Snow and Lights

Since we were out of town for Thanksgiving, we had to put up lights this weekend. We had a lot of ideas, but ultimately settled on all white. Here is the finished product:

It's a good thing we hung the lights on Saturday, because this morning we woke up to this:

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving in Reno visiting my parents and brother. It is nice to live close enough to them to be able to easily make a days drive to visit them. We are so used to living across the country from family that being able to be with family this Thanksgiving was a nice change.

Charles enjoyed reading the many National Geographics that they had around.

We enjoyed doing a little bird watching. This Hawk was in the tree in front of the house.

We were spoiled with my moms amazing cooking and had a great Thanksgiving feast.

The boys loved playing out in the dirt in Grandma and Grandpas backyard.

The kids before bed with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle James.

Enjoying time together trying to work on a very hard puzzle. I wonder if it ever got done?

Church with Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle James before hitting the road back home.

Leaves and a Little Snow

We have neglected our blog for awhile and I wanted to put up a few pics from last month.

There have been lots of leaves to rake this fall. The kids enjoy jumping in the nicely raked piles.

We had an early first snow fall. The kids were excited and Joey made his first snow angel of the season.

They enjoyed coming in from the snow to a glass of egg nog.

Happy Birthday Joey

Last Sunday Joey turned six years old.

He was excited to see a sign for him when we got home from church.

But not as excited as he was when he saw the cake creation Liz made for him. She covered every detail--even talking the bakery lady into making huge donuts with chocolate frosting and brown and green sprinkles. He must have been surprised that she matched his request (see previous post and drawing) so well...

Imagination and Pronunciation

For the kids birthdays I usually let them choose what they want their cake to look like and then I try to create it. With Joeys birthday right around the corner I thought I better get an idea of what he wants. After several failed attempts of me understanding his explanation, he decided to draw it for me on the dry erase board. His explanation is a round cake with rainbow sprinkles on it and then on top of the round cake three very big donuts with green and black sprinkles on it and then a cherry on top. Hmmm, sounds interesting, we will see what I can create.

The way that Tori says some words is so funny. One of my favorites right now is licorice in Tori talk pronounced "tick-el-ish". She discovered this new treat after trick or treating this year and is always asking for green or red tickelish. The funny think is Tori is very ticklish and it give us a good excuse to tickle her every time she asks for tickelish. Probably not what she had in mind but you can never pass up a chance to hear her giggles from being tickled.

Halloween Mega-Post!

Halloween is one of our very favorite holidays (to be fair, there aren't many holidays we don't like, but still...). We especially enjoyed getting into full swing this year with a bunch of cousins around--a new thing for our family. Here are the pics:

We started on Halloween Eve, with a big roast dinner and pumpkin carving extravaganza at Chez Wihongi.

Joey with most of the Wihongis.
Dave and Inez with the black paint.
Baby Jonathan in his normal spot on the blanket, getting ready to roll away, no doubt.
The pumpkin 'workshop.'
We were even graced with a beautiful sunset out the kitchen window.
Here are the finished jack-o-lanterns, complete with one of baby Jonathan throwing up.

Halloween morning we went fishing, where Teina caught the biggest one.
followed by Tainui catching one that was smaller.
and Vaughn with one that was WAY smaller.
Soon enough, it was costume time. Here is our little Cinderella.
In deep thought.
Telling me about a bug that was crawling toward her.


This is what she did when I said "cross your arms in your lap."
But she eventually got it right.
Superman and Captain Jack Sparrow were there too.




Trunk or treating at the church, with the Lesue cousins.
Kewish, Lesue and Wihongi cousins getting ready to maraud. Cinderella was NOT happy at this point, but the night had a happy ending with lots of candy and an extra hour of sleep to boot.

Halloween Costume Preview

Tonight while I was making dinner Charles was keeping himself busy by drawing on the dry erase board. Here is one of his many pictures. Can you tell he has Halloween on his mind? He included the resident cat Ffinlo and decided that he could be Lucifer from Cinderella.



Visit us again in a few days for the actual pictures of the kids in their costumes.

Rock Canyon Hike

Last weekend we went for a quick hike on the Rock Canyon Trail, which is only about a quarter-mail from our house. Here are some pictures:

Charles was amazed that this tree matched his shirt so well, and asked us to take a picture.

Joey had fun climbing up a small crevice along the trail. We did not have as much fun watching him do it. He had zero fun realizing that getting down is a lot harder than going up.

Once Charles got up a little ways and turned around, he just wanted to stay. We eventually got him down.

Joey wanted to be in on the 'tree matching your shirt,' but this was the best we could do.

Tori was increasingly frustrated that we wouldn't let her climb anything, so we finally told her she could climb this rock. She didn't waste any time.

Joey found a grasshopper along the trail that was missing its two hind (jumping) legs, which made it very easy to catch.

Tori even got brave enough to pet it, which is no small feat considering her fear of bugs.

When we got back home it was so nice that we stayed outside in the back yard, where Joey and Tori and their cousin Jonathan got a wagon ride from Uncle Jon.

Charles was on hand with his typical 'huge grin for no reason.'

A few action shots of the boys playing football.