Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day, full of fun, family, food, fabulous blessings, and football! Preparing the turkey and making a face because his wife just wants to take a picture.

Princess took care of her own Thanksgiving bird.

We always put out a spread that people can snack on throughout the day. This is always a huge hit with the kids!

Someone had fun getting into makeup and making herself look colorful!

And since Grandpa Schaeffer couldn't be here the boys decided to pick on Uncle Ryan. Lots of wrestling ensued!

I got a tablecloth that had fun pictures and games for the kids to color on. This made waiting for the delicious Thanksgiving dinner, which seemed to take a LONG time to make, more bearable.

Those faces!

Kellan and Noah were more than happy to have a table to themselves.

The whole gang!! We are truly blessed!!

The Cousins Arrive!

The Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving the Clarks arrived to spend the holiday with us. We were all pretty excited, especially the kids. They got right down to the important stuff - playing!! There's always dress up involved when these cousins get together!

Cutie little Ciara!

First casualty of the night - Kellan tripped and slammed his head into the wall, getting a nice gash on his forehead as well as a lovely goose egg. Heidi took one look at all the blood on his forehead and headed to the other room. Noah and I held a cloth to his head until true help arrived. Thank goodness his dad is a doctor.

Poor Kel Kel! He was definitely a trooper, hardly even crying. Noah was a good buddy, trying to make things better.

Dinner time!!

A muscle show put on by Kellan and Noah.

My little Hans and Franz! "We want to pump (clap) you up!"

A rear shot! Too funny!

Ciara did not want to be left out of the fun!

Movie time! The kids picked out "Mr. Peabody and Sherman". We couldn't resist taking a few pictures before the movie got started and I'm so glad we did. These kids are absolute goofs; each of their faces cracks me up!  And little Ciara has an expression on her face that says, "What am I doing with all these crazy kids?"

I laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME I look at this picture - a true classic!

After the movie the kids ran around for about an hour playing "Smell my Victory" tag.  It was lovely...kids and the inspiration they get from movies. Finally it was time to put them in bed.  It was truly such a fun evening together! What a blessing to be able to have family spend the holidays with us!!

Catcning Up With Savannah

My sweet Savannah - I love how silly she can be!

And she's definitely a typical teen, connecting with friends via text and taking lots of selfies. She has also taught me all about emojis, how to set up a really cool background on my phone, and plenty of other techy things that I had no idea how to do.

She absolutely loves attending public school and has a perfect attendance record so far. She also earned an honor student award for her 1st quarter!

Savannah enjoys being in Young Women and is making great strides in the Personal Progress program. She loves attending the weekly activities, even those that involve the Young Men, hee hee.

The Young Women in Excellence program took place in November and she displayed pictures and trophies from the most recent season with her soccer team. Carrying out her commitment to her team was her integrity project.

The theme for the evening was "Let Your Light Shine" and each girl received a lantern with a tea light inside that they turned on as they presented their project.

Savannah and her good friend Sydney.

In November Savannah participated in the Turkey Trot at her school and although she didn't win she did place 5th in her grade. Not bad! All that running in soccer definitely helped, I'm sure.

One of her most exciting achievements this past fall was receiving a Masters of Mathematics award from her math teacher. Math has always been a subject that Savannah struggles with so this was a huge boost to her self esteem, knowing that her teacher recognizes the hard work she is devoting to this class.

And of course there's the field trips. Who knew that attending a Title 1 school would be so awesome? Free breakfast each morning (well, not really free, paid for by our taxes but, you know...), a swimming unit in Gym, and 5 - 6 field trips a year rather than the normal 2 that other schools in our area have. One of her field trips was bowling. Yep...bowling!

Savannah loved it and even challenged her LA teacher to a game...and won!

End of Season

Unfortunately we weren't able to attend Noah's last soccer game of the season since we were at the temple with Savannah. Thank goodness Grandpa Pierce was here and was willing to sit in the freezing rain, cheering Noah's team to victory! They arrived home the same time we did so I grabbed a few pictures of my soaked, smiling soccer boy!

The game they won on Saturday actually put them in the championship game on Sunday. Noah wasn't there but he still received a trophy for his team finishing 2nd place for the season(definitely a shocking outcome for their team). Way to go, Blue Tornadoes!

Savannah's outdoor season ended with one last freezing tournament up in Pennsylvania. At least I had my personal heater along to keep me somewhat warm.

Go #7!!

Fighting for that ball!

Header time! They did a great job, winning their first game.

We also enjoyed the in-between games entertainment!

It just gets funnier the closer you get!

The second game was a lot tougher...these girls were big and FAST!!!

Unfortunately our girls lost that one but we were still proud of their performance in the tournament. I am always so sad to say goodbye to outdoor soccer!