Mission Accomplished

I set out this Thanksgiving to eat as much as possible and gain a few pounds in the process.  Mission accomplished--I sure love it when I reach my goals!

Thanksgiving is the one day each year that my siblings get a little homesick.  Yes, the food at my Aunt Kathy's house is THAT good. And don't get me started about the homemade chocolates and candies. I know Thanksgiving has truly arrived when I see this:

Homemade rootbeer is a must. And so are Adam's rolls.

After dinner we decided to shake things up a bit.  Usually we have the pinata first, go bowling second and have fireworks at the end.  This year we went bowling first (the bowling alley opened at 4 p.m. for the first time ever), then did fireworks and then had the pinatas. See how we are wild and crazy we are?! Next year we figure we'll need to dress up in Halloween costumes and have an Easter egg hunt just to keep the holiday theme going.

We are such a big group now that we dominate the bowling alley.

The kids really got into the bowling.  Korinne insisted on wearing the dress she got for her birthday from Grandma.

I was told I have good bowling form. . . .too bad it doesn't help me get a good score.  This year I bowled a 77. I wasn't first in the female competition, but I wasn't last either.

Adam bowled a 145. Jenna likes to remind me that she bowled an 84 and beat me.

Here is my Dad and his sister Kathy.  I'm sure it must make my Grandpa Bill and Grandma June smile to see that their family still gets together every year for Thanksgiving even after all of this time. 

Everyone outside for the fireworks.  The weather this year was AWESOME. Notice the kids without coats.

The kids were divided into 2 groups for the pinatas.  The older cousins and the younger cousins.

Korinne had quite the swing.  She was the one who hit the pinata open for the younger cousins.

Having Thanksgiving over means that now I have 5 lbs to lose.  Yeah, it was so worth it.

Happy Birthday Korinne!

Korinne got to stretch out her birthday fun for a few days.  This year it fell on the last day of school before Thanksgiving. She was so excited she wanted to open her present before she even went to school. We let her but only because we knew that we were hitting the road right after school to head north for the holiday. I hope she doesn't think that she will be able to do that every year. :-) That evening we stopped en route to my sister Heather's house to have dinner at a restaurant.  We went super exotic and ate at a Jack in the Box just off the freeway.  Hey, when you are 6 and you've never heard of a Jack in the Box it is a "special" place to eat.  Plus, they served breakfast all day which the kids loved. 

The next day we had another party with cousins.

And let's not forget the most awesomely decorated cake EVER and some vanilla ice cream.

Happy 6th Birthday Korinne!!

The Harry Potter Effect

Last week Britton had a school assignment to write a Tall Tale.  He was asked to pick a person he knew and then exaggerate parts of a story to make it into Tall Tale.  Britton really struggled coming up with an idea, but once he did he had the entire story written in no time at all.  He insisted on typing it into a word document and the only thing Adam did was help correct spelling errors.  After Britton left for school the next morning his Tall Tale was still on my computer so I read it.  My first indication that it wasn't a typical 4th grade story is when I hit the part where Britton is describing the cabin Adam used to go to as a child.  He wrote, "As a young child in the 1980s he loved to visit his grandparents cabin, though large it was frail and old and it was located in a large forest full to the brim with oak, quaking aspen, and noble firs."

What? Do 10 year old boys write stories detailing the types of trees surrounding a cabin and use the word 'brim'?

I kept reading and found boys "watching apprehensively" and snakes with "venomous fangs gleaming" and summer days that were described as "dazzling".  Really? I don't think I wrote anything with this kind of vocabulary until I was in much older.  Here is a copy of Britton's tall tale:

Tall Tale Enrichment By Britton

THE BOY WHO SHOT

Adam was a young boy with the best aim in his hometown Burley, Idaho.

He could hit a tin can from 300 feet away with a sling, hit a racing horseshoe hare at dawn with a bow and arrow, and because he was such a natural marksman many liked to watch him shoot a target.

