Snow!

A ton of snow fell softly in the night. This morning it was dig dig dig to get the driveway ready for the day!



Last night the hometeachers got stuck in our driveway. They were there for about 45 min. They had to call the neighbors to pull them out with a truck.

Playing in soft powder snow is fun. This little girl didn't help all that much because she made a maze in the front yard through the snow.


The kids are really good about helping the elderly neighbors dig out of their yards too. One neighbor gave them a yummy treat to share.

Another neighbor just drives around in his giant tractor clearing driveways and the street.

This little boy is ready to go! He doesn't like to wear gloves but gets really mad when his little hands turn pink with cold.


This is his little mad spot in the kitchen where he sits and frowns. He isn't two yet but sometimes he can really pull a good tantrum.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Alan Bradley

I can not believe this book, it is so funny and so serious! It's surprisingly written by an 70 year old guy but in the voice of an eleven year old girl in England. She is smart, has a passion for poison,(will probably major in Chemistry), knows so much about everything and if she doesn't know it she looks it up. I think this book is a Chemistry Classic! There is Adventure and Mystery while riding a bike she named Gladys.

A blackbird ends up on her back porch with a stamp stuck on his bill. She solves the mystery and almost gets killed. She frustrates the police and she makes poison in her spare time to get back at her mean older sisters. She is just at the age when no one takes you seriously and you aren't afraid of anything.

I loved this book and I am not usually a murder mystery fan. I can't wait to get a hold of the second book; "The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag".

Whole Book

Happy Thankirthdaying!

Combine a Birthday and a major Holiday and you have fun filled chaos all in one place! The Utah grandparents were here and Le and Brent's family plus Aunt Kim.

Here is the Birthday girl.


The Feast!

Traditional olive fingers!

From this angle it looks crowded. We shared the bench in the middle and sat every other person facing a different table. It worked out great!

The children's table. We only convinced three to sit there.

Grandma the master chef and gravy maker. I think I learned almost everything I know in the kitchen from her.

Reading from the official Thankful box. We have been adding to it all month trying to remember to have an Attitude of Gratitude.



The Pies and Birthday brownies! Apple, Minced Meat/apple, pumpkin cheesecake, peach cobbler, Sweet Potato Cherry pumpkin Bundt and just Pumpkin pie. Delicious but I was too full to really take it all in.


Apple with a decoration worm on top!


Can I have seconds?


The clean up crew. Too silly and he made a face in every picture so lucky Brent gets it posted on my blog!

The kids taking a break and playing so nicely together!


The Birthday Girl turns eleven!

Present time!!!


The best part was having my brother and his family come and stay with us Thurs. and Friday. Here are a few fun pictures of them and their children! I like the picture of Nat piling all the toys on grandma's chair. :)

4th Birthday!

Butterfly Cake!

The theme was Butterflies. There are 4 wings on the butterfly for turning 4. The antenna are also special because they make the letter V for her name.

Her friend from Primary and her two cousins were there to celebrate the big day. Plus all her siblings. The oldest ones helped play a game, Pin the antenna on the Butterfly. Then we colored butterfly pages and waited for the Birthday girl to recover from a melt down.


Opening presents was the highlight of course.





Everyone crowds around trying to see...

AND wanting to help open the presents.


Wow, all this candy is just for Me!



Hooray for Birthday parties.


Calling the UT Grandma!

We all talked to the CA grandma on the web cam. That was crazy fun.

The day after the Birthday we went Ice Skating!


That funny thing she is skating with is called a walker. She just holds on and it slides in front of her to keep her balance. Little steps and away she went!






You can take strollers on the ice too. He just sits and everyone takes turns pushing him around.

He had a great time until his hands got too cold.


Handsome boy! He is such a natural when it comes to skating. He can go forward, backwards, fast and slow, this way and that way swerving all over.


All the kids had a great time Skating! The best part was when the Birthday girl was so excited that it was snowing for her Birthday!

The Book Thief by

This was a very interesting book written in the voice of Death himself. It was about a girl growing up in Nazi Germany. She was adopted and had a very interesting set of foster parents. One swore and yelled at her all the time and the other played the accordion and helped her learn to read.

Most people think that all Germans were bad but many of them tried to hide the Jews and help others. This story is one of those that you rarely hear about. Life was hard for everyone during the war but most of all the Jews. Don't forget that. Still there are many different ways of telling the sad story of that era, a time when human beings should be ashamed for eternity at what happened in Europe.

The little girl is the Book Thief. She stole her first book from a grave digger.

My favorite character was her best friend Rudy. He was a true friend. He loved to run. He also was her accomplice. His death was one of the sadder ones in the book.

Healing Book

Carrots, Sunsets, Kittens and Snow!

What do you do with a whole box of carrots? Well, we ate like five a day each. Then washed the rest and blanched then froze them.

22 cups of carrots later we found the cowboy carrot. Bowlegged and crunchy!


California Grandma might be wondering what 3 little girls will do with so many glow sticks. They are perfect for kittens! They can't sneak up on you in the garage if their necks are glowing!


Tux


Slinky waiting for some little child to have pity and let her in the front door.

We made Thanksgiving Cookies with the girls group on Monday. Instead of frosting we used yolk paint. It was so much fun painting with paintbrushes and then cooking the cookies and seeing how they turned out.


We set out one evening so go shooting in the canyon before it got too dark. This is what the sky looked like as we were finishing up. The Sunset looked like fire!

And it ends with hot lava from a volcano.


SNOW!


Saturday is dropped all day and stuck. This little girl was the only one that wanted to play in it.

When her brother woke up he was amazed and awed at the snow! He likes to stomp in it.

The First Snowman.