Let it Snow!

In the first part of November we had a really good snowstorm! The little hill in the backyard is perfect for sledding down! ...And of course Ry thought it was super funny that he captured this picture for posterity! haha! What can I say though?! It was so slippery! I told Derek to hold my hand and so he wouldn't slip and then I totally slipped -and pulled him right down with me! It was pretty funny!
We had so much fun sledding and making snowballs and just playing! Cooper kept watching through the back door window and he had a look on his face like 'why am I not out there with you guys?'

I love this picture! Snow is so fun and magical!

Thanksgiving!

This year we had Thanksgiving dinner at our house- and it was so much fun! My mom had to work that morning, so we thought - what if we just have it at our house?! It was so nice of everybody to drive up! Here is Scooter Boy in his pilgrim hat that he got at his Thanksgiving Feast at preschool!
Derek and I had a lot of fun making these cute little turkeys!
Harley - being such a good doggy! I kept teasing my mom (before Thanksgiving) that since Harley is so big, we were going to have a Thanksgiving dinner like in the movies - where the giant doggy snaps the turkey right off the table and takes off! haha! ...this hypothetical scenario became less funny when we decided to have dinner at our house, haha! But Harley was great- just like always! He's such a sweet dog!
Watching some football with daddy!
Everyone always loves it when I say, "Can we take a picture of everybody?" They pretty much wrestled each other to get the best spot!...we sure missed having Lins, Gman and Mauri with us for Thanksgiving!
Playing with our sweet Merry Sunshine!
Derek, Erica, Myke & Harley
I love Thanksgiving! I try to remember often throughout the year the many things that I'm grateful for- but I think it's so awesome that we have a holiday specifically for remembering what we're thankful for!

Holiday Catch Up....

We LOVE Halloween! We start celebrating it in September by making Halloween goodies and crafts, and we go right up til Halloween Day! We had a lot of spooky fun this year! We carved pumpkins!
Hey- why don't I get to carve one?!


We bobbed for apples....baby style!


We made cookie spiders! These spiders mysteriously acquired more and more eyes as we went along!

We were so excited to dress up and go trick or treating!

We enjoyed some witches brew!
Derek got TONS of candy - including two full size snickers! What a great day!

Road Trip...Continued!

Continuing on with pictures from our fun, fun trip to California....We were able to spend a very fun day at Auntie Cook and Uncle Bobs house! We had such a good time! The day that we had to leave - Derek asked if we could go to Auntie Cook & Uncle Bob's house just one more time!

Enjoying an apple with dad!
Yummmm! That's good!
Snuggled up on the comfy couch!
The famous picture board! Barb had such a great idea to take a picture of this last summer when we were in California- so I decided to take a picture this time! I love to look at all of these pictures! It is so fun to see all of the family history in pictures!
Grandma and Grandpa - two of the cutest, sweetest people ever!! We sure love them!
Family pictures before we left!

We had such a great time - and we were really sad to leave! But soon we were back in the car. The Nevada scenery was interesting at some points....
...but it mostly looked like this:
I thought the California scenery was prettier & more interesting!

We stayed in a hotel again on our way home! Cooper had fun with the toilet paper, haha! We went swimming again and ordered room service! That was super fun! Derek asked if we could do it again the next morning!

We had such a great time in California! Looking through these pictures again made me feel so happy- we are so glad we were able to take such a great road trip to visit our amazing family!!

Road Trip! - part one

For fall break we took a road trip to Sacramento to visit Great Grandma & Grandpa Miyake & Auntie Cook & Uncle Bob! We seriously had a BLAST! The whole trip was amazing! It was so great to see family, and both of the kids did so great on the loooooooong drive! While we were there Derek kept asking how we could make the time go slower! We are so glad that we were able to go!
Before we left, Ryan made sure we had enough snacks for the long car ride!
Taking a lunch break in Elko, Nevada. We ate on the grass & brought our soccer ball & frisbees so we could all run around and play for a bit!
The first night we stayed in a hotel in Reno! It was a lot of fun to stay in a hotel - we went swimming and watched cartoons and just played - and it was also nice to break up the drive a little bit!
Cooper J. - happy to be able to move around!
Daddy and Scooter! ...yeah, they look pretty happy to be out of the car too!!
While we were in Reno we were able to go to Trader Joes - I've always wanted to go there! We bought some super yummy snacks there because, hey, we needed a few more snacks, haha! But seriously, it was fun to go there! I wish we had a Trader Joe's in Utah! Anywhoo... this picture is not of us at Trader Joes, but there is a Trader Joe's yogurt container on the table which made me think of it...
The next day we made it to Sacramento! And the following day we went to this cute amusement park! Derek loved riding all of the rides!
And Coop enjoyed watching! (I love how you can see his teeth in this picture!)
Cooper and Great Grandma!
Me and the boys!
Derek loved all of the rides - I think he could have just kept going on them all day!
And Cooper loved the carousel...until it started moving! Then he was trying to climb off that horse & he was hanging onto my shirt for dear life! haha!
Getting brave! Derek started waving his hands in the air!
We have so many fun pictures from our road trip - that I decided to post them in 2 parts! So.... part 2 is coming soon!!!