As a young child in the 1980s he loved to visit his grandparents cabin, though large it was frail and old and it was located in a large forest full to the brim with oak, quaking aspen, and noble firs. This forest was somewhere in southwest Nevada. Often at his Grandma's cabin, Adam and his brothers hunted for snakes usually with an air soft gun, but they sometimes used a bow and arrow. However, soon after a lot of hunting you couldn't find a snake anywhere (not that he and his brothers hadn't tried). So they hunted chipmunks instead. But one dazzling summer day the boys found a snake, by the looks of it 15 feet long and about a foot wide, it was acid green with 3 banana yellow stripes down it's back. It was terrifying. The snake was lounging by a large, withered oak tree with lots of moss dangling from the bark. The beast was enraged because the boys got too close, and it began to hiss steadily. Preparing for battle was hard as only Adam had a gun; so, his brothers just watched apprehensively. Then the snake charged, venomous fangs gleaming. Adam raised his gun and shot .WHAM! It hit the reptilian giant between the eyeballs and guess what it did.... nothing, it just kept tearing across the ground while Adam kept shooting up a storm. After 7 more shots(all of which hit it )the snake dropped spitting and hissing madly until it moved no more. Then Adam and his brothers ran to tell the story of the snake

THE END

After reading the story I just looked at Adam.  How in the world did Britton know how to write like this? And then it hit me--Harry Potter.  Britton has read all 7 Harry Potter books several times in the last 4 months and now he was mimicking J.K. Rowling's writing style. So, thank you once again, J.K. Rowling, for opening my son's eyes to the art of writing. This was his very first writing project, but from the looks of things it won't be his last.

It's a Wonderful Turkey Bowl

I guess it has been a few weeks since I last posted.  Last Saturday Adam was in charge of the annual Turkey Bowl for the men in the ward.  It's an Elders Quorum activity that includes breakfast and flag football in freezing weather.  You can guarantee that whatever Saturday in November is selected for the event there will be rain and/or snow in abundance.  This year was no exception.  Families were invited to come to the breakfast and watch the big game.  The Elders invited the High Priests and Young Men to participate and plenty of trash talk between the warring quorums occurred in the weeks prior to the game, but it was the Elders who came out victorious for the 5th year in a row. (Lest you think that the High Priests had no chance there are quite a few young High Priests around here).  For me this is one event that is plenty entertaining.  First of all the breakfast just screams "Elders Quorum is in charge".  All of the food groups were represented, the McDonald's sausage mcmuffin food group, the donut food group, and the banana food group all washed down by hot chocolate and Tampico.  The guys shuffled in wearing sweats and cleats and as soon as they saw a large box filled with sausage mcmuffins on the serving table their faces lite up.  Yes, it was a man-fest and they were in the right spot!  The wives chuckled and the kids were in heaven. It was a breakfast of champions.  It rained steadily during the entire game and then turned to snow soon thereafter.  Perfect timing.

Yesterday we went to Arches.

Just kidding. We went to Desert Star Playhouse where they have this cool mural painting on the wall.  My parents were also there.

My cousin's daughter Cassidy is in the Christmas play "It's a Wonderful Life" at the Desert Star and we all went to see her.  Here she is with the kids at the end of the show in the lobby.

She did a great job and the kids enjoyed seeing her up on stage.   Aside from the fact that Korinne drank a large glass of water at the beginning and had to go to the bathroom 4 times during the show everything went well.  At the Desert Star there is a point in the show when someone from the cast comes out and they recognize everyone in the audience that is having a birthday or anniversary.  Unbeknownst to us Grandma had let them know that it was Korinne's birthday coming up and we were all mighty surprised when they called out Korinne's name from the stage and everyone started looking for her.  It was a lot of fun.

