball big time this year.  The night before the derby, I get a text from his leader reminding us about it.  This was also around dinner time and Rich was out of town!  I totally forgot about it, probably because Julien and Rich were going to prepare it together (and partly because while I was working, I had no brain).  The Dads are kind of known to do most of the work for the kids, and the real race ends up being between the nerdy dads.  Since Rich was gone, I searched the garage for sand paper and got out the paint.  Those suckers are not easy to sand by hand.  Poor Julien was up until 10:30 or 11 that night, sanding and painting.  I felt so bad for him, but he had such a great attitude and I don't think he realized how much the other dads would be helping the other kids, so he went into it feeling confident.  

He had left the paint out, and the next morning Cooper woke up before everyone and got into the paint and water and did a number on Julien's hard work.  I wanted to cry for him!  Poor kid!  Julien was sad, but handled it well.  

That night when we got to the Pinewood Derby, the reality set in that he was the only kid that made his car all by himself.  I felt very proud of him for that though.  He was still hopeful at that point.  

Please excuse the lack of quality in these next pictures..

The sanding didn't go so well the night before.  I wasn't much help either because I had a ton of work to do (more on that later- in another post).  So he ended up with pretty much a block of wood with some cute U.S.A colors (Dad's favorite).  And this is his, "I don't know how to smile for the camera face, lol).  Cute boy.

I should have taken pictures of the other cars up close, they were pretty impressive.  

Julien's car continued to lose race after race.  I watched him closely to see how he reacted.  He did come up to me and say, "this is so embarrassing, Mom!"  I kept reminding him that he made his without help, so he should feel pretty good about that.  He handled it well, and I continually caught him cheering his friends on and giving them high fives and hugs and jumps up and down when they won. What a good sport.

Although his car kept losing, I don't think he gave up hope because I caught this next shot near the end of the night, as his car raced it's last race.

The picture probably looks more dramatic than it really was.  I think he just felt that final loss and was more so, shaking his head out of embarrassment.  But no tears or fits.

And I know I'm going to sound ultra cheesy here, but I think we learned the most that night... *Prepare.  *Don't procrastinate.  *We can still have fun even if we lose.  *Cheering your friends on feels good and makes you feel better.  *And finally, you can feel proud when you do things all by yourself, even if the result isn't the best.  

I think next year he will make sure he is ready, and hopefully us losers parents will be a little more on top of things too.  Lesson learned for all of us. Check!  Proud of our cute little Scout.  Check!