Brave

His paper airplane flew onto our roof.He wanted to get it down, but he was scared.Very scared. His dad talked to him a reassured him.

And he conquered his fear.

"And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear but rather the strength to keep going forward despite the fear." - Paulo Coehlo

We are very proud of him.

Big burrito baby

This kid just looks like a really big burrito, that we want to eat up. He looks so big when Gracie holds him. She loves to hold him.

The stockings are hung

In the St. Nick of time, too.

I finished making them today. I like how they turned out. For some reason I am crazy about black and white this year. I give credit to Mondo for that.

The Christmas card mess is cleaned up.Things are getting crossed off the to do lists. Here I am getting ready to compile my six different list into one. I guess I am a list person. I decided to make a tree skirt and gift tags out of black and white too. I got the idea to just stick on a big letter from Martha Stewart (I think) and the kids really like it. It makes it easy for them to find theirs.

I (obviously) like to use scrap ribbon, lace, and trim for wrapping.

Here is the tree. It is real and it is so beautiful. We got it at Costco and I love it.

I love my little trees...

...and the little deer.

These are probably my favorite decorations. They are silk string balls and they make me so happy.

It looks magical. I may keep them up all year.

I also love my old holiday cake plate.

I love my Christmas house. Too bad it was not put together earlier. Now it will have to stay up for January.

The sweetest part of this holiday season is this little guy.
I get up early with him and he is sitting under the tree while I do yoga. It is nice to have time, just he and I. I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season.

Grateful days

This year we made a Turkey to go on out wall. On the feathers we wrote things we are thankful for. All the orange feathers are Williams. Some of the things we were grateful for:
William - fish, movie, songs, the bishop, his bed, primary
Grace - Bananas, dollies, pajamas, prayers
Russ and Debbie - Home, job, computer and Internet, Jesus, scriptures

Of course the is much more. This list is almost unending.

I don't have a lot of pictures of Thanksgiving Day. In fact I have one, the one below. I took pictures of the Turkey Trot and later that day we went to my parents and had a wonderful meal with my family. The highlight was that night we watched Home Alone. I had not watched it in a long time and William had never seen it before so it was really funny to watch with him.

The next day we had a dinner with Russ' family and this is the only picture I got. Oh well. It was lovely to spend time with the family.

Here is William being a big helper and feeding Joseph while we were getting ready to go to a park to get together with my Huston cousins.

We went to the McCormick park where they have a train. Of course the kids wanted to ride in the cattle that is what we did.

It was a little uncomfortable for the dads. It was very fun for me to watch. The kids loved it!

This picture shows the reality of the situation.

Russ was very glad to get out.

They also have a carousel. Everyone loves a carousel.

And Ashley - this is for you. Look at your cute boys.

Trotting

Russ and my brother Mark decided to run the Turkey Trot this year and my sister in law Ashley ran the fun run. I tried to show up in time and barely made it. I was hurrying to go to the finish line to wait for him and all these runners were going past and I here Russ say my name. So we got to see him run. William tried to run with him and came back to me crying because Daddy was going to fast and he wanted to run with him. It was very sad. We didn't see him cross the finish line, but we saw him eating an orange slice:) I also don't remember his time (okay so I am a bad wife) but I know he did it in under an hour, which was his goal. Way to go babe!

Here is Gracie giving her daddy a hug and William is still sad and mad that Russ didn't wait for him.

Mark also ran it in under an hour. I think they were pretty close to the same finish time. Way to go guys and too bad about that chaffing. Turns out baby powder is not a good idea before a run.

Maybe someday I will run with them...or maybe not.

Show me night

They had a show me night at Williams school last month where he got to show me all he has been working on. He ran from one activity to the next. He wanted to show me everything.Here he is showing me a triangular prism. He showed me each shape and then covered them all with a scarf and we got to feel them without looking. William pulled out his favorite - the sphere.
Gracie was so happy to play at Williams school.

This is called metal insets. At the beginning of the year William would come home telling me his favorite work was "middle instance" and I had no idea what he could be talking about.

Gracie really liked scooping and pouring.

Counting with beads. At his last parent teacher conference his teacher said he is doing blends with reading and ready to start doing decimals. All very exciting stuff!

The best part is that he is obedient, helpful, and kind at school. Nothing could make me happier than that.

Time management

That is something we have struggled with since the arrival of number 3. I would have liked to get a picture of Josephs first time going to church, instead I got a picture of the second time he went. Hopefully we will get better at being on time.