Thanksgiving

We had several people from our new ward show up on that Monday night to help us get in moved in. We had a lot of boxes and the stairs were a killer after awhile. My parents were huge helpers in getting us moved in. They helped unpack a ton of boxes and my mom and I worked hard for hours on just the kitchen.

We did take some time out on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving!

We had more than our fair share to be thankful for this year! New jobs for both me and Peter and a new house, three beautiful kids and two great families that love and support us.

She is so stinkin' cute!
Jon wanted to make silly faces and I think he did a pretty good job!

Joey was his usually smiley happy self and was so excited to eat, especially the pie.

Birthday Celebrations

I put these pictures in backwards but oh well. Joey was very concerned about Arabella getting a birthday cake. I promised him that the Wednesday after her birthday we would do a cake. After some last minute purchasing, the promise was kept. She loved the cake and frosting as you can see. Joey felt satisfied that Arabella got her full birthday festivities and Jon had fun helping her blow out the candle.

This is just a cute picture taken the last morning or our drive to Lewisville. She is so cute!

We ate out on Saturday night in Flagstaff and the waitress and other staff members brought Arabella ice cream and a candle which again Jon helped blow out because "she is too little and does not know how to do it." She loved the ice cream. She has gotten two new teeth in the week we have been here so that may have something to do with it.

Also on the night before we moved, the Larsen's showed up with cupcakes to celebrate. I try not to think too much about what we are going to do without the Larsen's. Jon thought that he would see them at church for sure and was disappointed when we explained he would not be seeing any of our old friends there. He was good though and eagerly shared his name with everyone and asked them what their names were. Changes.

Moving

The week of moving began with Joey and Jon earning one last belt in Taekwondo. They loved their teachers there and we are hoping to find equally great ones here.

Joey will really miss his teacher Mrs. Gardner. She gave Joey the best start to his years of schooling we could have possibly hoped for. Jon will miss his teacher Miss Keiko so much too. He has talked about her quite a bit already.

It is a strange thing to see rooms that you have so many memories in empty. It will always be our first house where we brought home to of our children and learned so much as a family. I loved my house and the way we were able to turn it into our home.

The boys think they want their new room to be painted just like their old room. But, this time they want to help paint it. I think we just might be willing to do that. Last time I think it was Jon spilled about 1/4-1/2 gallon of paint gratefully on a drop cloth with only a little bit on the carpet.

I loved Arabella's room. It was the first time I really was able to decorate a nursery. I loved the colors and beadboard so much we area doing it again. Although, Peter suprised me and painted the purple in stripes of high-gloss and semi-gloss. It looks so good.

The Lord had a hand in our trailer being given away before we decided to pick it up and so we ended up with a bigger one which we completely filled.

And this is our jam-packed moving truck. We lucked out and had the coolest moving truck with a dinosaur on the side. Somehow that helped the boys as they watched all of their belongings being placed inside. We had so many great people help us from our ward. If you are reading this, know that we love you and you will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Saturday morning we had to do some repacking of the truck and trailer to make the last few things fit but we did it. Yea!! Peter is amazing at making things fit. My mom was wonderful and helped me get the final cleaning done. Even the boys helped out!

Arabella's first birthday was moving day! She is decked out in her cool new 1 shirt from the Larsen's. She was a trooper especially when I was holding her.

Our last picture with our house.

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa Rabner

Grandma and Grandpa Rabner came for a visit this weekend. They helped us get ready for our move. We had so much fun having them here. The kids loved playing outside with them. After our "work" was done we did a little playing.

Grandpa hanging with the kids at The Old Mormon Fort.
Grandma helping Jon explore the wonders of pullies.

Arabella had so much fun playing with the balls with Grandpa.

The boys practicing their car repair skills.

This is the beautiful dress G and G brought Arabella for her birthday! She really looked so pretty. she seemed to like the crinkle sound that the material made.

Thanks for the fun weekend Grandma and Grandpa!

Springs Preserve

I was not as fast as Cristi to get my pictures posted but here they are. We had a great time on Wednesday playing at the Springs Preserve. The kids id dnot have school so we loaded up and headed out. They played, climbed, played and then climbed some more. After all of the playing the kids were ready to eat. We walked through the garden trails and found a great spot to eat. We ate on toad stool shaped stools. The weather was great! I think it may be the end of our nice weather but it is nice to feel a briskness in the wind.

My boys love this water feature and there is sand right there so it is great mud fun!
Joey trying to be in charge of all of the climbers.

Arabella with her good friend Brinley. They know each other and get big smiles when they see each other.

Jon climbed a little bit too high and was a bit nervous. (We got him down.)

On top of the bones!

All of the kids, this was my best shot.

I finally recorded her walking! Isn't she so cute. She is getting faster but still can not stand up without some assistance if she falls down. She did a great job keeping up with Jon tonight as he was running around the house with her blanket. He better watch out!

Clean my ears mom!

How does the delicious family activity of making these turn into
this:

We are still not quite sure!

Joey and Jon each asked for some chocolate chips and of course I obliged. About 10 minutes later, Jon came into the kitchen asking me to clean his ears. Chocolate melts and so it was not like pulling out individual chips and he could not tell us just how many he put in there. I am pretty sure we got it all out. We may have brown tinged ear wax for awhile though.

Go ahead and laugh, we did after the initial shock!

Trunk or Treat

We had a great ward trunk or treat last night. There were carnival games and food. It was great to visit and then there was the candy of course.

Our little witch! Daddy is a pirate behind her (he looks headless in the picture, so spooky!).
Jon the count! He would hold his cape up like above and say it was magical and could protect him from all sorts of things, like daddy's pistol.

Our Trunk with 2 scary pumpkins and one cute pumpkin!

LOVED the DUM-DUMS!

Garbage truck Joey! Everyone loved watching him dump his can. (see the video below)

We hope you all had a very Happy Halloween and ended up with loads of loot!