Thanksgiving festivities

 Thanksgiving was fun and full of family.  We started off with watching the Macy's parade and then headed off to have lunch with the Spencer family.  We were at Lois and Ed's ward building. Here are a few pictures of the festivities.  Our family ate at a table with Sally and her kids.  Bryce stayed at home to sleep since he had to work that night.  Trevor and Justin's family ate together.

Here is (from left to right)Bentley, Cace, Will, and Jane.

 Above, from left to right, Addi, Zack, Bentley, and Cace.

Here's Noah and Kanyon eating while the rest of their family is still getting their food.

 Here are just a couple pictures of the whole group in the gym.  It was nice seeing the Spencer family and sharing the holiday with them.

After lunch at the church we headed back home to grab a few things for dinner with the Cullisons.  Kip dropped Jaki and the kids off at her parents and went to see 'Red Dawn' with Trevor.  Kip quite enjoyed the movie but it made him want to prepare more for if something crazy like that were to really happen.

These are just a couple of pictures of the beautiful sunset from Friday November 23.  The sunset was much prettier than these pictures could capture.

Saturday November 24.

 Jaki's mom came over at 7 am to watch the kids so we could go Christmas shopping.  We got most of it done and didn't get back to the kids until about 2 pm.

Even though Jaki hasn't run much since her appendectomy in July she decided to sign up for the Ogden Santa Run(5k).  She only had about a week to prepare but was able to beat her last 5k time.

The run is on Washington Blvd from 22nd to 28th street, back to 22nd and then 28th, then from 28th to the finish line which is down 25th street.  Jaki finished 107 overall, 22 in women age 25-29, 89 in women overall.  There were a total of about 1200 people participating, so she was in the top 10%!  Her finish time was 28:36 which was beating her last 5k(the Pleasant View Founders Day 5k), by just under 4 min!  Way to go Jaki!

 The race started at 4:30 pm just to finish a few minutes before the Ogden City Light Parade and then the lighting of the Christmas Village on 25th Street.  We stayed for the parade where our friends, Colton and Teresa and their kids, joined us.  We opted out of going to the lighting of the christmas village since there was a huge crowd.  We will probably go back as a family night in the next couple of weeks.  After the parade Colton and Teresa and family came to the house to play games and let the kids play.

It was a busy fun day and by then end of it we were all tuckered out.  Will fell asleep on the way home at 7 and the rest of us were in bed by 11.

Here's the family, minus Kip, watching the sun set and getting ready to watch the light parade.

The kids

 We had so many fun pictures of the kids I decided they needed their own post.

Addi is so much fun right now.  She loves to try and feed herself but mostly just gets it everywhere.  She does great with finger foods but the mush just ends up everywhere.  She eats a lot of table foods now.  She likes hot dogs(cut up very very small of course), banana, cheerios, and basically anything I feed her.  She doesn't eat very well for her daddy unless it's something sweet like fruits.

 Kip had tried to feed Addi some veggies and she decided she was done after about half the jar.  He left it on the smaller high chair and after she was let out she went back and was trying to feed herself while standing so we put her back in the high chair and gave her the jar.

This was the end result.  Not too bad.

 She just has such cute chubby little feet.  They're so small they still fit in some almost newborn shoes.  She wears an infant size 2 but they're still quite long for her feet, they're just so chubby that her feet won't go into a size 1.  I love them!

Will loves to just be playing, spinning, running, or whatever.

Zack is such a sweetheart.  He and Will fight over this spot on the couch daily.  I think it's because that's where Grandma and Grandpa were always sitting.  They don't say that but it's where they always want to sit.

Will has a boo boo and wants his mommy to kiss it better.  I'm so glad that still works some of the time!

 Yes, Zack does still whine and cry like a little baby!

When Jane is here Addi just loves to be near here or on her or whatever is closer at the time.  They are starting to play cute together.  It's safest for Jane right now to be in the saucer when they're playing.

