Happy Thanksgiving!

Kyle is trying to rest and watch a movie with Jenna. You know how that ended.

Josh and Aubrey built this water thing to fill the big letter "D" that they dug. "D" is for Dad. They were so proud of how well it worked. Eliza is talking to her friend Sarah over the fence.

Our new puppy Hailey!

The kids decided that Hailey should be our new puppy. They tied a rope around her waist for a leash and then tied her to a tree. Aubrey was so proud of herself.

Is it Christmas yet?

I have been wanting it to be December for the whole month of November. Kyle has to work nights all month which means he has to work Thanksgiving and with no one coming I don't want to cook a huge meal just for me and the kids. So I decided that we were going to skip Thanksgiving and go straight to Christmas so now my whole house is beautifully decorated for Christmas. I just have to wait until December to get my husband back. Maybe I will make Thanksgiving dinner the weekend after Thanksgiving. Anyway HAPPY THANKSGIVING and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Saturday morning at the Jeffery house!

The kids where getting ready to set sail in their beautiful blue ship. Its a good thing that Aubrey and Jenna brought along some candy, they might have all starved.

Captain Josh felt like it was a good time to lay back and catch some rays on the deck of the ship before meal time.

While the kids were busy sailing around world before breakfast their chef was in the galley hard at work preparing a feast of sorts. (Isn't he great cooking breakfast for everyone, I am so lucky to have him for a husband.)

STUDENT OF THE MONTH!

Josh was the student of the month this month. We are very proud of all his improvements in school. He is a very good boy and I am so grateful that he is part of our family. We were lucky to have daddy there also. He has been working nights so he was home that morning to go to the assembly, as you can see he is ready to crash. As always the little girls are excited to go to the school to see their brother for any reason. Hailey is a little distracted by the pig they have for the Principal to kiss.

GREAT JOB JOSHUA! WE LOVE YOU!!

A dog?

For the last few months Josh has really been hounding us to get a dog. I guess one of his friends at school has a dog that just had puppies and she told him that she was going to give him a puppy for his birthday. Well we told him that people don't just give Lab puppies away but he kept insisting that she was going to give him a puppy. So last night he spent 20 min on the phone to his friend, after he hung up he came to me and said "momma I need to borrow $400 dollars to get the puppy. You can pay with cash or a check." Of course I told him that I didn't have $400 to spend on a dog. "I'll pay you back" he said. I told him that I still didn't have $400 for a dog. He was crushed, all night he mopped around and cried. Just before bed I caught him coming out of my room with a hand full of Halloween candy. I asked him what he had, he showed me and said "I got it so I could calm down". Anyway I guess the question now is should we get a dog?

Backyard Fun!

I am so grateful to have a fenced backyard that the kids can play in, and because we live in Arizona they can pretty much play outside all year around ( happy days for me for sure). So here are some of our backyard play pictures I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Hailey always has to be doing whatever the big kids are doing.

Scouts!

Josh had an all day scout activity on Saturday, when he got home he was all tuckered out. He had a ton of fun! They made these CTR shields and they got an arrowhead necklace. He really loves them. He wasn't too keen on me taking pictures though.

FREAKY EYES!

Jenna is always going on about how Eliza has freaky eyes (thank you Sarah). So one day I asked Jenna to show me what freaky eyes look like and this is what she did...

We thought that was pretty funny so every now and again we would ask her to show us freaky eyes. Of course babies watch everything and pick it up too so one day when I asked Jenna to do freaky eyes Hailey did this...

Who's afraid of a lizard?

Since we are not moving to Michigan we thought that it was time to clean the boxes out of the garage. Well while we were cleaning we came upon a lizard who had taken up residency in the stack of boxes. You should have seen us all jump and squeal when we saw it. I am sure our next door neighbors who happened to be outside at the time thought that we were all crazy! Especially when Eliza went to get the camera so that I could wright about it on our blog.

November at Last!

