A Thanksgiving Feast...

To celebrate Thanksgiving this year, we decided to join forces with 4 other American families from our church, and together we cooked enough food to feed our missionaries as well! We ended up with close to 40 people in our house for a feast like you would not believe! It was so much fun, but I ate so much that I could barely walk for the rest of the night. My family knows that pumpkin pie is my favorite food...I could eat pumpkin pie all day. Between 5 families, we baked 14 pies! We all ate until we were sick, and then sent the missionaries home with the rest. Here are a few photos from our feast. Enjoy!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The kids each came up with their own design for their pumpin and Wade helped them with the carving part. He is now suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. ;)

Marin is into Cinderella at the moment, so she chose to make her pumpkin into a coach!

Here is Lorin's pre-school class. There are only 2 Americans in her class, and Halloween is still a relatively new concept here in Europe, but these kids really got into the spirit of it!

Here's Lorin trying to do the "hula."
Marin struts her stuff at the school costume parade as Cinderella this year!Ethan had his own creative costume idea this year. Bonus points for you if you can figure out who he is (if you're thinking Peter Pan, you are wrong!)

The kids and I organized trick-or-treating for our compound this year. I'd say it was hugely successful! Just check out the "loot" Ethan and his good friend, Matei, brought home!Jonah picks out a few favorites first...he especially likes the American types.

I don't think there is any way she will eat all of that! Maybe I will have to help her out. ;)
Spooky.Lorin LOVES trick-or-treating...she was literally RUNNING from house to house, just giddy with excitement! As soon as we got home, she immediately ate about 12 pieces of chocolate, then curled up in a ball on the floor and fell asleep.

Wade doesn't know I'm posting this one on the blog. Shhh! Don't tell. Here he is giving us his best "Tiny Tim" impersonation. Nice.

And one more pumpkin picture...just because.

Ethan turns 9!!!

I know I'm a little behind...as usual, it's now 2 weeks past a birthday and I'm finally getting around to blogging about it! Better late than never, right? I learned that one from my mom (who some of you refer to lovingly as "Never Ever Ready Betty," but you didn't hear that from me!)

So, to celebrate Ethan's 9th birthday, we had a little family party, complete with a homemade chocolate cake and a new skateboard from Dad! It was such a beautiful fall day (a real rarity here), so we ALL went outside to try out the new skateboard (yes, even mom...and I didn't fall off despite Wade's prediction ;).

Ethan had a Wall-E sleep-over party with a few friends a week later, but I haven't downloaded those pictures yet. Baby steps.

Hmmm.What to wish for....?

Jonah is more than happy to demonstrate a few moves to his little brother.

Time to monkey around!

Lorin is our resident Monkey Bar Specialist. She pretty much does this all day.
You should see the callouses she's built up!

Happy Birthday, Lorin!

Our baby girl turned 4!!! Can you believe it? It's amazing how fast they grow. I just wish they would stay little for a while longer. Don't get me wrong, I could do without the temper tantrums and sleepless nights, but she is my baby and she doesn't want me to call her my baby anymore. My heart is breaking.

Her birthday was September 11th! We celebrated as a family on the night of her birthday and let her decorate her own cake! (Truthfully, I couldn't find my decorating bags, and she was very keen on helping out...so it became her own birthday project. Didn't she do a lovely job?) Then a few days later, we invited a few kids from her preschool over for a birthday "playdate" (that's what you call it when you don't invite the entire class, so no ones feelings get hurt.) She was so thrilled to have so many friends over to play! It was great fun! Happy 4th Birthday, baby girl!

The cake is a "Lorin" original. One-of-a kind design. Notice the intricate patterns. Priceless.

The kids are playing "pass the parcel," which is sort of like musical chairs. We play music and when it stops, the person holding the package gets to remove one layer of wrapping paper (I wrapped it seven times). At the end, they find a treasure inside for everyone...this time it was bubbles!

Our favorite place on earth...

Lake Powell, USA. I realize it's been more than a month since our last trip there, but I was just sorting through some of the trip photos and smiling to myself. We miss it already! I'm posting a few more of my favorite pictures from the trip. Warning: many of the photos you are about to see feature scenes of pure happiness and blissful joy. If you have not already been to Lake Powell, you might want to go there after seeing these photos. Enjoy!




In this next one, Jonah is jumping into a huge pile of giant carp! Yuck!!! You can see the crowd that has gathered to watch. He was actually chastised afterwards by a Ranger for "fish harrassment." Oops.