We had a yummy dinner and a birthday party to celebrate my birthday and Dave's birthday on Friday.
It was a fun party complete with cake and Ice cream. I am feeling old and tired this year, I really am OLD though!

Thanks for the yummy cake, Mono.

The weather has been gorgeous this week. The nice, sunny, warm days have been perfect for Thanksgiving etc..
We went to the park with cousins one day this week, it was a nice, relaxing day and we had lots of fun!

Happy kids playing outside.

The kids have fun playing their instruments and music with Danny. Lizzie sings, Isaac plays the drums, Emily plays the piano, and Taylor and Danny play the ukelele or piano.
Lizzie and her friends love playing dressups and destroying Lizzie's room.



Our family had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We spent the day at G & G Shields house with lots of friends and family members. The dinner was delicious, the company was fun and the kids had a blast with their cousins!

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We were lucky to have great grandma Shields spend the holiday with us. She is always lots of fun. There were a serious amount of football watching going on in the TV room. We ate afternoon and evening. It was a wonderful day and we have so many things to be grateful for!
Isaac made this cute Turkey hat for the holiday ( I forgot to take a picture of it). It doesn't fit his head, I guess they assumed 6 year olds have smaller heads than him. When he tried it on, and it didn't even come close to fitting he said
"I'm the only one in my class who has a man sized head."
I laughed so hard, because it's true, he does have a man sized head.
Thanksgiving night we let the kids have cousin sleepovers. I picked up the boys from Brett Friday afternoon, and then we went bowling and had dinner with the Shields group.




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On Saturday we spent the day raking leaves for a ward service project, and then we got our Christmas tree and decorated the house for Christmas. Danny is leaving for China on Tuesday and we wanted to decorate before he goes. It was fun relaxing birthday. Danny and I went to dinner at City Creek that night, and watched a movie later. Happy Thanksgiving!

We are getting ready for Thanksgiving this week. Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays; its all about family, good food, and remembering our blessings and all that we have. It's not stressful or commercialized as well. We did a little thanksgiving tree and Emily made a cute turkey too.

On the tree we all wrote on the leaves to say what we are thankful for. My favorites were "bacon" chocolate milk" and "toys" It was a fun family activity to remind the kids of all the many blessings we have in our lives.

The kids have been having fun doing cutting, gluing, coloring, painting etc... in the evenings when it gets cold and we're waiting to eat dinner. Emily is really great at art. She's a good artist and has talent in that area. I love to see what she draws and how she is creative.

This is a place setting from our Relief Society Gratitude Dinner this week. Our good friend Ray, sent it to us as a joke. We laughed so hard! He is super funny.



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Cute Isaac has really been interested in writng letters lately. He will spend a long time making books out of paper, writing thoughtful notes and then hiding it under our pillows or near my purse etc.... He wrote one for his teacher at school as well. I love his handwriting, spelling, and his special thoughts. He is six and it really is a wonderful age!



Lizzie has really been into cutting and gluing lately. She loves to cut paper and spend a lot of time cutting each piece. Then she glues then onto cardboard, other papers, or even the countertop. This day she was making "snowflakes".  It makes me happy to see her so busy doing arts & crafts. She is growing up too fast and is already a big girl, instead of our baby.




There was exciting news in the Shields Family this week. Natalie and Marcus has their new little baby:
Rosalie Vela Shields
She was born on November 21st and is such a beautiful baby girl! Congratulations to them, we are so happy for you! 



We wish we lived near Baby Rosie, so we could hold her. She is too adorable!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Things are really changing in our family. Danny and I bought this crib 12 years ago before Taylor as born. We researched cribs and shopped around to find a good deal and a sturdy well built crib that would last for a long time.
This cute crib has served our family well for the past 12 years, and it's had constant use. Taylor slept in it until he was almost 3 when Emily was born. Then he moved into a toddler bed and she moved right into this crib. That same pattern happened with Isaac and Elizabeth as well.
Lizzie has been sleeping in this crib ( even though she is a giant 3 1/2 year old girl) until this week. She never climbed out of it an seemed really happy still sleeping in a crib. And because she is that baby of our family no one else needed the crib and so she stayed. We sold the crib this week and moved Lizzie into a toddler bed. She was thrilled and transitioned great. I was sad and teary about getting rid of our special crib. I have so many wonderful memories of cute, chubby, smily babies learning to sit, stand and finally climb (or jump like Taylor did ) in this crib. It has served our family well. It feels odd to get rid of our baby stuff and it makes me sad. 
I guess I'm an old mom now. It's a transition that will take getting used to.





Isaac had really been into making cards and crafts for us lately. He goes and gets all the craft supplies and then cuts, writes, draws and clues. It's super cute and he's always really proud of what he's made. We love it!!!





My smily little girl!

It was crazy hair day this week. Here's what we came up with. Lot of ponytails.

Blue hair for Isaac.

Taylor borrowed this wig from a friend, it was perfect for him.

Here's the whole group of kids walking to school with crazy hair.

Lizzie liked the wig too!

Cute little Hannah came to play one day.

We went to the Aquarium on Saturday. It was a really cold day and we had fun inside the warm, humid aquarium.

Winter is really here.
It's been cold and snowy.

We had a really fun Halloween this year!  The week started off with a Shields Family Halloween party. Danny had to teach so he didn't come but we had tons of fun anyway.

We had a delicious dinner of soup and scones. Then we played games, and had crazy dance party with glow sticks in the dark. Thanks for the great party G & G Shields!

Later in the week Lizze had her preschool program. She dressed up as mermaid half the week and a cute witch for the other half. She and her friends sang songs, and said a few poems. They are a cute group of kids.
Ms. Lisa is such a fabulous preschool teacher! 

Halloween day was a warm, nice fall day. The kids had their parade at school . Then they each had parties in their classrooms. I stayed and helped with Emily's party. We had fun in her room.

We played games, did a craft, ate snacks and made the cool witches brew. She loves her teacher Ms. Ostrom. She is the cutest 3rd grader around.

The kids had fun choosing their cosumes this year.
Taylor- blue morph suit
Emily- pirate
Isaac- army guy
Lizzie- cute witch
We had a fun afternoon hanging out with friends and getting ready for trick or treat.

In the evening we went to our neighborhood soup dinner/scones with all our friends & neighbors. It was such a beautiful night, perfect for Halloween!
We had fun eating dinner, seeing all the creative costumes etc...

After dinner we started out for the candy. The kids were running from house to house trick or treating. We did that until they got tired and then headed back to the Randalls for warm scones and hot cocoa.
Happy Halloween!!

On to Thanksgiving!