Thanksgiving Day

This year we went up to Brigham City to celebrate Thanksgiving with Dan's family. We are getting so big that they decided to reserve the church for dinner. Grandpa Nay made some really cool marshmallow shooters that the kids had a blast with. They were supposed to "shoot" paper turkeys on the wall with the marshmallows. It kept them entertained while we got dinner ready.

Aww, Uncle Dan and niece Callie got along great.

I was too busy eating and helping kids to take any pictures of the food. But it was all super delicious. Everything was so yummy and of course we all got stuffed. I did get a shot of Andrew eating his favorite dish - pumpkin pie!

Jorgen loved the chalk board.

The whole Nay family. 2 grandparents, 6 kids, 6 spouses, 10 (almost 11) grandkids!

Our little family. It was a great Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for, we are so blessed!

Reading Time

I caught all three kids sharing a book the other day. This is quite a rare thing - it usually ends up with Jorgen punching or pushing someone, or attempting to close or rip the book. This time actually turned out peaceful and quite cute.

Some have asked how I get my kids to be such good readers. I really haven't done anything besides provide books and read with them every day. I don't drill them on reading or make them think that it is work in any way. Reading is just something we do all the time in our house. We visit the library often, and we order books from the Scholastic book orders that come home from school. They just all love to read. Bethany and Andrew both started picking up on reading at around age 4 1/2 and they have just zoomed ahead since. Jorgen can't read yet, but he likes to sit in someone's lap and flip through the pages. He doesn't quite have patience for the whole story. He likes to look at the pictures - but even doing this has increased his vocabulary quite a bit in the last little while.

2nd Grade Feast

Last Tuesday all of the 2nd grade classes had a Thanksgiving feast. I went to "help" but there were so many moms there helping that I wasn't really needed. So I just took a few pictures. They sure were cute. There was a severe lack of pilgrims in Bethany's class (they could choose if they wanted to be a pilgrim or an Indian.)

I thought she made the cutest pilgrim.
The feast consisted of muffins, fruit, and juice or chocolate milk. Yum!

The boys got to tag along and have a little food too.

Kindergarten Program

Andrew's Kindergarten class (AM and PM together) gave a Family Program tonight. It was pretty fun. I apologize for the pictures, my camera does not take good pictures in this gym. They always turn out dark and grainy.
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Andrew is the shrimp in the back row. I thought he had been in a growth spurt recently, but he is still a head shorter than everyone else in his class. Poor kid. I feel your pain! The kids did a good job with some very cute songs.

Doing the "Freeze Dance"

Bethany and Jorgen joined in. Jorgen must have got scared in the crowd because he didn't last very long.

I remember Bethany doing this 2 years ago.

Andrew was one of two kids who has passed off all 63 little books in class. He was SO happy to get a medal. Remember Mr. Envious Eyes a few posts ago? All is well now. He gets to go to the library and check out a book everyday now, all by himself. He is feeling rather grown-up, for a 5-year-old anyway. It is quite an accomplishment for him to pass of the books so early - most kids take most of the year to do it. Bethany passed hers off way early too. I guess we just have good reading genes in the family.

Mrs. Adams, Andrew, and Bethany. I hope she is still at Bluff Ridge in 3 years for Jorgen!

My little goober

I thought I had put the brand new box of bandaids out of his reach, but no. I turn my back for a few minutes and Jorgen climbs up on the barstool, rips open the box and proceeds to open every single one. He had them on his feet, his fingers, his pjs, everywhere. He doesn't keep them on either, maybe for 5 seconds. We go through these like candy.
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This is off-topic, but a couple of cute things Jorgen has said recently, just so I don't forget.
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He has started trying to say a prayer, but it is pretty hilarious. He pretty much says "tankyou, Daddy, a-nee (Bethany), the end (instead of Amen)." Very cute and hard not to giggle when he tries. I wonder why he isn't thankful for Andrew or Mom? hmmm.
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He used to call Andrew "Nanoo" but now calls him "anROO!" Occaisionally he will get the d sound in there. Tonight in the car he said "AnROO! Quiet! Shh!" over and over. It was so funny.
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(Edited later):
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Oh one more: He has started counting. It started out with "one two one two one two" and now he has advanced to "two four two four two four."
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Here is one from Andrew: (I am trying to remember the story as Dan told it)
Dan was giving Andrew a bath and Andrew said, "Dad, I believe in Jesus Christ, do you?" After some discussion, Andrew said "I believe in Santa Claus too." I think there was more but I will have to have Dan add it later.

Thanksgiving music?

So I'm sure everyone has heard Christmas music on the radio recently. Andrew asked me one day why they don't play any Thanksgiving songs. Good question! So I put a playlist on here with a few of my favorite Thanksgiving-ish songs (yay, I finally figured out how to do it! I could never get it to work on our old computer). Anyway, what are some of YOUR favorite Thanksgiving songs?

