Happy Birthday Ty

 Can't believe our boy is 15 years old.  Happy Birthday Ty.  We are so grateful for him and so grateful he is part of our family.  What an incredible kid he is.  So proud of him!  For his birthday all he wanted to do was go get his learners permit.  After school I took him to get it but they wouldn't take the small birth certificate.  He was so disappointed but was able to go back and get it the next day.  He has been driving ever since as much as we let him.  Still can't believe he is old enough to do that. 

His day started out with opening some presents.  We had breakfast cake before he had to leave for a service project he was involved in at school.  "Drive by Raking".  They had a pizza party for lunch so he didn't want to go out to lunch like we usually do.  Instead we took him to Outback Steak House for dinner.  His favorite!  We came home and had cake and played games.  It was a fun day.  We love our Ty.  Happy Birthday Bud!!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving.  We spent it with my sister and her family at their cabin in Pine Valley.  It was a fun day spent together.  A new traditions that I did this year was getting some butcher paper and putting it on our table a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.  Each night or anytime during the day when we were grateful for something specific we would write it on the paper.  Loved this activity...think it will be something we do again.  Gratitude is something I've learned to be extremely important.  Someday I will do a post on it and how it's helped me the past 3 years.  It was fun as a family to write things down and then talk about them at the dinner table each night.  So very grateful for all of my many blessings.

Our table after a week of writing on it.

Front porch. I made these Pilgrims so long ago but still love them.

 Thanksgiving dinner. 

And a great surprise to all was Santa making a visit that night with gifts for the little kids.  Hay was so excited!!!  Definitely something we will all remember.

A big hug and thank you to Santa.

Happy Birthday Hay!

 Happy Birthday to our sweet little sunshine!  What a joy she is to our family.  We are so grateful she is in our lives.  She had a great 7th birthday.  Started out with opening some presents and having breakfast cake.  She went to school for a few hours and then was so excited to be checked out.  D and I took her to her favorite restaurant Brick Oven for lunch.  She's different than our other kids and wants to have them sing  Happy Birthday to her.  She enjoyed that!  After lunch she went and spent some of her birthday money on a toy she has been wanting for a long time.  When Em got home from school we took Hay to the mall to get her ears pierced.  She flinched when they did her first ear and wasn't sure she wanted to get the second one done but she was brave and did it.  We came home and made her favorite dinner...noodles and gravy.  We had cake and played some games she wanted to play.  All in all it was a great day.  Hopefully a very memorable day for her.  We love our Hay bug!

 Her pillow pet!

 She was excited to finally get her ears pierced.

 

 I love these polka dot balloons.

 She wanted her birthday colors to be orange, yellow and green. Her favorite colors.

 Showing off her ears.