Holiday Extravaganza

Every year, our Elementary school does a big fund raiser the first Saturday of December. Each class is in charge of making a theme basket. Here are some of the themes to get an idea.

American Girl doll basket

I pod and accessories

A Wii with games and accessories

Nintendo DS with games

Digital cameras with printers and nice photo paper

Outdoor fireplace with goodies to roast

date night basket with lots of restaurant gift cards

you get the idea

There are lots and lots of these baskets because like I said every class is in charge of making one and the parents are in charge of purchasing things or donating money so the class mom in charge of the basket can purchase the things. The biggest basket is the Atlanta Braves basket with lots of autographed things like balls, bats, shirts, baseball cards etc. It is always donated by the class with Chipper Jones son in it. Last year Payton was in the same class as Chipper Jones so we didn't even have to donate anything because he did it all. Chipper Jones is probably one of the most known Braves player right now. I think he is the 3rd baseman. Anyhow, the baskets are displayed in the media center and you buy raffle tickets and put your name and phone number on the back of the tickets and put your ticket in what ever box that goes to the basket you hope to win. They also have tables set up in the Gym for people who want to sell their crafts, organic stuff. These vendors purchase a table for I think $10 and that money goes to the school. They also sell donated baked goods, popcorn, and they had 2 restaurants selling food (I'm not sure if the school got a portion of the money from the restaurants sales or not). They have a huge turn out at these things that they had shuttle (school bus) people from the nearby Super Target shopping center parking lot. For the entertainment, they had the orchestra, band and chorus playing and singing throughout the day. Since Payton is in chorus, we went (Kennedy, Talmage, Jon and I) and cheered her on. They sing lots of Santa, Kwanzaa, and Hanuka, but not one song about the true meaning of Christmas. This school hasn't sung about Jesus since before my sisters Morgan and Taylor went to this school. Which they are now 20 and 17. I don't get it and it makes me mad when I think about it. They can sing about any other religion but the one this country was founded on. She did a great job.

Payton

Then 5 days later I had to do it all again. Just the chorus part. Payton had her chorus concert. This time it was held in the Middle school gym. Their gym has bleachers and a stage. Kennedy and I just went. And to sum it up it sucked. First off, the 4th and 5th grade band and orchestra were playing as well as the chorus singing (the 4th and 5th grade chorus sing together). They started at 7 pm and that gym was so crowded with parents, siblings, grandparents and friends that they had to add more chairs and some people had to stand. Kennedy and I sat on the first row of the bleachers and there were rows of chairs in front of us. We could barely see Payton. Luckily, I took pictures at the Holiday Extravaganza because there would be no way. The best part of the night was right after Payton sung her last song (which by the way they same the exact same songs as the other event). The bands and orchestras still had one more song to go. I waved down Payton who was sitting on the floor and we were out of there. I don't know how long it would have taken me to get out of that parking lot since I was parked behind the school almost as far as you could get. That time was just after 8:30 pm. I think they should combine the 2 and just have them perform at the Holiday Extravaganza. They had them perform at different times during the Holiday Extravaganza so there wasn't a big huge crowd. If they don't change things next year I think we will be skipping the concert and doing just the Extravaganza.

