All is safely gathered in

Guess how many pictures I took of Thanksgiving? None. It was kind of nice in a way.

We had an early dinner at my Mom's on Friday, because my niece had to go to Primary Children's for chemo during Thanksgiving week. She has been so very brave and is doing as well as could be expected. I need to talk to them and find out if it's okay if I say more at some point.

On Thanksgiving day we watched the parade, lazed about, and went to dinner at Jeremy's parents later on.

The next day we went up to the cabin. It was quite difficult for us to decide if we should go or not. My sinus junk turned back into a cold again, and Frankie's been fighting it, too. But I don't like the mentality of not doing things because I'm sick. Not at all. So away we went. We got to chill, watch movies and play games, and go cut down our pretty Christmas Tree.

On Sunday we decorated the tree. This time of year makes me even more in love with my little family. I am blessed beyond measure.

A belated Thankful list:

In addition to the things always at the top of my list (Jesus Christ, my family, my experiences, the beautiful world, jobs, house, food, etc) - I'm grateful for:

-Being well enough to:
    Play with Frankie
    Exercise
    Clean my house
    Put up Christmas Decorations
    Go to the cabin and enjoy it
-The awesome doctors who I've been blessed with this year
-I ran into a teacher Jeremy and I both had in high school. I haven't seen her in years. She remembered we were married, and even that Jerm had once upon a time been majoring in psychology. I don't know why, but it made my day, and made me realize I need to be better at truly remembering and being considerate of others
-Even better, when I told her we had a four year old, she didn't ask "are you going to have some more?"
-This picture of Bingley: Oh my heck, it cracks me up

-Mormon messages videos. I've made lds.org my home page, and I've noticed a difference in my time management and my general feelings throughout the day
-Hope for the future. I can't think about it too hard, because I don't know exactly what it will be. But I have much faith it will be happy no matter what
-Watching Frankie play, he is genius at setting things up in an aesthetic manner, he makes little displays of all his toys

-The Carl Bloch exhibition at the BYU museum. I haven't been yet, but we are going to go at some point and I'm looking forward to it immensely. The museum owns the painting below. When I saw it a few years ago it literally moved me to tears. I can't wait to see more. (You have to reserve tickets, which are free, online ahead of time if you want to go. But you should, oh you should.)

-Jeremy's "Nearer my God to Thee" piano piece he played in church on Sunday
-The faith, love, and service of our family and friends
-How pretty my flowers were this year. They all just froze, but I'm going to get some pansies to make me feel better
-Red and gold at Christmastime
-Frankie's insistence that we take a picture "with our whole family, and my snowmen family, with the timer" after we were done with the tree. We even got the cats to hang out for a minute

-Getting the rest of the Christmas decorating done. I forget what a project it is from year to year
-Jeremy's last clinical for the semester was yesterday! I want to type about 10 more exclamation points, but I'm going to restrain myself

-Lastly, the fact that my kid is becoming a little man. The things he does and the things he remembers lately amaze me. Today I took him to play at Grandma's. He said that he wanted to go to the door by himself, like I was dropping him off for school. It's been close to a year since we used to drop his cousins off for school sometimes. It made me smile and made my heart ache at the same time.

(Here's a few more of his 4 year old pictures from a few weeks ago.)

And on this farm

 The week after Halloween we had our annual trek to Staheli Farms with Jeremy's parents and Nick and Alison. This year Sam and Aubree and kiddos also joined us for a while. Last year we went during the day, and I think we'll aim for that again... but Jeremy's schedule wouldn't allow for it this time. Halloween doesn't feel officially over until we go to the farm.

They keep adding more and more every year, including a pig race this year which was hilarious.

It was cold. Can you tell looking at everyone?

 "Scary Pig" (as Frankie named him the first time we went when he was 2) lives on!

Or at least his clone. Or offspring.

Kennadi and Frankie braved this rope swing thing, which made me a little nervous. It wasn't the safest set up ever. 

This was another new addition this year, rubber ducky races with water pumps.

This is Halloween

Halloween was a big deal at our house this year. We started celebrating it a few days before Frankie's party at the end of August, and I let him keep the decorations up for another week or so after Halloween was over. My favorite decoration this year, which I swear I took a picture of, but can't currently locate, was a bunch of 4x6 size foam pieces which Frankie adorned with his foam Halloween stickers. They are really great stickers: haunted houses and such in bright colors. We lined them up below the shelf in our living room.

I have a lot of pictures and not as much time, so Picasa collages are helping me out with this:

Our first official festivity was making sugar cookies. Sugar cookies are one of Frankie's favorite things. I've decided I'm going to be brave and help him make them more often.

Then we carved pumpkins with Kennadi. It took Frankie quite a while before he would brave getting the guts out of his pumpkin, but eventually he did. He drew the face on his for me to cut out.

Frankie's pictures of our creativity. He cracks me up with his photography. It is a serious business to him.

A few days before Halloween Frankie got to don his official (improved) ghost costume to join Tayden and Jarek for their ward/neighborhood Halloween carnival. He was amazing at the bean bag toss, and all of the boys loved the little train ride. Since Christina works for the college, she had heard about a trunk or treat hosted by the sports teams. The college kids were really cute, our favorite was the football team that had this 70's van all decorated. 

 Then we went and visited Grandma at the high school, for more trick or treating. Frankie ended up being the first child the high school kids saw. They thought he was really cute, and consequently he ended up with far too much candy. My favorite moment was when a girl wanted to pull him into her choir class, and it was nuts for me to see Mr. Moore, formerly my choir teacher and student council advisor, standing in front of the class. My nephew Hunter was in the class and came over to give Frankie a high five.

Finally the day had arrived! There was a Halloween party at my Mom's with his cousins. Mayzie had planned some cute games including a treasure hunt and a pumpkin roll. I love the group picture, they all had such cool costumes.

Trick or treating Grandma's neighborhood, and getting a Halloween present from Jeremy's parents. Please note the picture in the top corner, even though it is tiny. Frankie really liked the Halloween decorations in this yard and wanted us to take a picture. The flash revealed flamingos, garden gnomes, and silk flowers. Awesome.