October/November

 Linnea has been busily working on her personal progress. Here she had me teach her to make lasagna. Then we invited Grama and Grampa over to eat it with us. I have such a testimony of personal progress! It's such a great program, helping girls to become the young women God intends them to be. I am working alongside Linnea and I love it.

Micah was a ninja for Halloween. Yay--he gets to wear Gavin's old costumes! My Mom threw a cute Halloween party for lots of the grandchildren.

Below is Micah's jack-o-lantern that he carved all by himself. Seriously, I was inside the house the whole time making dinner. I think he did a great job!

For Veteran's Day, Fresno had a huge, great parade. The band is always my favorite part.

I guess the flags make it festive but really, how much talent does it require to twirl a flag compared with playing a musical instrument?

My birthday came rolling along in November. I went to the temple with my Dad and Micah hung out with my Mom doing birthday party preparations. He said that I needed a new doormat. He picked out this one. Cute, huh.

I also got pine nuts. I love pine nuts, really. Albert got me some cute new dishes from my favorite store, Anthropologie. Tera gave me a beautiful vase from the same store.

My Dad's birthday is right after mine. Tera came over and brought this yummy cake from Layers that was seriously so good. We had a party at my house. Chris and his family was there and Erica, my niece and her girls.

We had a nice Thanksgiving at Albert's parents house. I don't have any pictures, unfortunately. The next day we decorated gingerbread houses. I have such great memories of doing this as a child with my best friend. I used to make all the gingerbread from scratch and it would take me all day when Jacen and Linnea were little but now I just buy the kits. My favorite is the one from Trader Joes from Germany (Micah's). I love how each of the kids decorated according to their personality. If I hadn't seen them decorating and then had to guess who's was who's, I totally would have known. I am missing a picture of Linnea's.  It totally looks like what she was do...very neat and orderly and color coordinating with patterns all over. (:

Gavin was spending the day with my mom (its nice living near them!) and he called me up and asked if he could bring home a leopard gecko. He'd been asking me for a while to let him have one. (I wanted a bearded dragon.) I somewhat reluctantly agreed. He is pretty cool. I haven't held him yet. I think the bearded dragons are less scary looking. Anyway, I like him. His name is Spiker. He is still alive. Oh, and I didn't realize I would have to also keep crickets alive. I HATE crickets. I have not been as successful at keeping them alive, although I have tried. I let Gavin deal with the feeding. The fun things about having boys! (: