The rest of Thanksgiving

So for Thanksgiving we headed up to Island Park with my family. We got there on Wednesday night and stayed until Friday afternoon. We spent our time eating delicious food, doing puzzles, playing pool and ping pong and watching movies. It was a good time! 

It's Thanksgiving

 And I am feeling guilty I have done very little to celebrate the holiday other than lecturing my kids over and over about all the things they have to be thankful for. One assignment I gave them was to write down 20 things they are thankful for and I was amazed at their gasps of indignation so then we had to have a quick talk about all the things they have to be grateful for. But now I'm feeling like I need to fulfill my own assignment.
I'm thankful for...

-A husband that does the dishes every night and pretends to listen while I talk his ear off after the lights are out for the night and is the most patient man in the entire world.

-A family that teases, laughs, plays, and works together.

-In-laws that are the opposite of everything I had ever been warned about.

-An extended family that we are very close with and love spending time with. 

-My job that stresses me out and makes me laugh til I cry...simultaneously.

-My fifth graders who make me want to pull my hair out and who I love more than I ever imagined.

-My friends who I can talk to all day long and still never run out of things to say.

-A warm house that I love to come home to.

-All the nice material things that I have...soooo spoiled.

-The peace the gospel brings to my life.

-The wonderful community we live in. Some of the best people in the world live here and we get to associate with them every day.

-The free country we live in. I'm not always happy with the decisions being made for the country but we really are blessed with the freedoms we have. Every day we say the Pledge of Allegiance I am reminded of the valiant men and women who have sacrificed for all the things that I have.

-My cell phone. It's embarrassing how connected I am with that thing but it has saved me from being lost and driving around aimlessly more times than I can count.

-My education. I have been so blessed with good teachers who have taught me about more than their subject matter covered. Those life lessons will always stay with me.

-Food. Oh my stars I am grateful for food. According to me, good food is one of the things that makes life worth living.

-Seasons. Each time we have a new season coming around I decide it's my new favorite. I love the new life in spring, the fun and sun in summer, the leaves and crisp air in fall, and the snow in winter.

-Candles. I am a little crazy about my house smelling good and have all sorts of candles burning to make it smell lovely.

-Flowers. Even though they are all dead now, I love my flowers in the spring and summer. Every morning this summer I would get out of the house and take a walk around my yard admiring my flowers and examining the new growth.

-A soft and cozy bed to sleep in. Kolton and I say every night that our favorite part of the day is when we get to stretch out in our bed. It's just so comfy and fluffy and great.

-Good people all around the world. Even though there are bad things that happen every day there are always good people there trying to lift and help and do what they can to better someone's life.

There's probably a million more things I can think of, but there's a pumpkin pie calling my name that I had better get to...

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is why 5th graders are punks.

It's the night of Halloween. 

I'm standing in the dark and cold and rain in my winter coat and sweats with a shotgun in my hand.

Waiting.

So a couple days before Halloween I had my kids at school write a journal entry about their favorite parts of Halloween.
Brevan was freaking out. He asked me at least five times if I was going to read his journal. 

Each time I said no. 

But he kept after me and was quite persistent that I did not read his journal. 

I knew something was up. 

On Halloween day at school one of the kids mentioned he wanted to go T.P.ing that night. I said I was glad he didn't know where my house was and Brevan busted up laughing. 

It was pretty easy to conclude what was going to go down at my house that night. 

On the way home from school I called Kolton and filled him in and he immediately began plotting. I didn't realize what a conniving husband I had until he called me three times with different plans on how he was going to scare our little 5th grade T.P.ers. 

One plan included him dressing up as a scarecrow and hanging himself from one of our trees. 

I finally got him to calm down and think a little more realistically. I guess I just didn't realize what an affinity he had for scaring people!

Eventually his plans led to the part with me waiting outside with a shotgun loaded with flares and him waiting next to me with a scary Halloween mask. 

Our carefully laid plans went to heck soon after that. 

The car full of boys pulled up near our hiding spot and Kolton and I got separated in our rush to find a new hiding spot.

We had agreed to let them have their fun before we scared the living daylights out of them. Then I was going to shoot three flares into the sky and Kolton was going to run after them being all sorts of freaky. 

They started their T.P.ing and were rather confident due to the fact we had turned off all the lights in our house and made it appear that we weren't home. They approached our front door and were all sorts of excited about the bowl of candy we had left out for trick or treaters. 

Meanwhile I was searching for Kolton in the darkness and silently counting to 100 while I hid behind the bushes. 

When I was at 95 I suddenly heard the roaring and the screaming and realized Kolton had jumped the gun. (Probably due to the fact that he could see the boys were getting quite a bit of T.P.ing done and had decided they had long since "had their fun.") So I fired off my shots as the boys went screaming and running back toward the car. 

They finally calmed down and we all had a laugh over it as we were standing in the front yard talking for a minute. Then I realized that a few of the boys had recovered from the scare and were STILL T.P.ing. 

They had been caught but not deterred and while we were standing right there in the yard watching them they just kept on doing what they set out to do. 

So then we made them leave and WE cleaned up the mess even though I was about frozen at this point. 

We all had a good laugh the next day at school and HOPEFULLY they won't try it ever again.....

yeah, right.