Happy Thanksgiving!

This year was the year that we have the opportunity to eat with Kenneys Family for dinner. It was so nice to relax and enjoy Turkey dinner with all of them. We are getting up there in numbers, but it was so nice to all be in one room. Thank you everyone for the delicious dinner. I love you all. Here are the pictures we took!!




Marcia and Kaylea

Dave and Kaylea

Me and Bailee

Molly, Tracy, Tori, Me, and Cait

Carter and Molly

Dave, Adam, John, Ken, Marc and Steve (laying down)

Maili's Program

Maili has the opportunity of having one of the BEST Kindergarten teachers I have ever met. Last week she put together a "Thanksgiving" Show-Off program for her two classes only. They sang songs about all the colors. They each said what they loved most about their families. Some of the kids said things like they liked that they go on vacation or that they play games together. Maili, however, said "My dada is funny" Kenyon (one of her best friends) said "I love my family because they take me to Olive Garden!" It was a wonderful evening and so much fun to listen to the things that Maili is learning at school. The last song of the day each student got to pick one person from their family to dance with them. Maili picked her big brother Kelton, which hurt Cameron's feelings, but it was fun to see Maili and Kelton dance together. Kelton pulled out a few steps from Dancing with the Stars and had Mai flying over the floor.

Cameron's Friend Party

Cameron wanted to have a big party for his friends for his birthday, so we had a few friends come over on Saturday the 22nd. Of course, that was the day of the U of U/BYU game and so Kenney and I were dressed in our respective colors and so as each of Cameron's friends arrived they quickly informed each of us which team they were rooting for. Kenney thought it was funny to play the BYU fight song several times which made all but 2 of the boys scream. We had some pizza and then we walked to the park and watched the extremely "friendly" game of flag football.

After an hour of listening to everyone changing rules, I decided to take them back home and have cake, ice cream and open presents

He scored with money, a rubiks cube, a magnetix dude, another flag football set, skittles, gum, a couple gift cards, a new football and a new soccer ball. Kaden and Kenyon took Cameron to the Jazz game the previous Monday for his present. It was great to meet some of Cam's friends.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMERON!!

My baby boy is another year older. Cameron turned 9 on Friday. It was such a busy day! With my calling in Stake sports once every 9 weeks or so, I am required to be at region tournaments. Unfortunately, that was this weekend. Thank goodness my mom and dad came and took Cam out for their special brithday dinner. Kenney, the kids and I spent the evening at the Stake Center referring, scorekeeping, and my very supportive husband was there in his shirt and tie as the priesthood leader. I can't thank him enough for being so wonderful to me. Anyway back to Cameron.... my mom and dad took him out for dinner at Maple Gardens and then they went shopping. Suzi and John were at the region games with us and they gave Cameron his present while we were there. John had bought him a U of U football! (I knew I liked him for somethin) Cameron and Kelton and John and Kenney played catch for a while and then we cleaned up! Cameron opened up his birthday presents when we got home. We gave him a couple new Wii games and a new book. He was really thrilled. I can't explain how much of a joy Cameron is in our lives. He has such a sweet heart and is so loving and forgiving. We went up to Kenneys parents house tonight for dinner. He got some blendypens from Grandma and Grandpa and was super thrilled with that!! I think he was more happy that Carter was there. The cutest thing ever was when Carter came up the stairs and ran to Kenney screaming "CHICKEN" Brinlee we can't thank you enough for Kenneys nickname! Thanks so much for everything. Hope you all have a good week!

Carving Pumpkins/Halloween

On Monday night we had our good friends John and Suzi Speth over to carve pumpkins!! After having FHE we showed the kids how to clean out pumpkins and the 3 girls were not so impressed!!

Kelton ewww gross

Allie and Cam cleaning pumpkins
John and Kylie cleaning pumpkins, Maili pickin her design Sup DUDES !??!

I took over Maili's pumpkin and carved a cat... sort of :) Kenney helped Cameron carve some sort of unhappy/transformer looking face. Allie wanted Dora... Suzi took over that project!! John took over Kylies pumpkin and started to analyze the situation a little too closely. His pumpkin was perfect. Apparently no one told him its ok to make a mistake or two!! He then helped Kelton carve a skeleton coming out of flames... ya he showed us all up! I didn't snap a picture. Dora didn't quite make it home but Suzi and I both took another shot and she carved a really cute spider and web. I carved the really easy face that I wanted to do originally for Maili :) They turned out really good. The next day I needed to fill that void of not letting someone show me up so I carved another pumpkin. It says Goblin Goodies Dusk to Dawn. John was impressed!!

My pumpkin!!

On Halloween our family and our other friend Jason and his son Sinjin went over to Suzi and John's ward for their Trunk or Treat. Her sister-in-law Tara came as well with her two kids Isaac (not pictured) and Audrey. Suzi then fed us all some fantastic cheese soup!

Kelton, Cam, Sinjin, Maili, Kylie, Allie, Audrey

Afterwards we went back to our house and scared trick or treaters, Kenney put on Maili's Strawberry Shortcake hat and would scream boo at the trick or treaters as they knocked on the door. It was scary even before he said boo!

Thats Kenney as Strawberry

Maili's favorite Trick or Treater stayed long enough for a picture. He had some candy to go get! Love you Brenden.

Maili and Brenden Vanderstappen

We let the boys go out and do a little more trick or treating while the adults settled down the girls so we could play a board game! THATS RIGHT I SAID WE... KENNEY HAS FOUND A BOARD GAME HE LOVES! Thank you John and Suzi for introducing Kenney and I to Settlers of Catan!! The five of us played until almost 2 am. It was a wonderful evening with good friends.

Nana Putt's Halloween Party

Nana had her annual Halloween Party a few weeks back. It was so much fun to gather together as a mass family! The kids were all dressed up really cute. Kenadee was a saloon dancer, I got to do her makeup and put on her fake eyelashes, I love that my nieces love that I will doll them up!! Jake was Jengo Fet (ya idk how to spell it), Brinlee was a witch and she had Nana do her makeup! Gracie came as a very powerful wizard while her brother Douglas came sporting a very cute devil costume! Clara was the most beautiful Feona I have ever seen and Chloe was sporting an awesome red wig pulling off Daphne from Scooby-Do, their brother Carter was tigger, but only for as long as he had to be!! Kenney's personal favorite was Zoe, she was a chicken (Can you guess why she was his favorite?)

I took my kids shopping a couple days before to pick out their costumes. We hadn't gotten 3 steps into the store when Maili spotted the Strawberry Shortcake, I could only pray they had her size!! Luckily they had one more in her size. Kelton and Cameron went the usual spooky dressed all in black outfits. Kelton was a skulzor and Cameron was a winged reeper. They looked pretty awesome all dressed up. Marcia made her delicious chili, we played a couple of really fun games. I think my favorite to watch was the donuts on a string. Watching Kenney, John, Todd, Adam, Mike (Cait's dad) and Marc trying to chomp those donuts off the string while avoiding kissing eachother was definately worth the sticky fingers. Maili didnt like that game because the donut kept rolling over her face and making her all sticky. Some of the kids had a sleepover at Nana's house. We had our primary program the next morning so we piled 3 unhappy kids into the car at 11 and headed home.

Here are some pictures. Enjoy !!!

Cameron Playing Keeper

Here are some shots of Cameron playing keeper at one of his games.