I am glad that October is finally over. The last few weeks in October were really busy. First, the day before Joshua's birthday party we found out that the position Kyle had in Michigan was no longer going to be offered to him. This is a problem because now we no longer have a job come June. The deadline to submit applications to residency programs for next year was the Wednesday after he found out. That means that it is so late in the application proses the chances of getting a position next year are very slim. Some of the programs were not accepting any more application for next year either so that means that our choices were very limited as to where we could apply. Any way it took a full day of calling programs and asking if they were still accepting applications and a lot of hard work to get the application done in time to submit. Thanks to Kyle's friend Jacqueline we got it done. We couldn't have done it without her help. She was the one who gave us a plan and kept us going so we didn't fall a part. Thank you Jacqueline. So now that the application is in we have to wait for interview offers. I guess what all this means is we are not moving to Michigan any time in the near future or ever if we can help it. During that whole mess I had a birthday party to get ready for, a school program and two Halloween activities. If that wasn't enough I was sick most of October with a nasty flu. Boy am I glad that it is November and all that is done.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This year we didn't go trick-or-treating we went to the kids school for a Halloween party. I let Eliza go with her friend Alysa to the school. If anyone can guess what Eliza was please let me know because all night Kyle kept asking what is Eliza suppose to be? I told him I didn't know she dress her self up. Josh was a sharp shooter, he had to have his gun. Aubrey was Cinderella and I have to say a very cute one at that. Jenna was Snow White and all she cared about was leaving she didn't even care where we went she just wanted to go. Hailey was the cutest pink fairy you will ever see. OK that is her mother talking but she does make a cute pink fairy. She saw the Halloween buckets and she went crazy, in her mind the bucket meant she was going to get candy!

The school thing turned out to be a church sponsored event. It was a lot of fun! They had the blow up bounce things, a blow up slide, Lazar tag, and all kinds of little games for the kids to play. And it was all free, well you had to fill out a little "registration" form to get the tickets, which turned out to be the Church's way of finding people to talk to about their church. I know this because the next morning there was someone at our house at 9 am. They brought a calender and said if you are ever looking for a church please come join us. All in all it was a great Halloween.

JUST PLAIN SILLY!

This picture just makes me laugh. Josh sleeping on top of his airsoft gun with a wet wash cloth held in place by a pink headband. He is just plain silly!

The Fall Festival!

The kids school had a Fall Festival and Aubrey's class sang. It was really fun to see Aubrey preform in front of everyone. On the first song she was really nervous but by the last song she was dancing, singing and signing. While we were there my older two children tried everything they could not to sit by me, they even went and sat on the wall. As always Eliza is a little show off. Josh was mad because I wouldn't let him go play football. They did however end up sitting with me during the program. I am so proud Aubrey went and preformed even though she was nervous and didn't want to. SHE DID A GREAT JOB!!

Trunk-or-Treat!

Our ward held a dinner and trunk-or-treat the Saturday before Halloween. We went to the church all dressed up. At church we ate chili played Halloween games and last but not least the kids got to go from trunk to trunk "trick-or-treating". This being Hailey's first Halloween she didn't know what to think until she figured out if you go up to an adult and say "treat" they give you candy and lots of it. She was so happy that she was singing her new song.... happy, happy happy! Lately I always know when she is happy because she sings that song. Eliza had to have a wig she begged for about two weeks for us to buy her one so her Dad finally gave in. The wig stayed on until we got to the church (all of about 20 minutes) and she took it off and it has not been back on since. Josh wanted to be someone that carried a knife so he was a ninja. Aubrey, Jenna, and Hailey were all little fairies, it didn't start out that way but by the time we left they all wanted to wear the fairy wings. On a side note I have not been able to get the wings off Jenna and Hailey every day they fight over who gets to wear the purple wings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!

Can you believe that my baby boy is nine years old. I wanted his birthday this year to be fun and special his last few have been kind of sad for him. So I made a banner for him and put it up in the family room and made one for the front door, we did cupcakes for the class, had a family birthday dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, opened presents from the family and last but not least we had a birthday party on the weekend!

Have you ever tried to blow up a balloon and keep an other on in the air at the same time? Well Josh did for about 20 minutes I don't know why but he just kept blowing up the same balloon while keeping the other in the air. It was kind of funny to see how hard he was concentrating. His sisters on the other hand do not have the attention span for that sort of thing and just played with the balloons.
I love this picture because he looks reflective and it shows how grateful he was for for a very simple family dinner.



Kyle helped the boys rig some kind of target. Then the boys drew their own target on a large piece of paper and attached it to the brick wall. Now it was time to shoot the targets.

Done shooting ....

Did we hit it?

It was a really fun party for Josh. Just look at that birthday cake is it great or is it great. That's right we had to have the skulls by it to make it look more masculine and spooky.