Happy Valentine's Day from Gabe & Hunter

Halloween 2009

I must admit it, I have a secret wish - I want to have an all-out coordinating family Halloween costume some year. You know, one with a theme where we all coordinate. I could be Dorothy, Cory could be the Wizard of Oz, Hunter dress as a flying monkey and Gabe could be the cowardly lion or the tin man.....or we could go with a theme from music - like The Beatles, or maybe a nursery rhyme....A girl can dream, right?

(In fact, I saw the CUTEST family costume last week - "No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed" - the 2 kids were dressed as monkeys, the dad was a doctor and the mom was dressed in an apron holding a phone. You know - "Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!")

Anyway, Gabe was totally determined for months and months to be the "Red Power Ranger". So I gave in and let his dream of being a silly super hero win over my need for coordinating celebration....I was a bit sad, but he was THRILLED. He loved his costume and I got to avoid forcing Cory to dress up.

Hunter wore Gabe's old "Buzz Lightyear" costume and felt pretty cool to get to wear his brother's costume. It was a little big, but he's getting used to hand-me-downs, and he enjoyed it.

And then for the first time since we've had the boys I dressed up. The boys picked out a witch hat and wig for me and I pulled together a few black items of clothing, a fantastic witch cackle (if I do say so myself) and a wicked witch was born. I enjoyed it and I'm pretty sure I'll need to dress up again next year.

Happy Halloween!

Fourth of July

Sadly I am so behind on updating things on my blog that I haven't written about our 4th of July. I guess it was such a low-key 4th of July that maybe it didn't deserve it's own post....We started the day off with the good old town parade. If you've been to one Cedar parade - you've been to them all. Every one is the same....(we ended up skipping the 24th parade this year - it was just too darn close for a repeat already).

After the parade we went to the Enoch celebrations for a few minutes (there wasn't much going on there when we showed up). Then we had a little BBQ as a family and ended up inviting our sweet widowed neighbor Jerry over for dinner. Just hamburgers and watermelon but it was fun to have him join us.

That evening we hooked up a little water-balloon launcher on our Ranger. We rode around trying to launch waterballoons at neighbors - I think Cory and I ended up a lot wetter than everyone else. We did get the launcher set up so we could launch balloons over our next-door neighbors house to our neighbors 2 doors down. They had a launcher too and we launched them back and forth at each other - it was fun!

After that we did some fireworks of our own. Hunter had NO FEAR as far as the fireworks went. He just wanted to grab all of them - scared me 1/2 to death. Little dare-devil! To end the evening we headed over to the Wray's home (Gabe's best friend Noah's family) to watch the fireworks. Our town does a really nice fireworks display less than 1/2 mile from our house. The Wray's back-yard faces the field where they launch them and we had a GREAT view!

So although we didn't have family members surrounding us like we would have liked - we still enjoyed our time with our little family and neighbors. We are sure grateful to be American's - we are so blessed!

Easter

St. Patty's Day

We had an exhausting St. Patrick's Day at our house. Hunter had decided to get up at 3:00 am (for the day) and Gabe was up by 5:30 am. So I was ready to go back to bed, and the boys were ready to face the day. What better time to make some green breakfast :)

So we had green pancakes, green milk, and green scrambled eggs. Gabe took one bite of the pancakes and promptly spit them out. He got this funny look on his face and he said "YUCK!" I explained to him that the only thing that was different was the color. So he took another bite and said, "Hey Mom - you're right. These taste just like pancakes."

The eggs on the other hand....didn't taste or look like regular eggs. In fact, I didn't even try them - they grossed me out just looking at them. But the boys did :)

Hunter ended up falling asleep in his green food - and many other places through the morning. I guess waking up at 3:30 am wore him out a bit.

Gabe was having a "green day" at preschool and all the kids brought green snacks to share. Gabe took left-over pancakes and celery spread with chive cream-cheese. They tried all different kinds of green treats and even had a leprechaun bring them a prize (a kite).

Then in the evening Gabe and Hunter were also visited by a little leprechaun who left them with some fun green treats. Gabe wasn't there when the delivery was made and when he came home from playing with friends he found the basket with treats. He screamed and squealed with delight - it was so fun to hear.

