Gingerbread Houses

Last year we had to scrap Gingerbread Houses because with my parents gone, it just didn't come together.  So, now that they're home we were excited to pick the tradition back up.  I even helped my mom and sisters assemble them this year which was fun.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went over to my mom's house to start the fun.  We were a little later than I wanted to be and it was pretty chaotic by the time we got there.

 We got right to work as soon as we found a spot.

 Brigham didn't like the chaos but he did let me help him decorate.

 So many grandkids, even Rachelle's "kids" came.

 Nathaniel really got in touch with his artistic side.

 Brigham usually just watches me decorate his house but he helped a lot this year.

 Jonathan did a good job too.

 It's really hard to get an accurate picture of how many kids there are.  There is a whole other table to the right, and another one to the left.  My boys are sitting at a table behind Chris.

 When Brigham had had enough, he wandered around.

 Nathaniel was still busy on his house.

 Grandma and Cohen.  He doesn't like girls, but he likes Grandma.

 Nathaniel really loves baby Logan.

 After decorating we had fun outside.

Grandma's house is the funnest house.

I'm so glad my parents are home again and that we can share in our fun traditions.

Gratitude Tree

I'm always looking for way to make Thanksgiving meaningful.  Gratitude is a wonderful thing to have and I want my boys to learn how important it is.  I know some families who do this already but this year I decided to give the Gratitude tree a try.  My curriculum for Jonathan uses The Friend as a resource and the story I had him read was about making a Gratitude Tree and so I decided that this was the perfect opportunity.

Jonathan and I went to the craft store to see what we could find.  November was already half over but we found a roll of paper that had a wood panel texture to it.  I figured that was close enough.  We also managed to find a small package of silk leaves.  I knew it wouldn't last the whole month but there were enough to tide us over until the leaf paper punch arrived in the mail.  I wasn't about to start cutting them out by hand.

There weren't a ton of leaves on it since we started halfway through November, plus some days I just forgot, but we did pretty well.  We ended up with more than what is in the picture.  The boys did a good job.  Because we had to come up with something new everyday, they had to start thinking harder about their blessings.  It was a good reminder.  I helped Brigham come up with things he's thankful for and he did a pretty good job coming up with things.  One thing I loved that he was thankful for were his slippers.  He even mentioned it twice because we forgot he had already said that before.

We will definitely do it again next year.  I have a whole roll of wood panel paper that I need to use up.

TOFW

My sisters, my mom, and I went to Time Out for Women this year.  Another sister-in-law goes ever year with her sisters and mom and so we thought we might try it out as a new tradition.  None of us had ever been and we weren't sure what to expect.  It ended up being really fun and wonderfully uplifting.

 Here is Friday night.

 It was so fun to hang out with my sisters and my mom.

We hear from Sheri Dew, Teryl and Fiona Givens, and Hudson Lights.  Then Sheri Dew interviewed Ann Romney.

 On Saturday Sara came over say hi.  She and her sisters were sitting right across from us.

Saturday was great, we heard from so many inspiring people.  I think my favorite was Michael Wilcox.  We didn't want to leave or stand in line for lunch so Heather picked up some Subway sandwiches for us and we ate them in the car.

Overall it was wonderful and I think I'd like to do it again.

Cutting Hair

I'm the hair cutter in our house.  I've cut Jaaromy's hair since we've been married(with the exception of the first post-marriage haircut) and I've been the one to cut every hair on my boys' heads.

It's always been interesting to me to see the different shades of hair color on the four of them.  When I cut their hair a few weeks ago, for some reason I wanted to keep the hair piles separate so I could see the different colors.

Can you match the hair pile with the head?