I can't believe that our moms do this every year! It was so much work, but truly a labor of love. Thanks to everyone who helped and cooked...and heaved various items from my garage to my basement...you know who you are. Buzz and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

I am a truly blessed woman. I'm thankful for my family, home and country. I'm thankful to have my brother home from his mission (I have great pictures of my mom bawling...priceless.) I'm grateful that my family is healthy and happy. I'm thankful for friends who put up with my idiosyncrasies and unrefined humor. And immaturity...let's not forget immaturity. I am surrounded by so many talented, kind, loving people in my life and my heart bursts with gratitude for them all.

Happy Thanksgiving.

This is feel good

A little bit of Halloween

I know Halloween is ancient history, but I figure any time before Thanksgiving is fair game for me. And any time after Thanksgiving qualifies as a flashback, so I should be good either way.

This was Alex's spiderweb.

This is Lily's baby.

3 generations.

Tess

We made cupcakes.

We ate roasted pumpkin seeds (thanks Amy)

We forced our little sisters to smile.

We dressed up in costume.

We found black food coloring at harmons on a really high shelf, away from all the other food coloring, and found out why.

We jumped on the trampoline

We hung out

We left our mark

Aaaaand we also tied outselves up with zip ties. Not smart. The scissors were hastily located. Forgot to take pictures of the awesome whiches brew a la Snyder family...big oversight. Thanks Snyders!

Maybe I'll post trick of treating soon. Sometime after Christmas but before New Years.

Role Play

Lily: "Calvin is the Dad"

Me: "Is Calvin the dad and you're the mom?"

Lily: "No, Calvin's the dad and I'm the Honey."

This is why I usually put the other one to bed

My 6 year old WILL NOT go to sleep. Like, it's a chronic problem. I googled possible solutions, but it seems like everyone is drugging their kids these days and I'm not interested. Does anyone have any advice? It takes him 2 hours + to go to sleep, and then sometime in the middle of the night he runs into our room to sleep. He says he's scared. I think he's turning into a chronic worrier. Which is somewhat worrisome.

Anyway, if anyone has some non-drug advice...I'm listening.

mere minutes before we were supposed to walk out the door.

today

He made his bed without being asked.

He counted to 343 on our drive to school.

He actually did his homework...after some coaxing.

He told me getting married was gross because the boys would get lipstick smeared on their lips from kissing the girls.

But he kissed his mother on the cheek.

He "invented" a song on the piano.

He couldn't sleep because of tomorrow.

Because tomorrow he turns six.

An evening of golf with William

Bill, these are for you.

Bill was kind enough to take Alex out golfing and gave him a little lesson. Just so you don't think Bill and I were on a date, Jake was there too, he just made me promise that I'd never put his face on my blog. Whatever.

For getting a hole in one (or 20)

I know there are a lot-ish pictures. Sorry.

If you can't beat 'em, turn it into a horsey.

Lily got a little lesson too.

Back of Jake. Don't tell. He doesn't read this thing anyway.

I still can't believe I get to live here. I love these views!