Thanksgiving 2010

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Idaho and Wyoming to see both sides of the family. First stop was Rexburg, Idaho to see the Jones side. My mom and dad have little Maltese puppies that Katie fell in love with. As you can see....they are really cute.

I also got to meet my new little neice, Shelby. She is cute too! It was nice to see my sister and her family even though it was only for a day.

Then on to Wyoming. This is what Palisades looked like when we drove by the lake. It was really beautiful scenery. The roads were icy but it was still a nice drive to Afton, Wyoming to have dinner with the Grafel side of the family.

Katie actually likes the roadtrips because she gets to watch her movies on her portable DVD player the whole time.....Greatest thing we ever bought! :) My dogs snuggle up with her in the backseat!

I thought this turkey decoration was really cute....

It was cold outside but warm inside with all the cooking going on so the windows steamed up. I decided to decorate the sliding glass door and others pitched in as well...

Katie played with her cousins, Erik and Emma, non-stop from the minute we arrived until we left. The kids loved going out in the snow to play.

Snow angels......

The kids LOVED my dogs.....

The dogs were very interested in the cooking.....

This is what I get from my hubby now when I try to take self-portraits.....

But he does smile for other photos.....

We had 23 people for dinner at Jason's Grandpa Brown's house.

The kids (and Andrew) made gum-drop trees......

Pile-up on Jason....

Day after Thanksgiving we all went Christmas tree hunting. There was a TON of snow. It came up to my hips. Needless to say....it was a tough hike but worth it once we got to the top. My dogs came and had a tough time in the deep snow but loved it. Jason went first and made a trail for the rest of us. A couple of times I fell and couldn't get up without help. But....we got a really cute Christmas tree.....

Jason's dad trying to walk in the deep snow to help us cut down our tree.

Katie had fun in the snow. She was a trooper.

Jason with the tree we chose. We weren't as picky as last year because it was hard to get around in the snow.

After the tree hunt we took some pics....

Jason's parents....

When we got back to the house we roasted hotdogs on the firepit in the backyard.

A pretty shot of the sunset of the backporch of Grandpa Brown's house.....

Next on the schedule.....Gingerbread houses!!! This was some of the candy we had to work with to decorate the houses. It is hardcore with Jason's family. :)

Jason and Katie's finished product.....

Nicole's house.....

All of us with our houses.....

Tayloe, Erik and Emma with their house.....

The Grafels and our houses.....

We went back to Rexburg for a night. We took the kids sledding at Smith Park.

Heather and Katie just hanging out.

Cute pic of Katie in the new hat we got her.

We had a great time seeing both families!

We love you all!!!!

Here comes winter!

Well I guess we have been lucky up until now with our nice weather. But....winter is now here! We got this much snow yesterday and the temperature has dropped 30 degrees from last week and it is just going to get colder! UGH!

View from my front porch. I have to admit it is beautiful with the mountains around us covered in snow.

My backyard...

Halloween 2010

This Halloween weekend we had Katie for Friday and Saturday and then she went with her mom for Halloween day. We had a lot of fun.

On Saturday night we went to the Trunk-or-Treat for our church. We decorated my car (or I should say Jason decorated my car) for the Trunk-or-Treat. He even rigged it so that the sign lit up. The picture doesn't do it justice! You can't see all the decorations but you get the idea! We won an award for the awesome decorations. We were excited! We got coupons for free frostys at Wendy's. Yum!

There were A LOT of kids there and I ran out of candy (a big Costco size bag of candy). Katie got a lot of candy too.

Katie and I did the sack races. There were booths to go to in the gym of the church building. Katie won!

Jason had to try on Katie's mask! :)

The entrance to the gym.

Our pumpkins that we carved. Well...ok...Jason carved the cat (for Katie) and the grim reaper pumpkins and I carved the little old fashioned guy. We named him "Happy Hal"

My dogs are soooo weird. They loved to eat the pumpkin guts. They stood right next to Jason the whole time he was cleaning out the pumpkins hoping for a treat. YUM!

At the pumpkin patch there was a dog (owned by someone who works at the patch). The dog saw Jason and decided to bring him a stick. So Jason ended up playing fetch with the dog forever. It was pretty cute.

Katie playing in the hay bales at the pumpkin patch.

The pumpkin patch was out of pumpkins when we got there. Guess that is what happens when you wait until the day before Halloween to go to the patch. As we were walking around the farm I saw this little abandoned pumpkin and had to buy it. I was determined to come home with a pumpkin and it was cute.

Since the pumpkin patch we went to was out of pumpkins we went by Albertsons and bought some nice big pumpkins.

On Friday night we took Katie and my dogs trick or treating down Main Street in Bozeman. The businesses hand out candy every year. I even dressed the dogs up. Dakota was a hot dog and Theo was a squirrel. They looked cute and got a lot of attention from all the people.

On Main Street. Love my bats headband? That was my costume this year. :)

Katie was a "vampire, princess, kitty cat" for Halloween this year. That is how she described her costume.