Thanksgiving Turkeys...

We hosted our first Thanksgiving this year.  Prepped the turkey and all the sides, changed the sheets, planned the activities and even threw in a charcuterie board.

It was SO fun and Mother Nature even sent us a little holiday snow for the cherry on top.

These cousins were in Heaven playing, and movie watching, and bantering all the day long.

RyGar smoked a turkey which turned out to be HEAVENLY.  And the pie spread was impressive.

I love these people and I'm thankful for each of them.  My favorite part of the entire season was our butcher paper thankful list.  Every day as something struck us we would write it on the paper that was hung up on the wall and we recorded all the big and little things we have been blessed with and feel gratitude for.  

We are so blessed.

Fall Break - Hunting, Hot Pots and Husks...

I am going to attempt give a one to five word description for these pictures since this was WAY back in fall break and they are somewhat self-explanatory.  Sometimes I feel a little bad that we do so many things that are "traditional" for these major school breaks.  Like we ALWAYS go on the deer hunt for fall break so I try to sprinkle in a little something different here, a little something new there.  In the end I think the guilt is a waste, because they LOVE our little adventures and the greatest things is, the tradition is still there.

The Hot Pots in Monroe Utah

aka Poor Man's Natural Holistic Mud Spa

Thought that water be muddy it was WARM!

And the day was not...

And Boone took the brunt of the mud fight.  :)

The Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch in Sigurd, Utah

Throwing Accuracy Training

Posing with Bobby Bones...

My punkin heads.

Hay Jump

With A

View

Home Made Slides are the Best Slides

And fluffy white clouds in cerulean skies are the best too.

Ride 'em Cowboy

This one is entitled STILL FINDING CORN...

Alternative Titles include:  CORN ERRRRR'WHERE

Or BIG FAT CORN BELLY

The corn maze was not haunted...

Hallelujah! 

But these fellers did flush out a pheasant.

Which gave me a heart attack all the same.

And then we hit the hills for Mom's deer hunt.

Some of us more than others.  :)

We saw more kids in orange than we did deer.

But we also saw a couple of these, so it was worth it.

And looky there - our tradition is literally leaving its mark on all of us.  I hope we have imprinted them with a love for the outdoors and our time together.

Jr Jazz Ace Face Style...

Ace got to play Jr. Jazz for Lehi city again this year.

Our neighbor was brave enough to wear the coaching hat again too.  :)

I'll tell you what, what Ace lacks in shooting form, he sure does make up for in hustle, heart and defense.

I am selling him short - this little dude is a baller.  I love watching him fly superman style to get a lose ball and steal every pass his little hands can get hold of.

A bunch of these guys are from the neighborhood and they're almost like brothers sometimes... bossing one another and coaching one another and devising NBA level plans.  :)

Especially these two.

Proud of our little basketball star and his need for speed. 

I hope I get to watch the magic happen for years to come!

Arching Party...

Dax Man celebrated his ninth Birthday on May 1st.  Remember that?

He wanted to have a water party complete with a dunk tank and water balloons.  And of course, it rained until June 43rd and then baseball took over our lives.

Finally, in September, we made the magic happen for our little dude with an Arching party at Jake's Archery Range. He invited a dozen friends to join him and I'm happy to report that no one was speared or impaled.  HUGE victory.

They really had the best time and were such cute little competitors.  The facility provided an instructor and a bow and set of arrows for each kiddo along with a wrist guard.

I provided the dollars that were stuck to the targets to be given to whomever could hit the target.  

I only had to give away four bucks.  :)

Dax had a great time and it was easy peasy.  I felt bad that he had to patiently wait for SO long, but Dax is a trooper and he waited like a true gent.

I still can't believe I was brave enough to take that picture.  I really took my life into my own hands!

We love you, Dax Man.  And we're so glad you're such a good friend to so many awesome little guys.  You deserve all the happiness the universe has to offer during your ninth year - and always.

This is Halloween...

Halloween 2019 was nice and chilly.  We didn't have snow on the ground, but we had snow earlier that week and little fingers and toes got pretty cold by the end of the night.

Dax was a Morph.  Don't ask me what that is, exactly, or where it stems from.  Just know he was happy as a clam under that breathable suit of weird.  :)

Kael was a baseball player - Ryne Sandberg to be specific.  This is the third year in a row, so at least he is consistent.  He did sport Royal Blue and red for the Cubbies instead of the Yankees this time.  We attribute that change to the Cubs organization replying to his fan mail with a bobble head.

Ace Face was a werewolf.  He asked to borrow Grandpa Hooky's mask and wore it for photos, but we also had to master a make up look since masks aren't allowed in school.  It required some You Tube video tutorials, but he was thrilled with the way it all turned out.

(The very famous, very OLD mask that Grandpa used to nearly give me a coronary every dang year)

Boone knew he would be Black Panther since LAST YEAR.  We were somewhat amazed that he stuck to it for so long.  Again, we had to get creative with some face paint since masks aren't allowed.  He basically stayed in character ALL DAY LONG. 

Even RyGar and I got in on the action.  The hunter and his deer.  I may repeat this every dang year because someone told me at the school parade that I "had a nice rack".  Thanks so much.  

Yep, Deer for life. :)

The kiddos had a great time roaming the hood to collect their STACKS and STACKS of candy with cousin Zane and Robert - the other brother across the street.  Even better, the Dad's all walked with them and I manned the door whilst eating sugar cookies.

Not too shabby at all for October's finale.

Love you, goons.