Thanksgiving Tidbits

We've had a busy week here. Here are a few highlights:

*Monday - Jay had lunch with Henry at school and played basketball with his buddies during recess.

*Tuesday - To keep things equitable, Tuesday was "Daddy and William Day". They ran errands all morning and had lunch out together.

*Wednesday - We took the kids to get their annual holiday picture made in the morning. Jay made a double batch of rolls for Thanksgiving and I went shopping to get a little jump on Christmas. We watched "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" and had popcorn after dinner.

*Thursday - We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with Jay's family in Ogden. We were missing a few members of the family (Nana was visiting Adam and family in the Czech Republic and Great-Nana spent the holiday with other family members) but we had a nice dinner and a fun afternoon with everyone else.

*Friday - We made several batches of caramel popcorn in the morning - the kids love this activity and we love giving it away at Christmas. We spent the afternoon decorating for Christmas. It's always fun to get the house all spruced up for the holidays.

*Saturday - Jay took the boys to the Utah State/New Mexico State football game and Tessa and I hit the mall for some shopping.

All in all, we had a fun Thanksgiving week. We love having Jay on vacation that week; it always seems like a good week to get alot of things done to prepare for Christmas and to just hang out together.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well.

The Little Princess

Having a little girl is a new experience for us. When Tessa was born, people would ask if we thought there was a difference between the boys and our new little girl. Then, when all she needed was unlimited access to Mama, there really wasn't - she just seemed like a baby; a demanding one, at that, but a pretty typical baby. As she's growing up, however, the differences become clearer.

She's a bit of a drama queen. She loves to dress up - she has a few pairs of dress up princess shoes that she'll put on just to wear them. She plays with her baby dolls. She actually likes getting her hair cut - probably because she's used to sitting on the counter every morning while she gets it fixed. She'll spend time coloring and playing with stickers and playing with play dough; the boys wouldn't even touch crayons or do anything similar at this age. Some of this is personality, I'm sure, but it does seem to us that girls are different than boys in many ways.

Of course there are lots of ways that she is similar to her brothers. They all pick on each other and love each other and annoy each other, as siblings do. But it's been fun having our little princess around the house, that's for sure.

Catching Up

We've had a fun and busy fall. Henry started 2nd Grade and is doing really well. He enjoys math and reading and science and recess - lots and lots of recess. William is in his second year of preschool and is learning to write his name and is starting to read a little. Tessa is taking a Mom and Me tumbling class that she enjoys. Rhonda enjoys it as well - it's a good opportunity to get out and chat with other moms while the kids run and play. Jay has enjoyed watching the Utes excel at football this year - they just beat BYU to go 12-0 and earn a BCS bowl berth. We probably won't be making the trip this year, but it's been a fun ride.

Halloween came and went with lots of fun activities for the kids. They enjoy decorating the house with lights and pumpkins. It's always fun to hit the Fall Festival at our ward - they do a good job of providing fun activities for the kids. Henry and William both had Halloween parties at school that were a big hit. This year we had a wide range of costumes - Henry was a vampire (but not a scary one, according to Tessa), William was a Majungatholus (a dinosaur from the Cretaceous Era), and Tessa was a bumblebee.

Getting Started

With the holidays approaching and the kids growing faster than they should, we thought now would be a good time to start a blog so that we can share stories and pictures with our family and friends.

We'll try to catch up with a little background here and there, but mostly we'll just try and keep you updated on us. So enjoy!