Happy Thanksgiving!!

I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! I am most grateful for my family and my faith. I'm also grateful that this year has been so good to us. Ben has been a hard worker and we have a practice that is doing extremely well. We are so blessed!

We actually had our Thanksgiving a week early this year. Ben has an event all this weekend, so my parents had their Thanksgiving feast last weekend. We made the trip up to Rexburg Friday night and had our yummy Thanksgiving meal Saturday afternoon. That evening, we went to see Thomas perform in the high school play, Man of LaMancha. He was one of the muleteers and they all did a fantastic job! It was fun to spend some time with the family.

My parents preparing the meal:


Sitting down to the feast:


Jenna introduced the boys to the fun of pulling each other around int he laundry basket. They had so much fun taking turns being the rider/pusher/puller.




The distinguished actor:


Every time we visit my parents, This is what Ben does:

Ben likes to catch up on the National Geographic and read Calvin and Hobbes.

We left right after sacrament meeting on Sunday because it was starting to snow like crazy. It wouldn't be a trip to Rexburg in the winter without driving home in a snow storm. :)

Evan also had his preschool Thanksgiving (or as he would say, "Gives-giving") party on Tuesday. He was very proud of the "turkey-lurkey" he made out of an apple and some marshmallows.





Since our Thanksgiving is over, we have a whole day today with nothing to do. It feels nice! I went and saw New Moon (which I liked a LOT better than Twilight) this afternoon while the kids were napping.

We hope you all have a happy and safe holiday with lots of loved ones and yummy food! :)

Trip to SLC

Ben needed to go down to Salt Lake on Saturday to pick up a few things for his fish tank, so we decided to make it a family outing. Unfortunately for us, it snowed like crazy and took us forever to get down there.

(Ben standing out in the blizzard to change the windshield wiper)


We didn't end up having much time to do the things we wanted to do. We settled for just taking a tour of the conference center.

The conference center from the outside:


The conference center from the inside:


We learned that the conference center seats 21,000 people and that, unlike most buildings that seat such a large number of people, all the seats face the front of the stage, instead of being arranged in a circle all the way around the stage. The tour guide also pointed out that there are no columns on the inside to hold the building up. It is an amazing piece of architecture!!

The fountain:


The fountain (and the piano player) from the third floor:


One of the reasons we wanted to tour the conference center was to see my grandfather's statue. My Grandpa Johansen has done a lot of art work for the church (the big statue outside of the Winter Quarters visitor's center, the baas relief on the front of the Joseph Smith building at BYU, the doors of the Washington DC temple, and more). This statue in the conference center is called "Resurrection".


It was an enjoyable trip, even if it was short. (Well, our time outside of the car was short, anyway.) Now we have an excuse to go back in a few weeks when all the Christmas lights are up! :)

Asher's got style.

If it's meant to be worn (and sometimes even if that's not what it's meant for), Asher loves to wear it. Hats, boots, gloves, scarves, Mommy and Daddy's shoes, capes, etc. Because of this, I often find him dressed a little strangely. It's been like this ever since he was just a little thing. (Need proof?)

Yesterday, I found him dressed like this and thought it was hilarious, so I figured I'd share.



In other news, Asher is now wearing his underwear to bed at night!! So far so good! It's hard to believe we are actually done with diapers for the first time in almost 5 years!!

Farewell for Joseph

Ben's little brother, Joseph, left for basic training on Monday. The family got together on Sunday night to eat some cheesecake and wish him luck, so we were able to get one last picture.

Where does he come up with this stuff???

We finally threw our jack-o-lantern in the dumpster today. Of course, the event was met with "Why did you throw it away?????" from the kids, so we had a discussion about things getting rotten and moldy. After this discussion, Evan informed me: "Rotten means getting yucky and old..... kinda like grandpas and grandmas."

I love this kid.

Shameless Mommy Brag

I need to take a minute and brag about Evan. Now, I know every mom thinks their kid is smarter than everyone else, so I'm not saying my kid is a genius or anything.... but I think he might be a genius. He has always been fearless and a go-getter. This child crawled at 5 mos, walked at 9 mos, could climb out of his crib by 11 mos..... you get the idea.

I don't know why I was surprised when he rode his bike without training wheels after only two tries. I shouldn't have been surprised yesterday, either, when he learned to tie his shoes in about 5 minutes!

We went to get him some new shoes yesterday and there weren't any velcro shoes in his size that weren't completely hideous, so Evan got his very first pair of laced shoes yesterday.



While we were at the store, I told him he'd have to learn how to tie his shoe laces and as soon as we walked through the door at home, he was begging me to teach him how. I showed him 3 times and then helped him do it once. After that I had to get dinner on the table and figured we'd come back to it later. He followed me into the kitchen with his shoes untied and a few minutes later I heard "Look, Mommy!" He had tied them both! I haven't had to tie his shoes for him since then.

I don't remember learning how to tie my shoes, but it probably took me months. This kid continues to amaze me with how fast he learns stuff.

Asher's ABC's

Asher has been singing his ABCs for a while now, but I finally charged the battery for the point and shoot camera so I could get it on video. His first rendition is the way he used to sing it. :) Then he sings it again the right way. I don't usually have to prompt him as much as I did in this video, but he was a bit shy.

(Don't mind his noisy brother in the background.)


Side note: I love how wiggly he is in this video, because it's so him at this age. :)

Using up that extra Halloween candy

I have eaten more than my fair share of the kids' halloween candy. Usually I don't give the kids much of it, but they've had a bit more than usual this year, too (although still not a lot). So, I figured it was time to think of a way to get rid of it.

I opened up a bunch of smarties (we have TONS of smarties) and let the kids glue them to a piece of paper. They really got into it! I even got brave enough to let them squeeze their own glue out (as opposed to telling me where to squeeze it for them), and they did really well! Not a single mess to clean up.





I love the looks of concentration on their little faces. :)

I was pretty impressed with Evan's finished product. It's a spaceship with stars around it.

Happy Halloween!

We mostly took it easy yesterday for Hallween, but the boys and I did get around to carving the big pumpkin!



They helped me pull out the insides, although they were kind of grossed out at first, which surprised me.


Eventually, though, they showed their true boyish colors. :)


After we emptied it out, they helped me decide what it should look like and then watched me carve it.




In the evening we went trick-or-treating of course! Here are my scary pirate and cute tiger right before we left:


I spent a bit more time getting Asher's picture since I did Evan's on Thursday. Isn't he cute? :)


Rarrrrrrrr


We went trick or treating with our little friend James in his cousins' neighborhood.




The kids had a lot of fun! They were so ready for bed by the time we got home, though! :) Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween, too!