Christmas Bonus

Thanks YouTube!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Devin was his usual self. Notice how he is standing? He really doesn't like sitting down to eat. And yes, that's sparkling apple cider.

For the last month, Olivia has been asking for a turkey drumstick on Thanksgiving dinner.

Garrett had his traditional fancy dinner of bread rolls, cheese sticks, and bananas.

And what better way to end the evening than round after round of Mario Cart Wii!

Thank You Pies

I love this time of year because it helps us to remember to show gratitude. So last night for family home evening we shared the the story of the Thank You Pie. Then afterwards, we took some pies that we had baked and gave them to the kids' church teachers as a thank you gift for teaching them. As we were talking about being thankful for others we got to color a pie and talk about the people in our lives that we are thankful for. I really enjoy Family Home Evening.
Thank you Pie Story
Pie Coloring Page

Then after we had delivered all the pies we came home and ate a chocolate pie for a treat.



Speaking of pies, did you know that at the first Thanksgiving they did not have pie, not even pumpkin pie? I had my classes do a Thanksgiving Webquest to learn about the first Thanksgiving. It was a really informative site. Check it out:

Thanksgiving Webquest

Reading about the the first Thanksgiving makes me grateful for living in this beautiful country where we have religious freedom and other freedoms. That is why they came here because they wanted to worship God freely and not how the king dictated.

Can't Leave him alone for a Minute

I was only gone a minute and came back to find this mess. And when Garrett sees him doing it what you think he does he joins in. BOYS!!!

Little Pilgrims

On Friday, Garrett was in a Thanksgiving skit at school and Olivia was in a Thanksgiving performance. Don't they make cute pilgrims.

Hopefully I will get a video clip on here but I can't find the wire.

Thanksgiving FHE

For Family home evening last week we made apple turkey and each feather(dum dum sucker) that they stuck into the apple we said something we were Thankful for. It was a fun lesson.



Then for our treat, we took the apples, and some bananas and marshmellows and we dipped them into melted chocolate chip and melted peanut butter chips. It was a fun family night. Garrett decided that with graham crackers you could take the chocolate and marshmallows and make s'mores like at Grandma Doolittle's house.

Book Club

I joined a book club. It was my turn to host the group at my house this month. I made homemade blackberry cobbler for the treat and chocolate chip cookies. We were discussing the book "A Book of A Thousand Days" by Shannon Hale. I really enjoy her books. I like books based on a fairy tales.


We started at 7pm. My kids and husband were banished to downstairs with the Wii. There were 12 people that came. It was fun to talk about the book, it was fun not to talk about the book, too. It was fun just to laugh.

About half the group left at 9 and the other half stayed until 11 pm. It was so fun to hang out with friends. I saw one of the lady's husband at the school today and he asked, "So did you read the entire book last night?"

Scary Family

We had the church Halloween party a couple of weeks ago. We got our picture taken while there. They just sent us the picture. I think it turned out really cute. I really love the one Garrett he looks so happy.

Google Tools

I just finished taking a class. It was called Google Tools. It was an online class. For my final project I had to create a website using Google sites. So I created this site. Check it out if you want. It has lots of links to educational activities like my other website I created did but since it is on Google it loads a lot faster plus I can add pictures, videos, embed a calendar. It is pretty cool. I wish I could choose a cute background but you had to pick from the ones they had. But so far I am pretty pleased with it. I haven't got my grade yet on it so I hope I get a good grade. If not I won't pass the class.

http://sites.google.com/site/mrsbrunners/home

Lovin' this Fall Weather.

We had a really cold week right before Halloween it even snowed a little. But this past week has been beautiful. The boys went out side and were drawing with sidewalk chalk before Olivia got home. It was so nice to be outside and it was even nicer that the boys were playing together without some one starting to yell and scream. They just seem to get along better when they get to go out and play. I am not looking forward to all the cold and snow.

Friday Night Date

Last night Jere and I had a really fun date We went to Tepanyakis for dinner.

It was fun to watch the cook the food right in front of us. Then we still had quite of bit of time before the concert so we went to the Cheesecake factory for desert.

So yummy.
Then we went to a really fun concert. They might be Giants I knew a few of the songs they sang but Jere knew almost all of them. He said it brought back memories. He would sing a long to a lot of the songs. The played every song on their Flood album, which he said he basically grew up listening to in the 90s (the concert had a bit more profanity than appears on the CD but we were in a 21-an-older club).

Every now and then they would play a new song. For two of the songs, they put on sock puppets and had the puppets sing the songs. The band was amazing. We especially liked watching the drummer. This was our first concert and we had a great time. We bought one of their CDs. I have put a few songs from the concert on our playlist so you could get a feel for their music. I love date night. This had been a long week for both of us so this was a great way to end the week.

Garrett's School Picture

Here is Garret's Kindergarten picture. He is so adorable.

Jennifer's Birthday

Jennifer came over to our house for dinner for her birthday. The kids were excited and made her cards. I also made her a dragon cake. If you know Jenn she is obsessed with dragons. After cake we played 2 party games: Charades where you can make noises and talk, and apples to apples.
Happy Birthday Jenn!



Devin was especially excited about eating more cake.

*Since Jenn won't update her blog I am making this update for her to let you know that she is still alive. : )

Twinners

Garrett and Jeremy were wearing almost the same outfit to church on Sunday. (you know black pants, white shirt and tie.) Garrett even had his hair slicked back like Jeremy. Garrett went and got a red tie to match Jere's. So Garrett wanted to me to take a picture. Too bad he wouldn't look at the camera. They are hansome!