Dear Family,

Jeremy has been teaching me how to download all the pictures from my camera, fix red-eye etc and then upload them to the blog. So lots of pictures from now on! I rely so heavily on Jeremy for all my technological needs/wants that I usually don't bother to learn them myself.
Allison had her Thanksgiving Feast on Tuesday at school. Robyn got to come along for the ride and Allison had fun taking Robyn out to recess while I helped set up. I really believe that Robyn thinks that she is 5 and supposed to be in kindergarten! Allison and her class had been busy making Indian and Pilgrim hats, and Indian vests and learning Thanksgiving songs. After they ate they played Indian games. Robyn is definitely the baby of the family because she has no fear of strangers but took turns playing with all the aides.
We have to do so many volunteer hours for Allison's school. We had a meeting with one of the board Tuesday night about making a video highlighting the teachers at Lincoln. I was excited to have a project that will give us the hours I need and that Jeremy can help do - what am I saying help? - I mean I will help Jeremy do it.

Monday night Spencer's football team had a FHE/service project activity. The coach's wife talked about strengthening our spiritual muscles and then we helped assemble bags of supplies for children at the homeless shelter. Then they passed out goodies. Robyn thought it would be a good idea to take a bit out of each cookie she could grab - luckily we caught her as she went for the third.

Kids only had school on Monday and Tuesday and then were out for the week. They have all enjoyed the time off of school. Wednesday we spent the day cooking and kids spent the day playing. If Allison doesn't have a friend over to play with, she thinks its the end of the world right now. Luckily she has a sister who wants to play with her most of the time. Robyn is getting opinionated and sometimes Allison thinks its fun to tease her which ends with a lot of screeching.

Thursday we had a great relaxing Thanksgiving. I went to the gym in the morning, which always feels great. I usually do the after kids are in bed routine which is always hard to drag my body to. I think everyone else had the same idea of burning off some pie in advance, as the place was packed. Spencer was pretty bummed out about not having much family around this year - we have been spoiled in previous years. We worked on a puzzle most of the day. I called it the one day puzzle when we started saying I got a hard one that would take a whole day to do. We're now calling it the four day puzzle but the end is in sight now. Lauri came over to spend most of the day. We put up the rest of our Christmas lights. Tomorrow night is our block's lighting parade so we were starting to feel the pressure to get them up! Jeremy banged his knee a little on the roof so he stayed home with the boys to soak in some football and the girls and I did a hike up in the hills. We went up to the same waterfall we have done in previous years. Its an easy, short hike and had a good rewarding view at the end.

We ate tons and discovered Allison's new favorite pie - chocolate pecan. Its just pecan pie with chocolate bits stirred in before cooking. Robyn very quickly learned the word pie. That evening we watched Elf. Robyn was so into the movie at the end we were just busting up watching her try to cheer on Santa's sleigh - crouched over going "go go, up" then "wee" everytime it went into the air and then back to "go go" everytime it crashed. There is a scene where Will Ferrel tackles a tree as he attempts to put a star on the top and it crashes over on top of him. Spencer inherited some of the same hysterical laughter that besets me and Daniel at times as he was just giddy with laughter over that scene and laughs still whenever he talks about it.

Friday I did something I always swore I would never do. I got up at 5 and went and camped out at a video game store that opened at 7 in an attempt to get a wii. It was 20 degrees outside!!!! Luckily I got there in time, as I was number 26 and they had 30 in stock. So I was excited about it and came home to sit in the hottest bath I could stand to get the chills out.

Friday afternoon Meredith watched Taylor and Robyn and I took Allison and Spencer and two of their friends to a trampoline place called Jump on it. What mayhem! They had a great time and when done were happy with red, sweaty faces. They had a pool table there that Spencer and his friend made a sad but enjoyable attempt at playing pool.









Friday and Saturday we put up our Christmas decorations. I have a pile of broken ornaments to fix here on the counter next to me. Spencer broke the stand on our tree so there is a definite list to it but its held together with some heavy twine. Luckily after Allison broke of the head of our wise man and Spencer broke the tree we had Robyn for some light relief.

Jeremy made up for not watching much football so far this year, yesterday as he cheered on BYU and all the other college rivalries. Spencer thought it was so cool that Max Hall, the quarterback for BYU wears jersey number 15 just like him - so he wore his football jersey to show his support.

Allison gave a talk in Primary today. I was teaching so I wasn't able to be there but Jeremy said she did a great job. She colored pictures to go along with her story. Jeremy, good guy that he is, recorded her talk on his phone for me to hear.

We are hoping Taylor's new wheelchair gets here soon. You have to push in on his stomach to get the buckle to fasten right now. I am sure it isn't very comfortable. He has filled out a lot this last year and although he he is skinny size wise he doesn't look like it as he has a layer of fat/muscle all over now.

Spencer has had a much better week since he started the fish oil. Not to say that things are great but when he is having a bad time now it stands out more because it isn't all the time. The biggest sign to me that things are better than they were is that he has started playing with friends again periodically. Our neighbor asked him to watch his gold fish this week for him while he was in Arizona. I am amazed that fish is still alive! I cleaned the bowl once to get all the extra food out of there and once went to buy a replacement even when I found it floating belly up. But like Lazerus it came back to life and is still swimming around. Spencer has been busy working on a representation of the Washington Memorial for class. Doesn't want us to see it yet but I know it involves a lot of aluminum foil and cardboard.

Robyn has learned to ask for 'dino' now a song she loves to dance to. If Jeremy is home she is no longer content to dance by herself but wants Jeremy to dance with her. He gets quite the workout some evenings.


I got my hair cut yesterday and streaked. They put some red in which always looks really strong the first couple of days. Spencer wanted to know if I did that on purpose. I admit it was looking really red yesterday but has calmed down a lot after washing my hair. I went to get some groceries for Lauri afterwards. I had a great brainwave while doing so - we're going to look into a local delivery service. Its the weekly need for bread, eggs and milk that gets hard to keep up with.

Peter, I hope you have a great birthday, we will try to reach you later. Jeremy is off doing tithing settlement right now and I am going to bake cookies for the lighting parade tomorrow. We lit up one of our trees yesterday for the event. Each year we add a few more lights. Love to you all, Heather