I heard several people say through the day yesterday that they thought that St. Patrick's Day was a silly or dumb holiday. It is - it's silly, but I've always enjoyed it. I love that it's not a "required" holiday. I love that it mixes things up a little bit and that it breaks up the monotony of all the other days. I also like that St Patrick's Day signifies that Spring is coming. In today's world there are too many things to keep us from celebrating - I like to embrace a chance to dance a jig and eat overly processed/dyed green foods!

I meant to upload this yesterday morning, but forgot. We had a fun St. Patrick's Day at our house. I'll post more about it in the next post.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve:

For the last several years we have spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Springers. They like to be home for Christmas so we have made a tradition of having dinner together the night before. We have stuck with my family's Mexican dinner theme and had different tasty Mexican meals over the years. This year we had our own Cafe Rio type burritos, chips and dips from Chili's, and peppermint pie for dessert. I also made these for the kids to eat for dessert (they were so messy though that I didn't take a picture....it was too embarrassing).

In the past we have had a pinata - but we decided to skip it this year. Cory always spends SOOOO much money filling the pinata (last year it was FULL of chocolate!) and we all eat way too much. So this year we decided to skip it. I was a bit sad as we've done a pinata every year since I was little. Then we let the kids open a present - our boys got jammies. It was late so we drove around to see a few Christmas lights and came home. The boys got in their new jammies and got to open another present. The last couple of years I've been adding to our Christmas book collection. I want to give them a nice Christmas book each year with their new jammies. But this year, as with most everything, we cut back a little and I just got them little books from Walmart. They didn't know the difference and had fun with it. We made Santa up a plate of goodies and wrote him a letter - you'll have to read the letter - it's word for word what Gabe told me to write. Then after reading the Christmas story (Gabe loves the fact that the angel that visited Mary is named Gabriel - he thinks that is pretty great) we tucked the kids in bed and got busy with Santa stuff.

Christmas Morning:

Cory is just like a little kid with Christmas morning. Anytime after 6:00 am is fair game. So I think around 7:30 we were up and at it. When Gabe came out he was a bit disappointed that Santa didn't bring him the Geotrax stuff he wanted - but he got over that pretty quickly when he saw all of the cherry candycanes Santa brought! We always have our stockings first, check out the tree and what Santa brought. Then we'll take a break for breakfast before we do more presents. This year we made cinnamon rolls (from a can - blasphemous huh Tammy?) - but Cory was in charge of them, and they didn't quite get cooked enough.....but we ate them and some cheesy scrambled eggs. After breakfast it was time for presents. Gabe had a ball this year and was much more into it than ever before. We tried to stretch it out (since we didn't have any other plans for the day or people to visit) - but we got done pretty quickly. The boys loved their presents and my favorite thing to hear was when Gabe would open something and yell, "That is exactly what I've always wanted!!!" Gabe was pretty sure that he was going to get a Geotrax Barn and when he opened that very last he was thrilled that he got everything he asked for.

We snacked on food during the day, took it easy, cleaned up (Cory likes all of the Christmas goodies put away immediately), talked to family on the phone, watched a few movies and just hung out. It was a really kicked back and relaxing day - and we loved it. We missed seeing family more than normal, but we felt their love and know that another year we can spend together.

Christmas Card 2008

Well, as I've done in the past few years I decided to send out a Valentine's Day card instead of Christmas card. It just takes the stress off of sending them out at Christmas time, but still helps me keep in touch with people. However, I started feeling a bit guilty this week - wishing I had sent one out. So instead I'm going to send one to you via our blog and email. Hope you'll feel of our love and appreciation, and know of our well wishes to you and your family this year.

And as any good Christmas card will have - here's a little synopsis of our family in 2008:

• Cory has been busy as usual with our family business - The Blind Guy. In August Cory moved into his own commercial space which includes a location for shutter manufacturing (which he took on this year), a showroom and offices. The timing of this was tough with the economy taking the downturn that it has, but we have also been grateful for the business we've gained by adding shutter manufacturing to the list of our products available. Cory and Joanna also celebrated their 10 year anniversary this year! Quite an accomplishment and they look forward to many more years to come. The celebrated by taking several trips (which also coincided with work trips) to Hawaii and Jamaica.


• Joanna has kept herself busy by staying home with our 2 little boys. She has also done more and more with digital scrapbooking and does that almost exclusively now (if she could only print some of the pages she's been doing...) She enjoys keeping up the family blog, watching Gabe and Hunter learn and grow and trying to stay organized with life. Joanna was released from working in the Young Women's program in church after serving for over 4 years. Although she misses the girls she enjoys her new calling teaching in the Primary.


