Smilies

Nothings beats a good game of hide-and-seek created by Aaron.
Aaron's not quite sure, but he thinks there were a total of 32 smilies that he left for us. .. maybe more, excluding the ensign smilies of course, but those were just for fun. It's been over a month and we've only found 16.
It's just a waiting game now.

Some Ensign fun.....

Aaron is quite disappointed in us for only discovering half of the smilies....

but in our defense he's good at his own creations!

November

I can't believe Thanksgiving is over. We were able to spend 4 days in Oregon with our families and had a fabulous time. We were sure sad to leave... thank goodness we'll be back in a month. We spent Thanksgiving with the Arnell family this year (missing only JR, Becky & Aaron), but we were able to spend everyday with both families. Jay and I can't believe how lucky we are to have both our families a just few blocks away from each other. Jay was able to frolf with his brothers (which is a MUST) and we also were able to take family pictures with the Rickers. It was a great weekend! We have so much fun when we're home, and look forward to the day we're home permanently.

Our camera was acting weird over the weekend, pretty much any picture with people moving didn't turn out. So we didn't get very many pictures of the Arnell side... so I expect all my siblings to post theirs :)

Okay, before the Thanksgiving weekend pictures, lets back up a bit... first we have some pictures of my class. You know, I have always known that Utah is crazy about Halloween, but being at an elementary school for such a day, was astonishing. I have never seen anything like it. The whole school was dressed up and they had this huge parade, walking around every hallway and into every classroom. The whole day was games, food and fun. My kids did zero work academically. Now I'm wondering where all this celebrating was when I was a kid. Anyway, I brought some donuts for my kids and hung them on a string and had them eat their donut with out their hands. It was pretty funny.

Here's a glimpse of the fun...





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Thanksgiving weekend....



First order of business.... dinner at Taco Bell


the beard-off.... I think Jay won.



My adorable niece & nephews
If you look at Sawyer on the bottom right, he is playing with my hair.. a little Jathan


Sawyer pickin' on Bentley


Hanging at the Rickers


John man cutting Jay's hair with the Flowbee
Aaron would certainly frown upon this...


Here we are at Lauren's birthday party... Happy birthday Lauren!


We were able to see Guy, Allison & little Brayden (Jay & Guy grew up together). We had Sawyer with us, so it was fun to see the boys play. Brayden is only a month older than Sawyer, so they got along great! It was good to see you guys!


All the nephews and the adorable niece

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Ricker family pictures



Top left: Sawyer, Josh, Jathan, Jeff, Jared, Jordan, John, Kathy, Jade, Weener & Chum
Bottom left: Leslie, Heather, Andie (Jeff's girlfriend), Ang, Shanna (Jordan's fiance), Dusty, Ashlie & Amber




The originals
















Thanks moms and dads for all that you do for us and making coming home THE BEST!