Happy Thanksgiving

Every Thanksgiving we take turn with my side of the family and Jon's side. This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at our house with Jon's parents, and brother and his family. I think I got off pretty easy this year with the food assignments so I decided to bake a few more things for fun. I made the sweet potatoes, pomegranate jello salad, mashed potatoes, and chocolate silk pie. The great thing about this is that all these things except the mashed potatoes could be made the day before and just popped in the oven (except the pie of course). So I decided to make a pecan pie and Paula Deans gooey pumpkin squares (I like this better than pumpkin pie) just because I felt like it. Everything was yummy and as always I wish I had way more room to eat more. After we ate and cleaned up a little, we played a game and watched a movie. It was a nice non stressful day.
Of course this time of the year, I always reflect more than normal about things that I am thankful for. I try and think of things other than the normal everyday things I am thankful for like family, health, the church, a nice place to live with a roof over my head, Jon's job things like that. This is what I have come up with. I am thankful for personal revelation. Jon and I have been wanting to start our dinning room/basement storage room addition for over a year now. We have even started by adding dirt to our backyard to make it level where the dinning room will hopefully be and Jon cut off a portion of our deck that will be in the way of our new dinning room. We like to take out the most we can on our taxes so when tax time comes we get the most back we can. For us we would rather have a big chunk of change at one time and use it for something big than try and save it throughout the year. It works for us. Anyway, this past Feb when we got our taxes back we were so excited to finally have enough money saved to start our dinning room with just a little to spare in the savings. The more Jon and I thought about the dinning room the more we thought now was not the time. We felt impressed to set aside more in our savings and build up our three month food supply. So I made a list for our 3 months worth of food and subtracted from it food we already had stored and one month I focused on breakfast food, the next lunch, and the third month dinner and in 3 months I had our 3 months worth of food. Shortly after we had it all we had to start using it. Jon's electrical business was very slow for about 3-4 months this year and slow for 2 months. During the slow times, his business barely had enough for materials, payroll for his employees, and the business bills. We were so happy to have enough food in our home so when Jon didn't take home a check all I had to buy was milk, bread (I know I should be making this which I do just not all the time), and fresh fruit/veggies whatever was on sale that week. I was smart enough to take the advice of the church on what to store in my 3 month supply, food that we liked and eat everyday. We had things like fruit rolls/fruit snacks, chips, crackers, brownie mix, chocolate chips, candy, canned fruit and veggies we would actually eat, cereal. Our kids loved having to go in the closet (which they call a grocery store) to pick something new to bring up. When Jon would get some checks, then I would go to the store and restock it as much as I could. We were also blessed to have our big mother Yukon paid off in June and money saved in our savings to help pay the bills. I am thankful that Jon and I listened to our personal revelation and followed it. It would have been no fun and very stressful with a big fancy dinning room eating mac and cheese and top roman at the table and not being able to pay the bills. Luckily, the past 4 months Jon's business has been very busy so busy Jon has been seen working out in the field which is something he doesn't like to do to much of because then he gets behind in his office work, but hey after the slow months he is happy to be out there working and being able to get regular paychecks again. I am told we are almost booked toward the end of January. So I am very Thankful for this. I guess you really don't really realize how thankful you are for something until it is gone.
I am also thankful that we could get gather together with all of Jon's immediate family. It looks like this will be the last year all of us will be together because Thomas and his family have plans to move back to Idaho. So I am thankful for all the time we had with them and all the time the cousins go to play together. I'm still crossing my fingers in hope that they will stick around, but at the same time understand why they want to move back. Probably pretty much the same reasons why I wanted to move back here after living in Michigan for 4 years.

Skittles and Starburst

The weekend before Thanksgiving we had Payton's class pets at our house. Thy are parakeets named Skittles and Starburst. Payton has been waiting for this day for a long time. It worked out perfect since I was already at the school volunteering for Talmage's class hall games on Friday. So we just brought them home after that. Then on Monday, I dropped them back off. We kept the birds on our island in the kitchen. I have to say it was a lot of fun listening to them chatter while I was in the kitchen. They were very well behave and not very loud birds. They are welcomed anytime for the weekend. Not as permanent guests though.

Payton and Kennedy

Skittles and Starburst

Birmingham Weekend

Since the Atlanta Temple has been closed since the end of June, our ward activities committee is going to reserve some seats to the next closest temple which is the Birmingham, Alabama Temple at least one Saturday every quarter. Those who want to attend can sign up at the times they have reserved. Jon and I really wanted to go but didn't know what to do with our kids since it is a little less than 3 hours each way. My sister, Christa also wanted to go. So Jon and Christa signed us up along with my parents for the 8 am endowment session on Saturday, November, 14th.

The plan was on Friday November 13th after all the kids got home from school head out to Birmingham, Alabama. The earliest we could leave was right after Connor got off the bus at 4:30 pm. Leaving at that time suddenly turned our just under 3 hour travel time to a 4 hour travel time due to Atlanta rush hour traffic. Once we got past the traffic, we decided to stop for some dinner. We wanted a sit down restaurant without the wait so Golden Corral it was. The kids love that place and I love the fact that they can eat right when we pick out our table. By the time we got to Alabama and checked into our hotel it was almost bedtime. Would have been bedtime at our house but with the extra hour we lossed they got to stay up a little later. We had 2 conjoining rooms. I knew going in I wouldn't be sleeping much with 3 kids in my room with me and in a different bed and all and I was right.

