On the way home from Grandma's the kids were being really cute so Daddy took some pictures. He also took some pretty pictures of the sky. Luckily driving home was much better than driving to Grandma's Thanksgiving Eve. On the way up it took us 3 hours and on the way home it took us 1 1/2. Much better for us and the kids.
We went up to M's parents house for Thanksgiving this year. Luke came home from school for the weekend and we all had a nice time visiting. The girls especially had a good time playing with Grandma. Melody made a delicious meal, as usual and she watched the kiddos for us while we ventured out to shop on Black Friday.
K with her favorite uncle.
Daddy pushing L in the swing.
N visiting with Kendra before dinner.
Sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner.
K taking L for a ride after dinner.
The girls went for an ATV ride before we left for home.
K and L swinging together.
Group hug for L before we left for home. I think sheThese girls LOVE to have their photo taken. So every Sunday we snap a few pictures of them in her church clothes before we head out the door. L has really started getting into posing for the camera. Now if I could just get her to do that when we pay for professional pictures...
Proof that we don't always feed our kids healthy food. Here are pictures of the girls eating
Carl's Jr. cheeseburgers. They love their cheeseburgers. What can I say, we are a bunch of carnivores and we enjoy the luxury of fast food at times.
We celebrated the girls achievements in Personal Progress this year by having an Evening of Excellence program for them yesterday. We invite their parents, the Stake Young Women leaders and the Bishopric to come see what they have accomplished. We decorated using a lighthouse theme to represent how through our example each of us can be like a lighthouse to others. It is also a good analogy of how Christ is like a lighthouse for us and as long as we keep him in our line of sight, we will always be able safely navigate through the rough waters in our lives.
The front of the Relief Society Room.
A table with lighthouses and Christ hanging on the chalkboard.
Here is the scrapbook one of the leaders came up with to display
We filled jars with marbles in the color of each of the 8 values
We also had the girls color pictures of lighthouses and write their
Brooke played for us as the girls sang
Our beautiful and talented Young Women.I went to Newberg for the weekend to help Karen out with her ward's Craft the Night Away and K went to Grandma's house for a short visit. While Daddy and L were supposed to be having a little bonding time, L got sick. She had a fever of 103 but no other symptoms. Daddy said that she mostly just slept on him or beside him on the couch. Here are a couple pictures of her from that weekend. I think it is adorable how she has her legs crossed.
We have beautiful trees behind our house that keep us fairly secluded from the houses back there. But in the fall all those leaves fall right into our backyard. The girls love it because we rake the leaves into a big pile at the bottom of the slide and they slide down into them. I enjoy raking the leaves. I find it relaxing and it is good exercise. However by the third time I am out there raking, I start to dislike the fallen leaves. But at least the girls have a good time.
K loves throwing the leaves into the air.
L going down the slide.
Into the leaves.
K's turn down the slide.
I love how she closed her eyes right before impact.Being a big sister makes it easier for L to learn things at an earlier age. She is already jumping and doing somersaults. Things that K wasn't able to do until she was 2 or 3. It is so cute watching them play together and then seeing L copy what K does when she is alone.
At 6:00 am On Halloween morning, M and his friend Randy head up to the hills looking for some game. They have been twice before but were unsuccessful. Could this foray turn out to be a lucky one?
The boys traverse about a 1/4 mile down a hill, stopping near a creek and some deciduous trees that their prey likes to visit. They hunker down and quietly wait, taking in the beauty of nature all around them. A few hours later, out of the tree line come a handful of does. M gets them in his sights watching for a buck to appear. Another deer joins the does, could it be a buck? M is uncertain. There is a tree branch near the deers head that looks kind of like antlers but it is hard to tell. But wait, the deer moves it's head and the branch moves too...BOOM! The deer falls to the ground dead. Randy and M make their way to the buck and find that M's shot pierced the shoulder and came out the neck.
Now for the hard part, lugging the deer up the hill and back to the car. First, Randy guts the deer, leaving the internal organs for some scavengers tasty meal. Then they each grab some legs and start their ascent up the hill. This proves to be harder than they thought. It takes them
3 1/2 hours to get the deer up the slope to the truck. When they get home, M says it is the hardest workout he has ever done in his life.
We ate dinner together and then took the kids trick-or-treating. Afterwards the boys went back to Randy's house to skin and process the meat. It took them almost 6 hours to cut all the meat off the bones. After splitting the meat evenly, we each got 4 roasts, a bunch of steaks, 4 pounds of hamburger and some deer jerky. M made fajitas for dinner with the deer meat and it was really tasty, very similar to cow meat. Even though it was a lot of work once they shot the deer, I think it was well worth it. They each learned something they didn't know previously and we have some yummy food to add to our food storage for the winter months. Well done guys!
Looking out over the area they were hunting in.
M with his first kill.
Our exhausted boys.
M brought the deer home for us to see before taking it to Randy's to hang.
M cutting the meat off the deer.
Randy taking a turn at cutting off the meat. 
After hearing about the kill, M's mom asked if she could have the antlers. She collects them. Here is a pic of K with the antlers on her head.Our friends came over for dinner before we took the kiddos Trick or Treating. After all the bellies were full, we headed out into the neighborhood to get some treats. K was Moon Raven the Indian Princess, her friend was a Faerie, L was a Cowgirl, and the baby was a bat. They had a good time and got lots of candy.
Here we are just heading out to the houses in our neighborhood.
This was L's first year and trick-or-treating and she did great! She got up and down all the steps, with only a few falls. She carried her own bag even when it got heavy. And she only took one piece of candy at every house, even when the candy was just in a bowl on the front steps.
Stopping by our neighbors house.