Our Thanks and Giving Tree... For family home evening last night we had our thanksgiving lesson. We made a list of the things we were thankful for and read "It could always be worse" (a funny book about being grateful) and learned the importance of giving thanks always and counting your blessings, regardless of your current circumstances, because it could always be worse. We then read "The Giving Tree" (one of my favorites) and from that we learned that we are happiest when we are giving, and not necessarily presents but of ourselves, just like the tree did. And so the idea for our thanks and giving tree was born. Since we give thanks by prayer and give and serve with our hands we decided to make the leaves out of our hand prints, we also decided to put it up in our toy room where we could see it and be reminded of all of that we have and all that we should give daily. On some of the hand prints we wrote just a few of the many things we are grateful for , and on others we wrote ways we could give of ourselves ie. sharing toys with each other, obeying mom and dad, patience, showing love to each other etc...None of the pictures of the giving hands were turning out, but here are few pictures of the tree and some of the thankful hands...

Savannah is thankful for rocks, preschool
and Bella



Zach is thankful for frenz, sckool, and the
sripchurs (scriptures:)


Josh is thankful for cub scouts, FHE
and his school teacher

Caroline is thankful for Josh's GFCF diet progress,
sweet kids, and the gospel

Mike is thankful for cuddles, 1/2 day fridays and
the chance to be his own boss

Bella is thankful for her family

I'm grateful for my kids who teach me to be thankful for the little and simple
things that matter most and sometimes get forgotten (like rocks:)

HOOK EM' HORNS





Mike and Josh's Daddy son date! The Horns won and they had fun!! Thanks Lowes!

It's the Halloween update you've all been waiting for!

We had a fun Halloween this year with all 4 kiddos old enough to go trick or treating. Bella debuted as Tinkebell , and she caught on quick this year with the trick or treating ritual, by the 3rd house, she just skipped "chick o cheat" and started saying "tank ou" before she even got the candy. Zach knew he was going to be a ghost since August, of course we knew Sav would be a princess, and Josh made for the cutest Harry Potter I've ever seen (in my biased opinion:) We finished the night with our own little pj party which consisted of marveling at all the candy, then dumping all the candy in one big pile making a "special" pile of the GFCF ones for Joshi and then picking out just a few favorites to eat with our popcorn while we watched a really scary movie (Monsters inc- ha! that's as scary as we get in this house:)

Weekend Fun in Dallas!

The State Fair of Texas



We had Friday and today off from school, so we were able take a last minute trip to Dallas to visit Grammy, Grampy and uncle Brett, go to the state fair, visit with our fun Grant cousins and go to the Dallas Arboretum and roam around their beautiful gardens and pumpkin patch. We had a blast! Thanks for a great weekend guys! We love you!

The Dallas Arboretum


* warning really long slideshow!*

An Ode to our sweet Bella!!

Happy Happy Birthday Bella dear.... (*warning really long post*)
Bella turned 2 years old yesterday! Where has the time gone! What a blurr this last year has been. She's gone from our sweet, quiet, calm little baby to our destructo girl, loud, hair pulling yet still sweet toddler. It's been such a transformation from baby to toddler, one that may have resulted a little differently if she hadn't been the youngest of 4. She is so good natured yet she knows how to hold her own, she can make all 3 older kids cry with a quick handful of hair yanking, or jab of the eye. I never would've imagined that she would be capable of some of the things that she does now when she was just a few months old but she has had to defend herself and let her presence be known. With all that said here's a list of just a few of our favorite Bella-isms:
1. She's SUPER cuddly- the cuddliest one yet- it just feels good to hold her.
2. She laughs out loud when ever she hears the word funny.
3. She wakes up happy, she goes to bed happy- She almost always has a smile on her face- even when she's hitting you.
4. She loves to dance and her moves beat all of our uncoordinated moves.
5. She's a big copy cat! She colors laying on her tummy with her feet flopping in the air, just like her big sister.
6. She has to hug and kiss each person every night before she goes to bed, Josh is always the last one, she hugs him a little longer than everyone else. Then she will wave and say good night 20 times before we make it to the crib. Then she literally leaps into her crib.
7. She loves her momma more than anyone- and prefers her to anyone even Daddy (yeah- that's right! finally I get one that picks me)
8. She's loving not just to her family but loves others and makes them feel good with her cuddles. She especially loves Ellie's mom and Sister Lush.
9. She's our first thumb sucker! and she has the cutest crooked teeth I've ever seen because of it.
10.She has the BEST high pitched squealy giggle that we've ever heard.
11. She has everyone in this family wrapped around her little finger and gets away with way too much stuff!
12.Everywhere we go, people remember Bella and always comment on how good and sweet she is- she really is lovable.