Dark and early the next morning we were all up at 6:30 am getting ready for our temple session at 8:00 am. 6:30 am wasn't bad since it was more like 7:30 am our time. So we got dressed and headed down to the lobby to eat our free continental breakfast. I thought we were going to be the only ones at breakfast that early in the morning on a Saturday besides Christa and her family, but I was wrong there were temple workers there as well having breakfast. My parents and Taylor stayed at another hotel and met us at our hotel right before we had to leave to the temple. The plan was Taylor and Brenton were going to be in charge of the kids in our 2 conjoining rooms watching movies while we were at the temple for 2 hours.

This is the fifth temple I have been in and went to a session. The other ones were Atlanta (of course), Chicago, Oakland, and Boise. The Birmingham Temple is a small temple and that it is. Everything is on a much smaller scale and very claustrophobic. I guess it isn't too bad when the Atlanta Temple is open because they don't have the big crowds. The session was packed. They even added some extra folding chairs down the isle to fit in more people. My mom and I had to sit on the boys side because there were more girls than boys. That was kind of strange. I got to see the new lights Jon and his partner put in in August.

After the session, we headed back to the hotel and everyone was still in one piece and the place wasn't trashed. We checked out of our hotel and went back to the temple to take some pictures and let the kids walk around the grounds. It was a warm beautiful day.

Talmage and me

Jon and I

One big happy family (well almost!!)

Talmage, Lorin, Eliza, and Connor

After that, we wanted to do something fun with the kids. I only knew of the zoo because we had been there once before, but checked online and found a Science Museum that looked pretty fun. So we thought we would try that out. Christa and her family went with us. We weren't expecting much because I have been to some Science Museums that were overly priced and not much fun. This place was huge. We started out by getting some lunch at the food court there. They even had an IMAX theatre but we didn't do that just the museum part. This was by far the best science museum I have ever been to. It was 3 stories of jam packed fun. We spent 5 hours at this museum and could have spent longer but it was getting dinner time and we had a little under 3 hour drive ahead of us. Here are some pictures of the museum.

Talmage on a bed of nails

Bigger smaller room Kennedy, Talmage, Sonoma, and Hayden

Talmage floating ball

Talmage and Hayden

Hayden trying to get the airplane to fly

Tady's and Trebilcock's under the arch they made

Talmage

Jellyfish (they had a light on them that changed colors)

Jellyfish now in red

Hayden and Talmage

Talmage digging for fossils

Payton and Hayden digging for fossils

Sonoma and Kennedy digging for fossils

Jon and me smooching (remind me to never shave my hair Yikes!!)

Brenton

Hayden trying to hold as much coins as he can. By far his favorite thing at the museum.

Hayden, Talmage, and Eliza watching the talking robot

My parents or Taylor didn't end up coming with us my dad was working on some airline tickets he had to book while mom and Taylor went shopping. Mom and Taylor wanted to come and really wish they would of once we told them how much fun it was but dad was doing his thing that took way longer than he thought. On the way home, we stopped off at Ci Ci's Pizza and got home just in time for bed. It was an awesome trip. I would definitely go back to this museum (The McWane Science Center) next time I am in the area and have time. Definitely worth the money.

Halloween

Halloween this year was on a Saturday. Which was awesome because we didn't have to worry about the time too much since tomorrow was Sunday and they can sleep in an extra 1 1/2 hours then their normal school day time. Usually it is dusk by 6 pm on Halloween, but ever since last year they moved day light savings time back and our normal trick-or-treat time is still light out. By the time we got all the pictures taken and a group shot taken it was starting to get a little darker. This Halloween was colder than previous years. It was also drizzling out for most of the time. We still had a fun time though. Like in previous years we went to my sisters house again to trick-or-treat. Hayden only made it half way since it was cold and wet out. He had a great time back at the house with Grandma and helping her pass out candy to the kids.

Brenton as Dracula

Talmage a clone trooper

Payton as Cleopatra

Hayden as the black spiderman

Kennedy as a beautiful princess

The group shot

Connor wanted nothing to do with his own individual picture, but at least we got him in the group shot. He was an army soldier. We also had 2 little girls and their parents join us that my brother in law home teaches.

It was a fun evening and we got loads of candy and 1 1/2 months later still have some. My kids only really eat it the first few days and then not much after that.