Before the matinee show we ran a few errands with my parents.  We decided to just pick something up for lunch and after looking over all of our coupons decided on chicken from KFC.  My mom and I both had coupons on hand and my Dad was mocking us and our coupon ways. He hasn't had a lot of experience using coupons but since he was the one driving the car he had to handle the ordering. It soon became clear he was out of his element. A drive thru and coupons--this just isn't how my Dad rolls.  By the time he was done speaking to the lady over the speaker at KFC we were all laughing so hard we were trying not to cry.  My favorite quote of the exchange was my Dad saying, "Yes, I have a coupon (pause) and I know how to use it!"

I snapped a picture to document my Dad at a drive-thru with a coupon. Hardly ever happens ya know.

The Goblins Are Out

Actually, make that 2 witches and Harry Potter. The kids had a great Halloween. It has been almost a week and Britton still has some of his Halloween candy. Wow. A record for sure.

We had a cute Koala bear costume for Korinne that we borrowed from my Mom, but after Korinne saw that her BFF was a witch and Jenna was a witch she declared just a few hours before the Halloween festivities that she was also going to be a witch, thank you very much.  I told her we didn't have a witch costume but she produced a borrowed hat from the neighbors and told me she would just go around in a black leotard with tights.  Um, I don't think so.  After thinking about it for a minute I remembered that a few years ago Jenna was in a dance class that had a simple little witch outfit as a costume for one of their dances. I ran to the dress-up bin and was able to locate said dress.  It had a few smudges on it and the belt was completely worn out, but I put it on her and she was thrilled. Britton and Jenna were in borrowed costumes so I would like to thank my neighbors for getting me through yet another Halloween. It seems like every year they pull through for me.  I try, but when you are holiday challenged, like myself, you need a lot of help from your friends.

I did something this year that I've never done before.  I volunteered to help with Britton's Halloween class party at school. Gasp. I know, what was I thinking?! He is in the 4th grade and although I've spent more than my fair share of hours in the classroom helping with reading or math or whatever the teacher needed I had yet to cross the party threshold.  Now that I've done it once I am perfectly prepared to stick to academic pursuits and leave the parties to the non-holiday challenged Moms.  I was in charge of the activity and while my game went over well enough it was a game of chance and there were a few kids who out of pure chance didn't get a lot of opportunities to participate--unfortunately Britton was one of them.  Not only that but during the game we were on the floor and I must have put my hand down weird because I jammed my thumb pretty bad.  I still am not sure quite what happened but all of the sudden my thumb hurt in a way that I knew wasn't good.  All week I've been nursing a bruised, sore and hurting thumb and Britton didn't really have a favorable opinion of the party.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have officially retired from all party planning responsibilities.  I just kept thinking to myself, "Wow, this is actually fun for some people." I just couldn't figure it out.

This was the week we finally did something we have been threatening to do for years.  We got rid of Korinne's bed. Ok, we really just put it in Jenna's room and put the 2 bed back into bunk beds, but the point is that it isn't Korinne's bed anymore, it is merely an extra bed in Jenna's room.  Why would we do this??  Because I can count on my right hand the number of times Korinne has actually slept in her bed during the last 4 years. She doesn't need it, she doesn't use it-- it was simply taking up space.  Mostly it was a place to throw her clothes.  Korinne prefers the floor.  She has always preferred the floor, and her floor location of choice these days is the upstairs hallway landing.  We have tried for years to figure it out, but we can't, so we simply put the bed in a location where it might actually get used.  Korinne has a lot more room to play in her "dressing room" now.  We could call it a bedroom, but that isn't entirely accurate anymore, is it?

Speaking of Korinne, she has been begging me to take her to get her hair cut.  Having cut her own hair 3 times in recent memory (all of which were disastrous and the last of which we are still trying to grow out) I decided that I shouldn't keep putting her off if she was willing to have it cut by a professional.  So, we got her a nice little bob.  She loves it.

My sister Tiffany and her daughter Abigail were in town this week and came up and spent a day with us.

It is always a party when they come to town--literally. We celebrated Abigail's 5th birthday while they were here.

Yesterday we woke up to snow for the first time. So ready or not, winter is here. At least we made it to November this time.  The weather was actually really nice on Halloween night so I considered it a victory in the weather department.