We love you Bella!!! Thank you for blessing our family with your sweet and feisty presence!
Bella through the years....

two minutes before the delivery... seriously, she was the quickest!

She's here!!!


4 months old

8 months


10 months


11 months


1 year birthday


Halloween- 13 months

15 mths



18 months


20mths



21 mthscan't remember how old she is here?


23 months


23 1/2 months...



2 years old!!
This is Bella stylin today- a few of her favorite things, ducky, book, purse (w/my phone inside), and her trend setting mismatched shoes , no pants, crazy hair and dirty smiley face. That's our girl.


* We celebrated her b-day Sunday- haven't downloaded pics yet due to a really inconvenient bout of strep throat for me, so party pictures to follow- though I didn't do too good on taking pictures because of annoying strep, hence the compensation with this really LONG post*

Feeling Humbled... and Crafty...

This weekend our stake organized a trip out to Lake Jackson (between Houston and Galveston) to help with clean up from the mess Ike left. They had to wake up at 3am in the morning, drive 4 hours there and 4 hours back, and spent the day cutting down fallen trees and hauling them away. Mike made it home at 10pm!!! A full and exhausting day that was very humbling and rewarding for him- good job honey! I think he felt pretty manly too by the time he got home after working the chainsaw all day. Men. So while he did that we got to do this .... (I feel sort of guilty that I had the camera since what he was doing was obviously more important!) We had a fun Primary Activity in the morning that we went to that I meant to take pictures at (left the darn camera at home!) . We participated in the Crop walk, which helped raise awareness for world hunger. The kids had to work to earn some $ to donate and we got to walk 2 miles with our Primary friends.

After our morning activity a good friend of mine had invited me to a Stampin Up get together (sort of a club) that I decided to go to. With Mike gone we had to get a sitter for my 4 kids + her 3 kids= 7 kids under the age of 9!!! This babysitter ROCKS!! When we got back I noticed that she had picked up and the kids were outside playing.

Anyway, so I just have to brag for a minute because I'm not really a crafty girl. I enjoy crafts, but I'm not really very creative- but look what I made!! Thank you my friend for inviting me!! What a sense of accomplishment to be able to make cute stuff! Plus now I have stuff for visiting teaching next month! So from now on I'm totally going to try and embrace my crafty inner self and sign up for these kinds of things when I get the chance. So on the list of my personal "be's" - I'm adding "be crafty!"






What do you think- eh??

Weekend in Dallas

We went to Dallas this weekend to celebrate Claire's Blessing, Liam's 10th(!!!! where does the time go- double digits!) and Kj and Quinn's beautiful new home! We love visiting family and playing with cousins~ of course it always goes by too quickly. We were able to sneak in a little trip to the Harbor in Rockwall, eat out, play in the fountains, and hear some music from a little band of like 12-14 yr old boys the night before. They were pretty decent- Josh REALLY liked them and wanted to stay and listen for a while.But it was late and we had to get up early and get ready to go to McKinney for Claire's blessing so we just stayed for 3 songs. Good fun!

* double click on the slide show to see Bella's Bee-bop dance,the boy band and Beautiful Claire up close*

Labor Day!!
We had some neighbors from church over to celebrate a labor free day! We had 19 kids and 10 adults!Thanks for hanging out with us guys!



* I didn't take too many pictures because I was having too much fun! :)-

Blue Room
Here's the blue room. We actually changed our minds and painted it Rain instead of Languid blue (for those of you who care:)
We had fun painting and love the new splash of color that it adds to our home. Now for some furniture... maybe one day.




The burning toy... we were painting after the kids were down and thought what a good thing they were asleep because the paint (or so we thought) smelled really stinky and toxic! Then we noticed something smoking in our chandelier... low and behold the smell was coming from a burning plastic toy that the kids threw up in there and it was totally melted and about to cause a fire!

Let's back up....

Back to School!
yes I know, I'm a little late, but life's been slightly busier than normal, so I FINALLY got around to downloading pictures. Josh started 3rd with a fabulous teacher, and Zach started KINDERGARTEN!!! (sniff sniff) I bawled like a big baby after I dropped him off - Zach did great- a little nervous and reluctant to leave me at first, but he loves it so far. Savannah was so bored with out him by the end of week 1 but it's also been fun to see her interact with Bella a lot more. Sav was SO anxious to start preschool (Funshine express- we're doing the home preschool with her too). She woke up at 6:15 (yes in the morning- CRAZY early school here at 7:45am!) with the boys to get ready for school even though she didn't start till 9am! So for about 2 1/2 hours all I heard was - "Now is time to go? When do I get to go? Let's go NOW mom!" She loves the idea of preschool and feeling like a big girl. The second day of preschool was at our house, so it was fun to see her with her little "school" friends.