My Boys and BYU

I know I'm a bit late on this, but here is Devon and Troy all suited up for the priesthood session of conference in October. Aren't they cute? I mean studly handsome :) Hard to believe he is 12. He enjoyed going to the session, especially out to dinner afterward with Troy.

In October the boys, along with all Troy's brothers, Glenn and 3 cousins all went to the BYU/Oregon State football game. They got a hotel and made a weekend out of it. They had a blast. After the game they watched it later that night, and Troy paused it on his iPad and took a picture when they showed up on TV. Pretty exciting stuff. You can see Devon standing with the brown sweater, a little of Cam sitting on the right of Dev. Ashlynn is on Dev's left, then Troy and Tyler. Nathans is behind Troy, you can see part of his hat. They rest of the crew were sitting a few rows back. Good thing no one was picking their nose.

And the highlight: One of the players before the game (Pendleton) gave the kids five. I love the smile on Devon's face, and I can tell Cam is smiling too. It was a big moment for them!

We have big BYU fans here in our house. They are trained young. Before football season, Troy actually puts all the televised games on the calendar, so I will know not to schedule any conflicting activities involving him. I have learned he is serious about that :)

Thanksgiving in St. George!

The guys had fun biking, golfing and shooting!
We did a great hike in Snow Canyon.
Parker and Hayley met for the first time.
Then there was the delicious food. Everything was yummy.
The weather was beautiful. Only thing missing were the Whittles.

Whittle Halloween

This post is a little unorganized...i lost a couple pics I uploaded, so I had to load them again, so things are sort of out of order. Scroll down to read about this Halloween post :)

Halloween was fun this year. Our ward didn't do the traditional trunk or treat, which I was a little bummed about. We had a chili dinner and the kids went from room to room for some carnival games. It was fun, but the downside was they got one or two pieces of candy for each game, and by the end of the night they probably went to 6 or 7 games...so that makes for a very small amount of candy. Which really, I shouldn't be bummed about, but let's face it, halloween is all about the candy. So the kids were bummed they didn't come home with much, so we took them around the neighborhood, which was really fun for them. We haven't really ever done that since we always had trunk or treat. To kick off our halloween evening, we had a spooky dinner with giant lips, mummy pizza's, creepy tendrils and a graveyard of fingers for dessert. Oh, and a beverage of witch's blood with skull ice cubes. The kids loved it. We had candles and halloween music too.

Cameron decided to stray from the usual Dracula and be a mummy, Audrey was a ballerina/fairy and then a Power Ranger. I love how Alex is showing you his 'muscles'!

Veteran's Day

Today I am thinking about all our veteren's and the sacrifice they and their families have made. I am so grateful for those who have served, are serving and will serve our great United States of America, including Grandpa.

Here's Rod at our ward variety show Friday! He was hoping there would only be a few families there...he was disappointed at the large turnout! He did awesome!

Also, I just posted a gazillion things. Scroll all the way down to our Halloween costumes to see everything! I never feel like I have time to post things during the week, so I kinda went a little posting nuts tonight...

We had a Ward variety show Friday night and Caitlin and Lizzie wanted to perform! They had no fear and just jumped up and did it. Love Lizzie's jumpin jacks! Rod played a number on the guitar and Haley just hooted and hollered from the back for her talent.

This is a nightstand Rod found on the side of the road! I painted it and modge-podged some fabric on the front and on the knobs. Then I used some chalkboard paint on the inside just for fun. Voila! Lizzie's very own nightstand!
I gave a "service shower" for my friend who is expecting baby #6. She doesn't need a thing, except a little help so she'll actually be able to enjoy her baby when it comes. So I thought a service shower would be fun to try (and economically friendly- the invites instructed to "leave the presents, and bring their planners". So no one brought a gift, but everyone offered up lots of service! It was a lot of fun putting it together! And very satisfying to see my friends come and make this service shower experiment work.

So, of course, first the food showcase:

These are delicious. They're brownies with an indent in the middle filled with a filling. This filling is made of white chocolate, milk, powdered sugar, cream cheese, and whipping cream. Amazing.

Pumpkin chocolate chip bread.

Veggie shakes made with my Vitamix (which I LOVE, by the way!)

Toasted pumpkin seeds! I also had apple cider in a crockpot. It's recently turned cold here and has actually started to feel like fall, so I thought it'd be fun to have fall-ish foods.

My inviations and favors. The invites had two fabric birds glued to the front and all the info on the back. The favors were envelopes I made from paper, filled with sunflower seeds from my summer's crop, and tied with embroidery floss. On the back I wrote "baby is blooming." The cool thing? I didn't buy a thing except food for this shower- I had it all!

The piece de resistance! Rod brought me home a big piece of scrap metal I painted with chalkboard paint. I drew a calendar on it and people filled it up with service for my friend! For each thing of service someone did, they got to write their name on a paper and put it in a cup to win one of three pieces of metal. I know that sounds wierd, but metal is so cool! So 3 lucky ladies got to take home some metal to put on their wall, or frame, or whatever! Then I typed up a calendar of all the service items. It was definately a success- the calendar was packed!