Happy Thanksgiving and Lets Go Get a Tree

On Thanksgiving morning we went to an old Presbyterian Church where they do a program called the Blessing of the Hounds. It has been a tradition dating back to mideval french times where they would bless their hounds before going out on their fox hunt. They have been celebrating it every year since the 1920's here in Charlottesville. We heard it was the place to go on Thanksgiving day, hence, we went! It was very interesting! The picture of our family was taken in front of the church.

This is when they were in the middle of blessing their hounds and they literally went on a fox hunt afterwards, across from the church into some fields. Isn't the church pretty?

Since all my children are deathly afraid of dogs, their favorite place to hang out was by the hot chocolate and donuts. Ooh that was yummy! I'm all about hot chocolate and donuts!

We had Thanksgiving at our lovely friends, the Borgs home! It was great fun with a lot of good food, a great game of BINGO, and gingerbread house making (out of graham crackers). haha We had a great time! Thank you Borgs! Below are the lovely finished products of each child

Yeah! Its Christmas time! Time to decorate the tree! Here is Nathan putting his first ornament on. Since this time, he has managed to take a lot of the ornaments off the tree and has repeatedly pulled the ribbon off! Little stinker! But oh how we love him!

Ashley and Heidi putting their ornaments on. They always love decorating the tree and decorating for christmas! They love it so much that they put their own tree up in their room! Its really cute!

Its great to have a tall husband, but even greater when they can hold you on their shoulders! Macho Macho Man!! How else would we get the star on the top of the tree!

We also have our very own Darth Vader. I so want him to like the good guys! haha! He wore this one night for a long time and kept trying to scare the girls. It was hilarious! Thank you Allison and Clay and Dallin for the evil attire. hahaha! He loves it! And Brooke likes to chew on it!

Brooke and I at Ralph's tree farm. The place that we go every year in Virginia to cut trees for Christmas! The trees are so beautiful and they smell so good!

Kevin and all the kids at the tree farm! Don't they all look so cute!

Look how strong my great husband is! Carrying it all on his own! What a man!

So everyone had to take a crack at it! This is Nathan trying saw into the tree!

Now its Ashley's turn! I think she just liked to do it for the picture!haha

Then Heidi taking a crack at it! Needless to say, Kevin was the only one who could actually cut it down.

Just some fun pictures of the kids while at the tree farm! It was great! We always love doing it!

Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays

We finally got to go on a fun date the other night with a few of our good friends. It was my sweet friend, Janis's, birthday. We all went to dinner at Sakura to celebrate and then ate ice cream at Maggie Moo's! It was sooo much fun! This is a picture of the girls! Sakura was fun and delicious, Maggie Moos was even better, and the company was the BEST!



This was a picture of all the couples. Janis is in the bottom left with her husband Justin! Happy birthday, Janis!

So I didn't quite do these in order, I thought I was when I first started doing it, but once I added more pictures it reversed, what the heck! So, just so you know, Kevin's Birthday was actually first and then mine was 6 days later. So you are just going to get to hear about mine first! And from the end of the day to the beginning. Sorry, I'm still getting used to this blogging thing. haha Bear with me!
So Kevin had to work the night of my birthday. BUMMER, but it was a Sunday so it was kind of shot anyway. hahaha! Some (lots) of my sweet friends new that Kevin was working that night so they surprised me and came over around 8:30 with cake and sang to me and then hung out, I think the last to leave, left around 2am. IT was a BLAST! I love you sweet friends! The funniest part about the night was that, Nathan was supposed to be in bed and unbeknownst to us he was taking a huge chunk out of the cake that my sweet friend Angie made. He came in while the gals and I were all talking and my first thought and spoken words were "Nathan, you better go get back in bed!" Then, I realized that he had chocolate all over him. I said "where on earth did you get that chocolate?" My friends told me that they had brought a cake and that maybe he got into it. OH YES he DID! Crazy nut! He came to get me because he had fallen off the chair and wanted to get some more cake! The naughty little thing. We all started cracking up! Gotta love that kid!

The outcome of the fabulous pedicure I received from the kids! Notice the excellent cutting of the toenails as well as the beautiful paint job! I should hire them on a regular basis, what do ya think? hahaha!

So for my birthday Kevin made such a sweet video for me with pictures of me and him and the kids put to music. It was sooo sweet and cute! Then it was time for mom to be pampered! I went to the Salon de kids! I got a massage from Kevin on my shoulders, while the girls did my hair and Nathan constantly blow dryed my hair. I also got a fabulous pedicure by all three of the kids, which you will see in the picture above the outcome! IT was great! Kevin also took me the day before to buy a new outfit! THAT WAS FUN! Thank you Kevin and kids I had fun!

Kevin's Birthday was a couple weeks ago! We had a great time! The girls did so good! They really wanted to make Kevin's day special. They woke up at 5:30 am and made him breakfast. We made waffles, bacon, eggs, fruit smoothie and orange juice. They set up a blanket in the front room and set out place settings to have an early morning picnic with their dad, before he had to leave to work. Then they took balloons and tied them to sticks, each of them having a banner on it that said Happy Birthday dad! They held them and marched in to our room singing happy birthday to him to wake him up. It was really fun! The kids then went to school and Kevin went to work!
Then later that day, we had put together a program for Kevin with songs about "dads" and speaking parts that Heidi, Ashley and Nathan each had. They sang to him, read their parts and sang somemore. It was really cute! At the end of the program it led to a scavenger hunt for Kevin to find his presents. On each clue it said something that we were grateful about him as well as a clue to where his presents were. For example one of the clues said "We are grateful that you love us so much that you always help us to get all the excerise we need to stay healthy". This clue led to a present that was by Kevin's weight set and in the present was some excerise pants and a t-shirt. It was so fun to put together! On one of the speaking parts, Heidi said something so cute. She read in 1 Nephi 1:1 - and this is what she read "I, Heidi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Then she proceeded to read a poem about what she learned from her father! Oh, man it was adorable!
Ashley said something so funny that morning. She told Kevin, don't come out and look in the front room at your presents or the clues, because they are supposed to be a surprise, so don't look dad. (haha) Then, Kevin started laughing and said, "oh, Ashley, I love you...I'm counting on you to spill the beans to me"... to which Ashley replied "What beans? We don't have any beans out there dad." It was hilarious. Overall, I think Kevin had a good birthday. He really loved all the stuff the kids did for him!

