Happy Thanksgiving

Eye candy

I have been trying to do this post for 2 weeks now. Halloween day wasn't much fun this year so I haven't really been into reliving it. Luckily we had a lot of fun BEFORE Halloween.



Olive's school Halloween party. Jonathon is always asked to bring the pumpkin bean bag toss game that he made.




We went to the city "Boo fest" on Monday with a friend.




And this is what we did all day Halloween. ER visit at 1am. I really thought this one wasn't going to keep breathing. She has since been diagnosed with asthma. I'm sorry to my sister and sister in law for giving them even more reasons to freak out over their own children. It was just my scariest Halloween, EVER.

And Aspen's birthday cake. She asked me to bake everyone a little cake and then we could each decorate them however we wanted.

Good bye car seat!

Just over a year ago we found out that Tennessee law requires children to be 8 years old AND 7'8" AND 230 lbs. (I might be exaggerating a little, but not much.) Aspen was soooooo sad. She had been looking forward to no car seat the entire year, and now with just a few weeks to go her hopes were being dashed to pieces.

The law for 9 year olds officially states, "Children age nine (9) through age twelve (12), or any child through twelve (12) years of age, measuring four feet nine inches (4'9") or more in height, must be secured in a seat belt system."
It is now official. Aspen said a (non) tearful good bye to the car seat. I told her she could still sit in it if she wanted to, but strangely enough she declined.

Thanks Grandmas and Grandpas!

Oooo, what is it?
Aspen's birthday sky. Beautiful!

Happy Birthday Beautiful Aspen!

7th annual pumpking carving party

October brings us to that time of year where we are celebrating all things fall.

When we first moved out here, we invited Jonathon's boss and his family over to carve pumpkins. They don't celebrate Halloween in Japan. They have 3 kids and we thought it would be fun to get together and show them something very American. I remember when they showed up. We had asked them to bring their own pumpkin. We answered the door and there they were, our five cute friends with one little baking pumpkin. (I really think that we shared our pumpkins. If we didn't, shame on us! But really, I think we did!)
So here we are, 7 years later in what is one of our families favorite traditions. We invite our Japanese neighbors and all of the Japanese from Jonathon's work over for pizza and pumpkins. It's amazing how much the kids like it. Especially since there is only one other little girl who comes. This year they worked so hard cleaning and helping us get ready. They deserved a party!

Enjoy the millions of pictures below!

Olive, who insisted
that this year she was old enough to do it her self.
All of it.
Our neighbor

Break for food.
Gyoza wa oishi!
The kids
Cedar who also insisted that he do it all himself.
(Though he didn't really like getting the guts out.)
Aspen working hard!
The fruits of her labor.
Olive and Cedar working hard.
The fruits of their labors.
Jonathon Working hard.
Everyone working really hard.
(yea, I know, I need to get out the thesaurus and find some new words.)


Outside:

I'm famous!

Remember my 72 hour post? I commented to thank the sight that I got it from, and this morning I woke up to them linking my site to theirs. How fun!
http://sistersstuff.blogspot.com/

Cedar's lost tooth

Cedar lost his first tooth this evening!

You only loose your first tooth once, and this was so fun for him!
(Can you see me sending out mass picture messages to everyone in the background?)

Music for your ears

Olive's new favorite song is "A Child's Prayer." She goes around singing it all the time. She is getting better, but her renditions and the words she puts in when she can't remember the original words are too cute. I think that she got a little nervous when I recorded this a few nights ago, but this is my favorite version of this song.

Aspen is doing so well at piano. Her old teacher graduated and moved off to BYU to go to school so this year she has a new teacher. She gets to take lessons at the church where she and everyone else had preschool. This is her playing "Going Home" a melody from Antonin Dvorak's symphony #9.