• Gabe has had a big year this year. In September he started preschool and a tumbling class. He loves going to school and has been learning a lot. He also loves playing with his buddy Noah and rough-housing with his baby brother Hunter. He has recently developed quite the imagination and has started to enjoy singing (which has made Mom very happy). Gabe is a strong willed little guy but can have the sweetest, loving side as well.


• Hunter is growing up way too fast! This year has been a big one for him - crawling, walking, learning to get into everything....Hunter has recently discovered stickers and enjoys sticking them on everything. He also loves wrestling with his big brother Gabe, reading stories, singing songs and making the world's biggest messes with food.

We look forward to 2009 with some apprehension, but also hope. We know that these are hard times, and will likely continue to be such. But by placing our trust in our Heavenly Father and working together as a family - we can accomplish anything. We hope and pray that your family will have a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

Love, Cory, Joanna, Gabe & Hunter

MORE Santa (3rd time this season)

Saturday was our ward's children's Christmas party - Breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus. The night before we were out with friends when we remembered that we were supposed to go the next morning. We talked about it and 8:00 am for a Saturday seemed to be REALLY early - especially with the kids.

Unfortunately (for me) - I was WIDE awake at 5:00 am Saturday morning. That seemed like it was going to work well because we could go (I'm generally the one who takes the longest to get ready, and I'm also the one who wants to sleep in more than anyone else) - but the boys both decided to sleep in until almost 8:30. Once they were up we decided to run into the party before it was over. We made it in time for Santa - but didn't get much to eat (which was ok).

Gabe was SO cute with Santa. He wasn't nearly as nervous as he had been the first time this season (where he was SHAKING and totally speechless) and was excited to talk to Santa. When Santa asked him who his favorite reindeer was he piped up "Rudolph - and I even know a song about him!" So he sang with Santa and it was so cute. Hunter wasn't jumping up and down to get in Santa's lap, but he sat with me next to Santa and didn't even cry when I put him on Santa's lap. We're making progress!

candy cane cookies - a Rhien tradition

Now most years I haven't made these cookies - because I can't seem to master them like my mom has. I'm one of those people who want things to turn out great the first time around, and don't like to work at them (for instance - when I started gymnastics I was pretty ticked on the first day when they didn't teach me how to do a back handspring - what a waste of a lesson!)

Anyway - this is probably the 3rd time I've made these. This year I was feeling extra nostalgic and wanting to work on passing on traditions from my childhood to my children. As I looked through a Christmas cookbook that Mama Rhien put together for us I saw the Candy Cane Cookie recipe and thought the idea of making cookies for my kids that my grandma had made for her kids was pretty cool.

After I made them I called my mom to talk about things I coudl have done differently, found out that hers haven't always been perfect, and laugh. She mentioned that Nicole had made these recently and had made them skinnier than my mom makes them, but that Paul had said they turned out. She said, "I don't know how she did it - she made 4 dozen cookies from the recipe". So I counted my cookies.

19 cookies

Apparently mine were a bit 'chubby', Nicole's were a bit 'skinny' and I bet when my mom makes them later this week - they'll be 'JUST RIGHT'. (There is a HUGE difference between the 48 cookies Nicole got, and the 19 I got - 29 cookies difference!)

Anyway - here are our cookies. I had to take picture of the broken ones and the ones that (all-be-it chubby) turned out.

(Side note - as I ate one I thought, "Wait a minute - I don't even LOVE how these taste - why go to all this work?" I guess it's all about the tradition.)

One of my favorite Christmas gifts ever

Tonight I was lying down with Gabe, singing our bedtime songs (which have started including Christmas songs for the season) and telling my "when you were a little girl" stories. I told about how I'd stay up alot of the night because I was so excited, how my siblings and I would go in and wake up my parents, and how we'd line up from youngest to oldest before going down the stairs. I told him we'd open our stockings first - and he wanted to know what I'd get in my stocking. I told him what the usual items were - he got a chuckle out of the idea that I would get underwear in my stocking (poor kid is going to be disappointed when he sees all the undies 'sants' bought to stuff into his stocking this year....) Then as I thought it was about time to sneak out of the room and escape to my own bed Gabe says, "Mom - what was your very favorite Christmas present ever?"

I thought for about a mili-second - but I knew right away what my favorite Christmas present was - it was Gabe. It was just a few weeks before Christmas - 4 years ago - that we found out (totally surprisingly) that we were expecting our first baby. I remember finding out while I was working on Cory's Christmas present (a quilt I made him as a surprise) and wondering if there was any possible way I could hold it in until Christmas morning to tell him. (I think it was like the 10th of December - or somewhere around that). I remember thinking of creative ways to break the news, and after telling Cory - I wondered how we could make it a surprise for others.

So during this season as we talk about the little baby Jesus, and about his mother Mary at Christmas-time - I feel a little connection. I think of my little baby who had been only a dream until my Christmas wish came true. I think about how just weeks before finding out about the pregnancy I had hit my lowest point of frustration and depression about the lack of a baby. I think about the "deals" I made as I prayed to Heavenly Father - telling Him that all I wanted for Christmas - or the rest of my life - was to be a mom and hold a little baby. I begged and pleaded for my righteous desires to come true - and for my wish to be granted. So when I think of Christmas I think of those elated weeks before Christmas in 2004 when my Christmas dream had come true.

Then flash to tonight as I said goodnight to Gabe, with tears in my eyes after telling him that finding out we were going to have HIM was the best Christmas gift I'd ever been given. He said, "No Mom - what was your favorite present UNDER THE TREE?!?" I explained to him that the best presents don't always come under the tree, or are even wrapped in paper and bows. He seemed a bit confused - but said, "Ok Mom".

Then I tucked him in and gave him a kiss. I walked out the door of his room and heard a whisper, "Wait Mom - come back." I kind of rolled my eyes - hoping that he wasn't going to stall for hours - I went over to the side of his bed and asked "yes Gabe?". He held his arms out wide and said in the most tender, sincere voice I've heard, "Mom - I will love you to infinity and beyond." He then gave me another special Christmas gift. Not one that is wrapped, or one that costs money - but an amazing hug and kiss. I was taken back to the moment when I first told Cory we would be parents - and all that love flodded my heart. Those tender mercies we are allowed are truly the precious gifts of the season.

Gingerbread House FHE

In my effort to squeeze as much holiday fun out of this season as possible we decided to have friends over to make gingerbread houses for FHE tonight. We decided to just do the little kits they are selling in all of the stores.

In some ways that was nice - the gingerbread is all cut cute for you and it comes with a tray you can just stick the house into. It's also great because I didn't have to make that nasty Royal Icing or get out pastry bags - the frosting was all made and in these little tubes you used.

But in other ways I didn't love it.....I would have liked to have some different choices for the candies. They were fine....but there wasn't any chocolate! (Sheez!)

Overall it was fun though. Cory thought it was a contest to see whose house could be done first - which he thought involved frosting Hunter and my house for us (and sloppily I might add!). Gabe decided to tear off the roof of his house before we were even done (it's the photo in the center - after we repaired things.) And Hunter was content as long as we were shoving gumdrops in his mouth. It was fun to be with friends and a fun tradition we might keep doing.

Tomorrow night we don't have anything holiday planned (yet) - but we are having some friends kids over - so we might have to figure some fun Christmas-y thing to do for the evening.

Part of the reason I'm trying to suck as much holiday cheer out of this year is that it's a tougher Christmas for everyone financially. If I start thinking about that aspect of things I get sad and wish there was more I could do to help others. When I start thinking about presents and that aspect of the season - I get sad that I don't have much of a budget this year to buy the presents I'd like to for family and friends. Or if I start thinking of things I'd like for Christmas I find myself getting greedy and thinking about all I want instead of focusing on all of my blessings I have right in front of me. Instead of focusing so much on presents - both giving and getting - I am trying to focus on memories and time we spend together. When I ask my boys 15 years from now what they remember about Christmas I hope they will say that they remember doing things together as much as possible. I'd even be ok if they said, "Our crazy mom always made us do cheesy family stuff together". That would be just fine with me!

"I looked out the window.....

.....and what did I see? Yummy caramel popcorn smiling back at me."