Addi has the cutest giggle and loves to be thrown up into the air.  This is mostly for Grandma and Grandpa Spencer.

Snow!!!!

On Saturday, November 10 we woke up to this snow.  It was great because it didn't stick much to the roads or driveways but there was still enough to play in.  Zack and Will were begging me to go outside as soon as they woke up but I made them wait until Addi took a nap.  We did have to shovel just the small shady part of the driveway so it wouldn't get icy but the rest melted off by the time we went outside.

Grandma and Grandpa, we thought you would enjoy a picture of your house covered in snow!

Will decided to go down the slide and just loved it!

Zack had fun and even made a snow angel but I didn't get a good picture of it.

They jumped on the tramp and kept purposefully falling belly down into the snow.  Will finally got a good white washed face and decided he wanted to go inside.  We were out for about an hour and had fun.  We tried to build a snowman but the snow just wasn't the right pack but we threw a few snowballs at each other.  The snow melted within a few days but I'm sure there will be much more to follow.  We went inside and had hot cocoa with marshmallows and Zack's favorite, Macaroni and cheese with hot dogs.

Halloween Festivities

 On October 27 Jaki took Zack and Will to the library Halloween party.  They got to play some fun games and win a few prizes.  Some of the games were pumpkin bowling, bean bag toss, eyeball races (like egg races but with plastic eyeballs) and the monster mash.  They also got to choose a mask and color it.  It was a lot of fun.

To the right is Zack doing the bean bag toss.

 Will was taking a crack at pumpkin bowling.  They rolled a little pumpkin covered in clear tape to knock over the pins.

Here are Zack and Will doing the monster mash.  It was like a cake walk but they got to choose a prize from a big black bin.  Will won after just a few minutes but Zack walked for about 45 minutes before getting a prize.  Jaki tried to get him to leave but he insisted on winning before he would leave.

In the evening we had a Halloween party with some friends.  We had just over 40 people at it, including kids.  It was a lot of fun.  We played games and had good food to eat.  Jaki won the prize for best costume, we have everyone vote for it and for the best carved pumpkin, which Brysen won.  We didn't take any pictures just because we were too busy taking care of everything.  

 On the night before Halloween we carved pumpkins.  Zack and Will helped scoop out all the guts of Zack's and then Zack told us what he wanted.  Kip helped him carve it.

 Zack and Will with the finished product with Jaki in the background starting to carve her pumpkin.

 Zack wanted his pumpkin to have hair, ears and eyebrows, along with the different shaped eyes and nose.

HALLOWEEN!

On Halloween Zack went to school at the morning time (8:35am) so that he could participate in the kids parade.  Jaki, Addi and Will went and watched the fun.  Kip had to work all day, unfortunately.  The picture above is Jaki and Addi waiting for the parade to start in Lomond View's gym.  Will was tired and grouchy and wouldn't let Jaki take a picture of him.  Zack was cute in his dinosaur costume.  There were so many fun costumes.

After school, while Addi was napping, Jaki and the boys set up the graveyard.  They kept pretending they were zombies coming out of the graves.  They also were running from pretend zombies.

Jaki took the kids trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  They got quite the haul of candy.  Addi was dressed as a super cute witch, although she wouldn't keep the hat on.  Zack was a dinosaur and Will was a bat.  Will was a ninja turtle on the 27 and decided he wanted to be a bat on Halloween, silly kid! Jaki was dressed as Arwen from Lord of the Rings, complete with elf ears and the Evenstar necklace from the movie.

All in all Halloween was fun, fun, fun but busy, busy, busy.  Poor Kip had to miss most of it because of work, but we all survived.  Will is already saying he wants to be Hulk Smash for Halloween next year.

Fall and first snow

 These are just some good pictures of fall and some pretty sunsets.  This first picture was just a beautiful sunset with the crescent moon.  It would have been a better picture had the bright parking lot light not been in the way but by the time we left this parking lot it was dark.

