Thanksgiving Feast

I cooked again this year for Thanksgiving. My second time roasting a turkey. It was all good though because I had a lot of help. Anna woke up early (about 6am) and sat reading on the couch so she "would be ready when I needed her." Anna, Tani and Owen all helped me make the traditional Yugoslavian stuffing: The turkey came out perfectly. Thankfully.

A lot rides on that bird.
We had Aunt Zoie and Uncle Jefferson and their family over for dinner. A small party but great company and tons of delicious food.

Happy Thanksgiving 2008!

Owen's surgery

My cute Owen went in and had tubes put in his ears and his adenoids out. Poor kid! I don't think he liked the anesthesia too much. Hopefully he will stop getting ear infections now.

Halloween Fun

Halloween this year was a lot of things: spooky, messy, funny, silly, sad and crazy. For the sake of my blog-journal I must start out by mentioning the D&C I had to have on the 30th. Miscarriage number 5 for me. It was sad and frustrating and emotional to say the least. Rod took over the pumpkin carving while I recovered. It was warm enough to carve them outside on the back deck. Owen didn't want to carve his and just colored it.

However, after the surgery I felt better than I had in weeks and was ready for all the Halloween fun! The day started with getting Anna dressed up for school. She looked adorable in a Tinkerbell costume made by her talented Aunt Sundee. We made sure to put some pixie dust and a little bit of mascara (that she begged for) on her face.

We then hurried to get the boys ready for their preschool programs at Kid's Village. I was wondering what Tani would choose to dress up as. He had already worn a few different combinations for other parties. He decided on a cowboy for school and Owen was an elephant.

Owen really wasn't too happy about the idea of singing with his class. It is pretty cute how he covers up his shyness with attitude.

He hid behind a pillar for a while. It was all just too much!Finally, he started to come around and smiled a bit.Tanielu had no problem being right in the center. He sang loudly every word. Very cute. Grandma B. brought over a big pot of homemade chili for dinner and I made some yummy cornbread to go with it. Grandad and JoAnn, Grandma and Grandpa Bergeson, Aunt Zoie and Uncle Jefferson, Hyrum and Emilee all came to eat and go trick-or-treating with us. Tani changed his costume again and came up with his idea of a pirate. He was happy with the end result. This group was definitely ready to go!

We lost Tani for a little while. Luckily Nonna witch found him for us! She was very in character and scared the kids a bit with her threats to take their candy. I am not sure she was entirely joking! William quickly got the hang of holding out his bucket and saying "trick-or-treat" in his own little way. What a cute litte monkey! Seeing him in this costume (also made by Aunt Sundee) brought back memories of my other kids. They have all worn it for Halloween.Towards the end of the night Tani decided it was pretty fun to hand out candy too and took over the bowl from Grandpa at the door. It was so warm out that we just left the door open and waited for trick-or-treaters to come. Anna even wore flip flops and no coats over the costumes this year!When everything had finally calmed down the kids had fun counting and sorting their candy. I can't believe the things they got. Several full size candy bars each and lots of chocolate! We got mostly hard candy when I was little. Overall, I think Halloween turned out to be a lot of fun!

Brothers

I think it must be pretty fun to grow up with two brothers. At times they are too rough with each other and of course William can't quite keep up but he sure tries. It never gets boring with the three of them around our house!Lots of love and hugs...even from boys. Most of the time though the hugs turn into wrestling.Sharing a sleeping bag to watch t.v. These two have so much fun together. They come up with some great games. Shooting birds out the windows. Don't ask me why. It must be a boy thing.Bath time is very interesting. More water seems to end up on me and the floor than in the tub sometimes.
I hope they always stay close and look out for each other.

Brothers.

Fall Leaves

Do you remember how this feels? Ready, set... THROW!!!

Anna and Isabel Jensen. We are so lucky
to have such great friends!

Eloise Jensen and Tanielu. You wouldn't believe these two together. Same age, opposite ends of the growth chart and coloring scale...but they are like two peas in a pod.

The joy of Fall.

Anna's first horseback riding lesson

Anna earns points for being tough with her diabetes site changes and shots. She saved up her points for several months with the goal of a horseback riding lesson in mind. We finally got her a lesson and she loved it! Rod asked her where she would rank it on a scale from 1-10 and she said "a 12!" We may have to figure out how to let her take a few more.

No training wheels!

Tanielu has been working on riding his bike with no training wheels for a few months. However, he has been a bit nervous and really preferred his big-wheel. Until this weekend that is! Tani finally got comfortable on his bike! Hooray! We can now go on family bike rides again. We rode to Manila school yesterday to play on the playground and had a great time. Tani is already trying to "pop-a-wheely". What a boy!