Comments, Comments, Comments

Oh how I love all of you guys! I love getting the comments! I think that is the best part of these blogs! The best of my friends that I haven't seen or heard from in years. Oh how I miss you!!! And to the ones that I do see and talk to more recently!!! I love you all just as much!!! Oh it is so good to hear from everyone and to hop on your blogs! I LOVE seeing all your families!! I'm going to start commenting on them soon!!! I am so grateful that you would all comment on mine!! Keep it coming!!! I have the best family and friends in the entire world!!!! And boy do I miss you all sooooooo much!!!! Stay close to eachother and close to the gospel!! I love you all!!!!!

Random pictures of the family

This is a pond on the Monticello Trail. The trees behind it are reflected into the pond. Pretty cool, ehh! It's so beautiful here.
We spent the day at the cannery in Richmond. The girls had a great time helping the members of our ward get their food storage. It was a great experience for them.

It wouldn't be our blog if there wasn't something Highschool Musical on it. We all went as a family to see Highschool Musical 3. Even though its totally corny and cheesy and anything else you want to call it. And, I know that I am going to get made fun of for this, but we all loved it! hahaha! It was great! You do however, have to be able to look past the corny-ness of it all.

Poor fourth child. I thought this was so funny. She actually kept bouncing, on and off, while she was a sleep in this. She's so cute.

What's that kids name on Fat Albert? hahaha! I think he has a mini-me.

For Ashley's 5th birthday (Oct. 10th) she wanted to have pancakes with whipped cream, strawberries and raspberries on them for breakfast.

We like to go on walks at a place called the Monticello Trail. It is this beautiful trail that leads you up to Thomas Jefferson's home. It is about a 2 mile walk up. It is so beautiful with a pond on the way up the trail. On this particular day, however, we had our very own Jedi Knights to protect us from any harm that came in our way. Nathan is so funny. He is way into Star Wars right now and takes his light saber everywhere he goes. He also makes sure to bring one for Kevin, if he is along with us. And he freaks out if he can't find it or someone takes it away from him or his dad. Kevin is such a good sport about it!

We hiked up Humpback Rock, which is a pretty steep hike for little kids, but the kids did fantastic and we all had a lot of fun. We love having a dad that gets us up and going and out to do fun things whenever he's off.

Nathan relaxing after a long overnight campout. Can you beleive his feet are still clean? haha

Nice hat. Kevin likes to be funny and embarrass the fam. He has no shame, that guy! I guess that's what makes him so fun!

Nathan can't seem to get this thing working?

I love this picture. The kids faces are hilarious. They were about ready to be done taking pictures. hahaha.

Fun photos of the gals, while outcamping.

The men on the campout!

We took the kids camping a few weeks ago. Just overnight. Some great friends of ours met us up there and had dinner with us that night and had campfire desserts, too. Ooh YUM! It was really fun. It was really cold though that night, so by 4:30 a.m. I generously offered to take Brooke to the van to get warmed up! What, she was cold! The kids had a great time.

This time of year, it is always so fun to go apple picking! We went to the apple/fall festival at Carter Mountain Orchard. We picked lots of yummy apples! They also have these yummy apple cider doughnuts. Sounds gross, but they are soooo yummy! I love Fall here.

Ashley was a Chef for Halloween. She dressed like this and carried a pot with a spoon in it to catch her candy. It was so cute!
Kevin and Brooke on Halloween day at Barracks. She was a Ladybug for halloween, but for some reason we didn't get any snapshots of her or Heidi in their costumes. Darnit! Only video. Maybe I can post some of that on here.(once I learn- hahaha). Don't these two look a lot a like.

This was Halloween day. We took Nathan and Brooke trick or treating at the Barracks Shopping Center while the other girls were in school. He was a Jedi knight. He looked so cute!

Brooke and I at Ashley's field trip. I just love this one because of Brooke's smile! It was fun to watch her be so happy, even though it was soo cold!
We went on Ashley's field trip with her to a pumpkin patch and corn maze. It was a lot of fun, but really cold. The corn maze was pretty long and a little confusing. It made it really fun. We love going on the kids field trips. This one Kevin lucked out and got to go! Yeah! Ashley loved having her daddy there.

CLOSE UP SHOT! We love her eyes!

Fall is our favorite time of year here in Virginia! The multiple colors of the leaves are just amazing! We could not have picked a prettier place to live for a little while. So sadly, the leaves do have to fall off, which makes bare trees, but a really fun ground to play in. These are the leaves in the backyard. We pulled out the snowboard and "leaf-boarded" down the hills behind our house. It was a total blast and worked great. We all had fun, except Brooke as you can tell.hahaha. She didn't know what to think of all the leaves.

HAPPY FALL!