Thanksgiving

we were hoping to be all comfy and nestled into our house by the time thanksgiving came around because we were having everyone over to our house this year, but after the big move we only had 9 days until the troops came in! thus started the mad dash to get the house unpacked and put together enough for the big day (don't be fooled by things looking like they're in order, we just threw everything in the garage!)


catherine and her fam drove out from austin the night before, and christine was here from utah, it was nice to have more of my sister's here. i miss them.

catherine went to work right away making dinner preparations

while we sat around the dining room table and talked (our new couches won't be here until probably the end of december:(

mr. sanders had a deadline at work and was finishing up some stuff so he could enjoy the weekend (thanks for working hard hon!)


jasmine and adam were all about looking up "chuck norris" quotes on the internet, and that's pretty much all we heard out of them the whole weekend. (chuck norris has counted to infinity. twice.)

the little boys were up and down the stairs, and of course found the video games

dad joined them when he was done working

mia was just looking cute.





the next day the troops arrived!



this is catherine, my beautiful and talented in every way, older sister. she might as well have set up a cot in the kitchen and slept there because she was mostly in that room the whole time! thanks so much catherine, we would have been lost without you!
see, i wasn't kidding!

the kids did some more playing while we got the feast ready




and the guys went outside to throw the football around (it was a gorgeous day!)
alright time to eat! we had the man of the house carve up the turkey, and did it buffet style



it actually worked out great that we didn't have any furniture in our living room, we just used it as a cafeteria:)

and put the kids in the kitchen.

tom loves himself some sweets and doesn't mess around when it comes to desserts, he brought 7 pies! (thanks tom) paula made a yummy pecan and pumpkin pie and her famous brownies, karen made an awesome pretzel jello thing, and catherine made some chocolate pies. everything was so good and of course we stuffed ourselves silly (thanks to everyone for all your help!)

after days of preparation and hours of cooking, it was gone in like 15 minutes, which left us with a mess of a kitchen to clean up.

totally worth it though. my family is the best.

things worth mentioning

walking with van to school for the last time (now he's a bus rider!)

playing van's new favorite card game, crazy eights

jas and mia doing some girl talk

my handsome boys all ready for church

going to the new moon premiere! enough said.

my baby sister christine visiting from utah came with us, and jasmine's friend riley from school

van's other front tooth came out. now the big rabbit teeth will come in and he won't look like a little boy anymore:(

vovo turns 59!

a trip to the dump

big girl standing up

wearing a creepy mustache for a day. sick.

news

we finally had the big move on saturday, which means we'll be busy for a while unpacking (yuck), and decorating (yay!). these are the times that i wish i could be samantha from bewitched and just twitch my nose and everything's done.

bus rider van

one of the things van was most excited about with the move, was that he gets to ride the bus to school now. even better for me- the bus stop is right up the street. i can stand on my front porch and see him off in the morning, and just poke my head out the door to see when the bus gets there in the afternoon. so easy.
so after his first bus ride home, he told me that the bus driver was calling him "Ban". people mistake his name for "Ben" all the time so i didn't think much of it. the next morning i walked with him to the bus stop just to clear up any confusion. when the doors opened and i saw the latin bus driver, i knew right away what the deal was but went on with my explanation anyway. "this is Van" i said, and i spelled it out, "V-a-n."
"yeah." the bus driver said. "Ban."
"alright, as long as you know," i smiled to myself, as i turned around and walked home.

My Birthday Girl

my. eternal. companion. forever.

i. love. you.

happy. birthday.

hallelujah we're finally in!!

after 3 weeks of "any day now", we finally closed last night! we don't even have our beds yet, but that wasn't stopping us from packing up our necessities and unlocking the front door to our brand new house! we picked up some wendy's for dinner, and the kids played around until bedtime. it was the best night's sleep i've ever had on the floor in my life.

my girl

independent. smart. funny. lights up a room. fearless. stubborn. jewelry. books. books. books. beautiful. confident. silly. boy crazy. outgoing. soft heart. infectious happiness. holds her own. friends. music. writer. amazing smile. special place in my heart.

6 year old van

irresistible. sensitive. loves to share. helper. outdoors. thumbs up. particular. shy. angel kisses. bugs. rocks. renember. soft heart. inquisitive. playful. smart. hard on himself. swimmer. video games. so handsome. obedient. teachable. loving. mom's weakness. dad's best buddy.

on a tuesday

had a mini photo shoot with mia in the living room,

got a pic of van's toothless smile,

consoled jasmine when "zane" (the main character in her book) died,

and made a puke roll for dinner.

side notes:
- mia has got to be the most delicious baby ever!
- van lost his tooth at school and got to keep it in a tooth shaped container around his neck all day. some kid in his class told him that the tooth fairy is really just your parents (little punk). i told him that the tooth fairy only comes to good kids, so dylan must not be a very good kid.
- "zane" dying was more traumatic for jasmine than when edward left bella. wow.
- our puke roll tasted so good! suely had this magazine with the recipe, but we didn't really have any of the ingredients except for the crescent rolls. so we decided to do something with chicken. then we added some sour cream, cream of chicken soup, green onions, eggs, cheese, cream cheese, salt and pepper, but it was missing something. hey, here's a can of corn do you think that would be good? sure. got any broccoli? nope, but here's a can of spinach. ok throw it in. how bout some some parmesean cheese? yeah why not?
we couldn't think of anything else to add, so we stuck it in the oven at 375 for 30 minutes, and it came out tasting delicious. it was pretty dang funny.

guess you had to be there:)

halloween

maryanne made a huge batch of chicken noodle soup for everyone, then we all went out to do some trick-or-treating, and of course got a ridiculous amount of candy. the kids had a great time...it was a pretty typical halloween.

the star wars gang

van gets really excited about halloween. he didn't want to wear his mask, but he was having the best time getting candy. when they filled their pumpkins, they'd come home and dump their loot in a bag and go back out to get more!

toccoa, katelyn, jasmine

paula and princess millie

princess savannah

blasted candy. i swear they have enough to last months, but i bet it will be gone in a few days.