Thanksgiving and Josan's birthday....2 !:)

November's always very fun around here: through the years I've come to really look forward to Thanksgiving (something I wasnt really used to) and having Josan's birthday right around one of the biggest holidays of the year makes it even more exciting . Or stressing. You can call it whatever you want. But for  the purpose of the cause I'll call this exciting! haha.

So not only this year Josan's birthday was ON Thanksgiving, we decided (bless our hearts, no idea what went through our heads!) to have 2 Thanksgivings, and 2 birthday celebrations too! So we had a birthday party with our awesome friends here in Colorado and then had the whole bunch over for a Thanksgiving dinner at our house a few days later. Then we traveled 12 hours to get to Adam's parents house and had Thanksgiving there and a little something to celebrate Josan's birthday too! Dont get me wrong here; I complain a lot about how exhausting and stressing all this was, but I enjoyed myself probably more than anybody else! Anyways, enjoy the pics!

Birthday dinner with friends at IT'Z

The results:

So we had not felt all that at home here in the Springs since we had gotten here last April. It just didnt feel like home all that much. When we bought our house things got a little better. If you know me the sightliest you know that I dont like to live in someone else's house or decor. I like things to be my own. I've always been like that. So being in a rented townhouse with no privacy was pretty far from what I would call perfect. It served us well while we needed it but we definitely were ready for something else. So we got the house, made it our own (almost all of it, we're still getting there) and then...met our new ward! We LOVE it! We made friends very quick and have a little group that we self-nicknamed the newbies  and there is not a lot of days that we spend without seeing at least one of them. There's the 4 families. Total of 7 kids (all boys but one baby girl) that all -well most of the time- get along, all 4 moms get along (I personally just love these girls. But that's just me:)) and 4 dads that like to hang out too! What are the odds? I dont think that I've ever made this many great friends this fast! Talk about feeling like home now!

The boys' table at Thanksgiving

The friends!

(left to right: Me, Adam, Travis, Jessica, Cambria, Broc and Laura. Steve was taking the picture. Thanks Steve!)

So glad Josan has good friends to play with!

This is Josan at the Hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado. We had to stop, we were too tired.

Fires are a must at Grandpa's

But that doesn't mean that Grandma approves

So much fun; never enough time

Growing up...

We dont get together all that often. So this was a must as well...

Josan and Jackson hung out together most of the time. Loved it

Josan and his cousin-crush 

Pinterest is awesome. Gave us that vegetables tray turkey...twice!

I LOVE doing hair. I dont usually have time to do my own so it always looks like I'm having a bad hair day! haha! But i loved that I had a little bit of time to do the girls'

This is at the Valley of Fire in Nevada. It was my first time there. i loved it. As you can see i went a little overboard taking pictures while we were there:)

I love this one. Bruce just sat back there and watch some of his kids and grand kids climb back down. He looked like he was happy with life.

Then they came to sit with him ( I had to force a couple of them. But still. Great thought)

I say this every time I see them...but good gravy I've got some gorgeous nieces!

Jay and Lisa's family 

The girls

Mike and Tammy's family

 Our family

Jim and Amy's kids 

Sorry it took forever to update November. Hopefully this explains why a little. We had LOTS of fun. We might have our ups and downs but all and all we've got a pretty darn good life. LOVE IT!

Halloween!

Halloween was gonna be pretty laid back for us this year. We wanted to go Trunk-or-Treat in our new ward and then just get back home to take a look at the goodies. But a bunch of super fun last minute plans came up. And we ended up having one of our best Halloweens yet!

This is Josan at school with his teachers Miss Terri and his friends

We started the candy hunt mid-afternoon by going to Adam's work. They had the whole office decorated and most of the employees were dressed up too. Within an hour, we had 2 brown lunch bags worth of sugar!

If you have a hard time knowing what I was dressed up as, there you go!

 

 We had a blast at work with the Clarks!

(Laura got just a little bit too excited!:))

We got to meet Napoleon Dynamite! :)

Josan and Jack

 

The 2 "brothers" and 2 bags full of candies!!

After XIO we hurried up to church so we wouldnt miss the tri ward Trunk-or-treat that they had there. This time, we filled up Josan's entire pumkin. Again, within an hour!

Gotto be picky to get the best ones!

 

 

THEN we went back home! We had some of our new friends in the ward come with us Trick-or-treat for a minute around our house just for the tradition part of things. But we already had sooooo many candies that we just wanted to go home and eat...real food! :) So we all ended up at our house. All the 10 adults and 11 kids of us! It was AWESOME! You would think, if you know me a little, that that many -NEW- people at my house would freak me out right? Nope! We had a blast! All the kids were so so good, and we all had a super fun night! (Well hopefully there was no humoring there;))

 

We turned on Madagascar 3 just to have some background sound.

I guess the kids thought it was a pretty good idea:)

Cambria and Laura brought the pizzas, we made some stew, Lisa brought some amazing homemade bread, guacamole and salsa and Jessica made us yummy cookies! (still dreaming about it!)

We are really excited about this. I ve been working in primary (loved it btw!) pretty much since we got married. So it's been hard to make friends with anybody but the primary kids! So this was awesome beyond words! :)
Meet our new friends (from left to right): Cambria, Brock, Jessica, Travis, Laura and Steve, Mario and Lisa.

A little bit more posing ( maybe except Mario, he did better in the first one! haha)

 

We laughed our heads out playing Catch Phrase.  I had a BLAST!!!

Even our dogs celebrated a little. Yes, we did notice how the ribs make Peewee look even skinnier and the pumpkin makes Foxsea look.....sausagier;)