New Primary Song

Here is the new Primary song for 2010 that is not in the Children's Songbook. This is a great side show... take a peek!

Jonathan's 1st Piano Recital

Jonathan had his first piano recital after 2 1/2 years of lessons this past Friday night. He was fantastic! He played 3 pieces: the first was Wake Up Call, next was Keep the Commandments, and the final piece was Jingle Bells. He played perfectly and we were so proud of him and all of the effort he put in to practice for his performance.

Jonathan with his teacher Lorie Martin and Trevor Martin. Jonathan and Trevor take lessons together every week and have been friends since he was 2 years old. Thanks Lorie for having the recital and being such a great teacher!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We were SUPPOSED to go as a family to hunt for a Christmas tree this year, but Jillian came down with a fever and she and I stayed home while the boys all went on the annual hunt again. Earl is such a sport! I don't think they were expecting to see so much snow! Of course, we don't own snow clothes (why would we???) and the boys thankfully had their heavy coats. I think the boys had more fun playing with the Knudson family in the snow than looking for a tree (except Jimmy who was miserable the whole time!). But they didn't let their mommy down and found a beautiful tree to bring home.

They had to drag the tree back to our truck! Thank goodness the Knudson's truck is a 4 wheel drive. Can you tell how relieved Earl is that the adventure is almost over?!?

Earl stopped on the drive back for a Kodak moment. Handsome boys!

Yes, it is beautiful! Jillian kindly redecorates it every day for us too!

Thanksgiving Adventures!

We started our Thanksgiving day with a BANG! Our power was knocked out for blocks because someone hit a power pole with their car. Thankfully we woke up in time to head out at 6:45 for the RUN TO FEED THE HUNGRY. Earl has participated for several years now and Jonathan and I joined him this year. We ran the 5k together (well, I dragged Jonathan for about 2 miles of the run) and Earl ran the 10k... his personal best time for a 10k at less than 51 min. We had a great time running with the thousands that participated. When we got home, we found our power still hadn't come back on, but we continued to get ready to head down to Fresno to visit our families for the holiday. About 2 pm, we still had no power, and were getting ready to cancel our trip (we didn't want to leave a freezer full of food and no power!) and Jonathan came to me and said he prayed and asked Heavenly Father to make the power come back on because he really wanted to go see his grandparents and cousins. I told him that sometimes Heavenly Father has other plans for us (hoping he wouldn't get his hopes up) and just minutes later, the power came on! My lesson in faith came from my 10 year old, and I am truly thankful for him and his faith!

We had a great time visiting family, shopping and just hanging out! Thanks for Aimee the family for having us and to Grandpa Earl and Dad for making great turkey dinners while we were there!

Ghosts and Goblins

I'm a little slow with my posts lately, so I'll do a few to catch up... Halloween has come and gone, and we STILL have candy leftover from the many parties and doors we knocked.

Jillian caught on really quick how the whole thing works... go up to a stranger's house, get candy, eat candy. It was great... for her! Of course, for days after, she carried around her pumpkin and I finally had to take all of the candy away. She was the cutest princess you ever saw! Who wouldn't want to give this precious little girl some candy!

Jimmy decided to wear his Buzz costume again this year (YAH! One less costume to buy or put together!). He loved it for a while, but after a few blocks of knocking doors, had to practically be carried home. The costume was wearing him down!

Here is the whole crew together. Josh was a ninja again this year (Cha Ching! Saved on yet another costume!) and Jonathan wanted to be a Grim Reaper (his version... not sure how much of a costume it was, but it worked for him!). Sadly this was the best picture I could get of all of them, but after the annual picture it was all smiles while we ran from door to door with our neighborhood friends.