Let the Nerf wars begin

 The boys got these nerf guns for Christmas.  They recently got two more from Grandpa Pederson. I think I actually saw the boys cuddling their new nerf guns in their beds the other night.  Little orange darts can now be found all over the house.  In corners, behind couches, under laundry piles and even stuck to our fairly high ceiling.  Let the nerf wars begin. 

Real Heroes

For Christmas we got the boys some real hero posters for their room. 
So cool. You can see more at http://www.realheroposters.com/

Piano and Basketball...two of my loves

I had our Christmas piano recital at our home a couple weeks ago.  Including my kids I have12 students now:)
They did fantastic!

I also taught a beginning piano class as an elective at the kids school on Fridays for 12 weeks.  It finished up last week.  It was so fun!!!

For the last 6 Saturdays I've been Lauren's basketball coach.  Super fun!  This last Saturday was the last skill session.  The kids played 3 mini-games.  In the last few minutes of the last game Lauren made her first basket....ever.  I mean not her first basket in a game...I mean the first basket I've ever seen her make ever.   
That is not the complete story however......the really kind coach from the other team told her defender to back off and told Lauren's teammate to pass to her.  She shot the ball and it was like an invisible basketball angel lifted the ball higher and it went in PERFECTLY  I had to hold back the tears.  There are some moments that stay in a childs memory forever.  This was a moment for Lauren.  I picked her up and twirled her around.  JOY TO THE WORLD! 

White friday

Thanksgiving was awesome this year.  
We had lots of family come and visit throughout Thanksgiving week and did some really memorable things.    Friday morning the day after Thanksgiving we got up early and headed for the temple to do baptisms.  It was my sister's son Braytons first time doing temple baptisms and we arranged a special session to go together.  My mom serves in the temple friday mornings so she was there too.  Really special.

Another memorable event was the Turkey trot we did on Thanksgiving morning.  My brother really wanted to have us all run a mini-mini marathon that morning together.  It turned out to be super fun.  We ran a few miles (with many strenuous hills) around our house and neighboring houses with river access.  It was a wonderful crisp frosty morning.  It felt great.  Thanks Brig for setting that up! 

We carried on a tradition that Dave remembers doing every year with his cousins in Spokane at Thanksgiving of decorating graham cracker houses.  The kids had a sweet time.




This is my sister Tess who happens to be twins(20 years separated) with Lauren.  When Lauren wonders what she'll look like when she's older I say "you'll look like aunt Tess...exactly" 

There's so much more I could post, but this will do.  I LOVE THANKSGIVING!

 

Halloween

This year I got a Bob the Builder suit for $3 because the store forgot to take off the discount price tag from last year and they reluctantly gave it to me for the marked price...but Kurt being his 2-year old self didn't want anything to do with it (though he loves Bob).  So randomly he wanted to be an elephant. We had this one in the dress up box.  I was happy he'd get in a suit at all and it turned out he makes a perfect elephant.





Lauren as a Fairy princess...with dirty socks?



Derek as a Pokemon trainer.  Still questions about what that is exactly.



Nathan as Frodo Baggins



Nicole as Galadriel Lady of Light from Lord of the Rings





All in all it was a rather relaxing Halloween.  Since it was on Sunday this year we had the ward trunk or treat on Saturday and pretended all day it was Halloween yesterday.  The trunk or treat was at our neighbors property so we walked across the driveway filled the bags with candy let the kids run around in the dark a bit then walked home and called it a night. 

One last time...

The sale of our old house is days away from closing.  Finally:)  So we took this past weekend as our last opportunity to have a slumber party and say one last goodbye and think about all the fun memories we made as a family there.  We all slept in sleeping bags on the floors of our old rooms.  The kids had a great time staying up late playing Go Fish.  We couldn't resist signing our names on the secret door in the boys room.   





The backyard in progress 6 years ago.

 

Nicole looks so great in this picture!




And this is how we left it.




The first time the kids went into the finished new house 6 years ago.





Signing the secret door.  We love you old house!





So it begins...

Every year we do a Lord of the Rings marathon at Thanksgiving break. Dave and I have been doing this for a few years now and last year Nicole joined us. This year for Thanksgiving we will have lots of family visiting so we decided to do it early this year. We started last night with the first half of Fellowship of the Ring. It usually takes us 5 or 6 nights with all the extended versions of the movies. So awesome. I love this time of year!

A mohawk a mullet and Michael Jackson

Molalla River ward had an 80's dance...needless to say it was AWESOME!

Dave in his mullet, vintage Van Halen 1984 world tour t-shirt ...and don't forget the snake skin pants.

Long live the King of Pop. Long live Michael.

These are Dave's actual sunglasses that he bought in the early 80's. It doesn't get more authentic than this.

Lauren breakdancing.

The music was all on an old school juke box with real records. It played in random order but the guy in charge played P Y T (pretty young things) by Michael just for us. We all danced to MJ and called it a night.

WE WON THE BEST DRESSED AWARD!

We needed some dogfood...so we went to Safeway after the dance. I was laughing so hard I was crying. No one would look at Dave (even though over half the people in Molalla have mullets:)

She's here!

Lauren has been counting down the months weeks days and even hours for the arrival of her new friend Rebecca. Lauren's Aunt Ylfelynn wanted her to pick an American Girl doll for her birthday and her new doll came to our doorstep today! What a special gift. She loves her. Lauren is at this moment asleep with Rebecca by her side in matching pj's. Thanks for a beautiful birthday gift Ylfe!