Hi Paul

See my beard and baldness!!

Newish Puppy Pictures

Puppies grow faster than children, Dejay is already bigger than when we took these pictures last week!

Turkey Day

For Thanksgiving we had 2 special events...

Kenneth got the haircut of his dreams!


And We went to Moab for Thanksgiving, Emma, Miho, and Charlotte and Jeremy were there too. It was fun to spend time all together, we did miss Paul's family.
The weather was very wet but Saturday we did get out for a little hiking!
The wet weather did make it possible for me to read three books over the weekend.

Jazz

Rebekah was thinking about playing French Horn when she is in band until she found out that french horns aren't in jazz bands. So... she has decided to play clarinet (actually bass clarinet). Speaking of Jazz...
Here is a clip of Christian's Jazz band concert in October.

Our Little Thespian

We had a ward talent show a couple weeks ago and Kenneth put together a nice arrangement of "Merrily we Roll Along" (The Loony Tunes theme song). Christian played his bells, Truman on Tuba, Syd on Sax, Abby and Bekah played the piano. It all started from Rebekah's piano lesson book had a teacher duet part that Abby could play. Kenneth worked really hard with the kids and even arranged the parts. They sounded pretty good! Well... between numbers the MC had a little bit of open mic for the little kids. He said that anyone who wanted to coud come up and dance or cartwheel or what ever. Nate said to me "I'm gonna sing Joseph". He went up there but when it was his turn he didn't do anything. So I handed the camera to one of my big boys, and asked him what was wrong. He said "I need a microphone". So here he is (sideways) with his microphone!

For Posterity

I love the conversations that I have with Kindergartners


Nate: Mom I leaned how Indians say fish
Mom: How?
N: Actually they don't speak
M: Oh? I think they do
N: No, they only draw symbols.
M: They do speak.
N: No, Mrs. Johnson said No they do not speak.
M: Well, maybe you misunderstood what she meant
Rebekah(my peacemaker): Nate mom's right.
N: I have never seen any Indians speaking.
R: Well sometimes they talk and you can't see them....
Everyone looks at her.
R: ...like when they are wearing masks!
N: See I knew they could talk.

Birthday Girl

Rebekah Turned 7 this month.

The kids pooled their money and bought her a nice kid-friendly camera. She has been a good sport about sharing it. Here they are all watching her open it.

Blowing out the candles.

Kenneth got this great picture of Bekah and Hazel!

Veteran's Day

The kids had no school and we were having a quiet morning, when my friend called. She mentioned that they were going to the parade. I thought nothing of it, then we talked again a little later and she asked if we were going to the parade. I said "uhhh I don't think so, I don't know..." Then She called again (we were coordinating a play date) She said maybe we will see you at the parade. So I pulled myself together and the kids were excited to go out so we went to the parade! It was fun. There was a big extended family that we were standing near, and I noticed that they had a huge quilt on the ground that 1 little girl was sitting on sometimes. I mustered my courage and asked the Grandma if we could sit on it. They all said sure, go ahead. I don't think they realized how many we were. But it all worked out great. One of my children photograghed the entire parade, I am posting a sampling of the photos. Can you tell which kid took the pictures?

Jack-O-Lantern

Is it Jacks-O-Lantern or Jack-O-Lanterns?
I found these leftover photos of the carved pumpkins on my camera. The kids did all the work themselves this year, I was so impressed!

Blah Blah Blah

I feel like I just hurry and post pictures lately... So here is a blabbing entry.

I don't think we have explained the dog very well, so we will start there because the dog is a big event at our house. We are members of the Phoenix Guide Dog Raisers Club. We joined back in February and have been attending meetings every month to learn how to socialize and prepare our puppy to be successful in the Guide dog training. We will have Dejay in our home for about 1.5 years and then he will go back to Guide Dogs for his "official training". Yes, we think it will be hard to let him go, but it also feels really good knowing we did something significant in the world!

My October Soap Box. Our ward has Trunk or Treat on Halloween night and this is our second year of our official and publicly declared boycott.

1. Reason 1: Trunk or Treat is "a safe place to go." As my friend said "Do you think I live in the ghetto?" I say if we don't feel safe in our neighborhoods then we need to do something about it.
   
2. That leads me to Reason 2: We decided to put our money where our mouth is and last year we hosted a block party. That block party changed the whole neighborhood. This year we had our block party the weekend before Halloween because Kenneth was going out of town. It was great again this year. So when we went Trick or Treating this year all out neighbors were looking for us and a couple of people were not going to be home actually brought us treats early. I look around my neighborhood and I feel very safe.
3. Reason 3: I think fears of wickedness, bad things, or just the unknown drives members of the church to withdraw from larger society and get a bit (sometimes a lot) exclusive. We talk at church about being in the world but not of the world but I think many people over correct and they are not of the world but they aren't in it either. I think there is much good we can do in our communities!

And last but not least, again... The beard. I don't love it. Kenneth knows that and we still love each other. I don't know exactly why he is doing it, my theory is that he has been working really hard to be a great father and husband. And so his little bit of rebellious spirit is making a stand with braids. He tells me that his friends at work tell him it is cool, I think they might be humoring him. I will say it again... if this the worst of it, bring it on! ( I did warn him as I left him at the airport on Halloween (dressed all in black, the beard in braids and wearing an eyepatch) not to joke with any security personnel as I didn't want to have to come back later that morning to get him out of a holding cell. I talked to him tonight and he made it without incident.

The Morning After

The best part of Halloween is the morning after...
Candy Sorting!

A Motley Crew

Halloween Dinner

Sydney and Abby made a special dinner for us. We had Jack-o-lantern chili cups, graveyard potatoes, mummy dogs, and spiderweb dip. My mom came to visit for the weekend, so it was an extra fun night.