If you are wondering why I put "Imagine" on the list, just listen to the words. Maybe if everyone in the world would worry less about their possessions and more about each other it would be a better world. Be grateful for the beautiful world the Lord created for us, and for our families, our many, many, MANY blessings, and share them with everyone. Just a thought.

Jorgen's 2nd Birthday

I feel a little bad for Jorgen. With Bethany's birthday party, and baptism, and piano recitals, and Halloween, his birthday kind of snuck up on me and I didn't really put as much effort into it as I did for the other events. Luckily he is only 2 and he loves me anyway, despite my failings as a mother.

We are so blessed to have Jorgen in our family. He is such a sweet boy with a fun personality. He is always on the go and is definitely my energetic child. He likes to have FUN! And he likes to EAT! He is very much like his daddy in a lot of ways. He also loves to be with his dad whenever possible. His favorite thing to do is help take out the trash (wouldn't it be nice if that lasted forever?!)

He loves to play with Andrew, but also can be a bully sometimes. Often the sibling squabbles are started by Jorgen - hitting, biting, stealing toys, etc. He can be quite a tease sometimes. He already has a sense of humor.

We took everyone's measurements a few days ago for my mom (who is making us something for Christmas) and Jorgen is about the same size as Andrew in every dimension except height. He seems like a big kid to me, but is average on the growth charts. Andrew has always been so light and thin that the comparison is quite amazing.

He likes to help me spray the stains on the laundry

Blowing out candles on his store-bought cake (lazy mom)

He was so funny opening presents. This was his face when he opened the pjs from Grandma.

Christmas is going to be a blast this year.

And he loves this train he got, it's a ride on with blocks. For some reason I don't have a picture of the actual toy, just the opening of it.

Reflections

Bethany and Andrew with their art entries and Bethany's trophy for her musical composition. Can you see Andrew's envious eyes? He was SO sad that he didn't get a trophy too. Tears were shed and a meltdown almost happened there in front of everyone. Until he got a cookie, then he was okay.

Both Bethany and Andrew entered the Reflections contest this year. They both entered a musical composition and a drawing. There are always hundreds of art entries, so winning in art is pretty tough. But there aren't many musical composition entries - and Bethany was one of the winners again this year. She wrote a piece called "Sunsets and Rainbows." (Her picture is also named the same title). The song consisted mainly of C chords and scales, but it was definitely her own work with no help from me. I thought it was quite amusing that every single winner in the music category wrote their piece in C major. Hmm, shall we branch out to a new key next year?

Andrew's song was called "Little Star I Love You," and his picture is also titled that as well. He is holding it upside down in the picture above. He will play this song all the time at home, so I told him he should record it and enter it. The only thing is that the song is different every time he plays it. But it always has the same title.

Next year Bethany will be in a different age category, so Andrew won't have to compete against her.

Bethany's Baptism (and Halloween too)

Bethany was so excited for her baptism. She thought it was especially neat to be baptized on Halloween. The stake does the baptisms on the Saturday before Fast Sunday, so that is how it happened to fall on Halloween. She has been looking forward to this for so long. Many of her friends in her primary class have already been baptized, she is one of the younger ones in the class.
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I am not one to get professional photos of my kids very often. I think they are too expensive! But I thought this was a special occaision, so we got some at Target. Here are just a few of the low-resolution copies they sent me via e-mail:

This is at home before we left for the church. Aren't they cute kids?

At the church.

Dan and Bethany

It is such a neat experience to see your own child be baptized. The spirit was so strong. I know Bethany made the right choice to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Bethany and Andrew both have been asking lots of questions about baptism, repentance, the Holy Ghost, etc. We have had some rather good discussions lately, I have been so impressed with their sweet little testimonies. Sometimes they have very good insights on gospel topics! They teach me so many times. I hope that Bethany will always remember her baptism. It was a great day!

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Bethany made the comment as we drove home: "It doesn't even feel like Halloween!" I agreed with her. It felt like a Sunday, we were all dressed up. It was nice to have so many family and friends come and support Bethany. We had lunch at our home afterwards, and I was so busy I didn't even remember to take pictures! After everyone left, we had a few hours for cleaning up, naps, and getting ready for trunk-or-treat.

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Here are a few pictures from trunk-or-treat:

In case you can't tell, Dan is an Indian (he made this costume back in high school with his Dad, from real deer skin), Bethany is "Bethany the Ballet Fairy" (a character in a book she found at the book fair), Andrew is Iron Man, and Jorgen is a skeleton - you might recognize his costume because Andrew wore it for Storybook Character day a few weeks ago. Might as well re-use it!

Trunk-or-treat is fun, but it isn't the same as good old-fashioned trick-or-treating. So after it got dark I took the kids out on our street to do some trick-or-treating. It was fun but there were hardly any kids out, just the annoying teenagers.

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It was quite the day, full but in a good way!