Thanksgiving

This year we again went to my parent's house for Thanksgiving. It went way too fast!! It was a lot of fun being with my family for a little bit. Its hard getting everyone together like that. Thursday was so relaxing and fun. We woke up and all of us girls hunted the black friday ads to figure out what we were going to get, ate our traditional Biscuit Walnut and watched the parade. This is so Thanksgiving to me!! Then we went out and Curtis took the kids on my parents quad. Ridge was in heaven. His face below is me telling him to smile.

This is Ridge's cousin Kiley. They are like a week or so apart. They were so cute to watch.

At one point I look over and this is what Ridge is doing on the fence. Cracked me up. I was so glad to get this shot.

Friday morning my mom wrapped Ridge in this blanket and it was just too cute of a picture to pass up

Another ride on the quad before we left.

We had to get back Friday because of Curtis' work but it was still a lot of fun. I hope to get down some more this holiday season.

Thanksgiving Preschool Party Pics

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we had our Preschool Party. It was a lot of fun. I wish it wasn't so windy or cold, but we did what we could with it. There was 9 different activities planned, and I thought for sure it would be more than enough, but to my surprise, we still ended up with about 10 minutes extra. Huh....one of these days I'll get it right I hope ;)

I made each kid a turkey hat- didn't last long in the wind.

Our finger feast

One of the activities was pin the feather on the turkey.

Thanksgiving Kid Food Craft

Tomorrow is my preschool Thanksgiving Party. I wanted to make something for them to take home as a special treat. I found these little turkeys that I thought were super cute, and more beneficial, they are super easy to make.

Then, as part of our 'craft' time tomorrow, we are making these turkeys. They are more on the healthy side but still cute I think. Just wanted to share for those that might need an idea of something to make for Thanksgiving.

Sunday Newspaper Fun....

Every Sunday I get 3 newspapers. I usually just get my coupons out and throw the rest away. Well I tasked Curtis with removing the coupons this past week, as I was busy with Brecklynn. Next thing I know, what is usually a straight forward thing, turned into this...

Full on newspaper fight

Brecklynn enjoyed watching from the chair.

This is what 3 newspapers produce. Quite the pile!! I don't think my kids will ever look at a newspaper the same again.

These are the times you just have to let go of your instincts and enjoy the moment. It was already late and kids should have been getting ready for bed, and it was making quite the mess, but it was a neat thing to watch Curtis so involved and playful with the kids and the kids loved playing with their daddy. Its these times that I treasure and couldn't help but take pictures to capture the moment in time. Afterall, the kids did go down for bed eventually and the house was cleaned again, so my usual concerns were pointless anyways. Just had to share...

Brecklynn's 4 months old!!

I cannot believe that our little girl is already 4 months old. Time is truly flying by. This past month has been very adventurous. She had her first Halloween and was so cute as a pumpkin. Then about the second week of November, Brecklynn got pretty sick. We took her in and said that it could either be RSV or the Flu. I literally got maybe 8 hours of sleep that entire week because she couldn't breathe or I was worried she couldn't breathe etc. So it was a tough week. We are just now getting her back on schedule.

She is getting to have such a cute and sweet little personality. She LOVES to talk. She found her voice a couple weeks ago and loves to tell you what's on her mind. She laughs for no reason too. We are still trying to catch those precious moments on video. Hopefully we'll get lucky one of these times. She has to have something in her mouth at all times. She's turning into Cambree in that she loves to suck on blankets. Hopefully we can stop this from developing into the obsession like Cambree has. She will typically have her fist in her mouth too which is pretty funny. She loves attention. Once anyone acknowledges her, she starts giggling and talking.

Here is some fun pics. The first is one Erin Householder did for me. We were supposed to get family pics but it was scheduled during the time Brecklynn was pretty sick and didn't want to chance it. So we ended up doing a mini session of the kids. This is one of Brecklynn. Love it!!

These are ones I just messed around with. I love the expressions in these. Obviously I don't have any good editing software but I did what I could. There is always more I wish I could do.

Fun Pics

I went out this past week with my good friend Rachel Norton, and she helped me take some fun pics. She was my main model and was absolutely wonderful (I'll post those a bit later). I also snuck in a couple of my kids. They weren't nearly as cooperative :). However a few were cute. The first one is the only semi-edited picture so they definitely could be better.

The lighting here was absolutely wonderful!!!

Cotten Picking with Uncle Darren

Its that wonderful time of the year in Gila Valley when all the cotton fields get picked. We are lucky to live in the valley for this reason because Ridge gets to see his favorite thing in the whole world -tractors and is lucky enough to even get to ride them. I've stated before Ridge has a special relationship with his Uncle Darren and its partically due to the fact that Uncle Darren drives tractors.

This is Ridge's first time to get to ride on the cotton pickers. The pictures below are when Aunt Sara took Ridge on the tractor for a bit. She was kind enough to document it for me.

Then yesterday I got the opportunity myself to go on one of the tractors along with Cambree and Ridge. Its actually quite a fascinating thing. I made the mistake of bringing Cambree because she was done as soon as we got on. We were on a field that had an awesome crop. It was so tall in parts and so thick.

The kids wouldn't cooperate for nothing in any of these pictures, but still cool to see where they are..

Camera trick :) Darren is tall so according to this picture the cotton would be as tall as his shoulder. While the cotton is tall here, Darren is kneeling a bit to make it appear even taller :) His idea. Its tricked everyone so far but now the cats out the bag.

It was a lot of fun to be apart of that for a bit and thanks to Sara for taking Ridge so many times and for Sara and Pat for watching Brecklynn so I could go ride one time with the kids. It was great visiting with Darren too. Thanks Darren for allowing so many passengers.