Leaves...

 The only draw back from awesome, big trees in our yard is all of the leaves it brings.  Every fall we have to spend hours raking them up.  Although, it does provide lots of fun times for the kids!  This year they wanted to be completely barred underneath them.  Anthony is "in" the very bottom picture, you just cannot see him :)....he is completely covered with leaves!

Crazy Hair Day...

 Oh the joys of elementary school!  Crazy hair day was fun this year, both kids wanted to participate.  Anthony need a hair cut anyway, so I left the top long and cut the bottom short and mohawked it.  He loved it.  Jenna wanted lots of little braids all over...she thought it was great, plus we even had a cute bumpy hair do the next day too!

Cheeseball Owen...

 This little boy brings so much love, laughter and smiles to our home!  He will do just about anything to get someone to laugh.  We just love his little personality!

Trip to Portland...

 Jake's brother Jon got married up in Portland and we made the long drive over to enjoy the event! It was a long drive, but we had a good time.  We stopped at Multnoma Falls on the way in on Thursday.  That night we ate some wonderful seafood and enjoyed being kid free :).  My very kind parents stayed home with my kids so they didn't have to do the whirlwind trip.  Thank you!!  

Friday was the wedding and it was a beautiful ceremony in a beautiful temple, we enjoyed a fun lunch with all the brother's and wives and ate some more yummy seafood.  After that, we headed to the very wet, rainy reception.  It was beautiful and it was sad that it was so rainy. 

 Saturday we headed downtown on the rail and had lots of fun seeing downtown Portland.  We ate donuts, rode the rail to lots of different places, saw the HUGE book store, the Pearl district, lots of bridges and walked across a few.  It was a very pretty city.  We had a great visit!

Jenna 2012...

Jenna, my Jenna.  She is so much fun, so feisty, so loving and so happy all at the same time. She is such a good big sister.  She loves to paint Lydia's fingernails and help Owen when I need it.  She LOVES to be crafty making cards, drawing pictures, coloring, painting, anything I will let her do basically.  She is always making 'cards' out of scrap paper and glitter glue.  Jenna has a huge desire to be older.  She was pretty excited to turn 5 and when she did and didn't get to go to an older class at church she was pretty upset by that.  She has loved school and loves that she gets to learn to read books.  She just loves to have her hair curly and asks me at least once a week to do her hair curly.  Jenna is always quick to smile and has really started to shine in front of other people.  She used to hate being up in front of people but now she does great when she is.  She did a wonderful job on her part for the primary program and was able to do it without even asking her teacher to help her, she was very proud of that.

Jenna, I love you. I am so glad you came to my family and are my little 'brownie'.  I am so glad when you are home and smile at me and are my little helper.  I pray for you daily that you can shine your happy light for all to feel your happy spirit .  I am thankful every day that you are in my home and that I am your mother.

I asked Jenna a few questions to catch a glimpse of her at age 5...

What is your favorite color?  Pink

 What is your favorite toy? Fingernail polish

 What is your favorite fruit? Banana

 What is your favorite movie?  Tangled

 What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Ham or egg salad sandwich

What is your favorite animal?  Unicorn

What is your favorite thing to wear? Minnie Mouse shirt

  Who is your best friend? Chelsea Hansen

What is your favorite cereal?  Froot Loops

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play on the toys

What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Waffles

 What do you want to be when you grow up? Repunzel or Ariel

Anthony 2012...

Anthony is a joy to have in our home.  He is almost always a great helper.  He obviously has his moments, but for the most part he is a great big brother.  He loves to have Owen with him and he and Jenna play really well together.  This year Anthony had several rough spots with friends and school, but he learned a lot and grew stronger and was able to learn how he wanted to treat people from the experiences.   He still loves to wrestle and was super excited for this season to start again.  Last week when he came home from practice he said "I love wrestling.  It is just awesome."  He enjoys having athletic outlets.  Since starting 2nd grade he has really gotten a love for math.  He loves when they learn new things and was super excited to tell me the trick they learned about adding 9s.  We are still trying to convince him that reading is fun, but he does good at it when we can get him to sit still long enough to read a book.  

Anthony loves to feel the spirit and give talks in church.  When we have talked about it the 2 places he says he has felt the spirit were in the temple and in class when his Dad taught his class.  I love that he can already recognize the spirit touching his heart.  I love you Anthony and I am super glad that you decided to be my son.  I pray for you every day that you can make good choices  and that you can be a happy person.  I am glad you are mine forever!

I asked him a few questions to remember a glimpse of him when he is 7 years old...here are his answers...

What is your favorite color?  Blue & yellow

 What is your favorite toy? Wii

 What is your favorite fruit? Apple

 What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Pancakes

What is your favorite animal? Snow Leopard

  What is your favorite book? Nate the Great books

Who is your best friend? Brady (even though he moved away to Arkansas this year.)

What is your favorite cereal?  Trix

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play football with Dad

What is your favorite holiday? Halloween

What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Omelets 

 What do you want to be when you grow up? Wrestling coach

Little Helpers...

 I got some yummy corn for cheap so I decided to do some freezer corn for the year.  I certainly didn't want to shuck all that corn by myself and Jake was gone hunting so I enlisted some other little helpers.  They did a great job. They got quite a few corns husked before they got super bored and went off to find something else.  I was grateful for the little help I did get though ;)!