Fall and the Holidays!

We had a great fall and Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas. Here's my recap for posterity, which has been so fun to have. My kids read the old blog books all the time and enjoy reminiscing on their past adventures.

Family photos from the wedding in September:

Caroline got her ears pierced! She had been looking so forward to this day.

Russell gave a talk at our church stake conference in front of hundreds of people. He did a great job. My in-laws came and they snuck this photo.

Checking out the lunar eclipse!

Lots of fun Halloween festivities, including the annual family party.

School pumpkin project is always so fun too.

Pumpkin Patch fun with friends:

Guardians of the Galaxy was a fun theme this year!

School Halloween book parade:

Halloween dinner for my kids who are always begging for festive food.

A dentist's nightmare.

In November I enjoyed a fun weekend getaway with my college friends to Sedona. Always so much fun to see them.

Fun sibling time. Squeezing in a tea party before school.

Ana thinks she is big sitting up on a stool.

...and trying to ride a motorcycle.

The boys love dressing her in Thomas' clothes whener they can.

Playdates with friends, catching lizards!

More baby chicks!

Ricardo being a good sport and taking all the kids out to eat for their school Culver's night while I was working.

Family photos, always hours of work for a few minutes of taking pictures! :) This year Russell had a small black eye from a waterslide incident at a birthday party, and Ana was getting over RSV and super clingy. But our photographer is the best and pulled it off!

My outtakes (Thomas mad at Caroline for standing on "his" statue." These two have such a love/hate relationship, hoping it leans more towards love in the coming years!

We drove up to South Carolina for Thanksgiving to camp with my sister's family. It was a lot of fun and just barely warm enough for us Floridians to handle. We did break up the drive and stayed with friends in Savannah on the way there, and with friends from Jacksonville on the way back, which was so fun and helped a lot! We camped for 2 nights which is a good amount with a 1 year old! Our other kids wanted to stay "forever!"

Someone had a little too much fun chopping wood!

So much fun with cousins!

Besties.

Our state park had a lake and the kids had a blast canoeing and paddle-boating around.

Ana had a good time too!

Fun to get a little taste of fall!

Until next time...

We had fun seeing lots of our old Jacksonville friends at church on our way home after camping. Caroline had the same teacher Russell had when he was 4 many moons ago.

A few other random snapshots of life:

Picked our first pineapple from our yard!

Yes, his dad talked him into hand feeding a squirrel at the park (!!!!!)

Just playing some back porch tennis.

Playing dentist at dad's office:

Ana loves walks in her pink car.

Exercising with Dad. She went and got her own weights from the closet all on her own. So cute.

Helping Ricardo install our new garage cabinets.

December is always such a fun month and we packed a lot in this year.

I surprised the kids with lego advent calendars this year on December 1. They had never heard of them before and were SO excited.

Getting the Christmas tree!

Happy Caroline going holiday shopping at Target. She's always so excited to go inside a store since we are often doing curbside pickup!

First Nutcracker!!

So many Christmas cookies. This was at our church Christmas concert which we spent many months practicing for!

Work Christmas party. Ana was sick so she and I missed this one.

Also crashed the Brazilian ward Christmas party with their cousins.

Working on a gingerbread house for our friend's fun Christmas move night/gingerbread house competition.

Gingerbread part 2 at another friend's house.

Always fun collecting the Christmas cards and spotting all their friends.

Had a Christmas brunch at my house and my talented friend made this amazing and delicious cake!

Our church Christmas party was medieval themed and was so amazing. They did a talent show for the entertainment and it was so much fun. The organizers asked us to a nativity play so I recruited my friend's family to help us. The kids did pretty good, considering we never ran through the whole thing together. Ana was also a great sheep and followed her shepherds quite dutifully, which was a happy surprise!