Happy Turkey Day!!
Happy Thanksgiving! I can hardly believe Thanksgiving is here & the Christmas season begins tomorrow! 2008 must have been one of the fastest years ever. This year we stayed home by ourselves...We would have rather been with family, but it just didn't work out this year. So we had a relaxing day at home, with some rain in the morning, parade watching, and reading (ok, Mommy did the reading!). It was a blessed day with our little family. We are so thankful for our family & friends, our jobs, and all that God has provided for us. Jackson told us he was thankful for: "that God gave me down to you, for Jesus, and for Sprite & Milk" :)
The two cutest little boys I know :)

Daddy multi-tasking by fixing the computer & talking to Nana & Poppy! I couldn't get the boys talking to them...they were running around like crazy :)

Here I am getting the ham ready to put in the oven....

....and the boys yelling "YUCKY!!!!!!"

Mama & her handsome sons!

Mama & Abbey.....

The boys love the new big space...they run around & roll all over the place!

At dinner, Colby unfolded his turkey napkin & put a piece of ham in each of the circles on the napkin. I love it :) Good spatial reasoning!

And the room is finally done--woo hoo! We had it finished up this last weekend by hiring a contractor to texture & paint it, and then the carpet guys came yesterday & finished it up! We have enjoyed our day in our new & much needed room! Here is the view as you are walking into the room. We had a strip of wood put down & then the carpet....

Here is the view of the room from the door....You can see we don't have a place for everything yet....but we're getting there!

The view of the room from the washer & dryer. It is truly a big space, being 500 square feet. Definitely the biggest room in the house :)

Goodbye Grandma
This last weekend we had my Grandma's funeral in Bakersfield. It was a tough four days, but also full of blessings. I got the chance to hang out with my brother and Karen for a couple of days which was really nice. The boys & Kaleb came up Friday night. Saturday was really tough, but we had a really nice time afterwards at Dick & Barbara's house. It was so great to see the 5 great grandchildren play together. It was a testament to my Grandma & Grandpa.....that their 2 children, 5 grandchildren, and 5 great grandchildren were all together & celebrating Grandma's life.

The words are hard to come that describe just how amazing she was. She was a member of the "Greatest Generation" and was a working mother in a time when women didn't work. She came home from work each day & cooked and cleaned for her husband & two boys (my Dad & uncle Dick). She was so calm mannered & built up her husband & her boys. She was incredibly good with her money & saved up to buy something instead of putting it on credit. Thinking about her makes me think about the kind of wife, mother, and person I want to be.

The world has definitely lost an amazing woman! I find some peace in knowing that she is with our savior in Heaven, and that she is with her beloved husband, George. She passed away 2 days before what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary. I saw on her computer at her house, she had made a list of all the September birthdays she wanted to remember ( she went into the hospital shortly after). She had my grandpa on there with his birthdate & that he would have been 88....She had a heart around his name. That broke my heart, to know how much she still missed him. What a blessing for her to be reunited with him.

My cousin David's girls and my boys....they had a great day playing outside!!

Pastor Scott, Charley, Kenzie, Zee, and Dad...

My Dad & Zee....

My dad & I....

Dad & Charley...

Grandma's 5 great grandchildren...Garrett (10), Kami (8), Kellie (6), Jackson (4), and Colby (2)...

LOVE this one.....

The five cousins (our dad's are brothers & the sons of Grandma Audrey)....

Amy (22), Charley (28), Kenzie (31), David (31), and Karen (38)....

Now onto the silly picture.....

The five cousins & their spouses..Charley & Karen, Kenzie & Kaleb, Dave & Valerie, Karen (Bob not shown), and Amy & Christian.

Playing in the leaves was a big hit with the kids! They raked them all up & then jumped in them over & over again....It was great to see :)

Kameron ...(David's daughter)

Kellie (David's younger daughter)

The Clark-Thompsons...

Charley & Karen....

Charley jumping up to get a ball that was stuck in the tree!

Grandma
My last living grandparent, Audrey Clark, passed away yesterday morning. It is a sad time for our family, as she was such an important part of our family. She will be really missed. The funeral will be this Saturday, and I am hoping for a "grandma's kind of day" which is blue skies with some white clouds.....
(Thanks for the flowers my friend :) )

Wookit Me Mommy!!!
Colby's talking in sentences for the most part now..He amazes us all the time with what he knows & can say! It is interesting to watch the 2nd kid at 2 years old, as they watch their older brother & learn so much! His big thing now is "Wookit me Mommy!" I remember Jackson saying this when he was younger....I just love it :) As I've said before, 2 is probably my favorite age!!!

Here he is putting in his contacts with Daddy :) He watches Kaleb & then pretends to put his in :) I love his imagination!!!

And here he is putting in his "contacts" :)

Preschool Picture
Jackson's preschool pictures are in!!! How sweet is that face?!?!?! Love this boy....

Getting Closer!!
This weekend Kaleb & I "taped & mudded" the walls. Basically, you have to put "mud" over all the nails in the sheetrock. And then on every "seem" on the sheetrock, you have to put down mud, put the tape on (which is not sticky at all by the way--is that not the definition of TAPE??!!), and then you mud over that again. We also finally moved everything that was going into our storage shed. It was a very long & trying day! The ceiling is about 1/3 done. We ordered our carpet which will be installed next week! Just in time for Thanksgiving :)
This was the first wall we started with....it was a painful learning curve the first 1/2 of the day. You can see where we have part of the ceiling done too.....

We asked Jack to take a picture of us to commemerate the day :) The camera was really heavy for him and it didn't look like he was pointing it at us, so we scrunched down like this! You can see how messy we were!!!!

At the end of a very long day, cleaning up....

The boys watching Kung Fu Panda :) They were so cute wrapped up in their blankets & pillows :)

Southern California Wildfires
The fires that started this weekend started in Corona...We were driving home from looking at carpet for the garage & I saw smoke to the west. I didn't know it would become such a monstrous fire that would span Corona, to Yorba Linda, to Brea, to La Habra...So incredible to me that it made it so far. Lucky for us, the fire started about 10 miles west of us, and moved west throughout the day. These pictures are taken from our back yard, and they really don't do the fires justice....Thanks to all who checked in on us to see if we were ok.
This was at dusk...We tried to get some pictures when it was dark, but our camera wouldn't take the pictures without the flash. It was incredible to see the red fire up against the black sky.

This was Sunday morning...The winds had definitely moved the fire north west from us...

Family Pictures
Today we had family pictures scheduled at a park in Irvine. But because of the fires being so close, we cancelled the original plan. Charley & Karen were going to come down, but the freeways aren't all open, so we couldn't do that either. We decided to just have Jenny & Mark come over & take some fun pictures of the family in Christmas shirts at our house! It was very laid back & fun :) Mark takes great pictures & Jenny is so good at getting the boys to do what she wants them to do :) Thank you Mark & Jenny!!!! Here are a few of my favorites.

All my boys....one of the great parts of being the only girl in the house :)