Turkey Trouble

Part of Sadi's homework this month was a family project.  We had to disguise a turkey so that he wouldn't get eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.  We made our turkey into a pizza delivery man...who wouldn't choose some Gobblers pizza over turkey?  He is sure to escape being eaten this year!

Thursday the school hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for lunch at school, where parents were encouraged to come and eat with their kids.  I got to have an extended lunch hour since my kids have different lunch periods.  It was nice to get a chance to enjoy lunch with each of them.

Although Chase opted to not buy his lunch, he really wanted to eat MY pumpkin pie.  I told him he had to let me do the "airplane" if he really wanted some. Turkey for lunch with my two little turkey's...doesn't get much better than this :)

Leadership Field Trip

The day we returned to school after our Utah trip Chase had a leadership field trip.  I was asked to go along as a parent volunteer.

The purpose of the field trip was to take a tour and learn about how one school in our district has adopted a great way to reduce, reuse, and recycle their cafeteria food.  The kids were teamed up with a student who is a member of their "green team" who took them on a tour of the school to learn all about how this process works.  Chase was teamed up with a 6th grade boy named Conner.  He was really fun, and really knew his stuff.

They have a pretty great system that the school uses to recycle food.  They have pig buckets that they collect daily for a local farmer, and use another for organic foods that they use to make compost.  They then use the compost in their school garden.  We got a tour of the garden, and even got to taste some celery they were growing, it was delicious!

They clean and collect all the milk cartons to use for other things.  All these garbage bags are full of cartons they will recycle.  They said they went from throwing away over 200 lbs. of trash a day to just over 30 lbs.  That is a whole lot of trash.

During lunch the kids got a hands on of how the system works.  The thing that surprised me the most is how all the kids in the school are so use to this and know what to do.  They do have to occasionally do a dumpster dive, but this green team is not afraid to get their hands dirty.

This was a great way to learn about recycling, and how we can learn to reduce the amount of waste we put into the environment.  And making new friends in the process, major bonus!

Party all Night

Although we arrived home from the wedding late we weren't ready to stop partying, so we continued the party at Aunt Susie's house.  We popped popcorn,

and had a pajama party!  Aunt Suzy bought us all matching pj's.

Chase and Knox (Jake's baby) had matching camo pj's.

We all enjoyed holding and loving on Knox.  I only wish he wouldn't grow any bigger before we see him again.

And his big sister Aceleigh is so adorable and entertaining.  Even Sadi who HATES babies fell in love with this little sweetheart, who by the way will put anyone to shame on the dance floor.

Our trip was short, but so much fun. 

Mr. & Mrs.

Friday November 13, 2015 my niece Amanda went from Miss to Mrs.  She was married in the Oquirrh  mountain temple to Cody Gally.  Although we weren't able to go into the temple, it was apparent these two were ecstatic about tying the knot.

Later that night we were headed to a reception to congratulate them.

It was a beautiful reception held in the Western Gardens reception center in Sandy, UT.  We enjoyed buffet style food with family.  The lighting inside was terrible for pictures(as you will tell from all my pictures).

We all tried to spend as much time as possible with cousins.  Ashly and Sadi were the first to "ditch" the parents to do their own thing.

Kelsey and Briana exchanged numbers to be able to keep in touch.

Here is the Smith siblings minus 2.  We missed having Mark and Tanya's families there to celebrate. 

Their cake was beautiful, and delicious...or so I heard from my kids who said they had the best piece.

We stayed for the entire night, and enjoyed watching them cut the cake...and shove it in each others face. 

It was entertaining to watch the bouquet being thrown.  Some of these girls REALLY wanted to be the one to catch that bouquet!

Although none of our girls caught the bouquet Sadi did get to smell what victory smells like.

Chase wasn't really sure what was going on here...a little hunting for that garter :)

Then it was time for the first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Gally.  It was a bit magical to watch these two lovebirds.

