Christmas Tree Decorating.....

I usually like to get the Christmas decorations out the day after Thanksgiving. I love having them up all month, but when Christmas is over I like to take them down. It is also my tradition to get up WAY EARLY in the morning on the day after Thanksgiving to get as much Christmas shopping done as possible. This year I was up at 3 am and off the meet my sister-in-law Susie at our local Wal-Mart. I got everything I needed and felt great about being almost done with my Christmas shopping. I just have a few little odds and end things left to get.

When I got home from shopping I had intentions of going back to bed, but I guess I got my second wind because I decided to put the Christmas Tree and decorations up. Some of my nieces and a nephew had stayed the night with my boys the night of Thanksgiving sothey along with my boys helped me decorate. They were the best little helpers and we had a lot of fun decorating the house while we listened to Christmas music. I love getting into the Christmas spirit!!! I think it is one of my favorite times of year. I am worse then the kids when it comes to getting excited about Christmas!!!

(Bailey went to St. George to Katies house with Grandpa and Grandma Erickson this year for Thanksgiving, so she missed out on the tree decorating. I hope she won't be to mad that she missed out when she gets home.)

Tyus helping me put the Christmas Tree skirt under the tree


Peyton putting the first decoration on the tree

All of the kids putting their special little touches on!!
From left to right... Kaylee, Tyus, Peyton (on the chair), Jayden (in front of Peyton), and Jaycee


The final product. The kids did a great job decorating!!
Thanks guys for your help!!!

Thanksgiving 2009

We usually try to rotate between all of our families each year for Thanksgiving. Sometimes this seems to get pretty crazy, but seems to work out the best. We were going to go to my parents house this year, but ended up staying home and hosting dinner at our house. Chad's Grandma decided to move and was moving the day after Thanksgiving, so all of the family was here helping her so we decided it would work out best if we just had it here. We had a great day with great food. I intended on getting the camera out and taking pictures, but when the day was about over I realized I hadn't taken one picture. Oh well, I have never claimed to be a great picture taker!!

Halloween 2009

I am behind again!! SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!!!

I was going through my pictures and realized that I hadn't blogged about Halloween. I decided it was better late then never.

The kids each carved their own pumpkins. This is always a favorite for Halloween!!

Bailey thought that she may be to old to dress up this year until she found a cute Lady Bug costume. She decided it might be fun to do the Halloween thing one more year. She looked darling and I was glad she dressed up again. I don't want her to grow up to fast.



Tyus had a hard time deciding what he wanted to be. At first he wanted to dress up like a motorbiker, but decided against that when I told him that he couldn't ride his motorbike around town to go trick or treating. After looking long and hard for the perfect costume, he decided on a Warewolf costume. It turned out to be a great choice because he won a prize at the school carnival for the "Best Costume" contest.



Peyton wanted to be a skeleton. I thought it would be easy to find a skeleton costume, but to my surprise, there are many different kinds of skeletons. I figured his costume would be the easiest to find, but it ended up being the hardest because there where so many choices. He finally decided on one that looked scary.




They all looked super cute and we had a great night. We went to Grandpa and Grandma Ericksons house for our traditional Halloween dinner of Sloopy Jo's, Chips and Jello, with Caramel Apples for desert. The kids trick or treated with their cousins and their crazy Grandma that also likes to dress up with them.

Grandma the "Witch" with her grandkids

Hunting, Hunting and more Hunting!!!!

So our October consisted mostly of hunting!! Our family has always been big fans of hunting and we really enjoy being out in the mountains. Chad started doing security for Deseret Land and Livestock. It keeps him pretty busy, but he seems to enjoy it. The kids and I got to ride around with him one weekend. The kids had a great time hiking, playing in the little streams and having a fun family picnic.

Chad also has been lucky enough to guide a few hunters. I think if he had his way, he would do this for a full time job. To bad it isn't a year long thing!! He got some really good guys this year and loved every minute he has with them. All of the ones that he guided ended up getting their animal.

Aren't they an amazing animal?!?!

He also bought an Elk tag this year so that he could take the boys on a hunt. They had a great time going with their dad and thought that they were just as big as he was. A couple of times they had to walk for a ways and not one complaint was said by either Tyus or Peyton. They were troopers. While hunting they saw and even shot at an elk, but unfortunately the shot
was just to far and it missed the elk. The hunt ended up being unsuccessful but the best part of the whole thing was the time the boys got to spend with their dad.

The Mighty Hunters

Peyton posing with Dad's gun and his camo bag.
(He got the bag for his birthday in May and he keeps telling us that he is going to put meat in it. So when he got to go hunting he had to get his bag just in case they got an elk then he could put the meat in it to carry it off the hill.)


We went camping with Van, Jaime and their kids during the hunt. As you can see in the pictures, we got snowed on. Thank goodness for trailers!!! We had a great time and actually stayed really warm.

I was busy myself with a different group of hunters. For the last 3 years, Susie, my sister in-law, and I have cooked for hunters that come the month of October. They are from California and very, very nice men. I enjoy doing it so much!!! It keeps us busy, but they are the nicest people and they are just so happy with everything we fix for them. My kids enjoy when they get to have their mom back because it takes a lot of my time at nights away from them. They are great and really help me in any way that they can.

So as you can see the words HUNTING and HUNTERS has been in our vocabulary a lot this past month.