An Idaho Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with the Berg side of the family (that would be Tj's mom's family). His sweet Aunt Becky got suckered into not only hosting Thanksgiving dinner but also housing about 10 extra people. It was close quarters but there's a reason that everyone vies for a spot at Becky's house and that's because she and Steve are the best hosts! Her house has all the fun toys and chaos is practically a requirement in order to be a guest. We rearranged their furniture, kicked their kids out of their beds and ate their food and played video games until all hours of the day and night. Did I mention she's also like four months pregnant- yes, she's practically a saint! So without further ado here's our Thanksgiving in photos.

There were good looking guys,

even better looking gals,

little boys with guns,
(Joel is second guessing his choice in comrades here)

a little guitar playing,

and of course Santa!

Here's Vance and Uncle Steve
(Vance looks like he had one too
many glasses of the lemonade, lol)

The Mohawk and the Reverse Mohawk

And Vance's bum.
(So Pa had the camera and Vance bends over and says,
"Take a picture of my bum!"
So Pa obliged.)

The boys on the 4-wheeler with Dad.

And a shot documenting Joel's first tubing experience.

Of course there was the traditional ham, turkey, potatoes, pies, stuffing, etc, etc, etc. But these were the true memories. It's always fun getting together with family for the holidays and this was no exception. In no time at all Tj was flying home to go back to work and we were gearing up for another 2 1/2 weeks of REAL winter.......

We're not in Kansas anymore.....

Or California for that matter. We arrived in Idaho last Saturday and fortunately (?) were greeted by SNOW! I may be mistaken but I believe the first snow fell in the Boise area Saturday morning (or at least that was the first we had heard of) and while by Saturday night it had melted it was sure cold. It has since snowed every day we've been here. The boys are actually pretty excited about it. Joel loves to make snowballs whenever he passes any amount of snow that has accumulated. We were also reunited with Pa, Nama and Molly along with some of our Boise cousins. And what trip to Boise would be complete without Chicago Connection Pizza. It's funny now though because we actually had Jay (Cindy's brother-in-law) pick it up and we ate dinner at their house. Now Vance thinks every time we go to their house we're having yummy pizza. :) I guess that's one way to win us over.

Anyhow, for my first post from Idaho here are pictures of the boys, molly and snow.

What they were wearing last week.

Molly and the boys!

Joel's hat kept slipping.
I don't know how he could see!

In Nama's backyard!

Making snowballs.

Busy Manda

So I know there's a bunch that I should have posted about that I haven't but it's been pretty busy around here. With two different play group schedules it seems like I'm often hosting at least one or helping with another. Not that I'm complaining- when I think that in a few short years they'll both be in school I start to panic. No, I am enjoying the busy. I did want to brag though because now that we're settled my creativity and craftiness has kicked back in. So here are my two most recent projects.

We'll be heading to Idaho for the Thanksgiving holiday. With not much keeping us around here (Tj was suppose to be gone for 2 weeks for training but will still be crazy busy with work) we decided to stay for an extended visit. Thus, I would be flying out with the boys by myself and I would be flying home with the boys by myself. Add in other miscellaneous driving trips while we're there and I decided I need a way to keep the boys busy. When one of my friends mentioned "match box car roll ups" inspiration hit. I'm sure many of you have seen the CRAYON ROLLS and basically it's the same idea with cars (and Star Wars figurines in our case) that then are rolled and tossed in the bag. Easy to find and tote around. GENIUS! And even better the tutorial I used had a draw string type closure which is SO handy since the boys don't know how to tie yet.

I did a cars one and a Star Wars one figuring it would keep them TWICE as busy as they can share. Hopefully there will not be TOO many arguments over who gets which car and who gets to be Yoda. But I'm fairly certain that disagreements are inevitable.


My next project I can't take credit for either. I was at our stake's Relief Society Conference a couple months back and one of the classes was about teaching the gospel at home to our children. The teacher had mentioned that one year at Christmas she had gathered up a bunch of pictures of Christ and put them on red and green card stock, laminated them and then used them to talk to her children every day in December leading up to Christmas. I thought this was a PHENOMENAL idea. As I mentioned before we're going to be in Idaho for much of December and so I needed to get it all ready before we left. So after starting it last week, I finally finished today. When I was preparing to do this I really felt like NOW is the time to start meaningful traditions with the boys. They are just starting to get the whole "Santa-brings-presents-reindeer-fly-snowmen-dance-around" and so before they get so wrapped up in the fun and fluff of Christmas I want to start traditions that will ingrain in them the true purpose of the season. I used the new Gospel Art Book (the one that is spiral bound) and tore the pictures out cut the white frame off and mounted them on card stock. On the back I put the corresponding scriptures for each picture and a song. This year I feel like repetition is SO important and so my goal is to start our morning with each picture/scripture/song and then before bed doing the same thing. I used pictures from throughout the Saviors life and not all the songs were Christmas songs but I hope that eventually they'll not only appreciate the season and life of Christ but also try and implement his teachings into their own lives. That's a bit much to ask of 3 and 4 year olds though. But again, I want to start a tradition NOW that we can build and expand upon as they grow and develop. I really feel good about this project and hope that it goes as well in practice as it is in theory. (I also have the information that I put on the back of each picture including which picture I used in electronic format if anyone is interested.)


So there's my brag. I still need to put up some random pictures that I found on the camera of the boys. And we just had family pictures done so look for a sneak peak of those coming soon.