Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Thanksgiving with the cousins!

One thing I have loved about living in Arizona is that my brother and his kids will always come and visit us at Thanksgiving! We love having all of the cousins over, it is one thing that I will miss when we leave...we will just have to start working on convincing them to travel farther.  The day after Thanksgiving we did a little piano recital and they all played a piece they had been learning.  We then did a music sing along where they all had little instruments while we sang Christmas songs.


On Saturday their grandpa took us all to the Peanut movie at the movie theater.  It was a great movie with great company!

Last Sea world San Diego trip



Last year in November we went to Sea World the week before Thanksgiving.  We bought a one day pass that in turn counted for a year pass for 2015.  We have taken a few trips this year. We took our last trip again the week before Thanksgiving.  The boys have grown and were able to ride one of the big roller coasters which was one of the big highlights for them.


Most of our trips have been short one day visits so other then going to Sea World we haven't been able to do much.  This time Michael took a day off work so we could spend a couple of days.  We loved being able to spend some extra time with him and enjoyed seeing more of San Diego.  We went to the Mormon Battalion which was a great little place to visit.  It is really well done.  We then went to a couple of little museums by the Battalion.  A police museum and a train museum.  The boys had fun visiting and being put into jail.



We spent a good while at the beach.  So nice to just relax and have fun with my favorite boys!





We were lucky, we wanted to go see the San Diego temple but it turned out the night we went was the day they were testing the Christmas lights! We were grateful to see all of the beautiful lights surrounding such a beautiful building!



Sunday, December 20, 2015

Grandma Great Fuller

Earlier in the month of November Michael's Grandmother passed away.  She was and I am sure still is a remarkable lady.  I am grateful I had the opportunity to get to know her a little bit before she left this earthly existence.
A couple things I want to remember about her is how loving and optimistic she is. I remember feeling so loved by her from the first moment I met her. The day I married Michael she told me how she felt as though I had always been apart of the family and how she just felt as though I was already one of her granddaughters. She was also always so complimentary and encouraging with anything and everything.
Another thing I always loved about being around Grandma Fuller was how excited she was about life. The first time I spent much time with her was just after Michael and I were married we went to South Carolina for Christmas and to have another wedding reception there.  Grandma Fuller talked about how exciting it was that we were having so many parties and activities, the reception, Cathrine and her birthday, shopping, Christmas ext. Even the ordinary activities were exciting on her list. I remember thinking at her age it seems as though any of the activities we were doing would be kindof old to..because of how many times she had done all of them in her lifetime, but Grandma Fuller found joy and excitement in all of them.



The funeral was lovely.  I always enjoy going to funerals because of the spirit there, you can often feel the spirit of those that have left and not only that but they are very inspirational as you learn about all the good the person has done.  I was grateful that Michael and I were able to play our violins together.  I love being able to play with Michael and also I know how much Grandma Fuller loved music and more especially loved to hear her decedents playing music.



Thursday, November 19, 2015

Little bits of random

 This was one morning the boys wanted to see the garbage man come so we took our school work outside to the driveway and waited for him to come. The weather here has been beautiful so any moment we can be outside we take it!


 Morning boys. It's cooling down so everyone is in footy pajamas again. It's fun to see these boys in the morning!

 I always enjoy having the boys help me cook. I thought it was tricky doing two recipes at once but keeping three going without loosing attention of anyone definitely keeps me on my toes.
The other day the boys spent almost the entire day outside working on their river. I love it when we can spend most of the day in the backyard.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Halloween

We started the week of Halloween off by visiting the pumpkin patch.  I had debated going but I was glad that I went, we all loved it! There was a lot to do and was the perfect Fall activity.

They had a petting zoo with lots of different animals, a jumping area, corn mazes, train rides, tractor rides, pig races, duck races, and other little activities.

I think we rode the train three times.  The boys all loved it!





Benson loved the big sand box, top right is us going through the smaller corn maze..after that we didn't even attempt the large one.






For preschool we learned about the letter M so all the kids made masks, this one above is the one Calvin made. The other pictures are the boys dressed up for preschool story time at the library.

Halloween morning! I am not going to lie I love having a day to make special.  The last couple of years I have scared the boys in the morning by dressing up like a cat and then making a special breakfast.  We had ghosts, pumpkins, and witches stew! (bananas, oranges, and homemade applesauce.)

These are pictures of Benson and I on Halloween during Alden and Calvin's soccer game.  (I decided to have the cat stay home.)

Halloween night! We had a monkey, superman and a knight in shining armor!The boys enjoyed trick or treating and came home with lots of candy! We did our counting and graphing on Halloween night so we were all exhausted by the end.  Next year I think we will save that for the next day!

(Note:  Every year we sort, count and graph our candy on these charts I have made.  It is fun for the boys to compare candy with each other and from previous years.)