Primary Program

I always look forward to the Primary Program. For the past 3 years I have been a Primary teacher so I have been on the stand with my class helping them. This is the first year Brenton hasn't been in the program since he turned 12 in Jan. He liked being able to just sit and watch. Jon had Hayden, Connor, and Brenton down with him. Payton, Kennedy, and Talmage each had speaking parts and they practiced real hard and had it memorized and did a great job. All the primary kids either had a speaking part or a small group singing part. Each class had a part to say all together with their class as well. My favorite song this year was The Family is Of God. My kids favorite song from the program was My Eternal Family (which they call I am a Builder).

Trunk or Treat

This years annual ward trunk or treat was at the Hunter's Christmas Tree Farm. The owners are members just outside of our ward boundaries (actually they are closer to us than some of our members in our boundary so not too much of a travel). The kids love going here for the trunk or treat. Last year we had to move it to the church due to rain. We were so glad there was no rain in the forecast. The evening started out with a chili cook off and hot dogs. Last year my chili came in 3rd but this year nothing. Oh well, I wasn't going for a placing so no big disappointment here. We had homemade rootbeer to keep things festive with the dry ice overflowing. It is

always a kid pleaser. They had a big fire going to keep warm and roast marshmallows at. The fire is hands down Brenton's favorite. They also had hayrides going. Jon took most of the kids on it while I stayed back at the fire to keep warm. It was starting to get quite chilly outside. Then at about 6:30 pm, the trunk or treating had begun. Jon decorated the car, had spooky music playing and passed out the candy while I went with Hayden trunk or treating. I'm guessing another 2 years and I will be joining Jon in passing out candy while the kids go by themselves. It was a fun evening. It is one of the ward activities we always look forward to.

Payton, Lorin, Talmage, Kennedy, and Sonoma

Payton

Kennedy and Sonoma

Sunday afternoon walk

Sunday October 11 was a beautiful day. Since the weather hasn't been all that great in October, we decided to take advantage of it and get outside and go for a walk. We went to a nearby trail. It was great just talking and enjoying nature. We went with my parents, Taylor, and the Tady's.

Some of the kids

Lorin and Talmage

Hayden



Not sure who took this one of me

Connor

Happy Birthday Talmage

Today, October 21 was Talmage's 6th birthday. He has wanted to go to Monkey Joe's (an indoor inflatable jumping place) ever since his last birthday. He wanted to go to Chuck E Cheeses last year and Monkey Joe's this year. This of course took the place of a restaurant. He wanted his cousin Lorin to come too. So right when school got out we picked up Lorin and headed over to Monkey Joe's because it closes as 6 pm and it is quite pricey so I wanted to get my moneys worth. Brenton and Connor didn't end up coming because Brenton gets home at 3:50 pm and Connor close to 4:40 pm. We had chicken nuggets and french fries at home for dinner.

Payton

Hayden

Payton and Hayden

Talmage was much to fast for me to get a good picture of him at Monkey Joe's.

Talmage with his presents

Then on Friday, we had the relatives over for presents and cake and ice cream.

Gabbie, Lorin, and Talmage

Talmage with his airport runway cake

Talmage's cake

Jon and I had a fun time with this cake. Talmage wanted us to surprise him with his cake this year. I came up with the idea and Jon added lights and the plane taking off and the star wars runway guy.

Happy Birthday Tally! I hope you had a special fun day Love you lots!!

Bored

This is what Jon came up with one afternoon when the kids were bored.

Who says graham cracker houses are just for Christmas.

Haunted House

Good use of the parade candy

Kennedy and Talmage

Youth day parade

On October 10, it was the annual Roswell Youth Day Parade. We have been attending this parade ever since we have lived here. It is a fun parade and the kids love getting all the candy. This year it was forcasted to rain. So Jon went early and set up a big tarp in case it rained during the parade. Well as it turned out only a few sprinkles fell for the entire event. When we got home we looked at the radar again and the rain system looked like it hadn't moved. It was moving a lot slower than was forcasted. So we were able to enjoy all the activities after the parade. They have free food for all kids 16 and under, pony rides and big inflatable jumpers at the Roswell park where the parade ends.

Most of the group minus Cheri, Christa, Aaron, Jon, and Gretta



Waiting for the next handful of candy to come their way



Hayden with a frosting mess

It is a tradition that someone picks up Krispy Kreme donuts

Jon does it again. My dad standing in front of

the basketball hoop. Boy did they get a lot of

candy thrown in their. You have to make it fun

for all ages.

Connor

Hayden