 Ben Lomond Peak with the leaves starting to change.  The view from the front yard and windows of home!

Sunset from the deck.

 On Oct. 23 it snowed for the first time.  It didn't stick at the house but it sure did on the mountains.  Gotta love that first coating of white on the mountains.

 Kip took this picture from the deck early Oct. 24.  He came home from work and there was about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground.  It melted off the roads and cement but stayed on the grass until the next day.

 The clouds were just beautiful hanging on the mountains.  What a wonderful morning.  I tended Sally's kids this day and as I was getting everyone in the car to take Zack to school (he had an early out day so school started a little earlier than usual) and pick Bentley up from preschool, Zack, Cace and Will ran into the backyard through the snow.  They just couldn't resist and even though they were not in snow clothes they still did it.  Crazy kids!  Then I had to chase after them so we could get going or else Zack was going to be late to school.

Later in the day as the sun was setting there was a yellow hue in the sky, it made everything sort of glow.  We hope Elder and Sister Spencer enjoy these pictures of home!

the kids are getting so big!

 I just wanted to post some fun pictures of the kids.  Addi is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up at everything.  She is so cute and makes the sweetest noises and sounds.  She thinks its fun to be chased and just giggles and squeals the whole time, especially if it's toward something she knows she shouldn't be going to, like the top of the stairs, but she always stops when she needs to.  We're keeping the floor very clean these days, not that it was ever too gross, since Addi eats everything off the floor. She's had her 2 bottom teeth for awhile and one of her top just poked through today, the other is close behind.

 Zack just loves making funny faces and being silly.  He loves school and is doing really well.  He is enjoying primary and knows hit small part for the primary program already, which is on November 11. He plays really well with Addi most of the time and loves to tease Will.

 Will is just a sweetheart most of the time. He is great at pretending and loves to be 'hulk smash' since he picked out his gloves for his birthday.  He plays great with others but also plays well by himself.  He misses Zack when he's at school but he also has someone to play with 2 days a week during that time.  We've had a few Halloween parties to go to and strangely enough Will has only wanted to dress up for one of them.  He has thrown fits when we've tried to get him in a costume the other times.  We will post pictures of Halloween and costumes when we have a few more.

Addi is wanting to be very independent and refuses to let us feed her a lot of the time.  Here she is feeding herself carrots and peas and just made a giant mess as you can see.  She went straight in the bath after this meal because the food was everywhere.  It was in her hair, up her nose, and just in every crease that it could be.  She loves her brothers except when they're a little too much in her face.

Cullison Family Dinner

 On Wednesday, Oct 10 we took Will to the store to pick out a birthday present from Grandma and Grandpa Spencer.  He chose these awesome Hulk gloves that happened to be on sale so it worked out great!  He loves to wear them and be 'Hulk Smash'.  He also got a fire engine pair of feetie pajamas from Christy and Ryan and a look and find book from Justin and Lana.

 Then on Sunday, Oct 14 we had family dinner and celebrated Will's birthday with them.  He got a Hulk t-shirt and 2 pair of pajamas from Grandma Valerie and Grandpa Jeff and is very proud of his shirt.  He also got a book, a monster truck, and some pants from his aunts, uncles and cousins.  Our dinner was delicious and was Halloween themed.  We had chicken and pumpkin stew, honey roasted carrots (that Jaki tried to make look like fingers but it didn't work very well, either way they tasted good), spider cover deviled eggs, salad and rolls.

 All the kids played outside for awhile and Emma, who is 10, decided to get in the baby swing and then could not get out.  Her dad could not get her out either so they unhooked the swing and then she shimmied the baby swing of her legs.  She was quite embarrassed by the whole situation and did not want pictures but of course we took some.

 The kids decorated cupcakes and painted pumpkins.  Will has a nice frosting and sprinkle goatee.  Zack had so many sprinkles on his cupcake that they got everywhere with every bite he took. Addi was just cute and played on the floor with the toys and kids all evening.