I have been busy today working on making our neighbor gifts for this year. Most year I do something store-bought - a bottle of sparkling cider, pop/popcorn, an ornament, etc. But this year in an effort to save money and give a heart-felt gift - I thought I'd make homemade caramel popcorn instead of buying something. Oh goodness! The recipe I have been using (from my Mama Rhien) is DELICOUS. It's the crunchy cooked caramel corn - so if you like it a bit crunchy - this is perfect.

But - if you're making 35+ bags of it - it takes roughly.....um - FOREVER!

So I'm 1/2 way done - hopefully I can finish (or come close) tomorrow. I wanted to get our goodies out to the neighbors/friends before they are all goodied out. I want them to still get to enjoy it. (You know how there comes a point when you have had WAY too many sweets and can't stand the thought of another treat. I wanted to hit BEFORE that happens).

Here's the recipe - it's tasty!

Caramel Corn

• 5 cups popped popcorn
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup Light Karo Syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Pop popcorn and take out any of the duds (so you don't break a tooth). Mix butter, sugar, syrup and salt and cook until boiling. Boil for 5 minutes. Pour over popcorn and stir to coat evenly. Place in an oven-proof pan and bake at 250 degrees for one hour - stirring every 15 minutes. After one hour pour popcorn out onto wax paper, tin foil or cookie sheets until cool. Break apart and enjoy!

(My notes: I used more than 5 quarts of popcorn. It didnt' seem like 5 quarts was enough. I also doubled the recipe each time I made it and cooked the popcorn in my roasting pan - it worked great.)

Holidays

I've been meaning to keep an ongoing list of things we've done this holiday season - for our scrapbook (since I am prone to forget EVERYTHING lately - and this blog serves as my journal). So here it goes:

• Relief Society Christmas Party - Friday December 5th: Cory and I were asked to be on a committee for our ward's annual Relief Society (big) Christmas dinner and somehow ended up in charge of the food. We didn't have to cook all the food - but coordinate it and make sure it was ready to serve Friday night. Talk about stress! We ended up with way less people than we had planned, and a TON of food leftover. It was good to be a part of, and helped me to appreciate those who have coordinated events like this in the past. It was a GREAT feeling to have it over with though.
• Storybook Cavalcade Parade - Saturday December 6th: I posted a scrapbook page of this already, in the afternoon we attended the local Storybook Cavalcade Parade. It's one of our favorite parades that Cedar City puts on each year and the boys enjoyed themselves. Gabe was disappointed that they didn't throw out candy like they do in so many of the parades, but we did enjoy the nice weather and had fun with our friend's the Smith's.
• Festival of Trees/Fantasy in Frost - Saturday December 6th: Later that evening we went into a festival that the city had (not sure of the name of it off the top of my head). It was like a festival of trees, a small craft boutique, and you could sit on Santa's lap and have your picture taken. Last year we got the cutest picture of the boys on Santa's lap so I was excited to do it again this year. Ha - not quite the case this year. I was really diappointed because when the lady taking the picture took it she looked in her camera and said, "Oh - how cute! That's one of the best shots I've gotten all night!" So I had high hopes. But when we picked up the picture...I wasn't impressed. Oh well - better luck next time huh? When we were visiting Santa we ran into our friends the Smiths and ended up staying to watch their little girl's dance performance. Gabe and Hunter both LOVED watching all the cute little girls dancing. Hunter kept cheering and even imitating some of the dance moves. Gabe sat still, watched intently and got upset when we were getting ready to leave. We ended up staying a bit longer than we had planned because the boys were having such a great time. My favorite comment was when the 3-4 year old girls got up to dance. They had these adoreable red and white polka dot dresses on and when they were going on stage Gabe yelled out, "Hey - we have that wrapping paper. Our wrapping paper matches those girls!" He was right - the dresses did look just like some of my favorite wrapping paper :). He also was quite concerned when one of the little girls was scared and left the stage before the performance. He said, "Wait - you can't start without that one! You need that one to dance with you!" It was so funny for me to see my two little BOYS want to watch little girls dance and enjoy it so much. Glad they had fun!
• Driving around to look at lights - we took a trip out to look at the lights one night this week. We put on the Christmas music and drove around town. It was fun to see the boys looking for fun decorated houses. We passed one that was so cool - it was really well lit - but then there was a sign that had a radio station listed on it. You would tune to that radio station and the lights were syncronized with the music - it was quite the show! Gabe's favorite that night was a big Grinch inflatable decoration in someone's yard - he was pretty sad when we didn't see anymore of those.
• Trip to St. George to the Tuachan - December 12th: I had really wanted to go to the Christmas concert that they put on every year at the Tuachan - but had to miss it because of our RS Christmas party. But the Tuachan has a nativity program that they run through December that I wanted to go to. So Friday night we loaded up the car and headed to St. George. First we stopped at In-N-Out burger for dinner. Then we headed to the St. George Temple to see their nativity display and walk around the visitor's center. Gabe loves the statue of the Christus and so we sat through that short presentation. I love watching my boys faces so enthralled with the large statue of the Savior. Then we headed out to the Tuachan. They did a nativity presentation with music, narration, live animals, actors - it was very touching and well put-together. I would like to make it a tradition as a family. Afterwards Gabe was pretty insistant that we ride the "train" that they had there and see Santa. Hunter still wasn't a huge fan of Santa, but Gabe did a better job this time. We tried talking a lot about how Jesus is the reason we celebrate Christmas, and I think that Gabe got at least a little bit of that spirit. We ended the night with a trip for me into Target to get some of my last Christmas gifts for the boys and we headed home.
• Toys-for-Tots: I have wanted to encourage the boys to give to others through the holidays. We have done it as a family in the past, but I want it to be something they cherish and enjoy. We had talked about how some kids don't get toys and presents for Christmas and that made Gabe really sad. So all week long he talked about how we were going to go to Walmart and "buy lots and lots and lots of presents for all of those kids - you know - the ones who don't have toys?" So we braved the Saturday Christmas-time crowds of Walmart and let the boys each pick out a toy to give to Toys-for-Tots. Gabe wanted to buy all the toys in the store (and I wish we could have afforded to) but after much deliberation we picked the toys out and let the boys put them in the collection bins. I thought Gabe would have a hard time giving the toys away when it came down to it (he picked something he would have liked to keep) - but he was so good about it.
• Light Parade - December 13th: Another parade! But this one wasn't quite like we had hoped. A big snow storm had been working its way into the area and started dumping snow right before the parade was supposed to start. Gabe had been so excited about the parade that we decided to brave the weather and see if they were still having the parade. We sat in the car and watched what there was of the parade, and what we could see through the snow. There weren't many people participating, and it was chilly - but we had fun together. That's what it was about though huh - being together.
• Creche Festival - December 14th: One of my favorite traditions we have is attending the local Creche Festival every year. One of the churches has musical performances, a children's nativity and a cultral hall full of nativity displays. There are nativities from all over the world and I love seeing the different ways that the Savior is depicted in these. There are children's play-nativities, beautiful glass nativities, wooden ones, plastic ones, fabric ones, paintings - a huge variety. It's a good reminder of the reason we celebrate the season and gave us another chance to talk about the Savior with the boys.
• We have more things coming up this week - tonight we're making gingerbread houses with some friends for FHE, we have a breakfast with Santa for the boys, making and delivering neighbor gifts and a few more fun things planned.

---

Some Holiday Cheer - From, Gabe

Christmas parade

Pictures from Thanksgiving

Getting a picture all-together was pretty funny.

Hunter & Taylor are just about a month apart - I think they'll be good friends someday.

Gabe & Alli had SO much fun together! I loved seeing them blow bubbles with Papa, dance around, play make-believe - they were so fun!

Wish we'd had more time with Taylor. Love you sweetie!

I love seeing my boys with their Papa - he loves all of his grandkids so much!

We loved meeting sweet Lucy for the first time!

The kids loved playing bubbles outside - they were funny to watch.

The hot-tub was a big hit with the kids!

The kids made head-bands to write things they were thankful for on. Cute craft project and fun!

Hunter - posing it up like he did a lot of the time that day.

Aunt Ashley loved spending time with the boys - they've missed her.

Gabe's cousins sure love him and have missed having time with him since they moved.

Ahhh....brothers - one of the things Gabe kept saying he was thankful for - HUNTER!

Sweet Genevieve and Kori. She is such a beautiful baby with the prettiest eye-lashes!

Hunter had a cold most of the time we were gone. Makes me sad when my boys don't feel well.

The kids table - place mats to color before dinner.

It snowed Friday morning and the kids played in it for a while. It was beautiful!

I sure love these 3 boys - they are definetly what I'm most thankful for!