Thanksgiving Week...

We've had a great Thanksgiving week! We spent Thanksgiving with our friends the Chapmans for the 3rd year in a row, we are so grateful that they are willing to take us in just like family each year. It's so nice to spend the holiday with someone and we enjoy it. On Friday we put up Christmas lights and cleaned the house. I took the kids on a short hike while Rick did some shopping. On Saturday we all went on a hike. It's super tough because we only have the baby carrier to hold Abby. If we keep hiking we may need to get a real baby hiking backpack. She loves to go on hikes. We went to Silly Mountain.

Ashlyn and Jacob at the very top.

Taking a break, can you see Abby peeking out the back?

Jacob made this cute Thanksgiving card for Grandma. So sweet!!

When I got out the Christmas decorations Abby was enthralled!! At first she was terrified of the Christmas tree and now she can't get enough of it! She loves this music box that we have with skaters that skate around, she can look at it for a long time!

She also loves these glowing snowmen.

Abby came out of her room with her laundry bag on top of her head. She was crying because she couldn't figure out how to get it off, it was adorable!

Ashlyn memorized all 13 Articles of Faith this year!! This means that she got a huge donut! It's as big as a cake! She also got a birthday bag from her primary!

Jacob was home sick with croup one day this week and Abby loved having her big brother home. She thinks hes pretty funny!

It's been a great Thanksgiving weekend and we are so grateful for all of our blessings. We have a nice home, great friends, the gospel, Rick has a job, I have a job, we have amazing extended family and we have 4 really cute kids. We are truly blessed!

Big Birthday Week!

Last Saturday while Rick was still gone our sweet neighbors put on a pancake breakfast for our whole neighborhood. They cooked up eggs with bacon and pancakes. It was fun. Ashlyn especially liked sitting in the cooking trailer and watching them cook the pancakes on the big griddle. Here she is with her cute friends.

Here is another pic of Rick at the Air Force Museum.

My sweet mom got this cute Minnie Table for Abby to help her feel more comfortable eating. She loves it! It's like her own little special place.

Ashlyn decided to keep growing up and turned 9 on Tuesday! We took mini powdered donuts to her class, because those are her favorite.

She's my little monkey.

Abby and I had fun at the park too, here she is with a glove balloon that one of the neighbors made for her.

Daddys girl when he gets home.

Ashlyn had a great birthday, she got leggings, socks, earrings, lip gloss and two beanie boos.

She also got two pink arrows!

She loves her new earrings.

Her request was for spaghetti for dinner and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Homemade of course!

Then Haley decided that she wanted to keep growing up too and turned 13 on Friday! She got spoiled! She woke up at 3:15 a.m. to go to Temple Baptisms with the Young Women, that was her first gift because she really wanted to do baptisms on her birthday. Then her friend down the street brought her this big piece of cake and sang Happy Birthday to her. So sweet!

Her request was for mashed potatoes and chicken for dinner and Texas Sheet cake for dessert.

She got a Doctor Who shirt, earrings, leggings, socks, a viola tuner and a new smartphone!! I found a really cheap My Touch on Amazon and she is loving it!

We are so proud of our two oldest sweet girls, they are such good sisters to Jacob and Abby and are good examples to them. We love them both but wish they would stop growing up!!

Week in Review...

Last week I was able to go to Jacobs class and help make their annual scarecrows. It was a different experience than when I helped with Ashlyn when she was in 1st grade. When I helped with Ashlyn it seemed like every child had a parent, or grandparent that came to help. With Jacobs class there were about 5 parents there! It made it a lot more chaotic and the scarecrows didn't turned out as cute as I wanted, but hey we got the job done:)

Abby likes her little rocking chair...

This last week we had Tuesday off for Veterans Day and Ashlyn got invited to go to the Phoenix zoo with some friends. She got spoiled! They went to the zoo, got to pet the sting rays, have pizza and ice cream!

Adventures in feeding Abby, she is on a spaghetti sauce kick right now. She only wants spaghetti sauce! Today I was able to feed her some rice krispy cereal this morning and pudding at lunch time, that was huge!! It will probably be spaghetti sauce for dinner....

Ricks grandmother Joy Johnson passed away on Sunday and so Rick left early Tuesday morning to spend the week with his family and attend the funeral. It was a crazy week, but somehow we survived! Abby is obsessed with being outside! She spends at least an hour or more outside every day.

I love her cheesy grin, when she smiles like this you know she is really happy!!

Trying to figure out how to climb the slide!

I found this high chair at a yard sale for $3. So far she has sat in it once. Luckily it was only $3. She much prefers us to hold her while she eats.

I also found this playground for $10!! Abby is obsessed with it!!

Since Rick was gone we decided to eat something that he can't eat when he's with us. Pizza!!! We've missed it! We went to our favorite spot, Barro's pizza. The kids love it because they have a play area.

I found these pics of the pumpkins that we carved for halloween.

Here's Rick checking out the marina by his parents house.

He also went to the Air Force Museum.

They went to Calistoga to check out the geyser.

Ricks mom with his sisters little Boy, Clark.

It was an eventful week, we also had the Phoenix Temple Dedication today and that was neat. I went with Ashlyn to the first session while Haley watched Abby and Jacob. Then Haley went to the next session with our friends the Chapmans. It was nice of them to think about us and invite Haley to go with them.  Rick is now home and we are so happy that he is back!