Giving Thanks

"The thankful heart opens our eyes to the multitude of blessings that continually surround us." 

-James E. Faust

I made a print of this quote as part of my Thanksgiving decor, it was my motto for the month.

Truth be told, I was dreading Thanksgiving this year. I was starting to get anxious the closer we got to Clayton's birthday because I knew once that was over "the holidays" would start and December would be here. December is going to be a hard month to face, however, my heart is thankful, and I am able to see the many blessings I have been given. I could count more than a million blessings that surround me, but I will list a few:

The personal relationship I have with my Savior, Jesus Christ, and the love that He has for me.

The knowledge I have that families are eternal, and the family that I get to spend forever with.

My marriage that is strong, and my husband who I love more than words can say.

The boys that I get to call my children, they mean more than the world to me.

Thanksgiving was here before we knew it! Sean's family came for a few days to spend the holiday with us. Is anyone surprised that we failed in the picture department?? I'm sure that you have come to expect that by now when it comes to family get-togethers… 

So instead I will just tell you that we had fun, dinner was pretty good, and the house didn't burn down. I would call that a success. 

We are glad that the Boggs made the annoyingly long and boring drive to spend Thanksgiving with us!

Here are the few pictures we did take:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

FOUR

Today we celebrated Clayton. He is 4!! Wow. 

Clayton is independent, he tells us that he can do things by himself now because he is four. He is smart, I've been teaching him how to write the letters and he is constantly asking us questions about everything!  He remembers it all too… so watch what you tell him!

Clayton loves to sing and a lot of the time he makes up his own songs. He has a huge imagination and plays "pretend" all the time. 

The kid has the most tender heart, he is always concearned about others. He is loud, he is silly and he is full of energy. 

Clayton we are proud of you. We love that you are so helpful. You light up our home with your laughter and we are so grateful for that. We love you very much!! 

Happy Birthday Dude!

Here's the morning bed picture with a guest appearance from Bumblebee the Transformer (The present that he got from Grandma and Grandpa Self when they got here last night.)

Is anyone surprised by the party theme he picked this year?? Super Hero party time!!

 

 

 

 

 

cap gun shooter… scary face!

He got this fireman outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Boggs

Snowman Builders

We got the first snow of the year today, well actually it started snowing yesterday but this morning there was enough to build a snowman. Clayton couldn't wait to get outside and play in it. Quincy wasn't a huge fan of the white frozen stuff. 

Halloween Heroes

Happy Halloween from your neighborhood hero squad!

Once again we had the cutest costumed kids… it seems to happen every year! :)

Just look at these adorable super heroes!
We went around the block and that was enough trick-or-treating for these boys. Clayton said "Dad, can you knock on the next door? I am done." He loved handing out candy at home, that was his favorite part. Quincy had to stop after each house we went to and check his bucket to see what was new. He was excited about the candy!

 

Hiking with Rattlesnakes

We went to upper city creek trails in between conference sessions this afternoon to hike and have a picnic lunch. While we were walking on the trail Clayton said that he heard a snake rattling and that it was scaring him... we looked around a little bit but thought maybe he was just pretending. So we kept walking up the trail and after a little bit we turned around to go back down. On the way back down, when we got to the place that Clayton had talked about the snake Sean happened to look down on the side of the trail and sure enough there was a rattlesnake! Sean used a stick to throw it off the trail and then I ran the heck out of there :) snakes freak me out! Clayton could not stop talking about it all day long!!

 

Corn Mazes and Box Trolls

My mom was in town for a week watching Tifani's kids, while she was here we went to a corn maze on a rainy day, we all got wet and muddy! It was still fun though.

We also went to the theater to watch the movie "Boxtrolls" Clayton loved it! He wore this box around for a few days after watching the movie :)

Grandma got the kids little pumpkins to paint Clayton couldn't even wait to get dressed after breakfast to start painting, he was excited about it.