Then it was the Father/Daughter dance.  I have to admit this made me a bit teary eyed to watch them dancing to "I loved her first".

Then it was time to tear up the dance floor, and I have to admit my kids dance moves surprised me (in a good way). 

Since Matt wasn't there, I had to find myself a new dance partner.  I found little Knox to be the perfect dancer...isn't he the cutest?

After every one's feet were sore from dancing we headed outside to light up some sparklers to pave the way for the newlyweds.

They left in style....

Hopefully to a happily ever after.

Grandma and Grandpa Smith's

Last week the kids and I took a quick trip to Utah to attend my niece Amanda's wedding.  We got to spend a few days at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house.  Every morning at Grandma's house we were spoiled with her homemade waffles.

 Then we got down to...homework!

My kids got so much homework to do over the 2 days they missed I was almost wondering if it was worth taking them out of school....ALMOST.

There was so much homework that even Kelsey helped out with a family project Sadi had to complete.

After all that work, Grandma and Grandpa took us out to an early dinner at one of their favorite places to eat, Golden Corral.  It is an all you can eat buffet, and we all ate till we were stuffed.

Chase and Sadi made sure to check out every single animal that live at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Each animal got a good checkup and a good dose of shots from these two vets.

We also dusted off the old record player and all the kids enjoyed listening to the story books. 

 A few days is just not enough time to spend at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we miss you already!

Bring it On

The morning after Halloween was Sadi's big cheer competition in Reno.  Months of preparation, and what felt like endless hours of practices led up to this day.  We arrived in Reno to unexpected cold, windy weather.

They weren't letting the girls in right away so they huddled together trying to stay warm.  Luckily Matt brought a nice warm jacket :)

Once they were finally let in, there was more waiting for their turn to perform. 

The competition was held at the Lawlor event center at U.N.R., so Kelsey was able to walk over and join us.  Together we had our own little cheering section.

They don't allow filming inside, so I will just tell you our little devils team did a great job and placed in the the top 5.

All that hard work deserved a reward, so we headed across campus to U-swirl for a little frozen yogurt celebration.  It was the perfect end to another season.

We are so proud of our high flying little cheerleader!

Trick or Treat!

Although we had nothing planed for Halloween day it was just too nice outside to stay home.  We decided that since the weather was so nice a good walk around the cemetery might be a good way to start off the holiday festivities.  These two weren't so convinced.

We went up to Virginia City which just might have one of the oldest and creepiest cemetery's I have ever been to.  We tried to make it fun by trying to find the oldest and/or creepiest grave.

The kids weren't really into it, so it just became a nice stroll through the graveyard.

I'm pretty sure we ran into some real witch's there..waving incense, and walking backwards.  Kinda spooky.  Matt decided just to be safe after leaving the cemetery we would visit the old catholic church down the street.  You know just in case anything followed us.

If the cemetery did not scare you, this old catholic church built in 1868 might do the trick.  Matt was in and out in less than 5 minutes.

To lighten the mood we decided to walk around the shops a bit and enjoy the fall weather.  Wouldn't you know we ran into this ventriloquist dummy who looked just like the one who came to life in the scary Goosebumps movie Chase had just seen.  Chase was scared just to turn his back on "Slappy".

Before heading home we made one last stop into Grandma's fudge to pick up a few caramel apples to enjoy.  They were delicious!

After dinner Chase's friend came over to go trick or treating with us.  These were 3 excited kids ready to get some candy!

First stop of the night...

Our police department was out and about handing out candy to the kids in the neighborhood.  I thought it was pretty funny they had the sheriff in the back handing out the candy while his deputy was dressed as a bad guy driving him around.  I imagine this only happens in small towns.

We spent about an hour walking around before heading back home to do the "dump". 

There were some serious sorting and trade negotiations happening let me tell ya.  This little nerd was excited to find some candy she was sure was meant just for her.  It was one SWEET night!